And to circle back to the stop the insanity comment, every time this comes up there for is breathless hyperbole about the $ to be made by releasing the OOT. It's niche. Even ANH has historical value but limited current commercial value. Everyone has seen it and owns copies if it.
 
I saw the original as a 7 year old kid in 1977 - like all things back then - e.g. 1978 Doctor who - the special effects awed me but looking at it now - there is only cringe. When you get that shiny edition of the original movie you wont know what the fuss was all about...
 
I really think the OOT needs to be preserved. Period.

I DO want to own 4k versions of the unaltered OT.

But I think they should also take the original in full resolution... after being restored... Actually make a new definitive "special edition".

Meaning color tweak, cleaned up land speeder, tie fighter etc. effects. Sound mastering etc etc. all with the best Disney has. (NO original SE footage)

You can hate my opinion. But I think it's a possible future for the OT. And I would personally love to see what they could do.
 
But I think they should also take the original in full resolution... after being restored... Actually make a new definitive "special edition".

Meaning color tweak, cleaned up land speeder, tie fighter etc. effects. Sound mastering etc etc. all with the best Disney has. (NO original SE footage)

Don't need to wait for Disney to do that. We've got Adywan working on it right now.
 
I do think that people should be able to do with their property as they please (within legal reasoning).

Is it just a matter of time before Disney opts to protect their property and go after folks that think they can do it better? Perhaps.
 
I do think that people should be able to do with their property as they please (within legal reasoning).

Is it just a matter of time before Disney opts to protect their property and go after folks that think they can do it better? Perhaps.

only if they try and sell it.
 
And to circle back to the stop the insanity comment, every time this comes up there for is breathless hyperbole about the $ to be made by releasing the OOT. It's niche. Even ANH has historical value but limited current commercial value. Everyone has seen it and owns copies if it.

And to come back to my original response, only George Lucas could have stopped that insanity by saying "no more Star Wars." He created it, he could have ended it. That was the whole point if my initial post. Not an argument about business, not an argument about rights, just a plan and simple fact that he was the one who could have stopped it. Now, as far as I'm concerned, that was the only point I was trying to make, and that was the only response I wanted to make in regards to your response. And as far as I'm concerned, I've said my piece and that's all. No subtext, no "he must mean more than that," just a simple statement with no more to give than that.
 
And to come back to my original response, only George Lucas could have stopped that insanity by saying "no more Star Wars." He created it, he could have ended it. That was the whole point if my initial post. Not an argument about business, not an argument about rights, just a plan and simple fact that he was the one who could have stopped it.

It's his right to do whatever he wishes with his property. To suggest an individual exercising their creative and legal rights over their property is to blame because some people can deal with it is equally crazy.

It's also worth noting this is about the 5th time this topic has come up jn the past 12 months, thus the plea for it to stop.
 
It's his right to do whatever he wishes with his property. To suggest an individual exercising their creative and legal rights over their property is to blame because some people can deal with it is equally crazy.

It's also worth noting this is about the 5th time this topic has come up jn the past 12 months, thus the plea for it to stop.

And again you make it a rights issue. This is not about blame either. You said you wish someone would "stop this insanity", and all I did was give you a reply saying who the only person was who could have done it and when before a certain point. Now, if you can't take my response as a simple reply and you have to make it a "he's blaming the artist" who "has the rights to do whatever he wants" argument, which again is subtext I certainly didn't bring up, then that's a problem on your end, not mine.

Lucas made his choice, and I'm for that. An artist should do whatever he wants with his creation.
 
And again you make it a rights issue. This is not about blame either. You said you wish someone would "stop this insanity", and all I did was give you a reply saying who the only person was who could have done it and when before a certain point. Now, if you can't take my response as a simple reply and you have to make it a "he's blaming the artist" who "has the rights to do whatever he wants" argument, which again is subtext I certainly didn't bring up, then that's a problem on your end, not mine.

Fair enough, with apologies. :)
 
Fair enough, with apologies. :)

Thank you. And I apologize for being rude in my previous posts. It was not my intention to bring such an argument out.

And I will admit, the post I made about why I think the OT may not be released by Disney was more of a way of showing my thought process (plus my interpretation of info I know, such as Fox's refusal on many offers from the Disney owned Marvel Comics for the film rights back for X-Men and Fantastic Four). The fact is that though I did go to film school and understand the concepts of branding and franchises and rights, I am willing to admit that I am rusty about those areas (it's been five years since I had the producer's class, which we covered all of that) but still remember their basic info (and I agree that an artist has the right to do what they want with what they make). And since that was separate from my response about who could have stopped the insanity, I apologize for the two overlapping.
 
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This thread began as a repost of an old story the JD linked. This OOT stuff is so far in the weeds as far as Disney is concerned. Dan and I (mostly Dan) have outlined the most likely road map in regards to the license issue and that really doesn't touch the OOT. That is so far off Disneys radar right now and yet these threads keep popping up with the tedious consistency of an unloved season...
 
Monetize it directly or indirectly.
I may be wrong... but, I'm pretty sure you can't take someone else's work and give it away. I don't think the money part of it means anything in a case like this. Even if the person distributing it is altering it, the work still belongs to the owner and even giving it away without taking money for it is still illegal.

You can argue he's making changes to the work, but the simple truth is this isn't the case at all - and even then, I think Lucasfilm can still dictate who uses their work in many (if not most) instances. (ie, you might see a clip of Star Wars on the news, but you're not likely to see it in porn).
 
From my perspective, once you stamp it and release it... it's done. An artist doesn't keep going into a museum and add/alter things to their painting on display.

Now for movies the art is a bit different and I think you are granted the right to make a "Director's Cut" but without trashing the original. You look at movies like Blade Runner that released all these cuts to choose from, but they didn't take away the original, should you prefer that one instead.

I think people just wish they had a choice in the matter to embrace the new visions, or watch the originals without punishment.

Personally I'd love to use seamless branching technology and mix and match old and new to make my own edition, which would essentially be fixed mattes and composites, but kept otherwise the original sequenced cut.
 
Is it really that big of a deal? If you want to see the OOT it's out there and pretty easy to find if you look for it. I'm not going to get too concerned until 4K is common, and even then it will be a while before I make the "switch" (I didn't upgrade my tube TV until 2013 ;) ) Until then I really don't need another set of plastic cases taking up space in my house.
 
I saw the original as a 7 year old kid in 1977 - like all things back then - e.g. 1978 Doctor who - the special effects awed me but looking at it now - there is only cringe. When you get that shiny edition of the original movie you wont know what the fuss was all about...

I've seen some restorations of the OOT, and to be honest, I think the F/X hold up decently well. I mean, yeah, it's dated in the sense that it's an older style (e.g., no CGI to speak of, stop-motion animation, that sort of thing), but a lot of it still works well. The thing is, the folks fussin' aren't fussin' about getting some razzle-dazzle super-high-tech updated version. They want the old-school F/X, just in a "clean" presentation at modern resolutions.

I really think the OOT needs to be preserved. Period.

I DO want to own 4k versions of the unaltered OT.

But I think they should also take the original in full resolution... after being restored... Actually make a new definitive "special edition".

Meaning color tweak, cleaned up land speeder, tie fighter etc. effects. Sound mastering etc etc. all with the best Disney has. (NO original SE footage)

You can hate my opinion. But I think it's a possible future for the OT. And I would personally love to see what they could do.

We can debate which version of the OOT we'd like to see (e.g., corrected "hover field" on the sandspeeder or not?), but the film actually has been preserved. If I remember rightly, it's in the Library of Congress in its original form. So, in that sense, it's "preserved." It's just not widely available commercially. But that's not the same as "not preserved." Aristotle's second volume of Poetics is "not preserved" as in "lost to the ages." The OOT just can't be bought at Wal-Mart. :)

This thread began as a repost of an old story the JD linked. This OOT stuff is so far in the weeds as far as Disney is concerned. Dan and I (mostly Dan) have outlined the most likely road map in regards to the license issue and that really doesn't touch the OOT. That is so far off Disneys radar right now and yet these threads keep popping up with the tedious consistency of an unloved season...

Right -- it's worth noting that the issue with the rights to the OT is a separate-but-intimately-related issue from the willingness to produce an archival version of the OOT. Disney needs the rights to the OT before it can do anything with the OOT, so it's a threshold matter, but once you cross that threshold -- around 2020, let's not forget (so, we can chill for the next, oh, 5 years) -- you still have to answer the question of whether it's worthwhile, and there's just a bunch of unknowns in that scenario.

What will the video standards of the day be even 5 years from now? There are a LOT of different factors that could affect the media marketplace in the next 5-10 years, such as tensions between streaming capacity across the US, issues like net neutrality (which, in spite of the FCC's recent ruling is probably not gonna just go away completely), the pace of development for display panels, the economy in general, and the desire of the average consumer to switch media formats yet again.

ALL of that could impact Disney's calculations of whether it's worth it to even do some kind of updating or remastering of the SEs and PT, let alone release the OOT. Could it happen? Yes. There is a higher-than-zero possibility that it will. But it's definitely lower than 100%, and the likelihood plummets if what we see is a stagnation in the progress of screen resolutions and video standards. We can speculate, but we really don't know and you can't just assume that there will absolutely be something like a 4K or 8K physical media used by the general public a la VHS/DVD/BR.

I may be wrong... but, I'm pretty sure you can't take someone else's work and give it away. I don't think the money part of it means anything in a case like this. Even if the person distributing it is altering it, the work still belongs to the owner and even giving it away without taking money for it is still illegal.

You can argue he's making changes to the work, but the simple truth is this isn't the case at all - and even then, I think Lucasfilm can still dictate who uses their work in many (if not most) instances. (ie, you might see a clip of Star Wars on the news, but you're not likely to see it in porn).

Legally speaking, you're absolutely right. Distribution is one of the exclusive rights of a copyright holder. Altering the work is relevant if you're trying to argue that what you're putting out actually isn't a copy of the old thing, but is something so changed as to be new, but that can be difficult to prove. That, however, is all the legal side of things.

Practically speaking,Disney and LucasFilm before it have -- so far -- turned a blind eye to this sort of thing, since it hasn't really cut into their existing profits in a meaningful way. It'd cost them more to hunt down and shut down people making and distributing fan edits than it costs them to ignore it. Especially since, from a practical perspective, the fan edits haven't cut into Disney's share. Disney (and Fox) is selling the SEs only. I wouldn't be surprised if much of the market for fan edits like Adywan's or Harmy's is made up of people who've already bought a legitimate version of the films anyway (in multiple media formats over the years, no less). So, for the time being, it appears that nobody really cares enough to want to spend the money to stop this sort of thing. Now, it's a different story for sold versions of this. That they won't countenance. But the freely-traded fan edits...they don't seem to be trying to hard to suppress, so they must just not think it's worth it. I'm sure they know it all exists. They just...don't really care.

So far.
 
Can't I take an image and change it to make it mine?

No. Because one of the exclusive rights granted under copyright is the individual right of the copyright owner to create derivative works from their original copyrighted material.

Modifying or altering an image is infringing upon the copyright owner's rights unless expressed permission is granted or the modification falls under fair use (which is highly unlikely).

In a few court cases, a modified image was not considered infringement because the original image was no longer recognizable due to the extent and variety of the alterations.

Altering or modifying published works is strongly not recommended because most artists, writers, musicians, photographers, etc., can recognize their own work even through modifications.

Many people believe the "myth" that if they change an existing image a percentage (10%, 30%, etc.), then they can legally use the image. Be advised: that is not the law.

from: http://www.rightsforartists.com/copyright.html
 

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