Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editions?

[Wakeem]

After reading a few posts here about George Lucas saying things like it's too expensive to restore the original Star Wars trilogy, which I thought was absurd. I decided to dig out my old issue of American Cinematographer from February 1997, as I remembered it mentioning restoring the original Star Wars films. I also remember a Cinefex issue talking about this as well but my Cinefex issues aren't properly logged... Anyway, on the cover is "The Restoration Project." The issue actually goes into detail about them taking apart and cleaning (washing) the original Star Wars negative. The producer of the prequels actually has a quote about working on restoring the film for the past three years...They also talk about scanning the negatives and inter-positives (for Empire and Jedi).

In the end, I think George Lucas really doesn't like the original films as much as the Special Editions. I watch my "bonus discs" of the original trilogy and for the most part, I'm ok with them. Jedi is pretty much how I remember it in theaters (although I was very young). Could it look better? Yes. But The Rocketeer actually has a worse transfer...I still have my Star Wars Super 8 movie, which is how I first watched the film originally. I don't mind the Special Editions. They do look and sound amazing. It's just the final scenes of Jedi which recall the mess of the prequels.

The thing is George Lucas has no problem using Star Wars as a product. I see the original films as a work of art. However, if you are selling a product and people want it, why not release it? I'm pretty sure that to some extent Lowry Digital restoration just involves running the film through a computer program. As color changes/removal has occured on many films and has gone unnoticed on many DVDs until they were released. This can't be that expensive...

There are a few quotes from George Lucas in the American Cinematographer magazine. I'll leave with these notable ones which I believe gets to the truth of the matter (I'll probably have to find a release print of Jedi, my favorite, because of this).

"There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rough cut,' it'll be the final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact."

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version of the Special Edition."

 

[micdavis]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

It's time to move on.

It'll never happen.

Until he changes his mind, which he's done a million times.

That pretty much sums it up.

Watch your DVDs be happy.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

The originals are out there, yes not cleaned up as digital boolegs or transfers from VHS. They will exist as long as any other version will.

 

[Pappy]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

I also finally got the one with 'bonus disc',contains the original theatrical version,remastered,on eBay a year and a half ago,but turn out it was not original CDs:angry

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

Occasionally it's a good thing L doesn't like the original as much as the SE. It means the menu on the original theatrical release dvd is a simple, classy, non-singing, non-dancing image of a 1977 John Berkey publicity painting of an X-Wing accompanied by DS corridor music. He saved all the gooey, gloppy menu cg animation crap for his precious SE disc, probably out of spite for the original! But it's the original which is graced with by far the classier menu.

 

[Goonie]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

If Lucas had the guts, he'd be able to make money off legitimate copies of the Holiday Special.

 

[Solo4114]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

Call him out all you like, he's not gonna back down. Not for the foreseeable future, at any rate. Frankly, I wasn't that impressed with the "cleaned up" version of the SEs anyway. They apparently flipped the audio signals on ANH so that the rear and front sound tracks don't line up (IE: you hear left side sounds on the front speakers which are on the right side at the back), and the color issues are just...wrong. Sure they cram in a lot of digital this or that, but so what?

I'd like a higher res transfer of the originals than what's on the "bonus discs" (which is basically just the LD rip, I gather), but whatever. I'll take what I can get and disregard the SEs otherwise.

Lucas may eventually crack and release an "archive" edition of the films. Or maybe he won't. Honestly, I just don't care that much anymore. I find that the constant mucking about with the films, plus constantly putting out lame newer product has really made me feel kinda "meh" overall about the films today. My memories are still there, of course, but I just don't enjoy them as much as I used to. Ergo, it's hard to get as pissed about it anymore. You have to really care in order to get pissed.

 

[Jeyl]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

I'm actually not going with either option. I'm just done with Star Wars. It's turned into this big spiral 'thing' that keeps going around in circles and doesn't want to go in any other direction. It's stuck and it tries again and again to create new material solely for the purpose of making me accept it rather than move on to something different.

Lucas can do whatever he wants, but I'm done.

 

[Amish Trooper]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

Where is that beating the dead horse icon.

 

[Torment]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

I know it may be crazy to wait all the years it takes, but I have replaced my original copy of ANH with Star Wars Revisited. I plan to do the same with ESB and the same with Jedi when they come out.

 

[Pappy]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

I would never giving up on star wars,i would always love the original trilogy,it is one of the first best moment in my life,whatever happens,even if i only had a stink'in dvd,period.

 

[Wes R]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

His constantly putting out new versions of these movies has killed the enjoyment for me. I went to the theaters in the 90s to see the special editions and they were okay but by that time i was burnt out on star wars. Especially after all the books turned out to be non-canon. It would be nice to have the original versions on dvd and we all know he'd make money on it but this is Lucas, when you are able to live in your own little world it doesn't much matter what others want.

 

[Jedifyfe]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

Well, I have a client that worked on the Special Editions and did Pre-vis for the prequals. I was discussing with him why George never released a cleaned up original version.

He said that when they were "restoring the originals" for the special edition, they never even had any original footage. He said that George doesn't own any original 35mm or even 16mm film of the original versions. They had to used the Laser Disc transfers as their source material. My client also asked George if he was planning on releasing the original version and Lucas straight out said "no".

Basically George felt that these films were never finished and that they are "his" films that he will release how he wants them to be. And that is that.

 

[Solo4114]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

Exactly. And he can release them however he chooses. But I won't have to buy them. And while I might go for continually "upgrading" my versions, I want the versions I'm "upgrading" to be the versions I like, not the versions he likes.

Thing is, while he can make his artistic choice, I think he's making a really poor BUSINESS choice. There is, quite clearly, strong demand for the ORIGINAL OT, but as the VHS copies wear out, as the Laserdisc versions don't look as good, as the DVD rips thereof seem fuzzier over time, SOMEONE somewhere will figure out a way to improve them for whatever current iteration of technology is out there. Maybe it won't be perfect or as good as a studio could do, but it'll be a damnsight better than nothing.

And ultimately, that is what will end up filling the void. So, sure, Lucas can say "They're MY movies and I'll do what I want," and he'll be right. But him being right about that won't stop there being a black market for the original versions. It would seem wiser from a business perspective to embrace the demand and capitalize off of it. He sort of did that with the "bonus disc" 2006 releases, but he did it with a crap transfer (not that the '04 SEs are wonderful either...), and he is reluctant to do it with future versions. All fine and dandy, but someone else will simply step in to fill the void. Guaranteed.

So, Lucas can have "his" movies, but plenty of other folks will have black market versions of it to content themselves. Of course, he may not care because -- this being the Star Wars fanbase we're talking about -- those same people will probably ALSO buy his latest superduper 3D Blu Ray smellovision feel-around release. But they'll also spend additional money to get the original versions. Put simply, despite his efforts, there is no way for him to eliminate them.

 

[0neiros]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

My friend has the OT on laser disc, he can hook it up to his comp and view/rip them any time he wants. The only way the unaltered OT is going to be gone in 100 years is if we're gone in 100 years. Nuff said.

 

[Treadwell]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

He said that when they were "restoring the originals" for the special edition, they never even had any original footage. He said that George doesn't own any original 35mm or even 16mm film of the original versions. They had to used the Laser Disc transfers as their source material.

No, no, that's all mixed up.

The original video MASTERS that were used to make the 1993 laserdiscs were what were used for the "bonus disc" original versions on DVD. This has nothing to do with what film elements were used for the 1997 Special Edition.

But Lucas and Fox have 35mm material galore.

When they pulled the original 35mm camera negative from the vault, much of it had "gone pink" due to the use of a new Eastman stock that turned out to have stabilization issues.

YCM labs physically cleaned the negative with various techniques, from baths to meticulously removing embedded dirt with a razor blade. Then they used various photochemical techniques to make dupes of the pink sections and restored the proper colors. For some shots, they had to dupe vintage prints, such as an archival Technicolor print privately owned by Lucas.

So at that stage, the original, restored version existed in film form.

(the following might not be in precise chronological order)

Then they decided to redo all of the optical transitions (wipes and dissolves).

Then George decided to do some more fixes. And then a few more. And then some more. All of these were done digitally, using scans of the original footage.

The digital artists worked at 1080p resolution. Yes. Not 2K or 4K like everyone else does. Their work was output to film, and those negatives were cut back into the original negative, replacing the original versions of those shots.

So when George says the original version doesn't exist anymore, that's what he means.

But could it be put back together? Yes, absolutely! The replaced sections would have been retained. All they'd need to do is scan the altered version to 4K or something, then scan all the saved trims of the original sections, and put them back together digitally, making any non-invasive corrections at the same time (dirt removal, color correction, etc). You know, like Warner Bros has done with Gone With the Wind, or what Coppola did with Godfather.

It would not cost all that much. He just doesn't want to.

 

[Clutch]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

Knew this had to be a newb post.

 

[Jedifyfe]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

/\ and there we go. Thanks Treadwell.

 

[Solo4114]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

But as I said, none of it matters. Whether he wants to or flat-out refuses until his dying day and then puts some restrictive clause in his will that prohibits further tampering...SOME version of the originals is out there. People will find ways to keep circulating the older versions.

That's the part that I don't get about it. It's like Lucas doesn't realize (or doesn't care to realize) that even if HE thinks they're flawed, people still love the flawed versions and love them more than his "proper" versions. Plus, from a film history perspective, I can't figure out why he wants to pretend the old versions simply don't exist. I mean they're monolithic achievements in film history from a technical perspective. To do what he did at that time -- however imperfect it may have been -- is still an amazing feat. So why destroy it or put on the blinders and pretend they don't exist? That's the part I don't get. that and the business element. Even if you do hate it, come on, the guy's been shown to be a master at making a buck. Why not make one here too?

 

[Treadwell]

Re: Star Wars Originals - Time to call out George Lucas or embrace the Special Editio

I've heard it said that the original version is co-owned by Fox, but the Special Edition is all his, so that affects who he has to share royalties with. I don't know if that's true.