I'm sure Disney will just release the same version as what's on Disney+. Maaaaybe they'll make some slight changes but I just don't see it happening. They definitely won't be going back to the original original. This is Disney we're talking about.
As always, it’s a nuanced issue.
I’m 99.9% sure it’ll just be a DCP of the current 4K master, just as the previous theatrical re-releases have been. That would be the cheapest and most straightforward option, which is what The Mouse excels at.
Unless Lucas changed his mind, and gave them permission to remaster and release the original theatrical cuts. Which seems….unlikely. Or Marcia Lucas dies, if you believe the stupid conspiracy theory that he only altered the films to screw her out of residuals, due to their acrimonious divorce.
A few data points:
Lucas was always unhappy with many of the effects in the original film, and the Special Edition changes (at least from the 1997 version) were literally cut into the negative. So, he considers it the final cut of the film. The End. I have little doubt that his deal with The Mouse included agreeing that no one would make any more changes to the films, and that the original cuts would not be released.
I can understand and appreciate this “Rights of the Artist” point of view, but the blatant whitewashing of history is troublesome.
There are two extremist camps in the fandom when it comes to this discussion: those who hate all of Lucas’ revisions and retcons (mostly the SEs and the prequels), and those who worship the ground he walks on, think he can do no wrong, and had everything planned from the start.
Now, anyone with a functioning brain can tell you that STAR WARS began as a single film (with loose ideas for sequels), but quickly began evolving into a very different story after the film became the biggest hit of all time, and Lucas began retroactively making the films Really Important.
Characters, themes, and plot points evolved over a span of 30 years.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Anyone who knows Lucas’ work knows that he loves to tinker and rethink and redraft. And the tinkering was done both the modernize the films in terms of audio/video and also for consistency with the prequels and to make all six films fit together as much as possible.
The original subtitle-less STAR WARS film as released in 1977 is a completely different beast from the currently-available 4K version of STAR WARS- EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE. The visual effects, color grading, sound mix, compositing, and overall look and feel are very different. And the five subsequent films completely altered the
story by reframing it in a completely different context and adding new information which comes both before and after the original film, chronologically.
Now, I have no problem with the current official 4K version being the canonical, approved version. But I’m very uneasy with the whitewashing of history, and the Frankensteined 4K version being retconned into the version of historical record. The 1977 version of the film is a snapshot of the time, place, and resources with which it was made. And a snapshot of the original iteration of a story which was radically reshaped by everything which came after.
The 1977 version of the film IS the film. Everything which came after is reflexive and retroactive. Artist-approved, perhaps, but still not the version of historical record. The one which literally MADE history.
To try to erase that snapshot from the history books feels very Soviet Russia, to me.
Ridley Scott did it right: the BLADE RUNNER boxset contains his preferred Final Cut, as well as all the other versions for those who wish to view them. Thus retaining the FREEDOM OF CHOICE, and allowing for historical analysis of the actual history of the film and its troubled evolution.
Presenting STAR WARS only as a completed, six-film work and trying to expunge its evolutionary steps is a crime against film history, and all apparently for the sake of pretending that it sprang—fully-formed—into Lucas’ head, back in the 70s. Which is demonstrably not true.
And then there are Lucas Cultists like this idiot, who mock anyone and everyone who wants to watch their “childhood trilogy”, and believes the nonsensical clickbait articles about the BFI screenings of the 1977 Technicolor IB print looking “terrible”.
Well, gee…
A) A 48-year-old film print will not look like a modern release, AND IS IN NO WAY INDICATIVE OF WHAT A PROPERLY RESTORED VERSION OF THE FILM COULD LOOK LIKE, be it based on either the negative (like the 4K) or an interpositive.
B) Today’s young fans have no clue that the 4K has dull and drab color grading, and excessive DNR processing which make some close-ups of faces look almost Uncanny Valley. They just think that grain= bad, and smooth/slick= good. An old film which actually looks like an old film is off-putting to a generation raised on videogames and 4K Blu-Rays of Marvel and Christopher Nolan movies.
A high percentage of people on both sides of the argument have no idea what they’re talking about, have no understanding of film restoration, and have no understanding of the actual history of the STAR WARS franchise or George Lucas as an artist.
And it’s all very frustrating. I just want to find a sane middleground.
gizmodo.com
