Star Wars is better than everything

[Jurassic Shark 12,618]

19 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

We're talking a laserdisk transfer.

 

If ever there was a way to half-arse a re-release of the "original" cut, that was it!

 

Still. 

[Brock Lovett 7,034]

I prefer the Special Editions. Nice THX and digital sound and newly enhanced visual FX by ILM.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

A scan off of the original camera elements should look incomporably better than these scans of answer prints.

 

The 4K projects look great, as does the D+ project. I've watched both on my 65" OLED and they look incomparably better than any of the official releases. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing Disney would put would look as good as either of these efforts. Even if Disney went back to the original camera elements, saying they'd look "incomparably better" seems a bit optimistic. How many officially releases are screw up by the studio? Look at the LOTR 4K's. Even if Disney one day released the "unaltered" OT without the SE changes, they'd mess with the colour grade & sound mix, smear it with DNR, try to clean up the optical effects, etc. 

 

I get your feeling about fan projects, but if you watched either of these, or the Harmy releases, you'd see how absolutely phenomenal they look, and how much effort has gone into both the sound and picture to recreate the unaltered films as closely as you're ever going to get (considering there was never truly one version of the original Star Wars to begin with). 

[Schilkeman 1,170]

53 minutes ago, Brock Lovett said:

I prefer the Special Editions.

I do, too, but as a fan of film history, and a bigger fan of Lucasfilm history, I like having the originals around. The Disney blu-rays aren't terrible, not nearly as bad as what Jackson did with LotR, and a sight better than any other home version of the SE, they have mostly correct colors (for once) and the audio is better than the 2011 set. Still too much dnr.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

For people who like the SE's, this was released a couple days ago. Not really my cup of tea, I'm more interested in strict preservations, but looks like an interesting project, with the aim to keep some of the SE changes while jettisoning the more objectionable ones.

 

 

[Brock Lovett 7,034]

Wait, what did PJ do to LOTR?

[Schilkeman 1,170]

1 minute ago, Brock Lovett said:

Wait, what did PJ do to LOTR?

DNR'ed the ever loving hell out of them to help them match the digital look of The Hobbit, and significantly altered the colors of both trilogies. Probably other stuff, but I'm less knowledgeable of that trilogy than Star Wars

[Chen G. 4,315]

1 minute ago, Schilkeman said:

Probably other stuff, but I'm less knowledgeable of that trilogy than Star Wars

 

Nothing else that's really major: a digital double of Elijah Wood is inserted into a wideshot of the Council of Elrond instead of the scale double, the line of Frodo's prosthetic feet is painted out in Caradhras, a shaky camera in the Eriador scenes is stablised somewhat.

[Schilkeman 1,170]

I have no problem with cleaned up or altered effects, inserted scenes, or other corrections if it's the creator doing it, but please, everyone, stop trying to make film not look like film, and stop altering the colors. They're both a plague for event film home video releases.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

2 hours ago, JTN said:

George Lucas said at Cannes that the unaltered versions of the Original Star Wars Trilogy will never re-released again.

“I think a film belongs to its creator. When Michelangelo made the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he looked at it and said: I’m going to redo this part.”

 

No George, a film belongs to its owner. You sold Star Wars. Your film belongs to Disney now. 

[Chen G. 4,315]

16 minutes ago, Schilkeman said:

stop trying to make film not look like film

 

I'm inclined to agree. Although these things exist in degrees, generally speaking, to DNR a film negative is a fool's errand: you're not going to uncover new picture detail "under" the grains, as it were. By the same token, the trend of making digital footage "grainy" is similarly silly to my eyes: if you shoot in a certain format, then work with that format, rather than trying to dress it up as though it were a different format.

[The Great Gonzales 5,817]

*awkwardly hides tape simulator*

[Chen G. 4,315]

1 hour ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

they'd mess with the colour grade & sound mix, smear it with DNR, try to clean up the optical effects, etc. 

 

Sure, but notwithstanding such changes, these fan projects are made off of answer prints. Between the original camera elements and an answer print shown in theatres there's a degredation of the picture quality by 15% and 50%. That's very substantial.

 

Also, you can't in good faith call something scanned off of an answer print 4K. I mean sure, they scanned it at 4K, but by that token I can scan a piece of VHS in 11K...An answer print does not resolve 4K.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

15 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Sure, but notwithstanding such changes, these fan projects are made off of answer prints. Between the original camera elements and an answer print shown in theatres there's a degredation of the picture quality by 15% and 50%. That's very substantial.

 

Also, you can't in good faith call something scanned off of an answer print 4K. I mean sure, they scanned it at 4K, but by that token I can scan a piece of VHS in 11K...An answer print does not resolve 4K.

 

15%-50%? That's a pretty big range. And the degradation in "picture quality" is only substantial if you can see it with the human eye, under normal viewing conditions. And isn't that what matters? What "degradation in picture quality" there may be one some of these projects certainly isn't as bad, or noticeable, as the presentation Lucasfilm and Disney have put out over the years.

 

In any event, some of the projects, such as D+, mostly don't use answer prints at all, but rather simply work off what the official releases, and still look significantly better...and certainly closer to what films looked and sounded like in 77, 80 & 83.

 

Have you watched any of these?

[Chen G. 4,315]

1 minute ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

15%-50%? That's a pretty big range.

 

15% would be for a contact print right off the O-neg. 50% would be for the more stanard IP-IN process.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

It's always a drag when you're sitting and home thinking, "Damn, this film looks 15-50% degraded from when I saw it in the cinema 40 years ago". 

[Chen G. 4,315]

Just now, Nick1Ø66 said:

"Damn, this film looks 15-50% degraded from when I saw it in the cinema 40 years ago". 

 

A cinema print would be an answer print, too, he answere pedantically.

[Jurassic Shark 12,618]

Nick was the only one invited to a secret screening of the original negative. 

[Chen G. 4,315]

13 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Have you watched any of these?

 

All of them, yeah. The Disney versions (actually, Lucas' latest versions), which are largely made off of the O-neg (if not necessarily the original camera elements) look best, notwithstanding the odd spots of DNR, sharpening, frozen grains and any alterations made, particularly to the Tatooine scenes.

 

The 4K and Harmy versions I also saw for reference. I admire the attempt to undo the changes to the films in the name of historical preservation, but obviously without access to the original camera elements, it only goes so far.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

32 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Nick was the only one invited to a secret screening of the original negative. 

 

Not true. @Mattris was there as well.

 

[Davis 2,749]

9 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Not true. Mattris was there as well.

 

 

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

3 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

All of them, yeah. The Disney versions (actually, Lucas' latest versions), which are made off of the O-neg (if not necessarily the original camera elements) look best, notwithstanding the odd spots of DNR, sharpening, frozen grains and any alterations made, particularly to the Tatooine scenes.

 

The 4K and Harmy versions I also saw for reference. I admire the attempt to undo the changes to the films in the name of historical preservation, but obviously without access to the original camera elements, it only goes so far.

 

I'm not sure what you're arguing, then. I think most people would agree that, at least the D+ project looks better than the official release, and certainly closer to the unaltered films.  It goes without saying that Disney theoretically could provide a better presentation given using the original elements, that's obvious. That doesn't mean they would.

 

It's all academic anyway. If you're interested in seeing the OT in its original version, these fan projects are as close as we're going to get, at least for the foreseeable future. And despite their imperfections, they're still superior to the official releases.  If you're happy with the SE's, including the changes to picture and audio, then it's really not an issue.

[Chen G. 4,315]

Just now, Nick1Ø66 said:

the D+ project looks better than the official release

 

Erm, but the Disney versions ARE official releases?

[Davis 2,749]

Aren’t every version ever released “official”? Wasn’t the 1997 version official? Then every time Lucas changed something and released it again, it was an official version. 

[Schilkeman 1,170]

If you see it cleaned up off the O-neg, then it is not seeing it as it was in 1977. It's an idealized version of that. As the impetus for most of the complaints that I see around not releasing the original cut is that that is the film people first saw and fell in love with, well, 4K77 is much closer to that memory than any home version in the HD era. That is how it looked. We've gotten used to very sanitized film prints.

4 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Erm, but the Disney versions ARE official releases?

D+ is a theatrical recreation using the blu-ray as the source. They've all been re-colored.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

56 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Erm, but the Disney versions ARE official releases?

 

Of course. But the D+ fan project, which is what I was referring to (and you said you watched) is mostly built off the official release, with the colour corrected, original sound, and removing all (or most of) the SE changes. 

[Chen G. 4,315]

3 minutes ago, Schilkeman said:

They've all been re-colored.

 

They have. But they are official releases, are they not? My understanding is they were made off the remaster Lucas was going to use for his botched 3D versions.

[Schilkeman 1,170]

1 minute ago, Chen G. said:

 

They have. But they are official releases, are they not? My understanding is they were made off the remaster Lucas was going to use for his botched 3D versions.

I think you have your versions confused. See @Nick1Ø66's response above. I think the version he's referring to is actually D+77, etc, not Disney Plus, the streaming service versions that are also on the blu-ray.

[Chen G. 4,315]

Ah. That explains it. I'll be sure to try and track those down.

[Davis 2,749]

What I don’t get is why Lucas cares so much about what versions of Star Wars fans can and can’t see after 47 years, and 12 years after he sold his companies. I mean in 2012 he said wtf and gave the keys to the kingdom to the highest bidder a.k.a. Disney, and he stepped away to build his museum and live the married life. And now he has to be so stubborn about it. 
His “definitive” versions would still exist and fans could decide if they wanted to watch them or not. I think he’s afraid and jealous that fans would prefer the original unaltered “incomplete” versions to his “improved” ones and he can’t stand the thought, so he denies fans the choice. Seems kind of petty. What he doesn’t seem to or want to realize is that the original version is his version, too, and people fell in love with it and are grateful TO HIM for it.

[Chen G. 4,315]

3 minutes ago, JTN said:

What I don’t get is why Lucas cares so much about what versions of Star Wars fans can and can’t see after 47 years,

 

Its the "the-director-as-a-control-freak-being-something-to-aspire-to" kind of auteur theory that Lucas was reared on.

 

Also, since Lucas feels the need to assert that the entire series was a single construct in his mind, he needs the special editions which (in his mind, at least) help give off that impression.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

It's especially ironic considering Lucas has (rightfully) commented on how important film preservation is.

[Mr. Hooper 2,679]

There are SE changes I don't mind at all, like getting rid of the transparency of the snowspeeders that was obvious in that one shot, or colour-correcting the Rancor, that looked washed out in the composite shots.

 

But taking out 'Lapti Nek', for example, wasn't necessary, and an insult to the work that went into making it.

 

And the fact that Lucas didn't have the tech/money to replace that actor with Jabba was a blessing in disguise.

 

The scene slows down the sequence, makes Jabba look like an impotent wuss, and just isn't necessary. It was enough to know that Han owed money to him and there was a bounty on his head.

 

20 minutes ago, JTN said:

What he doesn’t seem to or want to realize is that the original version is his version, too, and people fell in love with it and are grateful TO HIM for it.

He's just being very stubborn about it at this point. A very good approximation of what audiences originally saw exists anyway in 4K77. He can't stamp it out of existence, even if he'd like to. Both versions can peacefully co-exist, but he won't release an official, remastered version out of sheer stubbornness.

 

1 hour ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Not true. @Mattris was there as well.

 

Always two there are. No more, no less... A Mattris and an apprentice.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Ah. That explains it. I'll be sure to try and track those down.

 

The official 2160p Blu-Ray releases are the primary source for the D+ project, supplemented with the 4K scans for the theatrical bits. It's not perfect, but fairly seamless. They look great.

 

Strictly speaking, D+77/D+80/D+83 aren't theatrical preservations, because the objective was quality (by using the official releases vs. an answer print) over complete authenticity. But no one who isn't intimately familiar with these films would notice. It basically aims to look like what an "official" release of the unaltered trilogy would look like.   4K77/80/83 is really more about preservation, no modern home video release would look like those.

[Chen G. 4,315]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

And the fact that Lucas didn't have the tech/money to replace that actor with Jabba was a blessing in disguise.

 

When Lucas shot the scene, the idea of superimposing a creature was not present: Declan Mullholand was cast, costumed and filmed AS Jabba.

 

It seems Lucas did have the idea of replacing him with alien in post-production, but not the big slug that he would become: that idea came circa September 1979.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

Chen, do you know if the original Marvel Comics Jabba (Star Wars #1, 1977) was based on anything Lucas may have told them at the time, or it is purely the imagination of the artist?

 

[Mr. Hooper 2,679]

3 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

When Lucas shot the scene, the idea of superimposing a creature was not present: Declan Mullholand was cast, costumed and filmed AS Jabba.

 

It seems Lucas did have the idea of replacing him with alien in post-production, but not the big slug that he would become: that idea came circa September 1979.

Nevertheless. Irishman or alien, that Jabba was an ineffectual pushover.

[ThePenitentMan1 965]

Just now, Mr. Hooper said:

Nevertheless. Irishman or alien, that Jabba was an ineffectual pushover.

 

Nevertheless, Irishman or alien, that Jabba was a wonderful human being.

[Chen G. 4,315]

6 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Chen, do you know if the original Marvel Comics Jabba (Star Wars #1, 1977) was based on anything Lucas may have told them at the time, or it is purely the imagination of the artist?

 

The design itself was surely the discretion of the illustrator: its an alien that appears in the previous shot of the heroes' approaching the docking bay.

 

Whether Lucas actually told them to replace him with an alien is unclear: I was always inclined to say no, but then in Paul Hirsch's memoirs he mentions Lucas talking about it, which you could still dismiss due to the 40-year distance at which Hirsch is writing, but still.

[Mr. Hooper 2,679]

Just now, Chen G. said:

The design itself was surely the discretion of the illustrator

It definitely looks like what a comic book artist would come up with.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

19 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

There are SE changes I don't mind at all, like getting rid of the transparency of the snowspeeders that was obvious in that one shot, or colour-correcting the Rancor, that looked washed out in the composite shots.

 

Cleaning up the effects shots would be something you'd expect in any home video release in a prestige title like Star Wars, and if that's all they did, I don't think most people would complain. There would still be contingent who'd want a strict preservation, but I think the majority of fans would be satisfied, as long as the colour grade was reasonably close to the original.

 

As for the SE's, other than cleaning up the optical effects, which I'm fine with, the only change that really doesn't bother me is putting windows in Cloud City. That works. The rest of added & altered scenes/CGI are awful.

[Davis 2,749]

The more Lucas tinkers with his films, the more inconsistent they become. It's like trying to stop a leak in a dam, and every time he fills up a hole, he creates three new ones, and soon the dam that had one leaking hole will look like a sieve.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

6 minutes ago, JTN said:

The more Lucas tinkers with his films, the more inconsistent they become.

 

The more he tightens his grip, the more fan edits will slip through his fingers.

[Davis 2,749]

35 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

There are SE changes I don't mind at all

There are a lot of SE changes that I actually prefer. Those that don't involve the plot. Enhancing the visual effects actually have made the films more timeless. What I hate is changing an actor, a scene, a character. But I could live with them if I was given the freedom of choosing the version I prefer to watch. There are many people who prefer the maclunkey-, Hayden-, blinking ewok-, "No!" Vader- etc. versions. Let them have their versions, and let me have have the unaltered ones, the ones I grew up with. 

 

Lucas is not Michelangelo, and Star Wars is not the Sistine Chapel. It's a film series that has been released innumerous times over the decades, millions of people own them and can make edits for themselves any time they want, without asking permission from Lucas, thus changing his art. 

 

If art belongs to its creator, why did he sell his IPs in the first place? Why be so stubborn about not wanting to give fans what he KNOWS they are longing for? He's being an ahole old man who wants to torture the kids in the neighborhood just because their dog pooped on his lawn once. 

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

1 hour ago, JTN said:

Enhancing the visual effects actually have made the films more timeless.

 

If by "enhancing" the effects, you mean cleaning up the existing opticals, getting rid of matte lines, etc...fine.

 

But if you mean stuff like CGI Tattoine...I disagree. I think the bad CGI actually dates the film, rather than making it more timeless. Most of CGI (especially the stuff you're supposed to notice) including Cloudy City, which I like, looks out of place, and gives the films a Frankenstein quality that I frankly find makes them unwatchable.

 

1 hour ago, JTN said:

There are many people who prefer the maclunkey-, Hayden-, blinking ewok-, "No!" Vader- etc. versions. Let them have their versions, and let me have have the unaltered ones, the ones I grew up with. 

 

[Mr. Hooper 2,679]

13 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

The rest of added & altered scenes/CGI are awful.

I admit to having a soft spot for the added Death Star dogfight shots.

 

6 minutes ago, JTN said:

But I could live with them if I was given the freedom of choosing the version I prefer to watch.

 

👍

 

But Michelangelo has said his final word on it, I'm afraid. People usually get more obstinate, not less so, as they age.

 

[Davis 2,749]

7 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

If by "enhancing" the effects, you mean cleaning up the existing opticals, getting rid of matte lines, etc...fine.

Yes. Or fixing problems that they couldn't back then, either because they didn't have enough time or budget, or the technology wasn't good enough. Nothing that makes the films more dated. In '97 CGI wasn't yet at the level to achieve what Lucas wanted hence some of the enhanced scenes look dated. They could fix those scenes now. The Jabba scene looked horrible in '97 and in later versions. I never understood how Jabba grew so big between ANH and ROTJ. So that scene is completely pointless and I agree with @Mr. Hooperthat whatever made Lucas change his mind about not using it actually made the film better. 

[Brock Lovett 7,034]

I like the CGI. The original ESB has probably the lamest jump cut to the Falcon landing on Cloud City while the SE adds these amazing shots of it approaching through the city. And those corridors in Cloud City were just the same ones photographed from a couple angles like the starship Enterprise. Looks like the "city" is 20 feet of plain white hallways.

 

Models on wire in the original SW ending had some really rough shots of "dogfights" that I'm sure were always embarrassing for Lucas. The replacement shots are still some of ILM's best work.

[Davis 2,749]

Everything that doesn't drastically changes the plot, characters, and fixes something that wasn't done as it "was supposed to be done", can be an improvement. 

[Mr. Hooper 2,679]

1 minute ago, JTN said:

Everything that doesn't drastically change the plot, characters, can be an improvement. 

Or that doesn't call attention to itself. Like that Ronto walking through the frame.