CT Is there any real reason why the OT will never get an unaltered release?

It was Lucas's creation all the way. When it came time to do the sequels, he largely self-financed the movies and also made the decisions as to who to hire as directors, screenwriters, etc. They were all basically hired to help Lucas tell his story. He still owns all the rights (both the movies and the related merchandising).

 

Yes Lucas owns the copyright and thus he is able to alter the films. But this was exactly what Lucas was against many years ago. That copyright holders could alter old films and make new versions and supress the originals.

Lucas said "A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history. "

Interstingly if the law Lucas and others hoped to create back in 1988 had actually come to pass, it is possible that Lucas would not be able to some of the things he has.

Regards
Nordom

 

I don't agree with everything Lucas has done with SW, but I agree with this. He hired those other people, and they got paid and credited for their work. Beyond that, SW does not really belong to them the way it belongs to Lucas.

 

I think there's a huge difference between artists owning the copyright to their work, and when a studio or producer owns the copyright to a film someone was just hired to direct. What Lucas and others were against was studios taking movies that had been made a long time ago, and making arbitrary changes simply because the studio considered it financially convenient, AFAIK.

When the copyright owner is just some corporate entity, they shouldn't arbitrarily change works of art just because they felt like it. Or, at the very least, get the input from the original creator, such as Columbia did when they were restoring "Lawrence of Arabia" in the late 80s. That version of the movie was not exactly the same as the original release, but it was because David Lean chose to make changes to the movie he'd made all those years ago.

 

Probably because when he hasn't killed or attempted to kill his targets, he's successful in bringing them back unmolested.

True and I think Lucas wanted to make it more apparent.

In both versions, Han chooses not to shoot until Greedo is done talking. Han had plenty of time to shoot him before then.

Greedo was acting on his own in his intent to kill Han. I don't think Jabba had wanted Greedo to shoot him. Greedo has disliked Han for a long while and this was his chance to kill two birds with one stone.

But nothing changes even taking Lucas's own words out, Anakin still comes back as a Jedi. So nothing is changed with that regard, even if you didn't know what Lucas had to say on the subject. To the general public that don't know what was said, they just see it as linking the two trilogies together.

Copies of the OT exist without the changes Lucas made and those have been preserved. Anything he does beyond that is his freedom and wish to do so. As well as a right. Beyond that, Lucas did make those copies available to the public, first in the 90's and then a few years ago.

Ah, but you forget the following.

1. Lucas and Kershner had collaborated on the theatrical cut of TESB in 1980, after each man created their own cut. When Lucas made changes for TESB, he consulted Kershner and brought him in to view the cut in 1996 and again in 2004. He signed off on both.

2. While Marquand was the director of ROTJ, Lucas was more involved with principal photography than he was with TESB. Almost like how Spielberg was with "Poltergiest" even though Tobe Hooper was the credited director. Marquand died years ago and thus Lucas doesn't have to consult him. Not to mention there was probably a different language with his contract over Kershner, who wanted to have some semblance of control.

 

http://acertainpointofview.net/?p=1200

 

That blog post is complete and utter crap. I want to see the originals properly preserved, alongside Lucas's newest special editions which I would enjoy.

The original version of Star Wars is, in fact, not in the Library of Congress, and The Empire Strikes Back has extreme color fading. LFL refused to give them new prints of the originals. As for the second "point", all I have to say is

 

Regardless, they are still available to the public, even if it doesn't come from Lucasfilm or if it does like the 2006 release, it's better than nothing. Not to mention you can go out and get the fan restoration versions that exist and Lucas hasn't put a stop to.

 

Well the other night the academy awards had no problem showing the definitive edition scenes of ANH and TESB in their tribute clips. Funny how the official edition is good enough for the academy but not for some here.

 

If it was any film other than Star Wars, George Lucas wouldn't consider this enough. He's one of the biggest campaigners for film preservation even today, but he has double standards when it comes to his. I don't consider a 1993 Laserdisc to be preservation of a film. If water has been dropped on a painting and faded its colors, it is not preserved. A preservation should be preserving a film for all time in the best possible quality.

If there's one thing I'm very grateful to George Lucas for, it's for allowing fanfilms and fan edits. But still, no many how good it is, I myself don't consider a fan edit to make the special editions look like the originals, to be a replacement for the real thing.

"I don't know. It's my classic. On the one hand, I'm doing this, while on the other hand I'm on the Artists Rights Board, a foundation that's trying to protect films from being changed--which I feel very strongly about, because with the technology we have today, anybody can go back and do this kind of thing. I can sort of see the future, and I want to protect films as they are and as they should be. I don't want to see them colorized, I don't want to see their formats changed, I don't want to see them re-edited, and I don't want to see what I'm able to do now, which is add more characters and do all kinds of things that nobody even contemplated before."


I think he is a generous man, but his position on this boggles my mind. He doesn't even want the OOT to exist, eventually. He does not want them preserved.

"There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rought cut', it'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.'...What ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. 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]"

The same year, he complains about the colorization of The Three Stooges, even though the black-and-white version is also available, saying this:

"I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them."

Lucas reacts to this like it's the end of the world, when he says this about the complaints about him only releasing the special editions a month ago:

"Changes are not unusual ? I mean, most movies when they release them they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it?s the end of the world."

Lucas's changes, by his own words, change the movie completely. And about releasing most movies with changes - seriously? He's just wrong about that.


It's complete hypocrisy. These are all very recent quotes, keep in mind, not from the 1980s or whenever his congress speech was. It's very clear to me that he makes an exception for his films, contradicting himself, simply because he's embarrassed by them.

"I think preserving films in terms of the legacy of the future is probably the most important thing we can do. We spent a great deal of time, energy, and money trying to preserve antiquities, trying to preserve other art forms, and I think it's equally important that we try to spend some of our resources to preserve films."

 

1.)They are preserved many multiple ways and in the exact state which they have always been in. Go to amazon and buy them on dvd.

2.)That quote is always taken in the wrong context and always used too much on the internet. It has become a tired soundbite for the hateboy movement.

He was giving that speech because big, greedy corporations and studeo heads were trying to alter other peoples work after they have died. Not one word of anything he said in that court case said anything against the artist himself having the freedom to improve and add to his own creation.

 

1. The exact state? Really? Either you're ignoring the facts or you don't know what you're talking about. Also, how can something be preserved in the "exact state" in "many multiple ways"? Isn't that contradictory?

2. Which quote? I posted a number of them, and none of them are from his speech to Congress like you're saying or implying. No offence, but did you actually read what I posted? And am I also part of this "hateboy movement"?

 

By "exact state" I mean it is the same exact copy (the laser disk) that everybody was pirating and sharing all throughout the 90's and for years thereafter. The one which the most fans spent the most time idealizing while complaining that it wasn't available on dvd. So then Lucas MADE it available on dvd. It is this version which is preserved everywhere "many multiple ways" on the internet and on countless hard drives, burned dvds and even official retail dvds. It can be downloaded for free or purchased on amazon and many other places for a very cheep price.

What some fans are simply refusing to accept is that the original HAS been restored for preservation, but because it happens to have the certain enhanced shots and additions that the artist (Lucas) always intended and attempted for it to have some fans just don't want to accept it.

 

"Always intended" is debatable.....

 

The "exact state they have always been" refers to the 1993 laserdiscs? No one wanted those versions specifically to be released by 2004. Fans hoped to see the original given as much attention for restoration as the special edition - that would be the point of releasing it on DVD. Again, for the reasons I've said before, I don't consider the laserdisc to be a preservation. How would you feel if the special editions could only be watched in the same quality, or if you could only see the prequels on VHS? In 2012, who wants to watch something lasderdisc-quality on their HDTVs?

So every change is what Lucas intended? Then why did the script, the comic, and the movie all show only Han shooting? If Lucas wanted Vader to say "Alert my star destroyer" instead of "bring my shuttle", that's what would have been used. If he had always wanted Vader to shout "noooo" in Jedi, Vader should have shouted "noooo"...these are not changes that he can only make now because of new technology. It looks like you're criticizing other fans for preferring a different version of a movie and having a different opinion. 99% of the fans asking for the originals don't want the special editions suppressed, so what is so bad about giving the originals a high-quality release?

 

The technology needed for Vader to shout "Noooo!" did not exist in 1983, 1997, or 2004.

 

To obi-rob-kenobi4: Exactly. The laser disc is the public exhibition of the film, which in preservation is not the same as preserving it. Meaning that Lucas's own words didn't say that the versions made available have to be in high quality format like the Blu-Ray versions. Just that they are kept from deterioration and kept some place safe. Public exhabition doesn't mean that the studio has to release a high quality DVD version, which if anything, varies. We have seen low quality transfers of films being made available.

To Toschi: I agree. Some of the broader strokes like having Ian as Palpatine in TESB and the enhanced Mos Eisley date back years. While the more precise details like the CGI additions to the latter came about while working on the film in 96.

 

The Library of Congress has versions for all the films. Here are those records:
1977 - Star Wars : http://lccn.loc.gov/96512247
1980 - Empire Strikes Back : http://lccn.loc.gov/96512208
1983 - Return of the Jedi : http://lccn.loc.gov/96501520
1997 - Star Wars A New Hope Special Edition : http://lccn.loc.gov/97510343
1997 - Empire Strikes Back Special Edition : http://lccn.loc.gov/98502262
1997 - Return of the Jedi Special Edition : http://lccn.loc.gov/2006642053
1999 - The Phantom Menace : http://lccn.loc.gov/99468631
2002 - Attack of the Clones : http://lccn.loc.gov/2002636427
2005 - Revenge of the Sith : http://lccn.loc.gov/2005644161
2008 - The Clone Wars : http://lccn.loc.gov/2008636030

If you read some of the entry details, you will find that most of the 35mm prints the Library of Congress has are used theater prints.

I believe you are mixing up the Library of Congress and the National Film Registry. The NFR is a sub-set of the LoC which deals only with a few selected films based on the public's desire that they are 'special'. When a movie is selected for preservation by the NFR, the NFR asks the creator or copyright owner for 'the best' quality version available. What Lucasfilm supplied, and if they asked for that print to be returned when they were working on the Special Editions is still, in my mind, rumorville.

 

You're right, my mistake.

 

That is great information, None.

 

And thus we now have proof that Lucas hasn't done anything wrong, other than piss fans off because he didn't do it the way they wanted it to, with regards to the release of the THX versions of the OT. But that's nothing new.

 

If you value it, repost it when necessary. I've been posting it when appropriate for years and well people still believe this and that.

United States Copyright Law permits Lucasfilm to control how their works are displayed/performed/distributed. Lucasfilm knows it is for a limited time.

http://savestarwars.com/lucasspeechagainstspecialedition.html

So when Lucasfilm lets the public know that:

http://originaltrilogy.com/Lucasfilm_PR_response.cfm

I don't find those words cause for celebration.

A reason this debate rages, in highly charged rhetoric, is people feel powerless. One side can talk till their blue in the face but the creator can do as they see fit. Another side that would like to remember how they saw the movie but they are violating laws if they take steps in that direction. This powerlessness is caused by the copyright policies which surround us and the bureaucratic logistics to change them. We live in a time when we have less rights then previous generations. Some of our grand-parents (or great-grandparents as the case maybe) were able to actively participate in the public domain. Works which came out when they were children, entered the public domain (14, 28 years later) when they were adults and it became their duty to propel those works to the next generation. Our generation is the one of the first to have lost the ability to interact with culture in a legal way. No works will enter the public domain while we are alive. Here is a chart of the Duration of Copyrights and the Copyright Amendments which have extended copyrights beyond the lifetime of a person.

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Copyright_term.svg/1000px-Copyright_term.svg.png]

What makes this sad, (and thus why people ratchet up the verbage) is the people who know the current day technologies and the current day culture will not be allowed to preserve the works of their lifetime as copyright extends beyond their deaths. In the case of Star Wars we are talking about film. Lucasfilm acknowledges that current day surviving prints are in poor condition. Film in poor condition today, will be piss-poor tomorrow. The LoC can only do so much with a print which was shown several hundred times. And if copyright prohibits them from actively preserving the prints today, we are short changing future generations. For every frame of Star Wars there are miles of other films.

Does copyright legislation allow the creator of a film to modify the negative of a film. Yes. Does the act of modifying the negative adversely affect the preservation of the film. Maybe. There are various factors and details which can be discussed here. But in the end, the copyright system currently in place means that I as someone who appreciates the value of the films as they were shown opening day, will most likely never know if future generations will be able to see them as I once did. That's disheartening.

In the next 10 years there maybe another round of revisions to copyright, which could make it so that my generation can participate in the preservation of Star Wars without violating the law. (i'm not holding my breath) Organizations like http://www.publicknowledge.org/cra/ are proposing ideas to level the playing field.

 

Fifty six years from the original date it was it was filed. By which point no one will give a damn, because most of us will be long gone or too old to care.

http://originaltrilogy.com/Lucasfilm_PR_response.cfm

I don't find those words cause for celebration.

A reason this debate rages, in highly charged rhetoric, is people feel powerless. One side can talk till their blue in the face but the creator can do as they see fit.[/quote]

It's a movie, not the formula for world peace. Only the 1% cares this much about it, while the rest of the world is content to watch their DVD's and Blu-Rays.

Only if they sell it and make a profit off of it or share it on torrents. They can still get in touch privately and not exchange money.

Yes, it would be a shame if people cannot formulate their own opinions and feelings regarding the OT, and not conform to how a bunch of people saw it for twenty years. We must all have a group, hive like mind and cannot think and feel for ourselves.

 

Huh?