CT Original unaltered Trilogy on Blu ray?

The creepy thing about Lucas is Richard Marquand died in 1987, so Lucas has made all those changes to ROTJ AFTER the man died. And then he goes an erases Sebastian Shaw from the final scene of ROTJ in 2004 and inserts Hayden even though the Shaw died in 1994. Disrespectful is you ask me.

 

The assumption being, of course, that the original form is what the filmmaker wants it to be. If it isn't, I don't really care about it myself.

 

First, if a filmmaker is unhappy about a film then he or she has the option of not releasing it. Failing that, the filmmaker can release it but have his or her name removed, thus an "Alan Smithee" film. Ex David Lynch has removed his name from the Dune TV version.

Second, what Zinneman was talking about was heritage, cultural history. That is by definition bigger than one person. If society decides that a film is historically or culturally significant and must be preserved for the future. That would take precedent over the wishes of the filmmaker in that the filmmaker can still make newer versions but can't stop the original version from being preserved and seen. Even Lucas echoes this statement as he has said that he wants his children to see the same versions of the films he saw as a child.

Third, the Film Foundation says this;

Nothing about that they will only do this if the filmmaker has said it is ok for the film to be preserved and they will let it rot otherwise.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

This is a good point. I understand the urge to link up the OT and the PT in a visual way, but I've always thought this was disrespectul to Shaw especially.

 

I wonder if Lucas has considered the Alan Smithee option for the OOT. I'd like to think it would invalidate it for posterity, even if it's preserved.

But there's a big question on the difference of what's stopping films from being seen in their original form, from case to case. In the cases of studios or current copyright holders who had nothing to do with the original creation of the film, it makes sense to fight tampering and editing. In the case of the original director or creative lead on the project doing so, I don't really see it on the same level. I honestly don't care if the original versions of Blade Runner are preserved for posterity. I don't care that the current DVD sets of Aeon Flux are only in the Director's Cut versions (with dialogue and visual changes from Peter Chung even on episodes he didn't direct). Would it be nice to have them all, and to have the OOT as a supplemental extra? Yeah, but they're superfluous compared to real cases of studio misconduct. I'm happier to have Metropolis in something closer to its original form, and would be much more interested in seeing people try to track down the missing footage from The Magnificent Ambersons than ever see Han shoot first again.

Yeah, but is the OOT really such a priority, in the face of films that have been genuinely lost, in part or whole? The films exist, in their entirety, and maybe not in the fanboy-approved versions, but in the preferred versions of the creator. That's far enough to make all the appeals to film preservation seem little more than a useful bout of politicking.

 

He still has his death scene. That's the important part. Replacing him as a ghost simply clears up the detail of who the ghost actually is.

 

That's true - at least they didn't try to re-film the unmasked Vader portions of that scene on the Death Star II. Could you imagine?

I still think it was a less-than-classy move, especially with how difficult GL has made it to get a copy of the unaltered version these days, but I'm not crying about it.

I've got my VHS's and Theatrical Edition bonus discs if I want to see the original ghost-Anakin.

 

Not only that, but there are probably millions of copies of the OOT floating around in various formats, not to mention the ease at which it can be accessed through the internet. The original negatives are intact as well, so releasing it on the latest format to "preserve" the Saga holds no gravity. As you've said, there are truly "lost" films from the early 20th century that are rotting in an attic somewhere, and people are complaining that the Ewoks blink in the newest Star Wars release?

Like I said before, the original Star Wars is historically important, but it's not an urgent issue by any means. The films won't disappear if they're not immediately released.

 

The thing is that films actually do disappear if they're left ignored and unattended for a long time, the quality can deteriorate and render them unwatchable.
Not to mention the fact that someone can simply forget where they are. This may sound silly but it has happened before, on numerous ocassions.

 

Yeah. Frankly it strikes me as immature to bother worrying about the OOT when there are bigger cases of films lost and deteriorating over the decades. Star Wars exists in a shape that its creator is happy with, which is more than can be said of anything Von Stroheim ever made, or at least half of Welles' output. Hell, there's more cause to get angry about the various changes made to Disney movies over the decades to sanitize them or outright scrub them out of existence. When Aladdin has its opening lyrics changed back to Howard Ashman's "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face", then maybe I'll spare a thought for how wrong it is to change ROTJ after Richard Marquand's passing.

 

Wow, just now realised that I basically clumsily and much less eloquently repeated what has been said before.
Eh, sorry 'bout that. Gettin a bit tired.

 

Both ANH and ESB have been selected by the library of congress (I think its them?) for preservation. No idea which versions though.

 

Agreed! I have a massive list of my 5 Favorite Films By Year that starts in 1930 - and you know how nearly impossible it is to get some of these films? I don't think they even have every film that was nominated for an Academy/BAFTA/Golden Globe award still. THAT I find far more important than trying to find a version of Mos Eisley with no animals in it.

 

At least the restoration and preservation of the original Star Wars negatives in 1997 shows that it's at least a concern to keep the negatives in good shape.

 

Yeah, there's no shortage of missing works that I'd like to see. Hell, even all the old classic episodes of Doctor Who that got taped over by the BBC would be a bigger boon than the OOT.

 

Its still virtually impossible to find the complete works of the Marx Brothers. I've spent years collecting, and though I have almost all of them, I STILL can't get Double Dynamite.

Also, there are a LOT of raunchy pre-code films from 1930-1933 that I'm trying to find. If you think Lucus is being unfair for not giving us a perfect anamorphic bla-bla OOT, think of how much awesomeness Ted Turner is sitting on that he isn't sharing!

 

George Lucas himself made the case for preserving the original versions of films in testimony before congress in 1988. He was complaining about Ted Turner's colorization of old black and white films, but the irony rings loud and clear. Some highlights:

“People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians,”

“Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tommorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with “fresher faces,” or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor’s lips to match.”

Why are films cut up and butchered?

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.

On so many fronts George Lucas has become what he fought against -- he fought against the corporate powerful studio system only to become it; he fought against butchering films only to become the poster boy for tasteless alterations. Now his failure is complete.

I'm joking, but it appears that the real George Lucas was kidnapped and replaced with a doppleganger somewhere between 1988 and 1995. I like the pre-1995 version.

 

And if Lucas would have re-filmed the death scene imposing Hayden' face and his dialogue in there, you would have been the first to approve of the change just like EVERY change Lucas does because of his so-called 'vision.'

Which vision is it: 1977-83 Theatrical Versions vision? 1997 SE Vision? 2004DVD Vision? 2011 Vision BluRay Vision?

And for replacing the force ghost, I don't understand your statement: 'clears up the detail of who the ghost actually is.' Trust me, in 1983 no one walked out of the theater wondering who that old guy was next to Alec Guiness and Yoda.

All Lucas did now was open up a bigger debate as to why Hayden is the force ghost at a young age, yet Kenobi and Yoda are there at their old ages. And please don't give me that BS statement that Anakin died on Mustafar and that is why he is a force ghost at that young age, because it was the OLDER Anakin in ROTJ who was conflicted and eventually it was the OLDER Anakin in ROTJ who saved Luke from the Emperor. It totally contradicts Lucas's whole message by saying Anakin and Vader are 2 different people, because the whole point of ROTJ is that there was a small part of Anakin that never died inside of that iron lung, and that turned him back to being a good guy at the end of the movie.

 

Clears up??? It completely muddies the water and makes no logical sense.

An old man is replaced with a young man's ghost? First time viewers wouldn't even have seen the PT yet and will have no idea who that guy is.

 

Why would it invalidate it? If Lucas dislikes the OOT so much then why not take his name of it?
If he feels the OOT is such a blight to his name and such a horrible shame for him as director then remove his name. The film is preserved for future generations but he doesn't have to have his name on it.

Film preservation deals with both, saving older films from being destroyed by neglect or by tampering. If the goal is that future egenrations should be able to see the original versions then the originals must be preserved, even if the filmmaker does not want it.

And really, say that a director makes a film, releases it but then 30 years later feels that it is an embarasment to him and wants the film to be destroyed and never seen or shown again.
What about the other people that worked on the film? What about the actors? Say that a young actor made his or her breakthrough with this film and is proud over it. Should that actor quietly accept that the film is destroyed just because the director doesn't like it anymore?
What about the writer, composer, editor or other people that worked on the film, is it ok for their work to be destroyed just because the director is unhappy with his film?

Or say that a "new" version completely removes the work of another artist? What if an actor is totally removed from the new version. Doesn't that actor have any rights? Is it fair that his or her work is lost forever? Why is only one person wishes important but all others are ignored?

[/QUOTE]

You made a general comment about original versions, not limited to SW, and you didn't think it was right enough for people to make a fuss about preserving them. I gave you examples of people that do think it is right enough to make a fuss about it. The Library of Congress, Film Foundation etc. They work to preserve films.
Either by saving films that are in danger of being destroyed because the film stock is degrading.
Or when it comes to fighting studios that make alterations to older films.

Their argument is two fold, first the work of the artists that created the films must not be lost or altered.
Second, cultural history and legacy, that important films should be preserved so that younger generations can see them in the same way older generations saw them.

This isn't only about SW, it is about film preservaion in general. Many filmmakers feel very strongly about saving films from degradation and preserving not just their work but as many films as they can.
Many films are gone, the film stock degraded so much that a new master can not be made.
So clearly this is something that people are passionate about. You might not care about the original versions of some films but others do. And again this isn't just SW fans we are talking about, filmmakers such as Spielberg, Coppola, Ang Lee are very active in preserving films for future generations.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

And I fear that this is the situation Lucas might be in. With so much alteration to the OT and so much focus on the PT, the original movies released in the 70's and 80's could have easily been put to the side and forgotten about.

 

Again, there's a big moral difference between Ted Turner colorizing films that he merely holds the copyright to, and didn't do any of the original work for behind the scenes as a writer, producer or director, and Lucas making relatively small alterations or additions to movies that he did serve as a writer and director and/or producer.

No, that's a change that would be too far for me. I wouldn't give up on the movies entirely, but it would piss me off, because I honestly see the unmasking scene as is to be the best scene in the saga, overall. There's no reason to put another actor in there, even if that actor were someone on the level of Olivier at his finest. As changes go, it still probably wouldn't anger me as much as the rumors that flew around of Darth Maul no longer being cut in half for the Blu Ray version (because that's just too cool to be stitched up), but it would still be a genuine blemish.

But the ghost thing? I ain't 'fraid a no Hayden...

Count me as someone who didn't always remember who the Shaw ghost was. When I was younger I either thought "Is that Uncle Owen?" or simply "Who the hell is that guy?". Once I got a couple of behind the scenes books I could then remind myself it was Vader, but even then it kinda bugged me.

As for first time viewers who haven't seen the PT yet-- too bad. Watch the PT first, either by going in straight numerical order or by flashback between ESB and ROTJ.

I'm just saying that if he did that as a compromise, I would hope that future generations would also be mature enough to say "okay, we have the OOT for historical preservation, but the director has effectively disowned it by making it an Alan Smithee film, so let's take that seriously and not just jump for joy about Han shooting first" or some such garbage, and keep the SE versions of the films the only ones for theatrical screenings, as the filmmaker's preferred version.