CT Rumor: Disney to Release Unaltered Old Trilogy on BR

The Shaw v Christensen issue has been well and truly thrashed out elsewhere. If it must be discussed further this really isn't the thread for it.

 

Why would it be a disrespect? Guinness certainly didn't care too much. Hell, he was despising the whole thing before his death.

 

Just seems like it imo. Guinness' performance was one of my favorite parts of the OT imo. To throw Ewan into that seems wrong imo. Ewan is PT Obi-Wan. Guinness is OT Obi-Wan and Force Ghost Obi-Wan imo. Visual continuity. But what the heck do I know? The Big whigs probably don't care what the fans think.

 

IMO the 'unaltered' trilogy, should be called the the 'theatrical cuts'.

To get the original cuts to Blu Ray quality, you have to alter them somewhat.

I want the original theatrical cuts of the films, in 1080p. And for the sake of argument, I want the same treatment for the PT.

 

@Qui-Riv-Brid

I assume that you only talk about what is established in the OT and not the PT.

You are correct in that an age difference is implied between Anakin and Vader, when the two characters were still separate characters. Vader called "a young Jedi." and Vader mocking Obi-Wan with "Old man." Vader was also implied to not have finished his training and was not yet a Knight when he turned. While Anakin was a full Jedi Knight, same as Obi-Wan.

Anakin is implied to be of an age with Obi-Wan and we see Owen and Beru, who knew and one of whom is related to Anakin. Both of them look elderly, in their late 50's, early 60's.
When the two characters were merged Lucas was thus left with a choice, should he go with the "younger" age for Vader or with the "older" age for Anakin. Either option would present slight continuity problems.

When it came time to RotJ, Lucas choose the "older" age. The script called Anakin's ghost "elderly" and he hired an older actor to be both unmasked Anakin but also the ghost of Anakin.
So he clearly wanted a ghost that looked old and of an age with Obi-Wan.
Lucas could have hired a slightly younger actor, say in his 40's/50's and have him do the unmasking scene, with make up and then no make up for the ghost scene. But he didn't do that.
Interestingly enough he choose a quite young person to play the very old looking Emperor.

Ian McDiarmid was only in his 30's when he did that.

For myself, Shaw can pass for late 50's/early 60's. So if we assume that Luke is about 25 in RotJ, then Anakin became a father when he was in his mid to late 30's, quite possible to me.
And that is around the time when Anakin turned. Yes it is not a perfect fit but younger Anakin would cause problems with the ages of Owen and Beru

When it came time to do the PT, Lucas made Anakin younger, which is totally his choice as writer.
Now he wanted a younger Anakin even tough it somewhat conflicted with the OT.

However, those that argue that Shaw is too old now and thus the replacement with Hayden makes sense, have two problems as I see it.
1) "Too old" Shaw is still in the film, so you have only partly solved the problem. If you then argue that Shaw shows the premature aging due to the suit/dark side. Then my response is, the ghost of Shaw shows that those years were not erased. His wounds are gone but not the years in the suit.
2) You create a logic problem with Hayden, who is much younger than the age Anakin died. So you replace a "too old" ghost with a "too young" ghost. And it doesn't fit with the other two ghosts we see, who look the same age as when they died. So instead of one problem, you now have two.

But this is getting off-topic.

About the quality of the changes and informing the people it concerns.
I think it would be professional courtesy to at least tell people that you put then in a movie.
And if you can have them actually act and be involved then why not do that instead of a cut/paste job. It just seems cheap and lazy.

Removing people from a film or altering their work, again telling them about it and trying to get permission is not unreasonable. And if they don't or can't give permission then leave it alone.

In closing, Lucas gets a lot of underserved flak but in this instance he has himself to blame.
Had the original theatrical versions been released on DVD back in 2004, along the SE and in equal quality. Then much if not all of this issue would have been gone.

Lastly, some people have argued that many in the regular audience don't notice the difference between the SE and OOT and most don't care. If this is so, then if the OOT and SE were released at the same time in 2004 and in equal quality, then wouldn't they sell equally well? If people don't care which version they buy, they are just as likely to buy the original as the special one.

And doesn't this argument basically say that Lucas has just been wasting his time?
He does all these changes and the audience don't even notice?

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

I think it would be pretty awesome if we could get digital versions of the OOT on iTunes, Google Play, etc. I just bought Edge of Tomorrow yesterday and streamed it to my Chromecast within minutes, and I absolutely loved it. I think I would opt for that if this rumor is indeed legitimate.

 

Samuel Vimes I got an alert that you quoted me in your post but I don't see anything
Uh
Anything you had to say? lol

 

Well I started to write a response but then removed it. Don't know why you got an alert.
All I wanted to say is that I've read that Shaw was told to smile and look happy. I had not heard that about Hayden as he was doing a costume test.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

1. Palpatine is old as well due to the ravages of the dark side. So, too, is Anakin's physical form older.

2. Obi-wan and Yoda didn't become a Sith Lord like Anakin. If Dooku had become good, he would look like he did when he quit the Jedi Order.

There was no point in spending money to build a set of robes for Hayden and rather than having him appear in his ROTS robes, they went the way they did. Besides, it isn't cheap since they still had to spend money to do the alteration.

You're assuming that Lucas didn't get permission from their estates.

Please, people still complained when Lucas changed them and the THX versions were still out there as leftover product.

The only difference in sales would be those who seek out one over the other. In general terms, most people don't notice most of the changes because they don't watch it religiously. They'll notice Anakin and Jabba, but they won't notice the different Jawa Sandcrawler, the extended Slave I scene and the like. Newer generations won't have an attachment to the older versions and in most cases, won't ever see them or if they do, won't care that much.

Lucas changed them because he wanted them to look and sound a certain way. He wanted a more finished look for himself. The larger audiences aren't going to be as fanatic over the changes as the hardcore fan, who has watched it five hundred times and knows even the slightest change, like the audio mix changes in the OT.

 

I understand all that. It's really just a matter of semantics at this point, though.

Lucas and Kershner were good friends and Lucas trusted Kershner to make a good movie. So, yes, he let him have "final cut", essentially. But the key word there is "let." If Lucas really wanted something changed, he could have asserted his authority and had it changed. But he didn't do that because he wanted to be gracious to his friend and mentor.

The key issue here is that, even if he hadn't consulted Kershner, Lucas wouldn't have been violating any sacred trust by altering the movies. He had the power and the right to do so all along.

 

Looks like Disney definitly has the rights to the PT since they'll be airing TPM on the Disney channel later this year. And recently Disney ran an ad for Disney Digital showing that soon you'll be to watch all 6 films Digitaly, using clips from the OT in several places.

Quite possibly the most recent rumors of re-releasing the originals is true.

 

And people thought they were going to throw out the PT.

 

How does airing the saga on TV amount to the possibility of the release of the OOT?

 

It doesn't. Only that Disney has the television rights to broadcast the six films and have them on their digital service. Now, if they were hinting that the OT would be the THX versions, that'd be a different story.

 

Bob Iger: "I present the theatrical Star Wars Saga!"
George Lucas: "What the **** is this?"
Bob Iger: "You had your release. We have ours. What, you don't like rhyming?"

 

They're not stupid. Even the PT has quite a few fans.

 

I haven't seen anyone aside from the extreme anti-PT fanatics say that

 

I've seen some pessimistic PT fans on here and around the internet so take that for what you will.

 

Why do so many people have this weird urge to write fanfic wherein a fictional GL is shamed and befuddled by people confronting him with anti-Lucas memes? It's like some bizarre form of humiliation porn.

 

To borrow from another meme: It's because we're not smart enough to understand the complexities of the GL's grand design. It's because we only criticize GL because Red Letter Media told us to. And since Haters Gonna Hate, and that he personally ruined our childhood by making the Prequels 100% CG, we're going to deal with our butthurt by attacking GL with little jokes at his fictional expense.

 

Back on topic, folks

 

Yeah, the topic. So is there more to this rumor?

 

Here are some examples of composting differences from the original to the SE.

On the left the original and the right the SE.











Imagine these images on a large screen. The "original" betrays an old film by a large margin.

 

Those are things I didn't notice before they were pointed out in 1997, but partly because we were use to that and didn't have anything better in comparison. Still, those differences are minor when I can watch the film without added scenes and stuff. Whenever I do decide to tolerate the "bonus disc" theatrical versions, I play them on zoom to fill the width.