CT Rumor: Disney to Release Unaltered Old Trilogy on BR

He never said he intended to erase them from history. He said that his definitive cuts are what matter to him most and that he predicted over time the older cuts would disappear, though I doubt (and hope) that this isn't the case

 

Um, saying that the other versions will disappear and the SEs will be the only ones people remember is very much intending to erase them from history.

 

It's a prediction, not a hope/desire

 

Especially since he turned around and re-released the older versions in 2006, I'd say that he wasn't purposely keeping them away forever. He was right in that VHS tapes won't last forever and he wasn't planning to re-release the older versions. He was also aware that bootleg copies of the older versions were in existence.

 

The 2006 releases were a slap in the face. He purposely used an outdated master just so he could get a dig in while being able to claim he released the OOT. Its funny that they said they were the only masters available, but they were easily able to go back to get the 1977 crawl. Interesting....

 

All that was done was just editing out "Episode IV: A New Hope" from the 94 crawl, which is easy to do. And regardless of the film quality, Lucas still released the older versions of the films. He was under no obligation to do a digital remastering.

 

No obligation, except what reasonable people would expect. Most home video consumers would not, I dare say, see a sub-par transfer of old laserdisc video as the first word in DVD quality.

I'm under no obligation to eat fancy gourmet meals each and every day. That doesn't mean I reach for the cat food if I get hungry.

 

Its not just editing it out though. The original crawl moves at different speed and looks slightly different. Its the 1977 crawl on the 2006 release, so they would have gone to another source to get it.

 

Yeah, all the words had to be re-set for the 1981 re-release, in order to keep the scroll synchronized with the film score. So it really is an entirely different piece of film footage--not just a simple CGI excision of the Episode IV title.

 

If a person makes a prediction and they have the power to easily stop it from happening and yet won't act. Then I would say this person hopes/wants this something to happen.

Given Lucas comments about the OOT and how he seem to look down upon them as "unfinished versions", "Half a movie", I do think he wants the world to forget them.

And releasing the OOT in an inferior and subpar version didn't really help.
Lucas has gotten a lot of flak, much of it undeserved and rude and hostile. In this instance he does have himself to blame, at least in part.
A 2004 releases of the SE and OOT in equal quality and much of these complaints would be gone.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Yet there have been films that have been released with sub-par quality and people still purchase them, because it is better than nothing.

Only if that's all there is and for some people in this world, that is all there is.

 

Should we thank George Lucas for giving us a really shoddy transfer of the GOUT, then, because it is "better than nothing"?

Quite frankly, we already had "better than nothing"... on laserdisc and VHS.

The GOUT DVDs are nothing more than a bad joke. They represent a release in the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

By releasing them, Lucas might say he gave the fans what they wanted. But he still gets what he wants--the prevention of a proper release of the OOT, in acceptable (or rather, standard) home video quality.

Are you seriously suggesting that George Lucas, the multimillionaire master of Skywalker Ranch, doesn't have the resources to clean up and release his own trilogy of films?

Film preservation is hard! I've heard horror stories about movies like the 1978 Superman, which were quite improperly preserved. But that didn't prevent Warner Brothers from putting it out in high-definition on Blu-ray. They fixed the film as best they could, and they got it out there.

What's stopping Lucas?

 

Like I said, he wasn't under obligation to do more than release it and even then he wasn't.

Not at all. My point was the consumer isn't always lucky to have the best of the best. Sometimes, the consumer can only have the rest. You have the laserdisc and the VHS, that is more than sufficient. And I say this not just about "Star Wars", but about anything. You still have your VCR and you still have your older copies that are in good shape? Well, that should be more than sufficient for you. I've found that if something isn't available in the newest, bestest format, then I consider myself to be lucky to have anything at all.

In regards to "Superman", the first film got a nice DVD transfer, but that barely happened as Jon Peters wanted to block that all together. He managed to block a theatrical re-release like Lucas and Fox did with the OT SE's. Only a couple of places got to show it, like the Alamo Draft House. The sequels weren't so lucky. Not until Peters was regulated to being in charge in name only and Bryan Singer was able to push the studio to go ahead and do that, in anticipation of "Superman Returns". The DVD's for the sequels weren't done well, but for some people, that was better than nothing.

 

Indeed, you're right that Lucas was under no obligation to release the OOT. Perhaps we can get beyond that simplistic mantra now.

Lucas is nonetheless violating something far more important: the previously established custom of filmmakers.

That custom, faint and fading as it now is, can nonetheless be summed up in one word: preservation.

After all, Ridley Scott put out all the editions of Blade Runner he could find on Blu-Ray: the theatrical cuts from Europe and America, the "director's cut," the Final Cut, and even the workprint!

Far worse, however, Lucas is setting a bad example for others. For the Blu-Ray release, James Cameron reworked the color timing of Aliens to produce a more "modern" palette--one saturated with trendy blue and orange hues instead of the moodier, more naturalistic lighting of the theatrical cut.

And thanks to all this mucking about, the chances grow greater by the day that the original versions of these films will be lost forever--if they haven't been already.

Film is fragile. Far more so than the written word, because it has many more components. Give film stock a few decades in a vault and the audio rots away. A few more decades, or a bit of careless handling, and the video itself becomes unusable. Active intervention is needed every so often just to make sure that existing movies survive.

If nothing else, a re-release of the OOT on Blu-Ray would allow film preservation experts to extend the life of the original Star Wars movies.

Forget what George Lucas wants! Do you, yourself, want the original theatrical versions of the Star Wars trilogy to join the already far too long list of lost films?

I don't.

 

"Forget what Lucas wants"?

Never.

I'd enjoy a high-def release of the original theatrical editions as much as the next fellow, but to label them "the original Star Wars movies" is a bit too much, IMO.
Even if they've been altered, they're still the original movies.

 

Not really original and altered aren't the same.

 

They are the original movies, in a sense... and yet they are also very much not.

It is said that the Athenians of ancient Greece carefully preserved the ship that had belonged to the great hero Theseus, whom they held in high honor. But they left it outdoors, and the wood rotted, and the boards had one by one to be replaced.

Eventually, none of the ship's timbers dated to the time of Theseus himself.

The Athenians, a wise people, debated endlessly whether what they had on their hands was the true Ship of Theseus. No definitive conclusion was ever reached.

But I doubt that the Athenians, who honored their ancestors, would have ever replaced the ship's boards if it hadn't been necessary to do so, to preserve the overall form of the ship.

Tell me, what was necessary about adding copious amounts of CGI to the original Star Wars trilogy? The films hardly needed these new adornments in order to be preserved.

Quite the opposite: Lucas's meddling has made the preservation of the OOT much, much harder.

I think the Athenians would have called that sacrilege.

 

It was not necessary. The CGI has dated far quicker than the models etc, and you take away from the cohesive whole. Before Qui-Riv-Brid accuses me of hating all CGI evah!, a film shot in 1997 using 1997 technology will not be as dated as a film shot in 1976 that has a mixture of 1976 effects and rushed 1997 added in.

 

What the ancient Athenians would've said is irrelevant. What GL wanted, on the other hand, was highly relevant. The alterations were necessary because the Maker deemed them so. It was his work and so, he called the shots. Noone else had any say in the matter, period.

This debate is purely academic, though. Now Disney call the shots and - depending on the terms of their deal - we might yet see this happen in a not-so-distant future.

 

Let's pose a Gedankenexperiment, as the Germans say. (That means, essentially, "an academic debate.")

If a serious determination came into your head to cut off the nose on your own face, would that too be necessary?

You might think, personally, that it improved your looks. I suspect that most humans would beg to differ.

As far as I'm concerned, however, this debate is not academic. It concerns real films on real celluloid, which are at very real risk of perishing from the Earth. And it will not cease to be academic until the OOT is put out in a proper home video release of acceptable quality.

For my part, I think we have a duty as film fans, and as connoisseurs, not to confuse gruel with filet mignon, so to speak.

If you went to a restaurant and ordered steak, would you still enjoy it if it were burnt to a crisp? It's still technically steak, even if you can't eat it.

I myself would want a refund. But even better, I'd like my steak to be palatable.

 

For that metaphor to hold water, we have to assume that the Star Wars movies have been rendered objectively unwatchable.
Obviously, that's not the case.

Also, what others think about what I choose to do with my own body is - you guessed it - irrelevant.

 

I see all my powers of metaphor are futile in this debate.

Let me speak plainly, then, to the general audience.

--

Do you think that GL should have the right, if he so chooses, to destroy every print in existence of the original theatrical cut of the SW trilogy?

Do you think a creator should have the right to destroy his own creation, even though others might prize it as a thing of beauty--though the creation itself should be evidently valuable?

If you do, congratulations! You're just like Victor Frankenstein.

I don't know if you've ever read the original novel... but in Mary Shelley's book, it's quite clear that Frankenstein's monster turned evil only because, at the moment of the Creature's awakening, Victor abandoned his creation in disgust.

Victor failed to see that, flawed and ugly though he was, the Monster had a human soul, and wanted a life of his own.... wanted to be loved.

And because he denied the "Monster" that love, Victor made his creation infinitely worse.

--

A person who hates something simply because he is told to hate it by his "betters" is a fool.

I'm from the American South. I know whereof I speak on that score.

It is therefore madness to say, I will despise this film because the Great Ones despise it.

In his later years Fritz Lang heartily disliked Metropolis, after all, and that's a classic of world cinema!

--

Film stock is fragile. I've said it before. And in the end, for film at least, suppression and destruction are tantamount to the same thing.

But I don't think anyone should have the right to destroy films. Not their creators, not their owners. No one.

And so, once upon a time, did George Lucas.

"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society."

"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."

Quite frankly, I agree with George... I just wish he would agree with himself.

 

He hasn't rewritten history, nor did he abandon his films. Quite the opposite - He clung to the franchise like a leech.

To follow your example and speak plainly: I do not believe that right or wrong exist outside of our heads. There are no musts and nothing inadmissible.
As I implied earlier, I would like to have what you're asking for, but there is no law in this universe that forces filmmakers to preserve their movies in the state they were in upon their initial release.
If such a law existed in our society, I would object to it, because artistic freedom is essential to the survival of art. An artist should have the right to demolish the original print of their work if they feel the need to, for whatever reason. Luckily for us, though, most of them don't do that. Most of them don't feel that need - or have given up that right to someone else.

 

Freedom is good. But everything needs limits. I shouldn't be able to commit murder with impunity, for example. (Let's leave out the questions of "castle doctrine" and house burglars for the moment.) And when parents murder their own children, is that not an especially horrible crime?

I would submit that, based on the evidence at hand, GL did nothing less than attempt to murder his own films.

You are quite wrong to say that he did not abandon his films. He didn't do so totally.... and yet, he did, because he abandoned the versions which came first. The Special Editions have the same title as the OOT, and yet they're quite obviously not the same films, in the sense that really matters.

"What's in a name? / A rose by any other word would smell as sweet." But of course there are different colors of roses. (And, in the English Civil War, whether you wore a white rose or a red rose in your cap was a matter of life and death.)

Would you really prefer Ted Turner's colorized version of Casablanca, if director Michael Curtiz could rise from the dead and give it his blessing?

I enjoy reading the novels of Tim Powers. But if he told me tomorrow that he wanted to recall and destroy all copies of On Stranger Tides, so as to replace them with a novelization of the Disney POTC film, I would feel no obligation to collaborate with him. (In fact, I'd consider it a duty to literature to do just the opposite, and preserve the original text as best I could!)

This argument could go on till Doomsday. To be honest, if you can't see why having two versions of Star Wars available on home video in high quality is better than having only one, I see no sense in discussing the matter further with you.

You have chosen the certain bliss of Arcadia, the earthly paradise. But for my part, I prefer to walk into the dark forest of sorrows, in the hope that, like Dante, I might see a glimpse of the Empyrean.

And yet... I still hope that, one day, even the shepherds of Arcadia might see in the sky a sign of the greater truth. A new star, perhaps, terrible and glorious in the revelation of its light.