CT Will Disney Re-Release Theatrical Cut Of The Original Trilogy?

I think we might have argued over this in the past. Restoration can include homogenising the film... it doesn't have to, but it often does. I can think of a number examples of films I've seen in the last 2-3 years that have some scenes that look "off", or there's an optical effect accompanied by a grain-feast. There are some scenes in TITANIC where people's faces turn p*ss yellow, and I can't imagine that's intended!

No, that's the goal of preservation. Restoration can include sensible improvements like sharpening slightly out of focus shots, reducing grain in really grainy scenes, and fixing colour problems that are in the original. From what I've seen of Empire Strikes Back I think you would need to do some homogenisation to it to make it look acceptable by today's standards. Also, the 4K versions of SW are all based on the Technicolor version which is not the version that the domestic US audience saw.

Restoration of art sometimes does involve retouching/repainting areas that are damaged or have degraded.

Having a quick look, it looks to me like they have done some grain reduction to the optical effects such as the newspaper headline optical fading in the middle of the film. I've never seen an effect like that on film that wasn't accompanied by increased grain, and especially not dark scenes like in Godfather. Unless they did that effect on 70mm it should be a lot grainier.

 

Valeyard

I disagree. Preservation in principle is about keeping a piece of art or history in it's current state to prevent further deterioration. Most ancient buildings are preserved. Steps are taken to prevent further damage. A restoration would attempt to restore these buildings to their original state before damage occured. A restoration in principle does not involve improving on the original object.

Yes, to return the art work to it's state before damage occured. That's what restoration is about. It's not about looking at a photograph of the undamaged piece of art, and deciding something about it looks a little rough by modern tastes, and to then decide to improve on it. That's outside of the scope of a restoration.

The fact that most film stutios market a revised film as a restoration does not make it so. Homogenising a film is an attempt to improve on it's original state, and is outside of the scope of a restoration. It is an additional step to make the film more appealing to modern tastes, but modern tastes by definition have very little to do with the original work of art. If in future all films are projected in 3D, does this imply a 3D conversion is then part of the restoration process? It would after all be more appealing to modern tastes...

 

Actually they usually say they've "remastered" it when they've made substantial alterations. 3D conversions happen after a restoration is done first.

Are you disagreeing that there was some grain reduction done in specific scenes in the Godfather films? Every-time I've seen an optical wipe on 35mm film it is always grainier even if there are just two images imposed over each other, in Godfather there are three all at once and no increase in the level of grain on the Bluray... that can't happen. The only way that could happen is if they shot all three shots on 65mm, and did the compositing on 65mm, and there is no indication they would go to that trouble for an optical dissolve when no one else ever does. And even then there would be other shots with increased grain - they've levelled it out. You can even see the effect clearly in any of the Star Wars previews with an effect - all the effect shots have more grain whether it's a blaster shot or a dissolve or a lightsaber or Ben turning off the tractor beam.

 

They might have applied a mild grain reduction, then again the negative was badly damaged, so they may have been forced to redo some of the wipes. If you look at the first shot in 1958 for Godfather II it still looks pretty rough, so they evidently didn't purposefully enhance every bad looking shot.

 

I should add, that I personally don't mind subtle enhancements to a film for home releases, but I don't agree that's in the scope of a restoration. However, a remastered version is something I can appreciate.

 

What's the problem with skipping the optical compositing for wipes/dissolves etc, where the degradation comes from, and replicating the compositing using digital scans straight from the camera negative? The grain problem is in the internegative of the optical work spliced in.

You might as well complain that two different shots in the same scene required different colour timing so that they matched and didn't look like they were shot on different days under different conditions.

 

Okay I had a quick look at that shot on Godfather Pt2, it has a dissolve to the church yes? It looks to me they've done the same thing as on Godfather 1 and reduced the grain for that shot, it is inherently lower quality than the surrounding shots and you're right they could have scanned the camera negatives and made a new optical dissolve to improve the quality if they'd wanted to, but I still think they did a grain reduction on that shot to bring it into line with the surrounding shots. I know exactly how a shot like that usually looks on a 35mm print.

Martoto77 you can't faithfully reproduce every optical effect digitally, and that's especially true for dissolves and text. In some cases you might need to do it, and in those cases you would have to reduce the quality of the shot to remain faithful, but if the effect exists in a well preserved state on the o-neg or interpos or seperation master, or master positive then it would be better to use that. By the way the master positive is actually what you meant when you said IN as it is used to make the o-neg, whereas the o-neg makes the colour-timed interpositive. Anything that isn't the camera negative itself in the o-neg was usually made from a master positive. The main change they did to the SW Trilogy actually was to recomposing almost all the opticals either digitally or newly optically for the 1997 SE. Now that there are high quality scans of the films it's much easier to see the difference. And sure in some cases it is just the ship in space is a few pixels to the right, or about 4% smaller than it was compared to the background, or something like that. In other shots like Cloud City the difference is very obvious.

 

Yes compromises need to be made. In some cases, the internegative or wherever the optical wipes etc wind up being first incorporated into the movie have not survived and therefore certain transitions had to be done optically, again, in order to produce a new print. It is not new and not unique to digital restoration.

 

IF the theatrical cuts are released officially, something to face reality about is the fact that we're not getting an alternate 'Saga' edition with the better changes left in, i.e Palpatine's hologram, Victory Celebration, 'Episode IV: A New Hope' in the opening crawl. The unaltered cuts will, once again, become the only versions, full stop. So, for those of you who like some of the changes, take extra care of your 2004/2006/2008 DVDs, because, should restoration of the original cuts get the green light, those versions are going to become obsolete. It'd be the bomb, if every single cut was released for historical purposes, but that's not going to happen.

 

Why not? Lucas' final revisions will probably be left alongside the theatrical cuts.

As for 'better changes', that's pretty subjective anyway.

 

Why? Bladerunner has five different versions, and they all happily exist together. Don't see why that wouldn't work for Star Wars...

 

It's going to take a long time for the 2004 versions of the S.E. to fade away. I still see them shown on tv!

 

Come on! They quarrel like every family, but deep down they love each other .

 

So just like the Mona Lisa then!

To a very few relative to the worldwide audience yes.

For myself as I have said I am more interested in the storyteller's story than the exact way he first told it. Stories change over time. If the ST works out well then it should change the story of the original 6 yet again.

 

I would like the 1997, 2004 and 2011 cuts eradicated completely. All known copies wiped.

 

The worldwide audience doesn't care either way. Bring back the OOT and erase the SE, and the general audience won't shed a tear. Odds are they probably won't even notice anything has changed. It's all just a set of aging movies to them from which they might still get some enjoyment, and fill them in on the backstory of the new movies. So, in the end it really is just about you and me, the fans who do care about the little details, whether it is Lucas' previous iterations or his most recent version.

Yes, but Disney won't alter the actual six films proceeding it to better fit in with their vision for the future of Star Wars, and then erase the old ones from existence. It's one thing to add to your previous stories, and perhaps be able to put them in the different context of your newest creations, it's another thing to supress the original context of the stories and the times in which they were created.

 

I can always sell you my blurays if you're that concerned. It's a bit silly to say it will disappear. For example with Titanic I know that in the US you can book either version of the film through Paramount, and either version through Fox in the UK. If you want to show the 1997 version you can show that, and if you want to show the 2012 2D or 3D DCP you can show it. If you want to show Star Wars on the other hand it has to be the Special Edition.

 

Bazinga'd wrote

Ask Ridley Scott what he thinks of the theatrical or director's cuts.

Thanks, but no. I'm rather interested in the thoughts on the screenplay writer, Harrison Ford and film director Frank Darabont. At least these three seemed to understand that neither did the chicken origami suggest that Deckard dreamed about being a chicken farmer nor that the Peeping Tom origami suggested a sexual orientation of the Deckard character.

A program worth watching (part of the video release bonus features) is "Deck-a-rep", featuring an unusual insult by Scott calling everybody who doesn't buy his Deckard-is-a-replicant retcon an "idiot".

 

That ends the OOT debate right there because then there really is no reason to Disney to bother releasing them ever based on that point.

The SE's are out in the millions of physical copies and digital and for TV etc etc.

Yes, but Disney won't alter the actual six films proceeding it to better fit in with their vision for the future of Star Wars, and then erase the old ones from existence. It's one thing to add to your previous stories, and perhaps be able to put them in the different context of your newest creations, it's another thing to supress the original context of the stories and the times in which they were created.[/quote]

Except that while Disney owns the movies they are not the storytellers of those movies. Lucas can and did change his own movies. Save for ROTS the original theatrical versions of the other 5 are not out in HD.

The context of the new movies is in line with those stories.

 

Kathleen Kennedy was asked shortly after the Orlando Star Wars celebration if Lucasfilm was ever going to release the Trilogy in HD. She said that it was George Lucas' desire never to do such a thing and she intends to respect and protect his legacy within the Star Wars universe. I fear that I will never see in my lifetime Star Wars in HD as it was back in 1977. As a result, two weeks ago I had copied onto DVD the original three films from Beta. These were movies that I purchased when they were first released back in the '80s. I've hung onto them since. The video quality and sound is okay. But at least these are the movies as they were before they were molested. You will not see "Episode IV" in the opening scroll of the first film. My oldest daughter and son also wanted copies of their own. They think that the Special Edition films are okay. But even though they are a generation removed from the original Star Wars release, they want the classic movies that started it all.

Lucas always said that his altered films were closer to the vision that he had for his story. Therefore the public would like them better. Okay. Fine. I get that. He's the "Creator" and it's his story. But in 1988 while giving a speech to Congress, he clearly started that once a film had engrained itself into popular culture, then that film belongs to the public. He wasn't talking about Star Wars per se, but he might as well have been. I wished he would have stood by his words and released his SE versions along with the original films - all in HD. Let us decide. Regrettably Lucas is out of the picture, but based on Kathleen Kennedy's response, he still continues to influence what was once his.

 

No, she never said anything of the sort. Watch the unedited clip. At first she had no clue what the guy was talking about, and then he has to specify and asks specifically about making further changes to the “special editions.” She replies, “I haven’t touched those.”

There is no mention of the original versions. Now that being said, I don't believe they have any plans to release them, but Kathleen Kennedy has never publicly commented on the possibility of releasing the original movies.

 

DrDre I think you'll find they've also done flicker reduction. Flicker is reduced anyway when you scan a film for some reason, but I can quite confidently say I've never seen a non-digital live action film on 35mm or 70mm that didn't have flicker in it in some scenes. There are quite a few scenes in Titanic for example with quite noticeable flicker (most of the movie doesn't have it), but on my scan it's greatly reduced already. One of the worst quality prints I've seen is Untouchables and that movie had flicker in almost every scene. That may have been largely introduced in the print, I got the impression they used the cheapest, nastiest stock they could find to make prints from!

 

Not at all. The films will be released in the future on 4K, and these releases do not have to be the SE. Additionally there are other studios who have released multiple versions for the fans, so I don't see why Star Wars would have to be an exception.

 

Kennedyactually said there was no arrangement in place that dictates which versions they can or cannot release.