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

Aesthetically the 90s effects and background shots do not look consistent with the rest of the production. It does take you out of the movie. A few positive changes and mostly touch-ups notwithstanding.

However, when you look at something like the Mos Eisley changes, it's more about dramatic tonal deviations. The movie goes from charred, burned out bodies and Leia being tortured, to...

CUT TO:

Some droids doing slapstick comedy. CGI cartoons swinging around on animals. A dinosaur blocking the camera. And maybe in a future edition my man Jar Jar will be added to "step in the pooey".

These things are just wildly inconsistent with the dramatic presentation and constitution of the rest of the film.

 

Surprisingly lighthearted, perhaps, but wildly inconsistent with the rest? Nah.

I myself have always seen Star Wars as a fascinating back-and-forth between grim and lighthearted. AOTC, ROTS and ANH especially contain quite a few very abrupt tonal shifts and I believe that's entirely intentional. It feels outright bizarre at times, but that's a reflection of life. Someone's grief is interrupted by a stupidly comedic situation, tragedy strikes when one least expects it, etc.
This is carried over into TFA, too. So grim, yet so fun.

That's one of my favorite aspects of these films.

On topic, though: Bring in 4K restorations of theatrical editions of all six Lucas episodes, please! I wanna see how they work together in numerical order!

 

If they don't for you then they don't. I have no problem at all. If anything they take me more into the movie. As I said looking at the originals I "notice" when they aren't in there.

I don't see how as after basically two scenes it's like Owen and Beru never existed in the first place and Alderaan is gotten over very quickly. That is simply how ANH worked. You might as well complain about all the comedy in ANH and it's tonality from the start. They are having way too much fun for people being shot at. Are they completely oblivious to the danger they are in. They are drawn together for the trash compactor scene then right after are arguing and cracking wise again.

I'm never quite sure what that is supposed to mean.It seems to apply whenever needed to whatever it's needed.

Everything objectively "stands out". The masks or puppets or models or matte paintings or CGI or whatever.

Somehow being able to tell something is CGI (never mind the fact that many people obviously can't tell or are being obstinate and seeing things that are not there) is seen as some detraction while being able to tell something is a model or mask or puppet etc etc isn't.

I knew Yoda was a puppet in 1980 as a child. So I guess it was badly done then?

So it's all "inauthentic"?

Landis has never struck me as objective on the subject. Far from it. Besides that he didn't make the movies and Lucas and Muren did.

They always knew the particular weakness' of ANH from the start that others can't even acknowledge in the first place.

 

DrDre - thank you. That is very informative.

Would having a higher resolution 4k transfer - mean that it has more information in the image which could be pushed and pulled more so if a similar approach to the color grading on the BluRays was made it could look better because there is more information in the scan and it would hold up better?

I'm curious how that works.

 

The most important aspect is actually not the resolution, but the color depth. The scan of the negative used for the blurays has only a 10 bit color depth (~1,000 color intensities in each channel). A modern scan would have at least a 16 bit color depth (~65,500 color intensities), which gives you a lot more lattitude. In other words even if a similar color grading were applied to the new scan, it would probably look far better, even for standard HD.

 

Celebrating 20 years of that unaltered re-release rumor. - Pablo Hidalgo

 

Although you don't have to feel the same way, you'll have to remember that some of us are OT fans only. Stylistically and thematically, the prequels and the original films are at odds with each other and tell very different stories. In that light, there's no reason for us to compare Star Wars to AOTC or ROTS because they don't belong together in the same universe. Furthermore, Star Wars did not contain those abrupt tonal shifts when it was originally released in theaters, nor did it contain them when it was re-released in theaters and shown on television and various home media formats for 20 years.

 

I wasn't being completely serious by calling the SE shots "objectively" inferior. But I was trying to illustrate a point that this exact same defense that you've used for the SE shots can be used to defend against your own claims about the OOT shots being "objectively inferior". And whenever we use such terminology, it begs the question: by what metric is it inferior? Is is the George Lucas satisfaction metric? Is it the realism metric? Is it the "immersion into a 70s film" metric? Depending on which we choose, we may very well arrive at different conclusions about what's superior and what's inferior.

Hmm I would think that a third party who doesn't have involvement in the subject matter would be the one that can be the most objective. Like in a court case, the jury, which is comprised of people who aren't involved in the situation, ultimately comes to a verdict that is typically respected because they are collecting information from both sides and coming to a reasonable conclusion based on the facts. In this case, Landis is a friend of Lucas so you would think that he'd side with Lucas...but he still expresses an opposing view! And we can add Spielberg (another friend of Lucas) to that list as well. But of course, their metric is probably different than Lucas'. Perhaps they're thinking more along the lines of "movies are a product of their time and future alterations break that time capsule-esque illusion". And that's kind of how I think about it as well. With the Jedi Rocks sequence, perhaps I wouldn't think that it looks so out of place if it were in the live action Scooby Doo movie, or if it were in Attack of the Clones. But with Return of the Jedi, the clash between 1980s footage and 1990s CG is enough to break the illusion, although the latter in and of itself is not necessarily the problem.

 

That's true enough that they tell different stories. As far as the designs and themes being at odds, I'd disagree, since the stories compliment each other by their differences (the prequels being about the fall of a hero and the rise of evil, the originals being about the rise of a hero and the fall of evil) and the prequel designs evolve into the original trilogy ones over the course of the films.

Of course they belong in the same universe. Not only do they tell the two halves of the same story (or the first two acts of the same story, if we're taking the sequel trilogy into account), there a lot of interconnectedness; the the trilogies are build off each other and are designed to contrast. The same director directed or was involved with making most of them. Besides, differing tones and themes isn't good evidence that that the movies should be excluded from each other; the MCU has movies of differing tones and themes working together to create a single world.

Not really sure if any of the movies had severe tonal shifts. Some whole movies were different in tone (ANH and TMP were mostly lighthearted adventure, ESB, ROTS and R1 were darker stories, ROTJ and TFA balanced light-hearted adventure with darker material, and ATOC is it's own unique blend of good and bad), but all the movies have had comic relief, lighter and darker elements, black humor and the like. I've seen both the updated and the original versions of the movies. For all the outcry you hear, they're still essentially the same and most of the changes are cosmetic in nature (updating old effects, fixing continuity errors, and the like).

 

WebLurker

When I say they are at odds with each other, I think you missed my point. The GFFA that the OT takes place in, is a different GFFA than the one the PT takes place in. The OT galaxy contains a lot of George Lucas's ideas, but it also contains the ideas of many other people who helped create Star Wars into what it became. It was a mystical universe and it was only lighthearted in comparison to most 1970s films. It would hardly be considered lighthearted next to something like Pirates of the Caribbean or Marvel Comic Book movies. neither of which ever attempt to be seriously dramatic in any way.

The PT galaxy, on the other hand, is entirely the creation of George Lucas. He didn't design the costumes or do everything, of course, but the world creation, the character creation, was all his ideas and not in collaboration with others. In my opinion, the prequels are the films George Lucas always wanted to make, and the originals are the films he kind of doesn't like anymore, because he had his hands tied working with others and for the studio.

The original trilogy told the story of a young hero who sought out his destiny, who worked hard and trained hard and above all was loyal to his friends, until he was strong enough to overcome evil and tyranny and restore freedom to the galaxy. Along the way, he discovered his evil arch enemy was in fact his own father, and the story concluded with Luke trying to save whatever little good was left in him.

The prequel trilogy tells the story of a young boy who does whatever he wants and makes or finds excuses for his rotten, selfish actions. It does not tell the story of a fallen, great man, who succumbed to some psychological harmartia, but rather it tells the story of an inexperienced youth who pretty much was evil from the start.

Why anyone would think these two stories go together, I don't know. But it's particularly egregious when they are put together and it's insisted that they are part of one bigger story. In that case, the narrative becomes a dangerously false one. A rotten youth does whatever he wants, gets excuses made for him, and it's OK if he goes a little bad for awhile, because he's a pre-ordained savior, who then gets to kill and strangle and torture people for a few movies, but it's all good because he can redeem himself by just saving his son's life from some more bad guy in a sinister looking hoodie.

The first story is a retelling of the same morality tale that has been told for thousands of years or more, albeit with a fresh modern twist and groundbreaking special effects for the time. The second story is at least in my opinion not a very good one, and poorly executed, but I suppose there is a story to tell in there somewhere if it had been handled better. But as I said, the two stories thrust together and insisted upon being one, is egregiously offensive, dangerous, flat out false, misleading, and just plain wrong.

I don't want to comment on the prequel movies, but I will comment on the OT films:

Star Wars is not a light-hearted adventure flick. It has some fun moments to be sure, but the film still takes its material seriously. There are people who are burned alive in the movie and their charred, smoking skeletons are visible on the screen. A guy's windpipe gets crushed as he's murdered on screen. The princess gets tortured and she can be seen vividly quivering with fear. Many rebel pilots die in battle without guffaws or melodramatic goodbyes. They are just doing their job, kinda scared, hoping for the best, and then they are dead. Great pains were taken to recreate the pre-battle scenes that took place aboard aircraft carriers during WWII. Great pains were also taken to recreate WWII era dogfights, albeit in space. Star Wars was a serious film that just happened to have fun light hearted moments, and of course a happy ending during a decade when most films did not.

The Empire Strikes Back is not a dark movie. It is more nuanced, mature, and dramatic, than any other Star Wars film, but definitely not dark. The heroes suffer, the bad guys win. But we're not watching kids get murdered, or people getting eaten. This isn't Silence of the Lambs or American Psycho or Seven or anything like that. It's just more Shakespearean and "real" compared to everything else in the series.

Return of the Jedi does venture more and more into the realm of silliness. And that's not a coincidence that it was the first film George had complete control over, if you ask me. It is still a very fine movie in my opinion, but not the level of the first two, and everything in the series got worse after that. George Lucas added so many good things to the Star Wars universe, but the films gradually lost refinement and gravitas as they became only his creation.

 

What I feel is that they tell different parts of the same story and that the stylistic/thematic differences between all the episodes complement each other.
It's fine if you feel differently.

Sure it did. The SE just added to them.

 

The Yes-Men myth strikes again. George Lucas collaborated no more or less on each trilogy. By you standards, ANH was also created solely by Lucas, and I don't see you lumping that in with the PT.

Why anyone would think these two stories go together, I don't know. But it's particularly egregious when they are put together and it's insisted that they are part of one bigger story. In that case, the narrative becomes a dangerously false one. A rotten youth does whatever he wants, gets excuses made for him, and it's OK if he goes a little bad for awhile, because he's a pre-ordained savior, who then gets to kill and strangle and torture people for a few movies, but it's all good because he can redeem himself by just saving his son's life from some more bad guy in a sinister looking hoodie.


That's basically Vader in the OT as well. He gets redeemed for all his evil acts for one moment of redemption.

 

It's the same place, we just focus on different parts of it.

Um, I'm comparing the original movies to stuff I've seen, which is mostly things made in the last twenty years. As far as Marvel never attempting to be seriously dramatic, Winter Solider and the X-Men movies do just that. (Besides, most of the Marvel movies do take the character material seriously in the midst of the lighter storylines snd fluff, with real deaths, consequences, and so on, the same things you credit the original Star Wars movies for doing.)

So? He was the driving force behind both trilogies. It was his story they were putting onto film. Also, I'm not sure that he hates the original movies. He's never said as much and sure spent a lot of extra time working on them for no reason if he did. (Besides, all movies are collaborations by nature.)

That doesn't fly with what TMP shows and tells us.

Yes, Anakin is more flawed person than Luke was, and I will concede that the originals do work better in practice. However, without the prequels, there's no context that there's any good in Vader left to save in ROTJ; we're only told that at the last minute, which is bad writing.

I marathon them in chronological order often on. I'm speaking from first-hand experiences when I say that they do fit together.

I will concede that the movies don't address the ethics question of what the right thing to do with Anakin would've been had he lived past ROTJ. However, that's a problem with the original movies, not the prequels, since that problem already existed before TMP was even filmed.

My opinion is that the original trilogy is the better set of movies, but the story of the prequels is better on paper (as far as intent, outline, structure, etc.).

Not really, even granting the hyperbole. First of all, George Lucas (the man who wrote the darn story in the first place) has confirmed that they are two parts of a bigger hole, specifically a tragedy centering on Darth Vader (albeit the second half telling it from Luke's perspective and adding another plot as he becomes the new hero). Secondly, they feed off of each other; the prequels are incomplete without the originals, and the originals loose a lot of background and context without the prequels. Finally, they're numbered from one to six, which only makes sense if it's a single series.

They are somewhat separate, as they are thematically different and mirror each other. But, but creator's intent, they are part of a single cycle.

It's light-hearted in tone. While there are serious moments, we're not supposed to be seeing it as a serious war movie, but as a fun adventure. Most of the Death Star scenes (aside from Ben Kenobi's stuff) are played for laughs or meant to be processed as fun action scenes. There's a sense of joy to the movie.

There is a difference between taking the material "seriously" and being a serious movie. For example, the Raimi Spider-Man movies are not serious movies. They get away with a lot of cheesy stuff by presenting it with utter sincerity, have more over the top supporting characters and make the MCU look grounded in tone and serious in nauture. But the people creating those Spider-Man movies took the material seriously, putting everything together with care, and grounding the characters emotional states and journeys.

ANH is not a serious movie, it's a light-hearted movie overall which take the world and characters seriously. Your description of if actually sounds a lot like better modern-day blockbuster movies. In fact, your description would also fit Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a sillier movie than any of the Star Wars films to date.

False comparison. "Dark" doesn't need to mean gritty, disturbing, gory, hopeless stories. The material with Vader, Luke struggling with his new calling, the sense of more gravity and danger to the leads in comparison to the last time around. ESB is a dark movie, but it's not pitch black dark (which is I think what makes it a good darker movie).

It's also the movie that has the Emperor appearing in person to corrupt Luke and Vader being forced to make a decision. It's not all fun and games.

 

This is in response to both you and Weblurker, but I don't think that's the case. It works in the OT because we see his redemption through Luke's eyes. There is no audience connection to Vader in the original movies. He is a bad guy pure and simple. There is no love for him. But we love Luke, and dang, that sucks your father is head space Nazi, but I guess if you can find some good in him, we're happy for you Luke. Real ethical questions are ignored / glossed over through point of view.

 

However, there's no foreshadowing that Luke is right, much less any reason given for Luke to believe what he does. We've seen two whole movies of Vader being the totally evil bad guy, and the then in the last one we're suddenly told that no, he's not all bad. There's no set-up or anything. It comes across as 180 to get a happy ending. The prequels fixed this, in my opinion, by giving the needed backstory.

(The point I'm making is that, regardless of who's point of view it is, when taking the original movies by themselves, the groundwork needed for the Vader redeemed plot twist to make sense was not created. It may not ruin the movies, but it's still a flaw in the storytelling process.)

 

No I get that.

In the context of what can be done with the same material digitally as opposed to optically.

Let's propose a scenario where CGI as such didn't exist but digital composition did. Obviously in those terms that is the what is happening with any modern digital post-production from ground up original elements are being used.

If the SE's used models to create the new Yavin sequences instead of CGI then that whole argument falls away and it makes the underlying 'it doesn't fit' less workable.

These new shots are just as impossible for ANH in 77 though.

That only can work for a small segment of the audience though and a very small one. Lucas knows that over time this will mean nothing to the general audience.

As you know I am far more interested in the storytelling than a particular version of the story. The live-action, models and miniatures, matte paintings et all as well as the CGI added in are perfectly fine for me.

To me it's all illusion in the first place. If I accept a Yoda puppet barely moving and next to expressionless as being real then why would anything else that is far better bother?

The PT changes the meaning and context of the OT's story anyway making already great movies far,far better than they were in the first place (which is saying something) there is nothing they don't enhance in every measure

Stylistically they differ somewhat of course but far more alike than different on so many levels stemming from the silent movies and serials form. We are still talking about them as movies that are throwbacks in that sense. Thematically they are inversions of each other. That opposition is the tie that binds them together through the visual storytelling.

You can't get six movies that are more alike/unlike than them.

I have to say that is exactly what it is for the most part.

I don't know which of the films doesn't take the material seriously. ANH takes it comedy very seriously.

Yes but these things are hardly dwelled on. They happen, are reacted to then it's like they never happened. That was the nature of the serial aspect.

Fans for decades would disagree with you on that. To them it's a "dark" movie.

I'm not sure that more "Shakespearean and "real"" means. I would say that ROTS is very much that along with the nuancing. mature and dramatic as SW goes. As well as being actually dark.

ROTS is very much a Shakespearean tragedy.

The realm of silliness? Well more so that TESB but all that much less than ANH? I don't know. I guess it depends if you think that SW should be a human universe or that puppets are "real".

I know a lot of people obsess over the Ewoks yet take Chewbacca who is a very silly character very seriously so go figure.

ROTJ is also extremely serious. Far more serious than IV or V.

I don't know where you got that from. George had "complete" control over all of the movies as is possible for one person to have. You aren't talking about Kurtz are you? He had trouble keeping any order at all on the movies, failed both times on ANH and TESB and George had to do a whole lot of extra work. After all that he still didn't throw the guy under the bus publicly. What a great boss.

Added? He created the whole thing in the first place. So it was only his creation from the start then through others in the creative process his visions was realized.

Gravitas is terms of that kind seriousness is only really part of the SW universe and the PT delves into that aspect much more. As Lucas said decades ago that the OT was the more "fun" part of the story while the backstory is more epic and historic with the Jedi, Republic etc.

 

If we're talking about what fits and what doesn't, then the method isn't really important here (CGI vs. digital compositing of models). What's important is this question: Does it enhance the illusion or does it break the illusion? And like I said, the SE Battle of Yavin mostly works for me (besides the over-indulgent establishing shot of the X-wings). But if we look at something like Jedi Rocks, sure the CG creatures move with more fluidity than models ever could. But do they enhance the illusion or detract from it? To me, the way they look and move around makes them feel entirely out of place.

What the general audience thinks is an entirely different conversation though. We were originally talking amongst ourselves about what's better and what isn't (based on our own criteria). But if you want to say that out-of-place CGI will mean nothing to the general audience over time, then it also stands to reason that barely noticeable matte lines or stilted puppets will also get past this same audience undetected. So the people who will officially release the OOT know that the general audience is not going to have a problem with old effects.

 

No different going from a devastated Luke communicating with Vader via the Force to Threepio complaining about his leg not being attached and Artoo rolling backwards and falling on top of Chewie when the hyperdrive is repaired. A serious scene that goes into slapstick. Or the dramatic tension of getting aboard the Falcon with Threepio complaining about Chewie almost killing him, as Artoo drags him across the floor. Or Luke arriving on Dagobah and Artoo falls into the bog, comes up and sings a happy tune as he swims along before being swallowed up and then spit out by a large beast.

There's always been slapstick in serious scenes.

Yet, reviews of the time called it that. Hell, it was even called a kids film.

 

Star Wars definitely is a lighthearted adventure flick.

 

OOT. That abreviation makes me . There is the OT & the OT SE.

I'm sorry but theses people who sound like children who never grew up! Boo hoo! GL added digital enhanced model X-Wings in the Trench Run! My childhood ruined!

Please!

 

Most people here don't really mind that GL changed scenes. What we do mind, however, is the fact that the theatrical versions are not available officially in high quality.

 

At a recent q&a with Martin Scorsese at the BFI and broadcast on BBC2 last Saturday night, the director said this about colour film in the late seventies.

It was the point at which all films now had to be colour. That's when the colour system was at it's weakest. Because it was cheap and they needed lots of prints. In the right wrong circumstances it could take only 6 months for a print or even the negative to to start to lose its colour. That's one of the reasons Raging Bull was black and white. And even Star Wars. George Lucas shot it as if it had already faded. He said "Watch it. See how the white is sort of pink? So that when it fades, it still looks the same."

 

Yeah, i heard stories of how badly degraded the nonSE SW77 film stock became.

 

Ok. I will. No more insults.