CT STAR WARS LEGACY EDITION - RESTORATION OF THE 1977 ORIGINAL STAR WARS

Well if a person in the film has a face like a pink elephant, this is most likely a color timing mistake. Of course every restoration has mistakes, but if a restoration has many of them, or if a restoration introduces many artifacts that are obviously not meant to be visible, it is fair to say it is a poor or even terrible restoration.

An alternative color timing as a creative choice is not terrible perse, but if that alternative color timing is poorly executed, than I think the fans should press Lucasfilm to improve their quality standards.

This in of itself has little to do with whether you prefer the SE over the OOT or the other way around. Aside from the fact that I believe the OOT deserves a proper restoration, which luckily now exists, I think if there are to be SE, they should conform to a high standard of quality as well. They clearly do not...

 

That's opinion though. Love your avatar by the way.

 

Lucas is both the owner and creator. Yes, film is collaborative, but the buck stops with one person - Lucas, as it does with the majority of films. Otherwise, why even have a director? Films need one (or maybe two) people to direct and oversee the production to get the script on screen on budget and on time. Without Lucas, there would be no Adventures of Starkiller script which turned into Star Wars which became a phenomenon. The technicians and collaborators are working for Lucas in getting his ideas and concepts on screen. This is not difficult to understand and your argument is based purely on semantics at this point.

 

I think it is a little more complex than that. George his ideas and concepts evolved through discussions with others. He had concepts, but he needed the help of other artists to flesh them out. The first edit of Star Wars that was done by GL, is said to have been terrible. It's not until Marsha Lucas, Richard Chew, and Paul Hirsch stepped in that the film became the exciting adventure we now take for granted. These people even won an Academy Award for Best Editing on Star Wars. However, in the SE this Oscar winning editing is replaced by CGI or changed by the inclusion of new scenes. The same is true for the Best Sound Award, and the Best Visual Effects Award. When you look at the SE this award winning artistry is nowhere to be heard, and in case of the visual effects a large part again replaced by CGI. These are not semantics. This is a man that says it's my film with my name on it. He forgets that there are hundreds of other names on it as well.

In case of TESB and ROTJ there are two directors, who are not GL. The screenplays were not written by GL (although he did of course write a few drafts of TESB). TESB is essentially Irvin Kerschner's film. GL himself admitted it was not the film he wanted it to be, which is a clear indication the buck did not stop at one person. I mean he wasn't around for most of the filming. He didn't edit it. However, because he owns the franchise he can change it, so he does.

 

It is definable because in our job as asset producers there are such things as mistakes. Most jobs have them. For example, if you are a vascular surgeon and you forget to seal a hemorrhaging artery and the patient dies, that is a mistake - even if the patient was an ******* and people are glad he's dead. If the surgeon fails this way 100 times in a row, he is a terrible surgeon. It is not his intent to kill his patients, he made mistakes and they died. Similarly, there are some very basic, quantifiable parameters which define our processes as colorists and/or film restoration artists, and failing to handle them properly constitutes mistakes. I realize that for all the behind-the-scenes videos out there, the average person has no real idea what goes into color correction/restoration/asset preparation, but there are some very basic, technical things you have to do, and then sitting on top of that foundation are all the varying creative choices made by...whomever, really. If James Cameron decides he wants to turn Aliens pink, there are actually correct ways to do that, and incorrect ways. The correct ways will turn Aliens pink; the incorrect ways will generate artifacts and banding, destroy luminance relationships, obfiscate details; a whole host of problems will emerge. Mistakes. A version of Aliens riddled with these mistakes would be a terrible release.The SE restoration of Star Wars is, primarily, a collection of these basic mistakes. As pointed out multiple times now, this has nothing to do with the average person's awareness of, nor enjoyment of these mistakes. I personally find that alarming, but it's also not my problem; I'm good at my job and don't make basic errors. Anymore.

 

Be respectful.

 

No Lucas, no Star Wars. End of story. Every filmmaker has collaborators, but ultimately the decisions are his/her and that's where the buck stops.

Lucas also wrote first drafts of all of the Star Wars films, even Empire and Jedi. Lucas fingerprints are in those movies, through and through, even if he physically was unable to be on set every day. He wrote the first (or more) drafts, supervised the pre-production and concept designs, set designs, visual effects, etc. Lucas also did edit Empire and tinkered with it up until the last minute. Everything was riding on that film and he was so nervous. Kersh and the others had to assure him that it was going to be a big hit.

 

The kinds of incompetent errors in the SE are, relatively, as serious in the job of "asset production" as my theoretical physician's are in his line of work. For another example: If you are a NASA technician, forgetting to tighten a screw, which blows up the space shuttle, is a basic mistake. If you are a bricklayer, and you forget to bring the bricks, that, too, is a basic mistake. They are both basic mistakes. They have, objectively, wildly different degrees of seriousness in consequences, yet are both equally, basically incompetent in their respective jobs. To sum: If we are working in the field of asset production, and we make a litany of basic mistakes, we are incompetent. If we are working in the field of medicine, and we make a litany of basic mistakes, we are incompetent. These mistakes have different levels of consequence, but both represent incompetence at the most fundamental level.

I hope this clears things up for you!

Thanks!

_Mike

 

Be respectful. Last warning.

 

Since you continue to think I am making comparisons between consequences, instead of comparisons between levels of competence, then I must apologize for not being more clear. As Daddy to a 4-year-old, I am practiced in the art of simplifying things for understanding, but apparently I need more practice. I hope others have not found my metaphors as confusing and upsetting as you have.

 

Are you going to do Empire and Jedi as well? I worry about Empire. The prints fade and there are no Technicolor IB prints to help with color correction. Jedi's prints are at least less likely to fade since they changed stocks.

 

I talk about that quite a bit on the Legacy forum. The short answer: we'll see.

 

My old VHS tape of ANH is starting to wear out. I hope we get restorations within the next decade.

 

We need to be vocal about our desire to see this officially released in some form. Let TPTB know we want the original version of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi-remastered in 4K and available.

 

Actually TESB was also edited by Paul Hirsch, who also worked on Star Wars. GL was certainly involved in every aspect of the movies, but that doesn't change the fact that many others contributed significantly to it's success. No George Lucas, no Star Wars indeed, but the success of a film or franchise depends on so much more than one man's vision. It is the collaborative effort and circumstanes that made that film the phenomenon that it is. The 1977 version, not some weird blend of '70s film making, '90s and '00 CGI, and '00s color timing. It is that film that made history, and deserves to be preserved. Everybody is free to enjoy the SE, but that version is historically insignificant, no matter how great GL thinks it is, compared to it's first incarnation. In a few decades time nobody will care about GL's obsessions, just like nobody cares that Frank Sinatra hated My Way in the later stages of his career or fumbled the lyrics of Strangers in the Night, because he despised the song.

Anyway, when GL said: " The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition].", he did not take into account the presence of Mike Verta. History will remember, even if GL doesn't want it to.

 

People who own a copy of Virgil's Aeneid should be ashamed of themselves. Virgil wished for the poem to be burned. Respect the artist, people!

 

Who cares? Virgil is long dead and his work is obviously in the public domain. It really isn't an analogous situation at all.

As far as I know, Lucas never confiscated any copies of the OOT that he didn't literally own. No one is under any obligation to destroy their VHS tapes or LaserDiscs or any film prints which they actually have a legal right to own, and Lucas never asked anyone to. In fact, he explicitly pointed out that people still have those and can watch them for as long as they're able to. They can even make hardier copies for their own personal use to preserve them for themselves and for future generations, and there's nothing Lucas would or could do to stop them. They just can't distribute them to others without permission, which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

When Lucas is dead and gone, and assuming Disney's copyright ever expires, then everyone can go hog wild selling their own copies of the OOT. By that point, though, I wouldn't be surprised if the only people who actually cared were film historians.

Or maybe some clause in Disney's contract will expire and then they'll release them, or maybe there is no clause and they're just waiting for Lucas to die, or maybe they'll do it tomorrow or next year or five years from now. But don't be mad just because Lucas did what he wanted to do with his own artistic creation while he still had control over it.

As a hypothetical example, I don't come into your house and demand copies of your embarrassing high school poetry that I heard you read in class once, no matter how much historical importance I may place on it personally. But if I happen to take a peek at it while I'm in your room and make my own copy, then sure, I'm going to read it and laugh at it and then put in a vault to laugh at later, even if you tell me to burn it. The rules work the same way for Virgil, and Lucas, and every other artist.

 

In a couple of decades the SW movies will get remade. Or people might not care about the franchise anymore. If there is a clause preventing this though expect the full vision to be the ones released. What Mike Verta is doing is a fan film for his self.

 

His self and many other fans who want to see the originals restored, and treated with the respect they deserve...

 

I'm doing it for posterity and preservation of a significant cultural work. It was the original 1977 version of Star Wars which created the phenomenon upon which every sequel - from ESB to Star Wars 7 - every toy, every spinoff, every technology, every tentpole-tie-in film since is based.

 

Take a look at Amazon's page for the SE Steelbook.

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Episode-Steelbook-Blu-ray/dp/B013JAFWLE/ref=pd_bxgy_74_text_y

People want the original versions. I hope Lucasfilm/Disney addresses the issue soon. If Lucas is still stopping this, let us know so we can place the blame in the appropriate place.

 

For me it's not even a matter of "place the blame," but rather getting my hopes up every time a major event occurs that Lucasfilm is present at. Just pull the band-aid off, already.

 

Mike, how are you treating the 1977 film's soundtrack? I used to have a link to a fascinating article which described (IIRC) the three different soundtracks Star Wars had in theatres in 1977. I think there was an initial soundtrack, a soundtrack for theatres with very wide screens, and a soundtrack that came a bit later in the summer of '77 that has since come to be known as the definitive soundtrack of the original film.

 

Legacy has access to several versions, including the 70mm six-track. The 70mm is my personal favorite, the Mono mix my least, but all need saving. Most of us grew up listening to a Dolby Stereo mix, so there's some nostalgia there, but from a preservation standpoint, it's important to have them all.