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

Qui-Riv-Brid,

Wait a minute! The second you defending colorization is the exact second that you lose any ability to take a stance on artists’ rights. You do realize that directors like Frank Capra and John Huston went screaming before Congress that colorization was an atrocity that never should have occurred in the first place.

So if we’re gonna take an artists’ rights position, then the only opinion you can have about colorization is that it was an atrocity that never should have happened in the first place. Or you can praise colorization, but by doing so, you’re also conceding that George Lucas’s opinions on which version of STAR WARS we should be allowed to see is absolutely irrelevant. To claim that Lucas has artists’ rights but that Capra and Huston don’t for some reason is just sheer hypocrisy.

 

coughALSOGEORGELUCAScough

 

Not at all.

I said I have no problem with colorization.

As in personal problem (like actually viewing it.)

The argument about it was about the intersection between the legal and artistic.

Yes. As the above with Capra, Huston etc all never did "own" the movies in the first place or in some cases if they did (or were partners) they sold them or lost them or whatever.

Never happen in the first place?

I don't think so. What the artists' rights were when they didn't actually own the works is a legal/moral/ artistic question which like so many other things had to be questioned and worked out in some way.

Not to mention technical. No one was thinking about the question until the alterations could actually happen now were they?

This was an extension of the alteration and cutting of movies and brings up the question of is anyone really preserving them properly in the first place?

If Jack Warner had said The Maltese Falcon was going to be in color than Huston would have made it in color. He had no choice of it being in B&W in the first place or actually a lot of what happened on the movie. Depending on the movie who were all the artists and what does it all mean?

If someone else working on the film said it was great for it to be in color what does that mean?

Again not really. One can take exactly that position if they want to because Lucas is a very special case as he actually was the artist and creator of Star Wars as well as the owner (not to mention it was his finances that made 5 of the 6 movies). Later he also got ownership of ANH.

Now purely going by the artist's rights then one should have no real problem with what Lucas has done.

Exactly. Lucas as the artist can therefore should be given the same rights as Huston, Capra etc.

His position of course is far stronger than any of those who didn't also actually create the movie not from another medium.

 

So far, we’ve gotten a new master every seven years (1997-2004-2011).

 

Each worse than the one before.

 

And according to Lucas, the legal side of it is (or at least should be) irrelevant. He said as much to Congress.

Um, so you’re saying that Lucas gets special artists’ rights on the basis of being a billionaire business mogul? Well, then that’s a defense of capitalism, not artists’rights. And by that logic, if the Walt Disney Company said, “From now on, we will only release the original unaltered versions of the first three movies. Henceforth, the Special Editions and the prequels will be permanently buried in the Disney Vault, right next to SONG OF THE SOUTH, never to be seen again.” After all, Lucas sold the movies, so you should just accept whatever Disney decides to do, right?

In which case, just admit that you don’t give a damn about artists’ rights. Whatever the reasons for filming THE MALTESE FALCON in black and white, that’s how it was filmed and Huston wanted it to stay that way. If Huston’s desire for THE MALTESE FALCON to remain in black and white is irrelevant, then so is Lucas’s desire to insert a bunch of digital garbage into the frame.

No, you’re just being a hypocrite who wants to uncritically defend George Lucas’s every bowel movement while simultaneously maintaining that colorization is not an abomination. And defending it based on Lucas’s ownership of the copyright is a particularly horrid and nasty form of classism and snobbery that even Lucas would find disgusting, because what you’re really saying is that Lucas should have special rights on the basis of being a billionaire. After all, Lucas himself said that artists’ rights should always trump those of the copyright owner:

Lucas’s stance is pretty clear. Copyright owners should not have the right to alter works of art solely on the basis of being the copyright holder. That right does not belong to Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch or whoever. That right belongs to people like John Huston and Frank Capra and…yes, George Lucas. So if you wanna go and be one of Lucas’s “cultural barbarians”, go ahead. Just don’t ever ask anyone to take you seriously.

And some of the films in question undoubtedly belong to the artists who went screaming about colorization being an abomination. When Ted Turner threatened to colorize CITIZEN KANE, Orson Welles famously declared, “Keep Ted Turner and his goddamn Crayolas away from my movie!” (Only some contractual legalese going back to the 1940s prevented Turner from colorizing CITIZEN KANE.) That movie was an original screenplay and no one can deny that CITIZEN KANE belongs to Orson Welles. And don’t use the Pauline Kael argument to discredit Welles’ role as the primary artist behind CITIZEN KANE…because the minute you mention Herman J. Mankiewicz, I'm gonna start bringing up Gary Kurtz, Irvin Kershner and Lawrence Kasdan. CITIZEN KANE belongs to Orson Welles every bit as much as STAR WARS belongs to George Lucas.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is adapted from a short story, but Frank Capra adapted and expanded it to such an extent that the final movie is undoubtedly his.

anakinfan edit: Nope. You don’t get to pick and choose which artist has rights based on your own personal preference or based on whichever artist has the most money. Lucas does not get special rights, which is what you’re advocating for. He gets the exact same rights. No more, no less. And since according to you, the rights of people like Capra, Huston and Welles amount to zilch, so do Lucas’s…according to you! According to me, I think the Special Edition has every right to exist. I have no love for Lucas’s desire to banish the original versions to dustbin of history, and I have little-to-no respect for that aspect of the Special Edition, but all other things being equal, they have the right to exist. That’s more than I’ll ever say for the colorized versions of THE MALTESE FALCON and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

 

Sorry but I don't know how you get that. The questions should be asked though I myself would prefer the artist's rights as such but in law there must be definitions.

Lucas is in a special position almost unique position as the artist and owner and an independent.

I don't see what in any way shape or form the prequels have in this and the SE's are clearly the artists rights.

It's not as I said but he was certainly not the sole artist or even the originator like Lucas is of SW. Now by then the other artists were all gone so JH was about the only one left to have any say.

I don't disagree for the most part. Who the actual artists are has to be determined case by case. Lucas as before was the artist and copyright owner so his vision is total.

I've said over and over again I would like the "originals" (Which means different things)out in some form and the Han Greedo scene doesn't really work in any SE form (but at least the last version is acceptable).

If it works out then never do then that is too bad but they and the 97 SE's should also be out.

 

He's not the owner anymore. And since Disney had about as much to do with the original STAR WARS trilogy as Ted Turner had to do with MALTESE FALCON and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, I think it’s a perfectly valid comparison. What gives Ted Turner the right to change a film over the artists’ objections, but not Disney.

In which case, his desire for it to remain in black and white trumps Turner’s desire to colorize it. And Huston was every bit as much the primary artist on MALTESE FALCON as Lucas was on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

And even if you think the Huston example is “questionable” (although granted, that opens the whole can of worms regarding just how much credit Lucas really deserves for EMPIRE), that doesn’t negate the examples of Welles and Capra.

And even putting everything else aside, if Huston is indeed the only artist who’s still alive, then his opinion is definitely the only one that matters, since everyone else is dead and can’t consent to anything.

Except you’re adding a bunch of caveats that Lucas never added. I should remind you that Lucas’s position was hardly nuanced. His position was that copyright owners should not be able to screw around with the works of others, which was the case with colorization. No ifs, ands or buts. He referred to anyone who’d change a work without the artist’s consent as a “cultural barbarian”. And for once, I’m siding with Lucas.

Whatever else I may say about Lucas, he does have the right to alter his own films. Ted Turner does not have the right to alter the works of others. Both Lucas and I strongly believe in that. We also consider it an act of vandalism whenever a work is altered

 

So therefore you are on Lucas' side regarding the SE's as the only version that should be available then?

Also it still doesn't work the same because Lucas did sell to Disney for a relative pittance and so the idea that he wrote into the contract protections for his artistic vision seems even more likely. That way Disney can't do anything about it anyway without his approval. Which might very well be the case.

Not really. The Maltese Falcon is very much an adaption of the novel and not an original work. There is no real comparison to that or any of the SW movies.

There is no can of worms on TESB. Lucas wrote the story, created the characters, wrote the script then handed it over to LK to rewrite (then Lucas rewrote it as he pleased). It's his vision. IK did a lot of good work but so does everyone on the movies. Rob Coleman did a ton of work on the PT. He was a great collaborator on those movies like IK was on TESB and like so many others. TESB doesn't exist as it does if Lucas just says to IK and LK "Go make a movie and I'll have nothing to do with it."

Without Lucas TESB as we know it simply cannot exist. If Lucas hires a different writer and director then we have a different version of the same movie. If it's IK and LK only then it's not the same movie.

Not in public. He was talking to simple minded politicians who are not the brightest of people.

It's about when not done by the artist. The SE's were so it really isn't an issue. The real issue is that he didn't also release the "original" versions.

 

To play devil's advocate, why was he obligated to? He was one of the people who had the right to it, which included distribution. Also, the theatrical versions did have post-Special edition releases: VHS in 1995, DVD in 2004 and again in 2008.

 

Lucas didn't have to release anything. Would it have been nice if the OOT got the same HD restoration treatment as his perpetually changing special editions? Absolutely. But it didn't. And so the OOT was stuck in a home video quality representative of the early 90s. And back then, it was probably a treat just to be able to watch Star Wars at home. But today, in the land of Blu-ray, HD televisions, and 4K videos on YouTube.....the OOT's home video quality looks pretty awful in comparison. Thankfully though, we have things like Harmy's Despecialized editions and the upcoming 4k77 project to satisfy our desires for an HD OOT.

And to address the argument that the OOT has gotten numerous releases after the special editions.....well, it's somewhat true (although the 1995 release came out before the Special Editions and was technically not completely theatrical since it had "Episode IV" in the crawl). But if we actually look at what was put out, we can see that the best looking release out of these was one that was sourced from a 1993 LaserDisc master. So I suppose one could argue that he did release the OOT in 2006 and then again in 2008, but that's missing the larger point of it being an archaic release. Like Lucasfilm could put out those same DVDs again and people still wouldn't be happy. We don't want a 1993 release slapped onto a modern format. Instead, we want a proper HD restoration of the original movies from their original film elements (the original negative, the interpositive, separations masters, etc.).

Regarding Lucas' statements and subsequent actions, they were partially hypocritical and partially not. Partially not because he argued against corporations changing an artist's work; and since he's the artist altering his own work, he's technically not contradicting that. But on the other hand, one of the arguments he put forth was that altering works of art causes them to lose their historical and cultural context; so by altering his own work and making that the only one available to purchase, he has contradicted his own prior argument. But whatever. He's an imperfect human being, just like the rest of us. What else is new? And honestly, I don't really have any negative feelings towards him. Because in the end, I have what I want in the form of a fan project. And it's going to get even better in the future. And on the official front, Disney may even put out an official release. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

To be honest, I can symphatize with GL. He always despised the studio interference in his work, and now many fans were saying: "You're SE sucks! Your new movies suck! Give us the movies we want, you hack!" I can understand why he would be less than enthousiastic about such a proposition.

 

Yeah, I forgot about that until after I'd typed it. As far as the "Episode IV" part in the title, I'd personally let it slide, since it has no effect on the story itself, but that's me.

I could be wrong about this, but as I understand it, there were several different sound mixes, with differences, so which is the "original?"

I don't see how Lucas is being hypocritical. His point has always been that the artists should be the ones to decide if alterations should be made or not. Frankly, the Special Editions are no different from a director's cut. The question of whether the original versions should be given new releases is a different topic.

 

Yeah me too. He's always had that rebel mindset. Back in the day, he rebelled against the studios and insisted on making his movies the way he wanted them, not the studios. And with the SE backlash, it's easy to imagine that he'd now view fans in the same way that he saw the studios: as people demanding something that goes against his vision.

Yeah it's not the biggest deal in the world.

You're right. They are all considered "original". If all are released, then that would be great. If only the one that most people heard gets released, then that's okay too.

Like I said, he was partially being hypocritical. While it's true that he had advocated for artist rights, another argument he put forth against colorization was that altering works of art would cause them to lose their context (source):

Here, Lucas talks about a film's original context and how colorizing black & white movies prevents young people from being able to appreciate films for what they were. So the SE on its own doesn't do that, but the fact that the SE is the only version of the movie available to purchase & is the version of the movie that most newcomers will watch means that most people will be experiencing the movies without their original context. So one of the things Lucas argued against ended up happening to Star Wars, and it was completely his own doing.

 

There's actually a really minor problem the Episode IV crawl creates, in that a musical cue misses its mark when the camera pans down and reveals the curvature of Tatooine, but like it's been said, it's not the biggest deal. I'd 100% be fine with a release that had the Episode IV – A New Hope opening crawl as long as everything in the film proper is as it was.

 

Yep. I want to totally toss my bluray set, because I don't even bother with the BR edits of the OT, but I watch the PT/Bonus discs inside quite a bit. Still crossing my fingers for a release so I can chuck those discs out the window.

 

I bought the blu-rays for the special features. Deleted scenes and 3 of the 4 classic making of documentaries. Boycotting the release was never an option.

 

Oh, i got it. But I am still dissatisfied with the changes, even though the only one I outright hate is the NOOOOO at the end of ROTJ. If the regular cuts ever come out, i'll be chucking those discs in favor of those.

 

Can't edit, but something else that annoys me about the blurays is that I have to keep the DVDs for the special features and documentaries...which is annoying.

 

The blu ray release does seem to be a total mess. Have you seen the Harmy doc? I can't get over how shoddy the colour grading is. I for one would like an official release that's as close to the oscar winning version as possible. For posterity sake.

 

It truly is. The discs are big enough that we could've gotten the movie, commentaries, and bonus features on one disc, and extra features on the others. But who knows, i have them on the PT DVDs / OT Bonus disc set. Right now my eyes are on the UOT, opposed to extra features.

 

theMaestro wrote

But if we actually look at what was put out, we can see that the best looking release out of these was one that was sourced from a 1993 LaserDisc master.

Wasn't that the same one they used for the DVD? IIRC, it was plagued by newly introduced horizontal line-jitter (no line-doubler or video processor can ever correct these "jaggies" at the edges) or the extra motion blur when characters move their heads.

So that would only leave the "non-digital enhancement" (what a euphemism!) LBX variations like the Japanese, French or German as previous "best-looking" releases.

Keeping my fingers crossed that with the home video release of Rogue One next year, we might also get the theatrical version of "Star Wars" for the 40th anniversary in a palatable HD version.

 

In a recent interview in a publication l'd never heard of before, Little White Lies, Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One, stated that Lucasfilm has a completed 4K restoration of A New Hope that he was invited to watch.
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=12854783&postcount=3883

 

I hope that's true. The film that started all of this deserves the best treatment.