The Original Trilogy DVD Release... CONFIRMED! - Page 7

Yes. That was Koo Stark as Cami. I have a picture of her in costume that I clipped out of some old Star Wars magazine up on the wall at work.

The scene occurs in the original novelization, but when I saw the film theatrically on opening night, it wasn't in the film.

Hello Mr. Cunningham. I hope you step back into the ring for the live action TV series, Mecha too. It is often more fun from here though, I agree.

Now they're calling the original cuts just a BONUS disc. This was not stated in the original press release. I went to the starwars.com site and found the original press release. They changed it; from this:

"In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie, as well as the original theatrical edition of the film. That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983."

To this:

"In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie and, as bonus material, the theatrical edition of the film. That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983."



I'm pretty much over it, as I'm not buying them. I just find it all amusing.

Yeah, I briefly considered it, but I'm out, too. Shitty Company.

What was it Han Solo said about delusions of grandeur?

Lynne Hale (publicity@lucasfilm.com):

I wanted you to know how much we appreciate the passion and enthusiasm you have for Star Wars, and thank you for sharing your concerns about our upcoming DVD release.

The DVDs being released in September will contain two versions of Star Wars: Episodes IV, V and VI – the Special Editions (which represent George’s vision of the movies) and the first versions, which will be included as bonus material. We hoped that releasing those “original” movies on a bonus disc would be a way to have some additional fun with the debut of the movies as individual DVDs. We certainly did not want it to become a source of concern or frustration for any of our fans.

As you may know, an enormous amount of effort was put into digitally restoring the negatives for the Special Editions. In one scene alone, nearly 1 million pieces of dirt had to be removed, and the Special Editions were created through a frame-by-frame digital restoration. The negatives of the movies were permanently altered for the creation of the Special Editions, and existing prints of the first versions are in poor condition.

So many fans have requested the original movies, we wanted to find a way to bring them to you. But since these movies do not represent George's artistic vision, we could not put the extraordinary time and resources into this project as we did with the Special Editions. The 1993 Laserdisc masters represented the best source for providing the original versions as DVD bonus material. Although these are non-anamorphic versions, they do preserve the original widescreen composition of the movies.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans – now or in the future – to restore the earlier versions.

We hope you will understand our decision and, again, want to let you know how much we appreciate your interest and enthusiasm.

Sincerely,
Lynne Hale
publicity@lucasfilm.com

A shorter version of that email:

Dear Star Wars Fans,

Here's your bone. Don't complain to us just because it's a dirty thirteen-year-old one. Now fuck off.

Sincerely,
Lucasfilm

"We want you to be aware that we have no plans – now or in the future – to restore the earlier versions."

P.S. - But, when Bill Gates becomes a trillionaire, George will keep beating this dead horse so he can join him in that club.

Im sure the prints are pretty clean so that does not bother me and the Williams score on a properly set up system (such as mine) will blow a away a tinkered 5.1 mix, but not being anomorphic is just plain bullshit

Interesting that "George's vision" is now once again referred to as the Special Editions. Note that the 2004 DVD release dropped the 1997 Special Edition tag, since they were supposed to be Lucas' final (as of 2004) and official versions of choice. But now they're "special editions" again. This all just goes to show that artistic revisionism is one motherfucker of a slippery slope.

That’s just so you can differentiate between the sets.

Any word on extra bonus materials. I've been a loyal lucas fan for just about as long as I live, but I all of this is such bullshit.

The extra bonus materials are the original movies.

Perfect g-dude.

What I hate is the attitude that the original films are looked on as some kind of blight by Lucas when they were the things that made the money that let him pretty much do whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Listening to the spin from the Ranch, you'd think that the Special Editions were what finally made the whole venture profitable.

This whole situation reminds me of that Chris Rock joke about when he got pulled over by the white cop, who told him he had stolen the car he was driving.

"He had me believing I stole my own car."

He hates the originals, fine, whatever. A lot of filmmakers hate their own work. But once it's in the public zeitgeist, it no longer belongs to you. Most sane filmmakers will admit this. Lucas for some reason can't get over the fact that he made them in the 70s and 80s... you didn't like the technology, okay... then why the fuck make the movies to begin with? All that aside, accept the fact the originals are landmark films, from that period, and at the very least deserve the same quality given to the special editions.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the one who's nuts.

I don't necessarily agree with that -- I think any artist has the right to go back and tinker with something they created. But the public has the right to hate that tinkering. And such tinkering should not completely blot out the existence of the original.

Imagine if the "special edition" of every classic film was the only version you could buy, or if those undeniably classic films got this shabby treatment upon DVD release. The world would be a much poorer place for movie fans. (Btw, I know there's a huge difference between those two suppositions. One is a much bigger foul than the other.)

Yeah, but no TRUE artist would ever do that - they'd be too busy creating, you know, more art.

I dont disagree with the rights of the artist, they can sodomize the original IPs for all I care. But to ignore the significance of your own creation is downright absurd. To play dumb, and create silly excuses as to why you wont give the original classics the same treatment as your revisions frankly pisses me off. It's not about the right of the artist, it's about give and take. There's a such thing as courtesy; hell Lucas is one of the most moral filmmakers in the biz. The irony of his behavior is downright eerie.

That was the point I was making earlier. Lucas seems to want to ignore that the initial impact of his beloved saga was made by the films in their original state. All his tinkering in the world won't change that, and to try to act like the fans' continued embrace of them is some kind of misguided nostalgia is almost insulting.

I remember when his alma mater USC was doing a decade-by-decade film retrospective and wanted to use Star Wars for the 70s, and he refused to allow them to use the original 1977 cut of the film, thereby completely undermining its usefulness as an example of 70s filmmaking. He's retroactively rewriting film history, and not for the better.

While I still in concept defend Lucas' decision to go back and alter his creation anyway he wants, it's the marketing angle of this that really bugs me.

I don't care enough about the movies at this point to give a rat's ass about Han shooting first or whatever. For all I care the next release of these movies can have farting armpit noises in place of John Williams' score.

BUT, to announce a product after years of consumer demand, only to recant and say 'sorry you got so excited about being offered an inferior product, that's not really the point of you buying these again anyway' screams of a crappy company being found out and going into damage control.

I believe them when they say it would have been expensive to produce higher-quality product, but I have a difficult time believing it would have been impossible, and a much harder time believng it would not have been profitable for them in the end.

I'm just not so sure about the profitable part. While they might be able to just use the already cleaned up & restored footage used in the 2004 release (not sure exactly how the digial restoration process works), they would still have to clean up the parts not used in the Special Editions. That would cost a pretty decent amount. Add to that at whole new sound mix, because obviously dialogue and music cues would be off from the SE versions. Then, factor in people that don't really care to repurchase this series when they've already bought the 2004 release (families, non-film fans, etc.).

It really boils down to a small group of people (when compared to everyone out there buying SW on DVD) that demand this, and would be willing to repurchase the special editions this release.

I haven't bought any of the SW DVDs because I know that someday they'll be released on HD-DVD, and by that point, I'll probably have an HD set. I have the OT on VHS (birthday present) and I'm willing to wait this out.

I love Star Wars (even the prequels, but in a different way) but I refuse to purchase these more than once. It's weird, because I purchased the Indy set on DVD, and yet I'm completely willing to re-purchase it when it comes out on HD-DVD. But I won't do it with Star Wars, because it and it's fans are just being milked for every dollar Lucasfilm can squeeze out of it.

EDIT: Ok, I just checked my email, and buddy of mine sent me these two pics, and I thought I'd post 'em here. First one is fully CG, created in Zbrush (3d modeling program). Second one is a look at what The DaVinci Code should've been...

I guess he was husky as a child!!

We're not talking about a major clean job. Most fans are up in arms and have stated they don't care about super clean prints. WE JUST WANT ANAMORPHIC. Before we knew there was going to be non-anamorphic, we were okay with the 2.0 sound. We were cutting Lucas alot of slack because we assumed he'd, you know, follow an ethical code and release basic anamorphic transfers, even if they were dirty, we didn't give a shit and would understand they couldn't afford a massive clean job. In fact, I was positive the prints wouldn't be very good, but I had no idea they'd have the audacity to release laserdisc boots without anamorphic. It's akin to buying one of the boots from ebay or something. At this point, I wouldn't be above exploiting Star Wars by grabbing the boots, something I was leary of before.

Lucas used to hand out profit points to people who contributed to Star Wars' success... you know, the DP, editor, staff. Some would become instant millionaires from Lucas' gesture. Yet the fans continually get shitted on, and we're the assholes.

Lucas has one last chance to make amends on home video: the inevitable six-film super-deluxe-boxset. It really should follow the ALIEN QUADRILOGY template:

- 2 discs for each film: 1) Seamlessly-branched, top-notch presentations of the Original Cut and the Final Cut, with commentary and 2) tons of all-new extras specifically devoted to that film.
- 1 or more archival discs for additional vintage material, trailers, etc.

If Lucas delivers that, I'll be a truly happy STAR WARS fan again...for the first time since 1997. Otherwise, I have my LDs and DVD bootlegs and I'll never buy any Lucasfilm product ever again.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

At least my boots are anamorphic, with a pretty decent 5.1 mix. It's sad that the black market variety of these films have gotten a better transfer than the official ones.

The X-O Project is a ways off from being completed, but hopefully those guys'll be able to make it happen. In some levels of geekdom, what they're attempting could be considered heretical, but a DIY digital remastering of the vintage SW trilogy is surely cause for canonization.

I'm still waiting for the fucking Apocalypse Set, with 5 discs for each of the original trilogy installments (the original version, the '97 special edition, and the '04 special edition, and two loaded special features discs), 4 discs for each of the prequel trilogy installments (theatrical version, DVD version, and two special features discs), and then Empire Of Dreams' disc, the Star Wars Holiday Special disc, a disc for each of the Ewok TV movies, and a couple more general special features discs. Basically two to three times bigger than that massive Matrix set that came out recently.

I'm very impressed by the amazing/insane work being done by the X0 Project. I'm just wondering how it will get distributed. I guess the same way any bootleg does. But at the rate they're going, they probably won't be done with the whole trilogy until two or three new home video formats from now.

From The Digital Bits:

STAR WARS: Openly contemptuous of its fanbase since June 1999.

Thats it - Im downloading them.....thanks George.

Star Wars is becoming like Star Trek its just never gonna die. When is that tv show coming?

which one - live action or Tarkofskys animated one?

Its true - it never ends....

Unfortunately, Genndy has nothing to do with the new "Clone Wars" Animated show. He was asked by LFL to come back to oversee it, but politely declined. Which I can understand, he's too creative to be pigeon-holed in this one more-than-established universe.

The new animated series is actually quite different. For one, the characters and designs have been redone. And it's also being made entirely CG.

I've been wondering about this series. Is it basically going to retell the same events from the CLONE WARS cartoon?

Further adventures within the same time frame?

They will be all new stories (with possibly a recurring major event here or there) but will take place during the same time-frame: the 3-4 years between AOTC and ROTS.

The episodes will also be about 23-25 minutes each (to account for full 30 minutes on TV).

To be honest, I'm still a bit perplexed by the decision to do a completely new (and different) animated series set within that same finite time period.

Doesn't this series have more of an animatic done for the films look to it?

Are the events from the CLONE WARS going to be cannon? Or will we get new verisons of events.

Eh, perplexing, indeed.

Top is the official release. Bottom is one of the fan-made LD transfers

I guess it depends on what you consider canon. The cartoon shorts often conflicted with the comics. But you can make a good arguement around the fact that on the hierarchy of media, anything film wins out, especially with things like Star Wars. But the whole Asaj Ventress death and fight is totally different in the comics.

Eh, sorda. It's more stylized than that.

...and I take it these fan made transfers - which to my ever-so-slightly trained eyes look sharper - are torrent-able?

Per Lucasfilm, whenever there's a conflict between the latter, pre-Episode III cartoons and Labyrinth of Evil -- essentially -- Labyrinth "wins." There are several noted differences between the two stories (Grievous's kidnapping of Palpatine, et al), and where a discrepancy arises, the novel takes priority, being considered the more detailed.

In fact, the Tartakovsky cartoons are regarded in-universe as an entertainment "dramatization" of those events, which vary from "true" account (LoE) in certain respects...similar to the "true" Stargate SG-1 universe differing from the "fictionalized" 1994 feature film; the Macross TV series differing from the "fictionalized" Macross: Ai Oboete Imasu ka? movie, etc.

For anyone still interested in this, this site has posted a few clips in xvid format, including the Greedo scene. They look... not half bad actually. In my opinion, at least.