SW blu-rays have changes to the films again

[Frontier]

Complaining about Lucas while continuing to give him money seems... self defeating.

And it's what 98% of us do.

We bitch and moan and then go out and line his pockets with our hard earned cash.

I'm satisfied with the DVDs. Maybe in 10-15 years I'll buy the Blu-Rays. Or whatever format we're at then.

If I didn't detest VHS due to years of wrangling with it in a now-futile attempt to record all of Star Trek in the days before DVD allowed such to be compact efficient and quality, I'd likely have stuck with VHS copies, too.

 

[Yoda]

Last Star Wars home versions I bought were VHS, I think the last releases before the Special Editions hit theaters, does that make me part of the other 2%? Granted I went and saw the Special Editions and all the prequels in the theaters, but hey, ya gotta see something at least once to have a nice proper hatred of it

 

[ATimson]

All he has to do is take the original versions, take them through the process every movies goes through when it makes a good transfer between one format to another and then make them available. on the DVD.

That requires the original negative to be available. The one that was sliced up in 1996 to create the SEs.

It could possibly be recreated, if the excised negative bits are still around, but it's not as easy as it is for most other films.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The logical move, or in fairness to be more accurate, the one I would have had done if it were my show, would have been to do a full digital restoration of the original editions first, and then do the Special Editions as deltas to those digital versions. Just sayin'.

 

[ATimson]

The logical move, or in fairness to be more accurate, the one I would have had done if it were my show, would have been to do a full digital restoration of the original editions first, and then do the Special Editions as deltas to those digital versions. Just sayin'.

You're suggesting that he should have used technology that just didn't exist then. Remember: the Special Editions were released in 1996 (and worked on before that). They didn't have the digital intermediate technology that we do now. Even The Phantom Menace's final cut was done on film, not digital.

So had he done what you'd suggested, they would have only been able to release the Special Editions with an extra two generations of duplication loss (an extra interpositive then the negative from which the SEs would be cut), which kinda misses the point of the restoration process. ("Let's clean it up and then make it look crappy again!")

 

[CorporalCaptain]

OK, thanks.

No, I would not have proposed introducing reductions of quality. In my ignorance I simply did not know that digital technology of the mid-1990's was simply not up to the task.

 

[TheSeeker]

So you're telling me there was no way to scan in the original negatives at higher than DVD resolution back then? And why did they have to cut up the negative?

 

[ATimson]

So you're telling me there was no way to scan in the original negatives at higher than DVD resolution back then?

They had the tools to scan at 2K (basically 1080p), and could work with individual sequences at ILM at that resolution, but they didn't have the editing/workflow abilities to pull it all together into a final product. This would also result in a downgrade in resolution to all scenes, instead of just the ones that were touched up.

And why did they have to cut up the negative?

They needed to create a new internegative to use for making prints to distribute to theaters. To create this, they had three workflow options:

1) Cut the original camera negative, and create a new interpositive/internegative. This means the original film is gone, but will have the highest quality results.

2) Cut an internegative, and create another interpositive/internegative. This will keep the original film intact, but adds quality loss.

3) Cut an internegative, and create the prints from that. This will keep the original film intact, and skip the quality loss, but will damage the internegative as more prints are made meaning that eventually the work will need to be redone. (This also means that you can only make one print at a time, whereas normally multiple internegatives can be created for simultaneous duplication; time pressure may have prevented this.)

Lucas went with option #1, choosing a high-quality SE that would be preserved for the future, and letting the existing movie die out.

(None of this is to say that I like what Lucas did, just that I see why it was done.)

 

[davejames]

Even if it wasn't as pristine as the SE, I'm sure they could still put together a higher quality copy than what is currently out there.

That would be good enough for me.

 

[TheSeeker]

Interesting. It just goes to show how fast tech moves I guess.

 

[Davros]

All he has to do is take the original versions, take them through the process every movies goes through when it makes a good transfer between one format to another and then make them available. on the DVD.

That requires the original negative to be available. The one that was sliced up in 1996 to create the SEs.

It could possibly be recreated, if the excised negative bits are still around, but it's not as easy as it is for most other films.

The original theatrical version is already on DvD.

 

[ATimson]

All he has to do is take the original versions, take them through the process every movies goes through when it makes a good transfer between one format to another and then make them available. on the DVD.

That requires the original negative to be available. The one that was sliced up in 1996 to create the SEs.

It could possibly be recreated, if the excised negative bits are still around, but it's not as easy as it is for most other films.

The original theatrical version is already on DvD.

Yes, but what's on the DVDs isn't something that could "[go] through when it makes a good transfer between one format to another" as Trekker4747 wants.

 

[Harvey]

I wouldn't have minded the grainy transfer if it had just been anamorphic. But, of course, Lucasfilm wasn't even willing to go that far in releasing the theatricals on DVD. Shameful, really.

 

[Davros]

It looks fine on my TV.

 

[ATimson]

It looks fine on my TV.

I'm so, so sorry.

 

[RoJoHen]

It looks fine on my TV.

I'm so, so sorry.

 

[Harvey]

I'm glad you're happy with it, but it looks like garbage on any widescreen TV that I've ever seen.

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

For those who haven't heard, the audio to two scenes were leaked. The bit where The Emperor electrocutes Luke and when Obi-wan scares away the sandpeople.

They audio has been matched to 2004 dvd footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0EUjobdavw&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaSxSuB2vY&feature=youtu.be

Awful, ain't it?

 

[Harvey]

That...can't be real. Can it?

 

[David cgc]

If it isn't (and it probably isn't), Lucas should do some soul-searching about the fact that anyone wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

ETA: Okay, the first one seemed like bunk, but the second one seems like something Lucas would do.