Star Wars Blu-rays in the Works

[Barnzilla]

[jellydonut25]

[canofhumdingers]

I'm having trouble locating the exact quote, but I did find this from (an EXCELLENT site, albeit still under construction. it's by the guy who wrote The Secret History of Star Wars, and runs the ).

"...it was surprising when Cameron remarked in an Entertainment Weekly interview that it "disturbs" him that Lucas is "re-writing history" with his Special Editions..."

Which I think really sums up the opinions of MOST original Original Trilogy fans... George can make all the changes he wants (heck, remake the whole dang saga for all I care) but NOT AT THE COST OF THE ORIGINALS. His current practice is to essentially wipe the originals out from history & replace them with his (current) "the way I 'always' meant them to be" versions....

By the way, if you're interested in pretty honest & unbiased look at the real history of how star wars came about (as opposed the official line of the Lucasfilm machine), along with the current state of the original Original Trilogy, I highly reccommend perusing the sites mentioned above. As well as the books Secret History of Star Wars by Micheal Kaminski (covers all 6 films) and the 1983 book Skywalking by Dale Pollock (for which he is apparently on Lucasfilm's blacklist forever now, even though there's really nothing very harsh in the book, though it is very honest and doesn't try to polish over George's shortcomings like writing dialogue).

[canofhumdingers]

Ah! it is!

Entertainment Weekly: You mentioned these six minutes of new scenes. Are you one of these guys like George Lucas who likes to go back and tinker with their old films?

James Cameron: I’m not into revision. I think every film should be exactly as it was executed in the moment. We’re not changing the rest of the film, we’re just dropping these scenes in. I actually don’t believe…like when George went back and put new creatures into the original Star Wars, I find that disturbing. It’s a revision of history. That bothers me. I certainly wouldn’t go back and do that to any of my films. A film I made in 1984, it’s what it is. It’s a creature of its time. But with these new scenes we’re adding, I think people certainly had an appetite for more Avatar than we gave them. Nobody complained about it being too long. The scenes we’re putting back are righteous scenes, they’re not Jake sitting around talking about his childhood.

[jellydonut25]

[canofhumdingers]

I just saw the most amazing thing. I know I've mentioned originaltrilogy.com and the efforts of its members to preserve and restore the original versions of the Star Wars Trilogy, since George Lucas is too stubborn...

Well, a new restoration was just released called the STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD. That's right, HD as in Hi Definition.... And you can actually make what's called an AVCHD disc on a dual layer DVD-R with a standard dvd burner which can then be played in standalone bluray players (such as the PS3, which is what I use) like it was an actual bluray. All I can say is this is absolutely astounding. It's been cobbled together from numerous sources, the primary of which is a capture of the HD tv broadcasts on cable of the current version of the trilogy. It's been heavily color corrected and had all the SE changes removed and changed back to the original version using the best source possible. Now, alot of the original footage that was put back in had to be pulled from SD sources, but the guy did such a fantastic job that it actually blends really well. I mean, you can spot it if you're looking for it, but it doesn't jump out at you in distracting fashion. At its worst, it's really no more obtrusive than a reel change on an older film print. At it's best you'll never even realize it's from an SD source (seriously, some of it's THAT good). There are still some minor nits to pick (Ben & Vader's lightsabers are still the SE versions, which are significantly different than the original versions, in their duel on the Death Star) but over all it's really just incredible work.

If you want to see screencaps with before & after as well as explanations of how this was achieved, .

I think that's probably all I can say about it without violating board rules, so if you want to know more, you'll have to use your deductive reasoning skills to figure out where to go....

[SeaHawk]

Have they restored only the original so far?

[canofhumdingers]

No, he's also done ESB & is currently working on ROTJ. I think ESB actually came out first, but I just got ANH & it's the first one I've seen.

Another member did a pretty awesome SD anamorphic DVD5 theatrical reconstruction of ESB that I have. But I haven't gotten the newer AVCHD Despecialized Edition of ESB (yet...).

[Joseph Goodman]

[canofhumdingers]

yeah, those shots are how I found out the cliff had been changed back to its original form.

Also, I need to correct something I said about the incredible HD Star Wars Despecialized Edition. The lightsabers in Vader & Obi-wan's duel are NOT the same as they appeared in the 2004 SE dvds. I was right in that they are not the original sabers, but they HAVE been redone to make them more closely resemble the original rotoscoping. It's not perfect (as I was able to tell they weren't original pretty quickly) but they DO look better than the official dvd versions...

[Dr Kain]

[Legion]

[canofhumdingers]

^^^Which is why I can't reccomend the Despecialized Editions enough. That is as close to a Bluray of the original cuts as we're going ot get (& it's really VERY good!).

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

[Legion]

[jellydonut25]

[canofhumdingers]

[Dr Kain]

[Legion]

[canofhumdingers]

Heh, I'm one who would strongly disagree with Kain. THe changes TOTALLY ruin the movies for me. Every time a crappy cgi dinosaur walks across the screen in a film from 1977, I'm sucked right out of the movie. Everytime I'm reminded that the prequels exist by something added to the OT, I die a little inside.

The very fact that there are numerous extremely talented people working on preserving the original cuts themselves over at originaltrilogy.com proves that there is demand (& quite high, really) for the originals. Heck, the fact that a site like that exists at all (and the hundreds of thousands who signed the original petition) is proof that a lot of people disagree with Kain....

But then, Kain does live in that crazy negaverse... Though I really don't appreciate the attitude you're taking here. "I don't agree with you so I'm right & you should shut up & buy them anyway!" Really? That's incredibly rude and ignorant. The Blurays don't contain ANYTHING I want to own, or even see. Why on earth would I spend money on that? Thankfully there are people smarter and more talented than me over at ot.com who are doing incredible work to preserve the films I DO want to see & thus filling the void that Lucasfilm refuses to. I don't understand it, as Lucas has clearly demonstrated that he'll wh0re out the franchise in just about anyway possible to make a dime, except he draws the line with this? It's beyond me...

[jellydonut25]

[MouthForWar]

[MekaGojira3k]

[kiryugoji04]

[SeaHawk]