Original/Unaltered "Star Wars" Trilogy on Blu-Ray in 2017

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Bowie Fett, Feb 23, 2017.

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  1. driverdrummer

    driverdrummer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Irmo, SC
    I can wait until then. I just found the New Hope special edition w/ original theatrical cut and I own the Blu-ray.
     
  2. agentalbert

    agentalbert Senior Member

    Location:
    San Antonio, TX
    They've got to get them out on blu, so they can wait awhile before offering them again on UHD.
     
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  3. PaperbackBroadstreet

    PaperbackBroadstreet Forum Resident

    If true then this would be nice.
     
  4. mdm08033

    mdm08033 Senior Member

    I'm more excited by the prospect of seeing the original trilogy re-released theatrically. My 12 and 14 year old children enjoy the big, big screen experience provided by modern Dolby Cinema.
     
  5. longdist01

    longdist01 Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL USA
    "Old School or No School" Let's get this out and even better if they bothered to go UHD Blu-ray, not that the format would accomplish much from the source!

     
  6. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    Wouldnt that be something. Id see it at least 5 times.
     
  7. mdm08033

    mdm08033 Senior Member

    I'm not against the physical format, but since seeing a Dolby Cinema screening of Rogue One with the kids, I'm jazzed about the theatrical experience.

    Says the guy with a decent TV room setup.

    Waiting patiently for the OT, Michael
     
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  8. Jason Manley

    Jason Manley Senior Member

    Location:
    O-H-I-O


    I can confirm this. I read the verbatim post in Feb 2015 about HS and it went down 10 months later in the theater almost to the letter.
     
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  9. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident

    "The original cuts of the Star Wars trilogy were once made available on DVD exclusively at Walmart, but otherwise, any high-definition versions have been bootlegs that fans have to download online and burn to disc themselves. A friend actually gave me a set as a gift awhile back, and there is something very special about being able to watch those versions at home without all the added visual effects and alterations George Lucas made, not just in the theatrical Special Edition re-release, but the subsequent home video releases that feature several more changes over the years."

    What?! If true, this would be news to me. Is the author mistaken? Perhaps he is mistaking the 2006 release with the non-anamorphic bonus discs for this alleged Walmart exclusive release.
     
  10. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
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  11. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident

  12. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    Oh, I thought you were asking about "any high-definition versions have been bootlegs that fans have to download online and burn to disc themselves." I think the Walmart reference was the non-anamorphic DVDs, but I don't think those were retailer exclusives.
     
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  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I think if it were going to happen by May 21st (the 40th anniversary), we would've heard about it already. Everybody needs to remember that a) Fox and Disney hate each other, b) Fox owns the first movie outright, c) Fox owns the home video rights to most of the movies until 2020, and d) Disney can be cheap and testy to deal with. It would be to everybody's benefit if the original theatrical versions came out on Blu-ray HD and 4K, and I hope it'll happen. But to get Fox and Disney sitting down at the same table to negotiate... even that will be tough. Heck, the traffic between Burbank and West LA is bad as it is. :sigh:
     
  14. They said that about Prince & Warner Bros. The Van Halens and David Lee Roth.
     
  15. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    More info from thedigitalbits: A last original Star Wars update for a while (as we’re sick of talking about it), Rogue One pre-orders & release news

     
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  16. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident

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  17. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    Yup. And the column does go on to recommend just that for anyone needing their GOUT fix. :p
     
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  18. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I have been saying this since I worked for ILM in 2004 to do the 2K home video remastering on Star Wars and Jedi. All the pieces of the original films exist, but I would bet in some cases they might have to use an interpositive (one generation down from the camera negative). Theo Gluck is a very nice man and a very, very dedicated guy who does his work at Disney very well. All it would take is a whole lotta time and a whole lotta spendin' money to get it done. And, oh yeah: an agreement between Fox and Disney.
     
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  19. Bowie Fett

    Bowie Fett Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I still have hope. Disney is highly secretive with projects. If a release was planned for 2017, I would still expect Gluck to deny plans, etc. There was good word at Star Wars Celebration 2015 that Disney was 2 years into work on the original, unaltered trilogy. A New Hope needed more time.
     
  20. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    There's also an issue of how much they want to saturate the market with "Star Wars" stuff in a single calendar year. At the beginning of this year, "Rogue One" was still heavy in theaters. In a couple months they'll have the "Rogue One" home video release in all of its fifty different formats. Then of course Episode 8 at the end of the year.

    The "Original Trilogy" on Blu-ray would be a *huge* deal, and I sometimes worry that they'll be inclined to wait until at least this first main slate of films (the three "episodes" and three spin-offs) are done before they go back to the "Original Trilogy." That would of course put us at 2021. I doubt they'll wait that long, but who knows?

    Then again, if they hope to get a solid amount of revenue from a physical release of the OT, waiting another four years or more is probably not a good idea.

    I don't think anyone that knows a lick about how films work ever bought that the "original" versions can't or don't exist anymore. Worst case scenario, they would just scan what they have on the "special editions" and then just scan some IP or whatever film print they can find to fill in the gaps. Personally, having now watched those "Despecialized" versions several times in HD and finding them surprisingly solid, I no longer have quite the same HUGE desire to see the same thing released on Blu-ray. It would (probably) look and sound quite a bit better though.
     
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  21. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
  22. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Well, that figures. I just got the BD set of the first three movies last year. I really wanted my kids to see the unaltered versions first. They probably won't be all that interested having seen the jazzed-up versions.
     
  23. The Hermit

    The Hermit Wavin' that magick glowstick since 1976

    They may not exist as physical negatives or (likely) as new 4k scans at present, but I'll bet they exist as 2k scans, done at the initial restoration process in 1996; the original OCN's were washed, cleaned (frame by frame), fully restored, and (I'm betting) scanned before they were further altered for the so-called Special Edition versions... I've said it before, but the Empire of Dreams documentary on the 2004 DVD box-set has footage (at the 1 hr 15 min mark) of the 1977 theatrical version, in anamorphic presentation and looking absolutely pristine... that footage came from somewhere and it certainly wasn't from some old Laserdisc transfer made a decade earlier, by the looks of it.

    I don't think anyone would actually care as to the resolution of any officially-released theatrical versions, so long as they looked great and were the theatrical versions...
     
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  24. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    No, they still exist as physical 35mm negatives. The problem is that they may have to using the original 1977 IP to plug some holes, damage, dirt, jitter, and other problems here and there. It'd also be a massive conforming job, basically scanning a pristine print of the 1977 version (and those exist), then matching the negative scans precisely frame-by-frame. This kind of thing goes on all the time.

    Again, all they have to do is take a whole lotta time and a whole lotta spendin' money. They're gonna need patience and money... to do it right, now.

    Off the top of my head, I would guess it would take roughly $10 million per film and 6 months each to scan them all in 4K, conform all the negative, clean them all up, re-color-correct them, and then release them on Blu-ray and 4K. The work could be done concurrently, so multiple crews could get it out before the end of the year. It could be they wait until after the December release of Star Wars VIII before doing so; I don't think it'd be a good idea to release everything at the same time from a marketing point of view.

    I think each film in HD took 3 months before, and I was doing pieces of Star Wars and Jedi at the same time in some cases. But this was the "revised" 2004 version of the film, supervised by Lucas and producer Rick McCallum. Those were all negative scans of the 1999 versions, some of which had pieces of the originals.
     
  25. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    To do it, to do it, to do it,
    to do it, to do it, to do it right, child
    I got my mind set on Blu
    I got my mind set on Blu
    I got my mind set on Blu
    I got my mind set on Blu...
     
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