Which Star Wars Complete Saga BR to buy?

Those films were all shot on Kodak 35mm film with anamorphic lenses, so a 70mm element would actually be several generations down and look worse. What you want is a pin-reg scan right off the original camera negative with no funny business and no excessive processing... and that can work fine provided the mastering people use good taste and experience to do it right. They can scan 35mm directly to 4K with no uprezzing -- you can get a true 4K result from that kind of workflow. I think there will be some pieces that will have to be recreated digitally because of frames lost and damage, but only a small number of frames.

 

What Encuentro said. You might have to do a little searching, but it's out there. If/when you do find it, enjoy! I stand by my belief that it is the best way to watch the film at the moment.

 

Thanks for the information Vidiot. I can deal with a small number of frames recreated, but cannot deal with the abomination that Lucas did in '97.

I wish I knew more about the technical aspects of film, but I don't. Glad you are here to educate.

And it will always be Star Wars. I don't want to see "Episode IV A New Hope" in the crawl.

Until the Mouse makes this right, I will stick with the despecialized and SS versions.

 

The 2004 remastered DVD's - with further digital alterations included - were conformed for 16:9 televisions because they were brand new transfers. The theatrical versions on DVD released two years later were not conformed for 16:9 viewing because they were taken from transfers created for Laserdisc in 1993, and that was a very deliberate and (I would say) vindictive move on Lucas' part; give the fans the theatrical versions they were clamoring for, but in non-anamorphic and substandard presentations... Lucas knew exactly what he was doing, his own VP of marketing at the time, Jim Ward, tried to talk him out of it and to treat the fans with respect... alas, Lucas decided sticking the knife in to those who made him wealthy in the first place to be the better option.

And even if the Laserdisc transfers were the only available sources for a new ancillary release of the theatrical versions - which I don't believe for a single second - couldn't they have, at the very least, been cleaned up and adapted for widescreen viewing at home?

 

Has Team Negative 1 done a Silver Screen version of The Empire Strikes Back? I've been looking over the net and I've found nothing.

 

I did some perusing on the originaltrilogy.com forum. They were working on a release of a 35mm theatrical version of Empire, but it appears that, so far, nothing has come of it.
Team Negative1 - The Empire Strikes Back 1980 - 35mm Theatrical Version (Release Details and Updates) - Original Trilogy

I don't believe it's associated with Team Negative 1, but there is a group hard at work on a 4K restoration of Star Wars, which, last I heard, is due sometime this year.
Project 4K77 | The Star Wars Trilogy

 

Boycott "the mouse" all you want, but 20th Century Fox still owns the original STAR WARS.

 

Hi,
A newbie here, and much appreciating the extensive details as I've learned a lot from this thread.
Now I am curious on your expertise/advice about the upcoming Oct release dates of 3 4K versions of Star Wars.

Meantime, and though living in the U.K., I have releases of the original dvds that are a mix of PAL and NTSC versions.

About to buy one of the boxed blueray sets, I held off having read the excellent thread info here and keen to read comments about the quality and authenticity of the October planned 4K releases.

Any pros/cons advice would be much appreciated as I have a new Sony 550 projector to extract the very best detail in these stupendous movies!

Thank you..
Brian

 

I haven't heard anything about an October release. Just did a Google search and didn't come up with anything significant.

 

Only the first film. Fox owns the home video rights to the first three Star Wars films until 2020, as far as I know, but they own all the rights to the original Star Wars (Episode 4). I suspect any kind of release would have to involve Disney/Lucasfilm and Fox and get them to figure out a way on who pays for the expenses and who profits from the release.

The first three films were restored in 4K, but I don't know about Episodes 1, 2, and 3 ever being done in 4K. The latter two were shot in HD and all the VFX were done in 2K, so all you'd be looking at is an uprez to 4k.

 

I'd heard that they had been restored to 4K. I'm just wondering when we'd get to see them and what versions they will be. Will they be the same versions as the Blu-rays released in 2011, the original theatrical versions or some hybrid of the two with some of the more egregious alterations removed?

 

Very hard to say. Let me see what Yoda says...

 

Thx very much to Vidiot and Encuentro for speedy updates. I'll wait until we see what 2018 release plans show up. Thanks once again, Brian

 

Can I ask a couple of questions about potential for a 4k blu-ray box set of Harry Potter in this thread?, or please advise if there's another thread I must use?
Individual 4k movies are releasing at approx 26usd or £21.50 in the UK.
Thanks,
Brian

 

This is a music forum...

 

With subforums for other topics - such as movies!

 

Eh, guy's been here since 2011. This section might still be new.

 

I just picked up the 2011 Complete Saga on BR today for $50. Any input on whether it is better/worse/the same as the 2015? I have only owned these on Amazon digital before now (well and my original trilogy on VHS from the mid-90s). I really hope we get a re-release of the non-special editions but depending on who you believe that may or may not have been a Lucas stipulation in the sale. He really dislikes that fans hate him for screwing those up.

 

The 2015 release is simply a repackage of the 2011 versions. I’m not sure about bonus material.

 

Awesome, that's all I'm worried about. I have seen all the bonus stuff with my digital versions Amazon. I just wanted to have the best looking and sounding Blurays to play in my Oppo. Thanks for the info.

 

Apropos of nothing...my friend was part of the team that designed, built and operated the original Jabba the Hut. He has an early prototype mounted on his landing wall!

 

I think the packaging of the 2011 is much cooler.

 

Nope, that's apparently not true either. All the negative trims were saved, according to 20th Century Fox’s Senior Vice President of Library and Technical Services, Shawn Belston. It could all be reassembled digitally. For further reference see:

Rumor Control: The Original, Uncut STAR WARS Trilogy Is NOT Coming To Blu-Ray

Derek

 

I know and have worked with Shawn many times. He hasn't had his hands on the negative, and I have. Most of it is fine, but almost all of it is badly damaged. I got this first-hand from Fred Meyers, who was head of digital HD operations for ILM in the 2000s. The other Star Wars films are in much better shape, but the 1977 film element was really beat to hell. Part of it was it was badly scratched on a contact printer by Technicolor/Tokyo in early 1978 for an international reissue, and for whatever reason they made the decision to use the original negative rather than using the Interpositives (which is what I would've told them to do) or maybe an IN (internegative). The film elements were cut up in the 1999 "director's cut," but it would totally be possible to rescan the scraps and conform the whole thing, except for -- I'm guessing -- maybe about 30 or 40 pieces that are missing a frame or two or are so damaged that portions will have to be reconstructed.

So it's not that an entire shot is missing: rather, it's that once in awhile, a frame will be gone or badly damaged, like ripped right across the center, to the point where that frame will have to be digitally reconstructed. They have several IPs and INs of the entire original film, so you could just bypass the original negative entirely and go with a copy of it, then use restoration techniques to try to improve the characteristics of the IP to match the OCN. Bear in mind that a lot of the film is fairly "dupey" anyway because of the number of analog optical effects. It will be a long, drawn-out project to completely remaster the theatrical version of Episode IV in 4K, but it can be done. I'm assuming they'll leave the 2004/2006 versions alone and let them remain in 2K.

I was thrilled with the digital restoration work that Lowry Digital did on the Star Wars films from 2003-2004, and it was like they removed about 35 years of grunge and noise and crud and muck from the image. They also stabilized every shot so it was rock steady (in scenes where the camera was not moving), and they made sure that natural film grain was maintained at precisely the same level throughout the entire show. It was an absolute night and day difference, but it took like 30 people 6 months to do all that work. Doing it all over in 4K might take even longer, since now they're reconstructing the 1977 film (and not the 1999 redo), and the elements are in pieces. I'm guessing it would take 8-12 months and about a million bucks to do, depending on how crazy they went with the process. (Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, and Citizen Kane were also in the $500,000-$1,000,000 restoration range for MGM/WB.)