Star Wars coming to Blu-ray!

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Bryan, Jan 6, 2011.

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  1. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    R2D2 still denied. :shake:
     
  2. Rachael Bee

    Rachael Bee Miembra muy loca

    R2D2 did better than getting a stinkin' medal. He got a day at the spa including a luxurious hot oil bath. :laugh:
     
  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    If I composite myself behind the bar in Casablanca, does it really make the movie better? If I add a sax solo to "Love Me Do," is that the creative spark it really needed?

    Forgive me, but I don't think fans have the right to change the movie. To me, this is like pi$$ing on the "Mona Lisa" and calling it art.

    You are a man of taste and distinction. :thumbsup:
     
  4. Johnny66

    Johnny66 Laird of Boleskine

    Location:
    Australia.
    Would probably improve upon John's harmonica tootling.

    :hide:

    :winkgrin:
     
  5. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    Just to be clear, people want the original 1977 version with all the (mostly visual-effect-related) problems inherent in it, yes? Why is it either that, or overedited "oops I changed my mind" garbage versions with so much potential WASTED by spending ages re-rendering Muppets for a musical number?

    Why can't Star Wars be a perfect (or as near as dammit!) film with the director's original vision fully realized, with no easily-avoidable problems?
     
  6. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Can we go ahead and fix a few colors by repainting over sections of the Mona Lisa? Or maybe use Autotune to correct a pitch problem on some of the Beatles recordings?

    The "director's vision fully realized" is the Blu-ray that went on sale last week. If you want the director's vision circa 1977, that is available, too. Everything else is fan-boys playing with history.
     
  7. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    Then my movies are truly dead. :laugh:
     
  8. Quidsane

    Quidsane Forum Resident

    Yeah, GL didn't think that one through. Much like Vader not being able to sense the force in Leia...
    This was done for continuity. Again, no rabbit hole.
    No, but if Michael Curtiz had released a newer version of Casablanca wherein he replaced
    It Had To Be You with Yankee Doodle Dandy, would that have been better?
    A resounding "no".
    This is essentially what GL did with Jedi Rocks in ROTJ, and it's a shame.
    The point is: Adywan's choices FAR outweigh/improve upon GL's choices,
    especially when GL's "improvements" are removed.:righton:
    More like fixing a chipped corner of the Mona Lisa, haha, not pissing on it.
    It doesn't sound like you've even seen Adywan's superior version of A New Hope (well, superior to any
    GL-tampered-with version). If you haven't seen it yet, you will be surprised if you do. To be sure, there
    was a lot of fixing to be done, but being a purist myself, I can tell you that when a fan can best Lucasfilm
    and ILM, it makes what Adywan pulled off all the more amazing.:righton:

    Interesting post about what a few professionals thought (they didn't like
    some of Adywan's alterations/improvements, but loved a lot of them):

     
  9. Plan9

    Plan9 Mastering Engineer

    Location:
    Toulouse, France
    Agree with you. What Adywan did was an improvement, instead of Lucas' dumbing down.
     
  10. Michelle66

    Michelle66 Senior Member

  11. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    If you think George is finished making changes, you've got another think coming.
     
  12. TheCassidy

    TheCassidy New Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    With all due respect, I'm going to call you out on this.

    1) The director's vision circa 1977 is no longer available. The non-anamorphic laserdisc dupes released as a bonus disc are out of print, meaning the original theatrical versions of the Star Wars films are not officially available.

    2) To call preservationists "fan boys" is a huge slap in the face. These folks are highly skilled and talented editors with a real passion for preserving historical films and presenting them in the best possible way. They are not "geeks sitting in their mom's basement" and most of them work in the "industry" and invest huge amounts of time and money into preserving Star Wars as it originally was. So show some respect, please.
     
  13. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    I never said he's done.

    Come on. You can get the 1977 versions on DVD for under $20 each on the used market. And if you want a 1977 version that is "cleaned up" from the LD video artifacts (not the same as coloring lightsabers) and restored original mono mix, those are readily available, via the channels that you can download OOP material, i.e. not hard to find. The official versions were available for many years, and certainly more available to a casual fan than the dozens of "fan edits" out there on the web.

    When you make your own scene edits, or do stuff like put a medal on Chewbacca's neck, etc., you are not a "preservationist", you are an uber-fan that is changing history, not preserving it.

    I have tons of respect for the people that have worked hard to preserve the theatrical versions as released in 1977, 1980, and 1983. I have those versions and enjoy their hard work very much.

    However, I'm not going to enjoy what someone decided to do "in the spirit of making things right" anymore than I would listening to a recording of "All My Loving" where someone goes in with a $500,000 ProTools system just to fix Paul's flubbed bass note.
     
  14. TheCassidy

    TheCassidy New Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    My apologies - I completely misunderstood you and wasn't thinking of the "fan edits" clearly in the context of your initial post, but preservation.
     
  15. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    You said:
    "Fully realized" sounds like fait accompli to me.
     
  16. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    My use of the phrase "director's vision fully realized" was a quote from member BeatleJWOL. He classified the fan-edits as "director's vision fully realized", but I pointed out that the new Blu-rays should be the only thing that can hold the designation, not a fan using a copy of Final Cut Pro, with a lot of time and dedication on their hands.
     
  17. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    Okay, in that context it works for me. :thumbsup:
     
  18. malcolm reynolds

    malcolm reynolds Handsome, Humble, Genius

    Location:
    Oklahoma
    Director's vision shouldn't even apply to Empire or Jedi since both the directors are dead. Lucas changing them is no different than me doing it if you want to get technical.
     
  19. Spirit Crusher

    Spirit Crusher Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mad Town, WI
    But he owns them lock stock and barrell and "created" them.

    (I don't necessarily support this view, but this is what the counter-argument will be. I blame the 60s-70s worship of the "auteur" for this - people seem to forget that film is collaborative, Lucas is NOT a solitary painter, as much as he blabbers on about it; Star Wars and Empire would have been quite different without, oh, I don't know, Gary Kurtz, Irv Kirshner, Lawrence Kasdan, for starters)
     
  20. ridernyc

    ridernyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Florida, USA
    I never fully subscribed to the auteur theory, and Star Wars is perhaps the most glaring example of why it's not always correct. No mater who directed them, these were always George's films.
     
  21. From a commercial standpoint, the debate's moot anyway...according to the latest sales figures, "Star Wars-The Complete Saga" has sold over 1 million retail copies in its first week of release, breaking all previous sales records for a catalog title on blu-ray...George is laughing all the way to bank...again!!!:laugh:
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    At least somebody picked up on my reference. :righton:

    I think this is a Sistine Chapel-type thing, where it's not done until the artist says it's finished.

    A "preservationist" is not some wannabe with After Effects and Maya on his computer. Just because somebody has some tools -- even some modest skills -- does not give them the right to change somebody else's work. If I shot a movie from scratch, even if it was a piece of crap, I'd be irate if somebody went in and added, deleted, and changed stuff in it and posted it to the net. Aside from the legal issues, morally, they don't have the right to change something I own and I created.

    BTW, I'm in the process of watching the Star Wars Blu-ray, and I think much of it is a new transfer, or at least tweaked quite a bit from what I did in 2004. Some new sections bother me, some are fine, but it's a little darker than I remember.

    The funniest thing to me is the amount of bad dialog recording and terrible dubbing. I always forget how primitive this stuff was in 1977. But Ben Burtt's sound effects were and are still stellar.

    Mr. Chang above is correct: the Star Wars boxed set is now the biggest-selling Blu-ray title of all-time, worldwide. I bet it will have made $100 million in just a couple of weeks.
     
  23. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Can you elaborate on the transfer? So you think it could be much higher in scanned resolution than the one you worked on? One thing is for sure, the colors are better. The detail in Vader's mask, hair, and other fine details is simply incredible.
     
  24. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I'll hold off spilling any beans until the VFX Show podcast is up. Bear in mind anything I say is just an opinion, so in this case, I don't have any inside knowledge. I think there are still some rough spots in color, but it's the cleanest and sharpest the movie has ever looked. But all the work I did was in 2K, so I had seen it look this sharp before.
     
  25. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    Absolutely.

    BTW, thanks for correcting my spelling, but the correct phrase is actually "another think coming". It's a common mistake to substitute "thing" for "think" in that idiom, but it's incorrect.
     
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