Star Wars (1977) original Blu ray. Crappier than ever.

I was told they held on to 2 intact Star Wars IPs, one for overseas and one for America. That's what was used for the first attempts to master the films in the 1980s and the 1990s.By the end of the dedcade, plans had moved ahead to release the "director's cut" versions, which allowed Lucas to change the elements that never quite worked for him. Good or bad, the changes were what he wanted and it made him happy.

 

At one time, that was 100% true. Sadly, not so much today.

 

It's a 40 year old movie. Grain and texture is part of it. There were people complaining about grain on the Godfather blu-rays.

Right now, elsewhere in the world, there are people moaning about how they can't get a FLAC of a c-90 recorded on a cheap walkman in 1974 in a Sports Hall ... when even the first generation tape itself always sounded crappy.

 

Eh, he owned the films back then. Disney has owned Lucasfilm since October 2012, so it's up to them to restore all the theatrical versions. I have no idea what the delay is.

Eh, there's a little grain, there's a lot of grain, and then there's massive grain. We try to prevent the latter. I just did a 1995 film project that looked so good, I don't think they're going to use any NR at all on it. But the stuff from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s... that stuff needs a lotta help. The key is to use experience and good taste not to remove too much grain. My goal is generally half the grain, provided there's no artifacts.

 

Disney did not own Star Wars until the Fox purchase was completed in 2018 (but they did “own” the negative)—yet, Empire, Return and the rest were owned fully by LFL. There are reasons why the original versions have not been restored (political), but as time marches on people will retire or pass away and it will become a reality.

 

Political as in we think they don't want to irritate George Lucas?

 

I'm guessing here, but the inference from JJ was that the original theatrical edition could not released - and in my opinion there may be an expiry clause such as "The original theatrical editions of the films cannot be released until 10 years after the death of George Lucas or the year 2050, whichever comes later."

 

It's a complicated situation. Lucas himself has absolutely zero control of the situation and no say in what they do or do not do with Star Wars or Indiana Jones or any of the other Lucasfilm properties or characters. He's been asked several times in interviews about Star Wars, and he waves off the questions and basically says, "I'm not involved at all with that now." I find it interesting that Lucas has scrupulously avoided giving opinions of any of the recent Star Wars films and TV shows.

For quite some time, Lucas owned most of the underlying rights and trademarks but Fox owned all the home video rights to Star Wars. Once Disney bought Fox in March of 2019, everything came under one roof.

 

Probably just common courtesy, not commenting on the successor.

 

Very interesting, so what's your opinion @Vidiot on the remaining complications given Disney controls everything now?

 

I wonder if it's a situation like Star Trek TMP where the effects are just low resolution and they don't want to spend the time/money to redo them.

 

Lucas has some say in the original film, and the meetings I've been in about this (along with V and VI) always came back to his approval---even after he sold the compnay to Disney.

Thankfully Indy, which I have always liked a tad better than Star Wars, hasn't been messed around with.

 

Proof or it didn't happen. I can provide plenty of Kathy Kennedy quotes where she says they own everything 100%.

Actually, Spielberg went in and had them remove the glass reflection of the snake in the "Well of Souls" scene in Raiders. That's not so much a content change but an actual VFX mistake, so I can forgive that.

 

He's been in the behind-the-scenes featurettes of The Mandolarian. Maybe it's just him visiting the set, though I'd think that would be highly distracting if he's just there to watch. I'd like to believe the directors and writers have consulted him on ideas.

 

He is used as a consultant but I think he is just vitising the set. I don't think he's there all the time I think he probably just shows up for a little bit every now and then and a vist from George Lucas would probably be quite exciting on the set of a Star Wars project, especially when a lot of the people on set are going to be fans. ​

 

Various public quotes and reality behind the gates are two differnt things---

Those fixes were not dropped into the OCN, but B-Rolled in.

 

What the...so basically he still retains some kind of veto power indeed.

I also thought he couldn't control anything anymore and if Disney wanted, could have re-released the original theatrical films with or without his approval. Not an insider, just a fan of the movies.

 

I tend to believe both are true; there's no contractual ties anymore, but the current Disney team still wants his approval before doing anything with the original films.

Which they won't get if the goal is for the absolute original versions to happen. George seems to consider the half-assed laserdisc transfers from over a decade ago (of laserdiscs from over two decades ago) on DVD to be good enough.

 

Nothing is "spliced" in per se (as of 10-12 years ag0) -- it's just a digital conform. I've been doing those since 2001. Digital conform fixes are trivial, just a cut and paste and sliding files around on a timeline.

Still no proof. Give us the details. We know you were involved with the 4K restoration of Mary Poppins. I sincerely would like to know more.

 

Just wanted to throw a few things into this discussion--No disrespect, Marc, if you don’t believe what I say because you need proof, I’m not going to lose sleep about it. I mostly stay clear of topics like this for professional reasons, however I just watched the 4k/UHD Star Wars BD with my son over the holiday and was poking around online about feedback---and that's how I landed here---and with that, please continut to enjoy talking about these films.

 

Feels like this is the case then.

Like many I really hope the original versions are released before I'm as old, grey and cranky as Luke on Ach-To!

 

Your post reminded me of Weird Al's prophecy:

But I know that I'll be coming back someday
I'll be playing this part 'til I'm old and grey!
The long-term contract that I have signed
Said I'll be making these movies 'til the end of time
With my Yoda...Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda

 

That made me smile!

 

I wonder if Lucas has been asked for his approval for a theatrical release (whether that's a contractual requirement or a courtesy) and what he might have said - or whether Disney simply aren't 'going there'?

 

I think it must be a courtesy thing, JJ said something about the issue that makes me wonder if it is in contract however it could be that JJ asked about this back in 2015 when the whole Fox has some of the rights and Disney has the rest of the rights was still relevant (An oversimplification but something like that).
I guess another theory could be that Lucasfilm wants to put some distance between the release of the recent 4k versions which George would have worked on and anything that they would want to do with the original films. 2027 would be the 50th Anniversary of Star Wars so that could well be a good time for a 50th-anniversary release of the theatrical versions. That said, I've become quite cynical about the idea of this ever happening so it's wishful thinking.