Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Hatter

But UHDTV will only start to be noticed at 100". How practical is that for the average consumer?

To the display consumer it won't be, but to the projector customer it will be a dream come true.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Shaft Windu

In the 80s people were willing to be amazed by filmmakers. In the age of the internet, youtube and film-software on every PC EVERYBODY is smarter than any filmmaker. The Digital Characters in TPM in'99 were groundbreaking - but are largely despised or ignored.

Those 'groundbreaking' characters are ignored because they don't do anything all that interesting. In fact, it's often just opposite. The underwater city was very visually impressive. It could have been one of those 'I don't think we're in Kansas anymore' moments but what did we get after that impressive stage was set?

Jowly cartoon characters with silly accents trying to outbuffoon each other.

[phansson]

Originally Posted by The Doof

Not sure what you mean. I was referring to the early 80's when Lucas helped develop EditDroid. Which became Avid. Which lead to FC - thirty years later.

I thought you were talking about the fact that he filmed episodes II and III in 1080p. Which can never be "upgraded".

[El_Jay]

Originally Posted by Beast

The complaints about Lucas pushing the envelop for advancing technology is funny.

Since it was that exact same desire to push the envelope from the start that led to so many film making technology advancements that are STILL used today in making movies. If he listened to people's comments like that back then, I can barely imagine what movie making would be like today.

The difference is that the special FX in the OT still hold up remarkably well today, while the CGI in The Phantom Menace looks like a video game from 5 years ago. Jar Jar looks and moves like a cartoon character and any time a real-life actor interacts with him it's painfully obvious that it's all greenscreened.

Compare it to WETA's stuff on LOTR, like Gollum, and it's laughable.

Lucas should have waited a little longer for technology to get where it needed to be. Say what you will about Cameron, at least he was smart enough to wait to make 'Avatar'.

[The Doof]

Originally Posted by Beard Esquire

+1

If you listen to any discussion with Ralph McQuarrie that is not on the blu ray, you'll hear him talk about how he (Ralph) would draw many different drawings of the same character and George would pick out which one he liked.

The same thing is true of the models, paintings, creatures, etc. The builders, artists, whomever would create a bunch of models and show George, and he would pick out the ones he liked.

George took most of the story outline from The Hidden Fortress, the 2 peasants were the storytellers in THF, the droids are the storytellers for the Star Wars saga. George borrows heavily from one of his teachers mythology books and from several other Science Fiction ideas and concepts that he grew up with.

If you read Analog magazine in the 70s you would see a great resemblance to a few of the short stories contained within and quite a few stories dealt with cloning of warriors and the consequences of those created clones.



Does this look familiar?


James Gurney's Dinotopia.

Depressing. Truly.

[dookiex]

Originally Posted by Jay444

Here ya go, changed rights shortly after 2000 or so (I thought it was the 19997 release, so I was off a few years) :

Fox obviously agreed to this at some point--when the SE was released in 1997, the prints, posters and video boxes said that Empire and Jedi were copyright Lucasfilm but that Star Wars was copyright Fox. The next time the films were released was in 2000 on VHS, where Empire and Jedi were copyright Lucasfilm--but now Star Wars was copyright Lucasfilm as well. Its no coincidence that between that time a deal was hammered out between the two mega-corporations to give Fox distribution of Lucasfilm's prequels.

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/buyingstarwars.html

Nice. Thanks.

[The Doof]

Originally Posted by phansson

I thought you were talking about the fact that he filmed episodes II and III in 1080p. Which can never be "upgraded".

We got mixed up somewheres. Ex-QUEEEEEZE-me!

[Valaquen]

Originally Posted by El_Jay

The difference is that the special FX in the OT still hold up remarkably well today, while the CGI in The Phantom Menace looks like a video game from 5 years ago. Jar Jar looks and moves like a cartoon character and any time a real-life actor interacts with him it's painfully obvious that it's all greenscreened.

[Weirded Wonder]

Originally Posted by The Doof

Depressing. Truly.

There's more than enough evidence to remove any doubt that Lucas is anything but original.

[Weirded Wonder]

Originally Posted by Valaquen

Too funny!

I'm sure somebody is hard at work with photoshop right this second.

[happydood]

Originally Posted by The Doof

No, we are not friends. He is the Creator.

I wish he was motivated purely by business decisions. But he ain't - he is one stubborn muthaf*(ka when it comes to his prequels. I get it, though, I really do. You can't go for decades being hailed a genius then have the world turn on you overnight. I would be bitter and stubborn too.

Of course he's a creator which is why he works in the field he does, but of necessity is in charge of his own business and is making those decisions. You can be both. You must be both if you're going to survive in this kind of business.

Trying to find fault with his business model or use of technology strikes me as misplaced venom towards disappointment with The Prequels and Special Editions. Forgive me, if that's not the case, but I don't necessarily agree that he's bitter and don't know how you can make that call. You may dislike The Prequels and you have every right, to, but these solemn pronouncements of how universally derided they are, so it's fact that they are bad is simply not the case straight across the board.

And I'm not asking for anybody to be politically correct or careful in their opinions at all, just that they be fully formed before they're expressed.

[dookiex]

Originally Posted by phansson

The fact that Georgie boy thinks that a 7 year old 2k restoration of the biggest movies of all time is still ok and you are saying he didn't have the vision 10 years ago? Have we all not decided that he is either the cheapest person in the history of the world or one of the most ignorant?

It reminds me of when HD DVD was doing their push during the super bowl and they ran the commercial in SD.....

Some companies just don't get it....

I think realistically, Star Wars was shot on what, 35mm? Realistically, a 4K scan of the original film is the most one can expect the film to be scanned at to achieve the the best details one can from the film. As long as the 4k scan is the best scan achievable, I think it's the best the film is ever going to be. Even the jump from 2K to 4K I don't think there's all that much to gain in terms of PQ. If you go up to higher resolution scans, you're not really going to pull much more out of the original film. You can of course clean up and run new algorithms on the digital scans but that's that. Even if we have 10k-ray in the future, scanning at that resolution isn't going to net you much from your source film. It's like this one scene in the Godfather II during the riot in Cuba, there's this one scene where you can see a chunk of film missing, not ever going to get that missing chunk back. You can also scan the Godfather I and II using 8k (if there ever was such a film scanner), but it's really not going to look any better than what we probably have on the Copolla Restoration.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by kurtlingle

That same quote also popped out to me last night as I watched ANH (saw the PT last weekend).

The way I look at it - they should edit that scene in the OT and fix it. Maybe dub over his voice? Obviously GL didn't have the whole backstory down in 76/77 so he'd have to fix that now. I think with creative editing he could fix it (in ANH).

Maybe, but see that's the whole thing. I really don't think that the OT should need to be changed to line up with the PT.... certainly not with respect to dialogue.

I can understand, for example, changing the Emperor in TESB to Ian McDiarmid to match up with the rest of the movies (though I do think looks-wise they should have done more to make him better resemble the Emperor in ROTJ), but the dialogue change in that scene wasn't really needed.

Instead, the PT should have more or less been built around the things that were said about that time era in the OT. There are really just a handful of lines of dialogue over the course of the OT that really describe things during the time of the PT. Lucas should have refeshed himself and taken specific notes on those to make sure that when he wrote the PT movies, that they would line up in that respect. It still leaves plenty of room for him to do whatever he otherwise wants with the PT and go in a million different possible directions... it would just be done in a manner that doesn't contradict those lines.

Sure, I guess now it's pretty much "too late" and the best that could be done to fix it would be to cleverly edit the lines in ANH, but it still shouldn't be necessary. IMO it's kind of insulting to the audience who grew up with the OT to have to essentially erase lines of dialogue that set up the basis for the OT and the Saga overall that occur in the beginning of the very film that started it all and is responsible for launching the entire Star Wars franchise towards becoming what it is today.

[svenge]

Originally Posted by Beast

The complaints about Lucas pushing the envelop for advancing technology is funny.

Since it was that exact same desire to push the envelope from the start that led to so many film making technology advancements that are STILL used today in making movies. If he listened to people's comments like that back then, I can barely imagine what movie making would be like today.

To quote Lucas before he turned to the Dark Side, "A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." The special effects for the PT were pretty good, but the story was not up to the task at hand.

Edit: Now that I think about it, Lucas said that quote in the "From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga" 1983 special, which was conveniently the only one of the four vintage documentaries not included in the BD set. Coincidence? Perhaps, perhaps not. It could also be seen as a damning indictment from his past self regarding the PT...

[Shaft Windu]

Originally Posted by Beard Esquire

+1

If you listen to any discussion with Ralph McQuarrie that is not on the blu ray, you'll hear him talk about how he (Ralph) would draw many different drawings of the same character and George would pick out which one he liked.

The same thing is true of the models, paintings, creatures, etc. The builders, artists, whomever would create a bunch of models and show George, and he would pick out the ones he liked.

George took most of the story outline from The Hidden Fortress, the 2 peasants were the storytellers in THF, the droids are the storytellers for the Star Wars saga. George borrows heavily from one of his teachers mythology books and from several other Science Fiction ideas and concepts that he grew up with.

If you read Analog magazine in the 70s you would see a great resemblance to a few of the short stories contained within and quite a few stories dealt with cloning of warriors and the consequences of those created clones.

Except for the two peasants in "A Hidden Fortress" (who are by the way very different from C-3PO and R2) ANH didn't borrow that much from that specific movie. In TPM he picked up that thread by telling the story through the two jedi and using the motif of the general protecting the princess. There are as many references to "Forbidden Planet", "Gunga Din", Buster Keaton, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, classic Western, Pulp-SciFi, Arturian legends, world mythology and so on. That was never a secret and it was even intended. But I dare anyone to create a similar saga out of visual cues from our culture and come up with something that resembles Star Wars...

[Beast]

There's nothing that needs changed about what Obi-Wan tells Luke about his Dad in ANH.

Considering he was lying about him... or to use Obi-Wan's copout offering a "Different point of view".

[Jay444]

Anyone else here sorta happy that (after viewing TPM in all of its DNR'd glory) that Lucasfilm actually just stuck with the 2004 Masters of the OT? I mean, I wanted a new transfer soooo fn bad, but after seeing TPM's 'treatment' I am sorta glad they left well enough alone.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Jay444

Anyone else here sorta happy that (after viewing TPM in all of its DNR'd glory) that Lucasfilm actually just stuck with the 2004 Masters of the OT? I mean, I wanted a new transfer soooo fn bad, but after seeing TPM's 'treatment' I am sorta glad they left well enough alone.

Well, the crushed blacks and most of the lighsabers were fixed for the BD release so that made me happy.

[Hatter]

Originally Posted by El_Jay

The difference is that the special FX in the OT still hold up remarkably well today, while the CGI in The Phantom Menace looks like a video game from 5 years ago. Jar Jar looks and moves like a cartoon character and any time a real-life actor interacts with him it's painfully obvious that it's all greenscreened.

Compare it to WETA's stuff on LOTR, like Gollum, and it's laughable.

Lucas should have waited a little longer for technology to get where it needed to be. Say what you will about Cameron, at least he was smart enough to wait to make 'Avatar'.

Indeed. The Avatar treatment was made in 1994. He had projected the movie to be in production starting in 1997 but scrapped it after realizing the tech wasn't there yet. Meanwhile George said lets go. Think about if he waited. Not only would the tech have been there, perhaps his script would have been refined too.

Originally Posted by Jay444

Anyone else here sorta happy that (after viewing TPM in all of its DNR'd glory) that Lucasfilm actually just stuck with the 2004 Masters of the OT? I mean, I wanted a new transfer soooo fn bad, but after seeing TPM's 'treatment' I am sorta glad they left well enough alone.

Given the fact each trilogy can be purchased separately? No.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Beast

There's nothing that needs changed about what Obi-Wan tells Luke about his Dad in ANH.

Considering he was lying about him... or to use Obi-Wan's copout offering a "Different point of view".

The dialogue that implies that Owen had more of a relationship with Anakin doesn't line up. And Bearu's comment about Luke having too much of his father in him (as if she's saying it in a positive light) doesn't match up either considering that the only time that they ever met Anakin was when he showed up angry looking for his mother, and left angry just after he slaughters a bunch of sand people when trying to rescue his mother, who dies in his arms. Not that his anger isn't justified to a certain extent, but the point is that it's not exactly like there was any kind of basis for a positive view of Anakin or and real relationship with Owen and Bearu at all.