Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[Geoff D]

Which I honestly don't mind. I'll take Jedi Rocks over Vader's NoooOoooOOOO any time.

[StingingVelvet]

Jedi Rocks is probably my most hated change from all three, honestly.

[questrider]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Jedi Rocks is probably my most hated change from all three, honestly.

I couldn't agree more. It's a Disneyesque music video for children wedged into the middle of a movie from a different era before it was even owned by Disney! "Lapti Nek" was a part of the background and setting the scene for Jabba's Palace. "Jedi Rocks" stops the movie in its tracks for a music video that has nothing to do with editing flow of the sequence. Is it really necessary for a character to break the fourth wall and mug for the camera while the audience gets to see his uvula shimmy? How does this advance the plot and set the scene? And why would the song be titled "Jedi Rocks"? It's completely insipid.

[Havenbull]

Originally Posted by questrider

I couldn't agree more. It's a Disneyesque music video for children wedged into the middle of a movie from a different era before it was even owned by Disney! "Lapti Nek" was a part of the background and setting the scene for Jabba's Palace. "Jedi Rocks" stops the movie in its tracks for a music video that has nothing to do with editing flow of the sequence. Is it really necessary for a character to break the fourth wall and mug for the camera while the audience gets to see his uvula shimmy? How does this advance the plot and set the scene? And why would the song be titled "Jedi Rocks"? It's completely insipid.

Agreed. I also don't like how he had Femi Taylor film the additional scene with the rancor.

In fact, I despise all the additions / edits.

[Indiana Jonezzz...]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Which I honestly don't mind. I'll take Jedi Rocks over Vader's NoooOoooOOOO any time.

I’m one of those terrible people that actually doesn’t mind the added nooooooooooo in ROTJ that much now, certainly in terms of watching it as part of the entire saga. It does seem to fit Anakin’s character, but I agree that it was also perfect before. It’s odd now though, because when I watch the original version, it almost seems “empty” now, like Vader should have some kind of audible reaction as he picks up the Emperor, even just in terms of the physical strength he needs to do it.

I actually probably hate Jabba’s door the most, because it looks very cheaply done. Love the idea of making it bigger in scale, but I don’t like the execution very much.

[crissrudd4554]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Which I honestly don't mind. I'll take Jedi Rocks over Vader's NoooOoooOOOO any time.

Hmmmm this is a toss up. Might have to go with Vader’s ‘Noooo’ on this just because if I can tolerate it in ROTS I guess I can stomach it in ROTJ. Don’t get me wrong. I still prefer the scene without it big time but compared to that God awful song I can stomach it.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by crissrudd4554

Hmmmm this is a toss up. Might have to go with Vader’s ‘Noooo’ on this just because if I can tolerate it in ROTS I guess I can stomach it in ROTJ. Don’t get me wrong. I still prefer the scene without it big time but compared to that God awful song I can stomach it.

Yes but it was always there in ROTS and is a spectacularly cheesy scene anyway, the "NoooooooOOOoooo!" is the final bit of Edam-laden punctuation. But the scene in Jedi never required it, it's filling a gap that didn't need to be filled and it's extraordinary how you can almost feel Vader struggling with his emotions under the mask as he looks back and forth and the music swells up. Now it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

[myway]

As objectively as one could measure these things, how could the worst not be either Greedo shooting first or Hayden in ROTJ? Han bc it changes the character dynamics, looks like crap and makes no sense and Hayden in ROTJ because of how sloppily it was executed.

Jedi Rocks is silly but so is a lot of Jabba's Palace; and the Vader "No" is unnecessary but it doesn't change the character or story in anyway. It's just over fu!@$ing obvious about how unhappy Vader is in that moment.

[BNex99]

Imagine if, in The Godfather, Michael shouted "THIS IS FOR MY FATHER!" right before shooting Sollozzo and McCluskey in the restaurant.

That's what Vader's added "NOOOOOO"s in ROTJ feel like to me.

[crissrudd4554]

Originally Posted by myway

As objectively as one could measure these things, how could the worst not be either Greedo shooting first or Hayden in ROTJ? Han bc it changes the character dynamics, looks like crap and makes no sense and Hayden in ROTJ because of how sloppily it was executed.

Jedi Rocks is silly but so is a lot of Jabba's Palace; and the Vader "No" is unnecessary but it doesn't change the character or story in anyway. It's just over fu!@$ing obvious about how unhappy Vader is in that moment.

Greedo shooting first is unnecessary but you can blink and miss it. Ghost Hayden I’ll take over Jedi Rocks but over Vader’s ‘Noooo’?? Debatable.

[poke smot]

Its like he added the nooo! to jedi just so all the movies have a nooo! near the end. Think abot it.

[Fendergopher]

Thank god for fan projects like 4K77 is all I'll say. When the powers that be are ready to let loose the unaltered OT on UHD (or regular BD I guess) I'm going to pre-order it so hard my mouse will need replacing.

[Riddler95]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Nope. It was that version of the film according to Pablo Hidalgo but in a new 4K master. Greig Fraser said this to American Cinematographer, Feb '17 issue:



The 4K trilogy remaster is even mentioned in some advertising by Prime Focus:



https://www.primefocustechnologies.c..._Factsheet.pdf

Is is possible that the Camera Negatives of the Theatrical Cuts were used since those would be the highest quality source to use for the 4K Restoration, then after apply the changes made in 2011?

[Riddler95]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Those were actually outtakes from the original, not the original itself. But, in any case, Lucasfilm archived EVERYTHING so restoring the originals isn't some mythical concept like Eldorado. With time and money it can happen, but it won't happen for as long as Lucas is breathing.


Only ANH as mentioned, but I'm a bit more relaxed when it comes watching the other two. Only a bit more relaxed, mind you.

Empire I can watch whatever the version, but with Jedi I draw the line at the 2011 Blu-ray. I don't mind the 2004 DVD changes so I watch that version, but with 4K83 around the corner then I'll grab that for sure. It's so sad that fans have had to resort to this but Lucas gonna Lucas.

Hopefully it will happen in the near future. Since Lucasfilm kept everything is goes to show that there is hope but then again who knows how long it will be until a restoration of the Theatrical Cuts will actually happen and get release on Blu-Ray.

I find it ironic that Lucasfilm actually kept the 1993 Video Masters that were created for the Definitive Collection LaserDisc set and then later used to create the transfers for the DVD presentations of the Theatrical Cuts for the individual 2-Disc Limited Editions that were released back in 2006. If George Lucas has a strong dislike the Theatrical Cuts then why would Lucasfilm hold onto those old Video Masters?

[shinobipopcorn]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Those were actually outtakes from the original, not the original itself. But, in any case, Lucasfilm archived EVERYTHING so restoring the originals isn't some mythical concept like Eldorado. With time and money it can happen, but it won't happen for as long as Lucas is breathing.


Only ANH as mentioned, but I'm a bit more relaxed when it comes watching the other two. Only a bit more relaxed, mind you.

Empire I can watch whatever the version, but with Jedi I draw the line at the 2011 Blu-ray. I don't mind the 2004 DVD changes so I watch that version, but with 4K83 around the corner then I'll grab that for sure. It's so sad that fans have had to resort to this but Lucas gonna Lucas.

I knew they were outtakes, what I meant was that if they had access to b-roll and stuff that wasn't even in the original film, then that must mean that they have the original film to work with for a 4K release. Sorry I wasn't clear on that.

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by Riddler95

Is is possible that the Camera Negatives of the Theatrical Cuts were used since those would be the highest quality source to use for the 4K Restoration, then after apply the changes made in 2011?

The original camera negatives were recut into the special edition version in the 90s. All the trims from that process were supposedly kept safe as well.
They would have just used that as the basis to create the 2011 version.

For the Theatrical Cuts they'd have to scan a bunch of trims along with that version to recreate them.

[Martoto]

Does anyone really buy that the 1997 SE became the "new" original negative, replacing the old one -then in 2004 they took that and created a another new original negative- meaning that the 97 original negative was "destroyed" like we're supposed to think the '77 negative is "destroyed" - and then in 2011 they took new original neg made in 2004 and destroyed that negative in order to produce the latest edition?

The remark Lucas made about destroying the original negative sounds a lot like when parents tell their children that the ice-cream man only plays his chimes to signal that he's out of ice-cream.

[Riddler95]

Originally Posted by Martoto

Does anyone really buy that the 1997 SE became the "new" original negative, replacing the old one -then in 2004 they took that and created a another new original negative- meaning that the 97 original negative was "destroyed" like we're supposed to think the '77 negative is "destroyed" - and then in 2011 they took new original neg made in 2004 and destroyed that negative in order to produce the latest edition?

The remark Lucas made about destroying the original negative sounds a lot like when parents tell their children that the ice-cream man only plays his chimes to signal that he's out of ice-cream.

I have never believed that the Camera Negative of the Theatrical Cut was permanently altered during the creation of the 1997 Special Edition.

Star Wars had to undergo a massive restoration before any changes could be made. The Camera Negative was located and the movie was restored. After the restoration George Lucas and his team made the changes that he wanted and after that wouldn't they just create a new negative of the 1997 Special Edition leaving the Camera Negative of the Theatrical Cut untouched?

Back in 2010 when it was announced that the Star Wars movies were coming to Blu-Ray in 2011 George Lucas said this, The process of remastering them for HD is prohibitively expensive. During his interview with the New York Times this week, he claimed that putting them on the Blu-ray would be "kind of an oxymoron because the quality of the original is not very good. When we did the transfer to digital, we only transferred really the upgraded version."


He pretty much said right there that the Theatrical Cuts can be restored but he obviously didn't want to. It is so dumb of him to say that the quality of the original is not very good because there are some movies that were fully restored after almost deteriorating to the point where they were lost.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/fil...-blu-ray-lucas

[BNex99]

Originally Posted by Martoto

Does anyone really buy that the 1997 SE became the "new" original negative, replacing the old one -then in 2004 they took that and created a another new original negative- meaning that the 97 original negative was "destroyed" like we're supposed to think the '77 negative is "destroyed" - and then in 2011 they took new original neg made in 2004 and destroyed that negative in order to produce the latest edition?

The remark Lucas made about destroying the original negative sounds a lot like when parents tell their children that the ice-cream man only plays his chimes to signal that he's out of ice-cream.

I don't have any firsthand knowledge, but I believe it. At the time, that would have been seen as the best way to achieve optimal picture quality for what Lucas considered (again, at the time) the "definitive" versions. I think the same thing was done with the "Redux" version of Apocalypse Now.

The 2004 and 2011 rounds of changes were done completely in the digital realm, and so the negative wouldn't have been altered any further.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Martoto

Does anyone really buy that the 1997 SE became the "new" original negative, replacing the old one -then in 2004 they took that and created a another new original negative- meaning that the 97 original negative was "destroyed" like we're supposed to think the '77 negative is "destroyed" - and then in 2011 they took new original neg made in 2004 and destroyed that negative in order to produce the latest edition?

The remark Lucas made about destroying the original negative sounds a lot like when parents tell their children that the ice-cream man only plays his chimes to signal that he's out of ice-cream.

Yes and no. The negative WAS disassembled for cleaning owing to it being composed of three or four distinct stocks, not all of which would react the same in the same chemical bath so they were treated individually. During this time it was discovered that several VFX shots which were taken out to CRI (rather than traditional intermediate stock) had faded beyond the point of all photochemical help so they were removed and replaced, either with material duped off of the best surviving interpositive or from the YCM separations - or indeed with a brand new CG shot.

With that in mind, the original negative itself was no longer entirely original, and given that they still wanted to base the Special Edition off of the remaining negative for the very best quality possible (as opposed to working on it entirely in the dupe realm) then yes, I do believe that they physically recut the negative back together to conform to the SE '97 version. Bear in mind that a great many of the optical transitions (wipes, fades etc) were actually redone optically using the original film elements wherever possible (I'm not kidding when I said that LFL kept everything) so in their eyes they were just replacing an old optical with a new one.

It's easy in this age of the infinitely flexible digital intermediate to project certain ways of thinking onto past restorations and say "why didn't they just do x?" but this project came along right at the tail end (and at the limits thereof) of the photochemical restoration era and if it were done today they would have no need to physically remove as much as a frame of the original negative, but they wanted the best quality at the time and working on film was still the best way to achieve it.

What I don't believe is that they did anything else to the negative after that and I'm not sure anyone's said anything to that effect. For the Lowry 2004 version they scanned the SE-conformed negative (hence Lucas' remarks about only transferring the "upgraded version") and worked on it entirely in the digital domain in HD, and for the 2011 versions they just reworked those same Lowry HD transfers in all their, ah, glory.

In other words: the negative is indeed the 1997 version. Does this preclude a pristine restoration of the original version? Nope, not with today's technology and the wealth of assets that they have at their disposal. The reason why we don't have it is not a matter of needing technology to catch up or the condition of available materials or time or money, it comes down to one man. It always has.