Star Wars: The Original Trilogy (1977-1983)

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Basically, with the LFL archive at their disposal and digital technology as powerful as it is today then recreating the original versions of the Star Wars trilogy is eminently achievable. Will it be cheap and easy? HELL no. Can it be done? You bet your ass it can, I even recall Robert A. Harris stating that he could get it done himself for about a million greenbacks a few years ago.

Yeah, this has always been my bottom line reaction to claims that a UOT release simply wasn't possible anymore. I never for a second believed that if Lucas changed his mind and told his staff he wanted to release the theatrical cuts their response would have been 'sorry, boss, no can do'.

That just never seemed even remotely credible.

[Geoff D]

Yep. It's always been about the corporate will to get the restoration done, starting with the bearded fella that used to own the whole kit and kaboodle. He fed the line about how the originals "no longer existed" for years, itself partially true in one sense because of the re-conformed SE negatives, but as the restoration tech evolved then even Lucas himself couldn't deny that it was possible, he even said at some event that it COULD be done but that it would cost millions of dollars to do so, with the inference IMO being that he certainly wasn't going to pay for it...

Just look at Spartacus: in 1991 the negative was gone, faded to shit, so without any digital goodies they had to rebuild the movie optically using the separation masters, lining them up as best they could to output to a 70mm dupe neg. Good, but not great. Fast forward 25 years and they were finally able to go back to the original 8/35 neg and revive the colour by digitally layering the separations onto a scan of the negative, it's remarkable stuff.

And as for why Disney are being so coy about it, as rodney asked, I think it's because they've had such amazing success with their new SW properties that there's almost no reason for them to shoot their load before they're ready. I mean, if they were to announce screenings of the unaltered Star Wars only days before the actual shows then you'd get queues of people snaking around the block again, if Disney manage this right it could be HUGE. I'm dreaming of a 15/70 IMAX double-header with Rogue One and the unaltered New Hope back to back, oh my giddy aunt that would so epic.

[imsounoriginal]

Buddy and I ended up at a bar doing trivia night. They were doing Star Wars trivia. We lost by one question. I wrote down Rancor pit instead of Sarlac pit. The shame is real.

[ambient_indie]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

Buddy and I ended up at a bar doing trivia night. They were doing Star Wars trivia. We lost by one question. I wrote down Rancor pit instead of Sarlac pit. The shame is real.

Ohhhhhh noooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[bferr1972]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

So you'd rather have no hope than some hope?

How about A New Hope?

[Arawn]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

Buddy and I ended up at a bar doing trivia night. They were doing Star Wars trivia. We lost by one question. I wrote down Rancor pit instead of Sarlac pit. The shame is real.

[IndyMLVC]

Originally Posted by ChainsawJedi

It's neither big or clever to swear.

*ahem*

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/...ger-vocabulary

Yes it f***ing is.

[Hardback247]

Originally Posted by Arawn

Gah! Leave our phony president out of this!

[ChainsawJedi]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

Buddy and I ended up at a bar doing trivia night. They were doing Star Wars trivia. We lost by one question. I wrote down Rancor pit instead of Sarlac pit. The shame is real.

It's actually the Pit of Carkoon. I'm not sure if that doubles your shame or doubles my nerd factor.

[Brightstar]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Well, we know for sure that the original negative was physically disassembled for cleaning as part of the mid-'90s restoration, with several opticals originally done on CRI stock having faded so badly they had to be replaced with dupes, and the story goes that Lucas did indeed then re-conform the negative to the SE cut inclusive of the new VFX and opticals (because they redid the wipes, fades and dissolves optically).

But I don't believe for a second that those trims were just junked as Lucasfilm has been fastidious about saving everything they possibly can, e.g. just look at the Rogue One stories of recreating Gold & Red Leader from original Star Wars outtakes, as well as them sifting through several different takes of Carrie Fisher's "you're my only hope" dialogue to find just the right usage of "hope" for that end scene).

People might then complain about the missing frames that result from having to recut the original material back together, but digital technology has been able to seamlessly reconstruct missing frames for at least the last 15 years, so it's no biggie. And even IF the worst comes to the worst and the original camera material really is gone, then they can revert to the YCM separations to rebuild whichever parts are missing without having to resort to an IP, IN or even a print.

Basically, with the LFL archive at their disposal and digital technology as powerful as it is today then recreating the original versions of the Star Wars trilogy is eminently achievable. Will it be cheap and easy? HELL no. Can it be done? You bet your ass it can, I even recall Robert A. Harris stating that he could get it done himself for about a million greenbacks a few years ago.

well Gareth Edwards says hes seen a 4k restoration of star wars lets hope its the UOT

http://theplaylist.net/gareth-edward...hope-20161222/

[Brightstar]

I found this interview hope it helps

We asked Kaminksi about the master copy of the original Star Wars. What does it look like now? "The term 'master copy' is slightly vague, because there are various kinds of print masters of different generations," he told Ars. The original negative is conformed to the 1997 Special Edition, meaning the physical copy has been cut and edited with CGI "improvements." With sections of the film being too damaged to work with, parts of that print were taken from other sources. "You never throw away your original negative, so I must assume that any pieces or shots that were removed are in storage somewhere at Lucasfilm or Fox," he explained.

[ChainsawJedi]

Who is Kaminski?

[Rodney-2187]

Originally Posted by ChainsawJedi

Who is Kaminski?

He wrote The Secret History of Star Wars.

More from Kaminski:

Kaminski points out that a duplication of the original negative—commonly printed for the sake of protection—doesn’t seem to exist for Star Wars. Something better was created, though: separation masters. “These are special silver-based copies that do not fade, and in theory should be almost identical in quality to the original negative itself, so even if the negative was destroyed you still have a perfect copy (which is the point of making the separation master).” Duplicates from these prints were used to replace damaged sections of the negative during the restoration before the release of the Special Edition

That’s not all, however. “There are also Interpositives and master prints. Interpositives (and Internegatives) are the color-corrected masters that theatrical prints are duplicated from, and were used in the past to make the home video telecines from 1985-1995.” Another common practice is keeping print masters, which are high-quality, fine-grain prints kept in the eventuality that no other higher-quality copies or masters are available.

http://nerdbastards.com/2014/08/19/c...ed-on-blu-ray/

[ChainsawJedi]

Originally Posted by rodneyfaile

He wrote The Secret History of Star Wars.

Thought it was him. Just because he wrote a long-winded essay doesn't make him any more informed than the next fan.

[Rodney-2187]

Originally Posted by ChainsawJedi

Thought it was him. Just because he wrote a long-winded essay doesn't make him any more informed than the next fan.

How do you know how informed he is?

[ChainsawJedi]

Originally Posted by rodneyfaile

How do you know how informed he is?

I'm glad you asked. I've spoken to him for starters and while I have nothing against him he's really just someone who's got a lot of time on his hands. I've read his lengthy precis on the films. I've read better.

"Just because he's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda."

[Rodney-2187]

Originally Posted by ChainsawJedi

I'm glad you asked. I've spoken to him for starters and while I have nothing against him he's really just someone who's got a lot of time on his hands. I've read his lengthy precis on the films. I've read better.

"Just because he's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda."

What do you think of the specific quotes above?

Are you interested in an unaltered version of the original trilogy?

[ChainsawJedi]

What do I think of the quotes? Sorry, I don't understand the question.

And no, I'm not interested in the so-called uot but I accept some people have a need for it.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by ChainsawJedi

I'm glad you asked. I've spoken to him for starters and while I have nothing against him he's really just someone who's got a lot of time on his hands. I've read his lengthy precis on the films. I've read better.

"Just because he's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda."

Pretty much every writer finds time to research and write. Well, good writers, at any rate. Knowledge doesn't fall out of the sky and land on your head like bird crap. Knowledge takes work and time. And this may come as a surprise, or it may not, but even great writers, actors, directors are normal people like everybody else. They're just really good at what they do, skills honed over years of hard work. Saying Mr. Kaminski is just a guy -- well, that's the way it works. Were you expecting otherwise? Were you expecting some college professor in a tweed jacket waxing eloquently about Virgil and Cicero?

[hanshotfirst1138]

Originally Posted by Spike M.

Last I heard Lucas hacking the original negatives to death was an urban legend.

God, I hope so.