Quote:
Originally Posted by mjbethancourt
I'm still waiting for Blu-ray releases of:
Angels with Dirty Faces, Arsenic and Old Lace, Asphalt Jungle, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Bedtime Story (1964), The Big Sleep, The 'Burbs, Cabiria, Captain Blood, Dragonslayer, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, the Fantomas series, The Ghost and the Darkness, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Gold Diggers of 1933, Harry Lloyd's Grandma's Boy, Haxan, Hamlet (1990), To Hell and Back, The Hobbit (animated), The Human Condition Trilogy, Ikiru, Innerspace, Judith of Bethulia, Key Largo, The Money Pit, Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, Rat Race, The Return of the King (animated), Ride the High Country, The Roaring Twenties, le Samourai, The Spiders (1919), Spies, Spirited Away, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, The Thief of Bagdad (1940), Trouble in Paradise, What about Bob, Woman in the Moon, The Woman in the Window...
...I could go on and on with this, and a lot of other people could as well.
Now, my question is: how many web pages and chat forums are dedicated to scorching hatred and personal viciousness against the license-owners of any of those films? How many people would even consider carrying on a years-long hate campaign over any other film not being released? And yet here we are, watching people in all seriousness actually using the excuse "because he hasn't released the specific edits that I want, of films that are in fact available", to justify their own years-long hate-campaigns against Lucas; even though, at this point, the man doesn't even own the films anymore, yet these people still will not let up.
This is not rational, it is visceral and unjustifiable.
edit: the other popular excuse for pouring hatred on the man is that "his new movies aren't as good as his old movies." Seriously. The same thing is true of so many other filmmakers, and so what? Should they have burned down Orson Welles because he never lived up to Citizen Kane? None of these excuses fly, it's just thin cover for personality disorders and chronic trolling.
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There's a few things to dig through here...
First of all, in a perfect world, all films would be upgraded to Blu-Ray (or be in the process of being upgraded to it), and to all future better formats, resolutions, etc.
There are many films that I'm waiting to see released on Blu-Ray, in some cases unsure of when/if they will be.
The problem is when the issues of culture and copyright conflict with each other.
I personally am of the mind frame that any TV show, movie, music, video game, etc. that is made and officially released is a part of our culture, no matter how big or small it is, and no matter how many people see it/hear it/play it. There will always be some works that get more attention than others. But each of these works will impact at least some people. Even a movie that completely flops theatrically and is torn apart by critics will inevitably have at least some people who like it, enjoy it, and on some level are impacted by it.
Obviously each individual is going to have works that they care about and ones that they don't. And of the ones that they care about, they will like some more than others. But ultimately almost every work made will have at least someone out there who likes it.
To me, all of these works of entertainment should be made reasonably available. I'm not a fan of a movie being changed and altered with the original version being suppressed, or with films not being re-released at all, even if it's because the world has changed and the studios that own them fear the reaction to reissuing them (i.e. Disney's Song of the South).
The problem that we run into here is the part where these things are run by businesses with financial bottom lines.
I love Blu-Ray, I love physical media, and I'm not a big fan of streaming and downloading content (especially as a means of "buying" content... renting is okay). But the problem is that as great as the format is and as well as it has done, it has not achieved the level of market penetration that DVD has.
And many (not all, but many) catalog titles have somewhat struggled on the format, especially those that are perhaps more obscure and/or older to the point that they aren't high profile in the eyes of the average BD consumer.
The other problem is the fact that many of these films were already released on DVD and bought up by many people. DVD took off as a buying medium like wildfire. While people certainly had VHS collections, VHS was, by comparison, more of a renters medium while DVD became more of a collector's medium.
So a lot of people aren't necessarily going to upgrade a movie like What About Bob? to Blu-Ray if their DVD still works (I would happily rebuy it, but I know I don't represent the majority). They may upgrade films like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Back to the Future, but otherwise they may see Blu-Ray as a "go forward" medium, meaning they only buy new movies on the format. And even then, some people may only buy the big blockbuster films on it while opting for DVD for comedies and such. And this is for a lot of people who even bothered with Blu-Ray at all... many have just stuck with DVD entirely. I don't agree with that mentality, but it's out there.
So the collective problem that happens is many studios are finding it not financially worth while/viable to release some of their movies on Blu-Ray. They either don't get released, or they get licensed out in bulk to small budget distributors like Mill Creek.
I unfortunately anticipate the selection of films on the upcoming 4K BD format to be even more limited.
All of this unfortunately culminates in a situation where many films don't get released on Blu-Ray, and in some extreme instances (i.e. Song of the South), just aren't being made available in any form at all what-so-ever.
Then there are issues like what has been happening with MGM and the old John Wayne movie "The Alamo."
The article linked below goes into more detail, but in short, the original film elements are deteriorating rapidly and in the not to distant future may be beyond repair. For years there have been attempts by concerned film enthusiasts to get it restored. But in short, MGM doesn't feel that the cost will be worth while in terms of what they will make going forward on the film, and they don't want to pay for it. When presented with alternative restoration options that wouldn't cost them anything, they still opted not to go with them because they felt having someone else pay for the restoration of the film that they own would make them look bad. So instead, they just let it sit and continue deteriorating. The article below is from mid 2014. It states that back in 2009 there was a failed attempt at a restoration... and that in the years that transpired since, the film has degraded so much more that even if they were to have immediately (at the time of the article) gone to restore it, it wouldn't only get it to 60% of the level of what could have been achieved a few years prior. But AT LEAST it would still be that good. Instead, it still sits there deteriorating...
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/column...ts/052814_1330
This isn't even a movie that I personally have much interest in watching, but the fact that this is happening infuriates me. This should be down right criminal, and MGM should be forced to allow it to be restored by interested parties if they, themselves, refuse to do it. I wish there were laws in place for this sort of thing.
I have no problem with studios, artists, etc. profiting from the works that they make. They absolutely should. But there needs to be balance between the copyright aspect and the culture. When films get to a point that future profitability is limited to nonexistent, but there are still parties interested in having access to it (as limited in number as they may be in some instances) who either didn't buy it previously or want it on the latest and greatest format, there should be some kind of balancing act that allows for it.
And while I know it doesn't always happen this way, and there are currently no laws in place, IMO when copyright and culture conflict in a way that prevents the public from even accessing a particular film or version of a film in a reasonable manner, culture should win out. I know some will disagree with this, but if studios aren't going to make it a point to re-release previous films, then those films should be taken away from them and allowed to be made available by those who care enough to do so. Where applicable, the studios can still own the rights to the intellectual properties that the films are based on (assuming they owned the IP in the first place) to allow them to make future works based on it if they choose to do so, but preexisting works that are effectively being held captive with little to no intention of ever making them available again should be rescued.
Circling this back to the point at hand... Star Wars and George Lucas... the issue here is two fold.
Lucas made claims that re-releasing the original versions of the movies in a quality restoration would be too costly. I don't know if that's necessarily the actual case, or if he was at one point just using that as an excuse not to bother releasing them (he's kind of known for making conflicting statements at times).
But whatever the reason, you have a guy who (prior to selling it off) was the owner of a franchise that was and still is a financial juggernaut. The Star Wars IP was practically a license for him to print his own money. Even if restoring the original versions was as costly as he states, odds are a DVD and/or Blu-Ray release of them would still have sold well enough to justify the cost (even if these came out after the prior releases on those formats and didn't sell as well as them).
And even if I am wrong on how well they'd sell, again, collectively between all of the merchandizing, other releases of the films, etc, the franchise has made and continues to make SO MUCH money that the idea that a little bit of it couldn't be spent on a proper restoration of the original films is ludicrous, especially considering that those are the films that the entire franchise has been built upon. Not to mention the fact that when they went to make the special editions in the first place in the mid 90s and found the original elements in bad condition, in need of a restoration, they easily could have made it a point to restore the original versions for posterity (if no other reason... assuming that Lucas is being truthful in the original elements not being preserved to rebuild the OOT when this restoration took place), while still having the new special edition as well. He could have avoided this supposed expensive cost that he claims exists in years since by taking a simple extra step when money was already being spent restoring the films anyway.
The other problem with George Lucas is that in trying to be as independent of the studios as possible, he ended up doing a lot of things and making a lot of choices that were very similar to some of the worst things that some studios do, even if his reasons and motivations in doing so were different. He suppresses the original versions, which had a MAJOR cultural impact on the world. Sometimes studios do this out of laziness (i.e. releasing only an extended or unrated version of a movie on Blu-Ray, and not the theatrical version with it... or vice versa). He chooses to direct and more-or-less independently make the prequels, basically just using Fox as a means of distribution, to not have to deal with the politics and possible interference that go with working with a major studio, only to make a new trilogy of films that are more or less akin to the average, half-assed, fast cash-in, low quality summer blockbuster trite that many studios often push out.
He may have his personal and artistic reasons for doing what he did. But the suppression of the original versions of the OT is by far his biggest sin IMO. While he made disappointing prequels, it's not like in making them, some other better work that already existed was by default taken away (i.e. even if the new all female Ghostbusters film ends up sucking, we'll still have the original films). We just got low quality new movies. But what happened with changing the old movies is the biggest issue.
And getting to the bigger point that all of my rambling here has been leading to, the reason why Star Wars gets so much more attention than those other films that you listed is because of the level of it's cultural impact and the size of the audience. While, as I stated, I do believe that all officially released films should be preserved and made available as all have some degree of cultural impact, no matter how big or small... Star Wars had a MUCH bigger cultural impact than that of most other films. And the OT are probably the most high profile releases to have changes this drastic done to them AND have the original versions largely suppressed.
So, of course SW is going to get A LOT more individual attention than those other films that you listed. It's just the nature of the beast.
It is true that now that GL has sold it, it's largely out of his hands. And there are rumors that Disney may be prepping some kind of reissue of the originals. I hope that ends up happening.
But the point remains that we've been without them for all of these years because of George Lucas (not counting the royally half-assed non-anamorphic DVD release with old laserdisc masters "dumped" on DVD discs), and he could have done something about this a long time ago. The fact that he sold off the rights in recent years doesn't magically absolve him of that.
And given the fact that Star Wars has pretty consistently been a financial juggernaut, there's very little excuse for it.
While I'm not thrilled that many other films haven't been released on Blu-Ray and may never be, and despite my thoughts that culture should trump copyright when the two conflict, if some studios are sitting on movies that they don't think will sell very well on Blu-Ray, and that aren't part of or tied to a larger franchise that is currently making a lot of money or has obvious potential to do so in the near future, from a business perspective, I can at least understand where they are coming from. They see it as just flushing money down the drain, with little to show or gain from it, and they have investors to answer to. It sucks. I don't like it. I want there to be a work around when these conflicts occur (hence my entire stance on culture). But I get it.
That is not the case with Star Wars, nor has it ever really been. The suppression of the original versions was simply the work of a stubborn man who wanted things to be his way, was convinced that if the originals were suppressed long enough, most people would come around to seeing things his way, all of which spectacularly backfired in his face.
You can argue that (at least back when he still owned SW and Lucasfilm) he had the right to do so as the artist behind SW and/or the owner of the property, but it was still a jag-off move on his part. He suppressed something that impacted a lot of people because of his own idiosyncrasies, and upset them in the process. By contrast, nothing was stopping him from making his updated versions
in addition to the originals. If the OOT had been properly released on DVD and/or Blu-Ray in addition to his updated editions, how would that really impact him? So some of us would be in our homes watching the films in the original versions instead of his new versions. Big whoop. He wouldn't be there to see us watching them. It wouldn't impact him at all. But his very selfish choices effected millions of fans. That, combined with my belief that once a movie is put out there, it should remain available (and there is no good reason, certainly not any money related ones, why these shouldn't be available), just really taints him in my book.
He no longer owns SW (thank goodness), so hopefully we'll see some of these things rectified in the not too distant future. If it happens, it will be like waking up from a bad dream that so far has lasted almost two decades.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoff D
In a weird way I actually miss the Phantom Menace puppet. The redesign wasn't great but there's still something about seeing a puppet there (being controlled by Oz, natch) which connects with me in a way that the CG replacement doesn't, it looks out of place somehow. (It doesn't help that the Blu-ray has that plasticky DNR vibe to it, the whole thing looks off.) Even weirder, I don't mind the CG version in the next two movies because that's how they've always been, and the Sith version in particular looks excellent.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Packerfan75
I feel the exact opposite. I thought the new yoda puppet looked weird and out of place. I was immediately unhappy with it when I first saw TPM. It looked like a bad knock off of the original. It's the one post release change that I actually liked that George made. CGI yoda works better for me there because he's the same for the next 2 films and helps bring it together. He also animates better and is more expressive. That being said, I still prefer ESB and ROTJ yoda over both of the others. It's amazing how lifelike he seems sometimes.
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In the PT... in
Phantom Menance specifically, I do prefer the CGI Yoda over the weird looking puppet.
But that being said, I do think the original version of
Phantom Menace should be made available with the puppet intact (based on all of the reasoning described above).
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