Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[Jumpman]

Kryptonic,

Yeah, the model work as the Prequels went on got even more intensive as did the CG. They used every trick in the book to get those films off the ground.

The best example is in Episode III in the scene where Padme and Anakin, separated by the cityscape of Coruscant, have their quiet moment as Anakin makes his final decision on what he's going to do; save Padme or stay in the council chambers as Windu instructed.

The entire sequence was done in pick ups. Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen are both on greenscreen sets. Padme's apartment is mostly done with model work. The council chambers, where Anakin sits, is mostly digital plate photography stitched together and I believe some model work as well....

...and you can't freaking' tell.

The same goes for when Anakin sees Palpatine again and Palpatine reveals his true identity. Most of that sequence is reshoots and Lucas just used digital plate photography, model work, set construction, and CG to piece what was done during initial production and in reshoots. It's virtually seamless.

Same goes with the scene between Anakin and Padme on the apartment balcony. Again, a pick up scene between Natalie and Hayden. Shot on greenscreen with the archway as the only set construction. Everything else, model work and digital plate photography, and CG.

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

BluYoda,

I found a copy of the ILM documentary online and actually just finished watching it.

It's fantastic. Yeah, if you know the Star Wars story, then you know the story of ILM. Most of the stuff mentioned in the doc, I already knew but that didn't make a difference. This is the definitive doc on ILM.

Funny enough, it was onlly 57 minutes. Somewhere, there's an extended version of this documentary.

I should've expected the doc to be great. It was done by the same filmmaker who did that wonderful documentary on Pixar called "The Pixar Story" that's on the Wall E blu ray set....

Do you have a link?

I know that is was made by the people who made "The Pixar Story", which I really enjoyed on the Wall-E supplemental BD.

Anyway, I really hope they'll include this documentary in the supplements.

I love ILM. Kind of sad to see the few films only use one VFX house to do their shots.

Love SW for those reasons too. Only ILM there!

[TheTenth]

sorry if it was asked, don't have the courage to read 300+ pages
any chance it'll be region free? and will there be an edition with the original cut of 1-3?

[gettodamoofies]

Originally Posted by TheTenth

sorry if it was asked, don't have the courage to read 300+ pages
any chance it'll be region free? and will there be an edition with the original cut of 1-3?

Region free? Maybe, maybe not. It's Fox so it could be either way. If you take their recent Alien Anthology release as an indicator that was region free.

As for the original cuts, well there's lots been said about it but suffice to say we'll most likely get a 1 metre wide Limited Sarlacc Edition featuring a hideous rubber recreation of the creature (with the added CG "mouth" naturally) before we get the original cuts on Blu-ray.

And no George, that is NOT a serious marketing idea. I don't want to see it up for pre-order when you bring out the 3D versions on Blu-ray, not unless you're paying me a royalty.

[aiman04]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

Do you have a link?

I know that is was made by the people who made "The Pixar Story", which I really enjoyed on the Wall-E supplemental BD.

Anyway, I really hope they'll include this documentary in the supplements.

I love ILM. Kind of sad to see the few films only use one VFX house to do their shots.

Love SW for those reasons too. Only ILM there!

Though not the main team, ILM did a considerable work on Avatar, John Knoll was one of the lead visual effect supervisors.

[MEATBALL 2112]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

Do you have a link?

I know that is was made by the people who made "The Pixar Story", which I really enjoyed on the Wall-E supplemental BD.

Anyway, I really hope they'll include this documentary in the supplements.

I love ILM. Kind of sad to see the few films only use one VFX house to do their shots.

Love SW for those reasons too. Only ILM there!

The ILM doc is on Comcast on-demand under the free movies section.

[kenkraly2004]

I pre-ordered my set on amazon.com I am buying the blu-ray set no matter which versions of the ot are released. I like the special editions of the ot and the prequels as well. I like all 6 films actually. I understand some fans are upset that the original cuts won't be in the set but to me it's not a big issue I like both versions. It's star wars.

[Mahatma]

Originally Posted by TheTenth

sorry if it was asked, don't have the courage to read 300+ pages
any chance it'll be region free? and will there be an edition with the original cut of 1-3?

Why is the redgion-coding important?They are releasing it in europe too. . . .

As for the original cut,if you mean as in '77-'80's versions the answer is most probably no

[Moefiz]

I'll wait a few months more before I pre-order but will certainly get it.

[loki993]

So I didnt see any mention in the press releases, but do we still not know what version they are going to be? Not that it matter much to me, just curious.

Maybe since they havent said theyre going to redo them again?

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by Beast

I've got the OT on Betamax, VHS, and Laserdisc Boxset (Definitive Collection), as well as the Special Edition Boxset ('97 Version) on Laserdisc. Sadly the E1 Laserdisc was cancelled in the United States. Then the '97 SE on VHS. Episode 1 and Episode II on VHS. Then both releases of the films on DVD, the first with the Empire of Dreams disc and the second with the DVD's of the OT. But yeah, about the only thing I watch anymore is the final versions on DVD. But the films that get the most spin time is always the PT. I tend to doze off watching the OT (Especially ANH), since I have seen them so many times.

Beast did you keep them all over the years? I have kept them all since I do enjoy collecting Star Wars items.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Dubstar

huh? that really didn't answer my question: split stereo surrounds were introduced with the theatrical release of 'Apocalypse Now' - I would have thought that unlike Ep.4, Episodes 5 and 6 would have had stereo surrounds and not the five front/mono surround configurement that 'Star Wars' (A New Hope) in theaters in 1977.

as for Fox and it's committment to DTS, if Lucas enforces Dolby for these releases wont that make the Star Wars bluray discs the first from Fox not to have DTS sound?

You're correct that split surround was introduced with Apocalypse Now (actually a few segments of Superman were in split surround as well), but split surround was not used for any of the OT in the original 70mm releases.

By the time the special editions were released theatrically, digital sound was used in normal 35mm 5.1 configuration. (Sony SDDS had the capability for 8 channel, but none of the original Star Wars films used it when rereleased. The Phantom Menace was released in 8ch SDDS, but according to my notes, Episode II and III were not.)

Episodes I, II, and III were released in Dolby Digital EX (in fact, I think Ep I was the first EX film) and II and III were released in DTS-ES, but I have to be honest and say that at least at the theaters I attended (which did have EX/ES capability), I couldn't tell the difference - the hard center rear was imperceptible.

But you also raise an issue which I've discussed in other posts: How come the same people who scream that the only acceptable version of the OT is the original theatrical version also want the films to be remixed, with people usually asking for 7.1? You can't have it both ways - if you want the original visuals, you should want the original audio mix, which was essentially a 4.1 mix.

[bsmith6470]

Pre-ordered.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

70MM prints were still not "normal" and films in the 5.1 configuration even rarer. That Empire & Jedi were still 4.2 70MM wasn't surprising. I don't remember the specifics anymore but only a small amount of films received 5.1 70MM releases before the format was completely supplanted by the digital formats (DD, DTS, SDDS).

Trivia: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the first LucasFilm (and the first Steven Spielberg film) to have 5.1 70MM release prints...and they were in Dolby SR format...so the analog masters actually had greater dynamic range than 16-bit digital!

Split Surround used 6 source channels, but was actually a 7.1 channel playback format. The way that it worked is that tracks 2 and 4, normally used in the Dolby "Baby Boom" format only for low frequency effects for Le and Re were also used for split surround high frequencies and the normal mono surround was used for split surround low frequencies. IIRC, the crossover was at 200Hz.

The 18 films that used the 70mm split surround process were:
Superman (experimentally - just a few scenes and only few prints)
Apocalypse Now
The Jazz Singer
Superman II
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Supergirl
Return to Oz
The Black Cauldron
Top Gun
Lawrence of Arabia 1989 restoration (maybe)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The Hunt for Red October
Dick Tracy (also released in CDS digital sound)
Days of Thunder (also released in CDS digital sound)
Beauty and the Beast
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Shining Through
Alien 3 (this is disputed, but Michael Coate, an industry expert, claims it was)

after that, it was supplanted by 5.1 digital sound.

By the way, I dispute your contention that Dolby SR mag would have had higher dynamic range than 16 bit digital. 16 bit digital supports 96db dynamic range. The SR might have sounded better, but not because of dynamic range limits. In fact, the opposite could be true: a wide dynamic range can drive the theater's b-chain into distortion so a track with less dynamic range would have lower distortion and sound better.

[mredman]

Originally Posted by atexp80

Region free? Maybe, maybe not. It's Fox so it could be either way. If you take their recent Alien Anthology release as an indicator that was region free.

As for the original cuts, well there's lots been said about it but suffice to say we'll most likely get a 1 metre wide Limited Sarlacc Edition featuring a hideous rubber recreation of the creature (with the added CG "mouth" naturally) before we get the original cuts on Blu-ray.

And no George, that is NOT a serious marketing idea. I don't want to see it up for pre-order when you bring out the 3D versions on Blu-ray, not unless you're paying me a royalty.

Don't care if this is region free. Because the set will most likely be the same all over the world

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by TheTenth

sorry if it was asked, don't have the courage to read 300+ pages any chance it'll be region free?

France is getting it....

http://www.amazon.fr/Star-Wars-Lint%...4521104&sr=1-5

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by MEATBALL 2112

The ILM doc is on Comcast on-demand under the free movies section.

Thanks. That means I am going to wait until the BD release.

I bet it's going to be in full HD.

Originally Posted by mredman

Don't care if this is region free. Because the set will most likely be the same all over the world

I do, because I hate the German titles, which completely destroy the original meaning, and the German editions have tonnes of Audio and subtitle tracks, hence I import all my titles from the U.S.

Needless to say, I pre-ordered two of these sets faster than Yoda can wield his lighsaber.

[StereoMike]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

I have kept them all since I do enjoy collecting Star Wars items.

Same here...

[Indyjones]

Originally Posted by Dubstar

as for Fox and it's committment to DTS, if Lucas enforces Dolby for these releases wont that make the Star Wars bluray discs the first from Fox not to have DTS sound?

Yep, it would. Even though Lucas is a Dolby guy, I'm guessing that the SW saga will get DTS tracks, only by going off the release of THX-1138. WB has used both TrueHD and DTS up to now, with pretty much every title nowadays being released with a DTS-HD MA track - including THX. I would've thought for sure that title would've sported a TrueHD track.

I think it's a given that the blu's will have a new soundmix, I believe it was even confirmed by Matt Wood. I'm praying that Lucas doesn't get a wild hair up his butt and mess with Rydstrom's work on TPM and AOTC.

[NYorker]

Just thought of something...
If some day GL decides to release the "originals" - but only in 3D...what do you do...? get 3D sets...?