BizRodian

A lot of that was fan made stuff. Lucas's offical stance is he made the back story, thought three episodes would be enough for that, and so Episodes 4-6 were the OT. He started numbering after Star Wars was a success... because he didn't think there was a huge chance he'd be able to make them all. He mentioned 7-9 as a definite possibilty, and he might make them some day. During making the first movie though, he decided he didn't want to. He never had a real story for those episodes planned out, but thought maybe he would some day.

Of course, how would we know? one interview way back when says he once thought 12 episodes might work :O Some say Lucas definitly knew Vader was Luke's father when he was writing ANH, other say he didn't.

In the end, what does it really matter?

Avid

Seeker did pull up the IMDB review but I will reiterate, I saw Star Wars multiple times back in 1977 and it originally was "Star Wars". I remember during a re-release seeing the "Episode IV: A New Hope" title and actually felt a thrill go threw my body. Of course, I didn't know what the first trilogy had in store for us.

TomOpus

Count me in as another witness to seeing the title as just "Star Wars". I saw it a couple times within it's first opening week. I distinctly remember a lot of press with the re-title with the re-release. There was so much excitement at the thought of 6 more (at the time) Star Wars episodes.

Andador

I sure hope that they go for a 2 disc set for each movie or else with 2+ hours of the main feature and 1+hours of extras the overall image and sound quality will be compromised.

Seeker

I feel vindicated (re Star Wars)

back to the topic - I'm really looking forward to the Indy DVDs. I liked all three movies, and don't mind if they "clean them up" (i.e. remove the reflection), as long as they don't CHANGE the movie. It's sort of like remastering to me.

Buck Turgidson

The other school of thought is that Leigh Brackett came up with that while writing Empire. Personally, that seems more likely to me, but since she died so soon after writing it, and I wouldn't trust George if he told me the sky was blue, we'll never know.

jough

I'd love to see this among the special features. From IMDB:

caiman

The problem here is if they go back and remove the snake reflection, they are in effect "changing" the movie. I'm actually surprised at how many of you in this thread are in favor of these changes. I agree 100% that there is a difference between remastering a film and changing the content of a film (the former being okay, imho), but I disagree with most of you in the logic that digitally deleting mess-ups and continuity errors is a part of remastering. The way I see it, anything that was physically present at the time of shooting, be it a snake reflection or an annoying fly, are all a part of the movie. Therefore, removing these things with computers would constitute "changing" the movie.

I find it interesting how many people complain about Lucas' changes to Star Wars, yet find these changes with Indy perfectly fine. The difference here is quantitative, not qualitative. George having Greedo shoot first may have felt just as justified to him as removing the reflection in RotLA does to you guys. Either way, it's all a matter of opinion.

I say leave it alone. Remaster it, sure. Make the picture cleaner, sharper, whatever, but don't get rid of any part of the image that was physically shot. It's been the way it is for years, and it's the way I like it. Who's to say that these errors are necessarily a bad thing anyway? I remember watching RotLA as a kid and finding great enjoyment in spotting the goofs. The snake pit scene just wouldn't be the same without that goofy reflection.

Kerborus

Hmm... Who cares really. George Lucas has been revising and revising ever since it opened up, so is it really a surprise if it 'wasn't there' in the beginning or not... ?

I love all the memory recalls here too... We should all realise that the mind can play tricks on us both ways...

jough

So I guess you're against adding SFX and stuff, and would prefer to see the blue screen instead, since it was "present at the time of shooting" - or would rather see the wires attached to the actors in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "The Matrix" because they were physically there at the time of filming?

That's stupid, I think you'd agree. So why is removing a reflection different with Indy? Just because more *time* transpired between the shoot and digital clean-up?

NO!

I think you are objecting to the fact that they're changing the film AFTER the theatrical (and subsequent home video) release.

I guess that brings us to the question of which release is the most "sacred" - some directors are now using home video as their medium of choice, and consider the theatrical run just gravy, since the home video presentation is how their film will be seen more for posterity.

I agree that these a posteriori changes change the effect of the film - but if they can change the film for the better (a subjective measure, obviously) why not do so?

This isn't as bad as changing guns to walkie talkies - this is cleaning up a mistake. Of course, I objected to the change in E.T. where we could see E.T. running, too, even while thinking that the original "box on a rail" from the original film is really cheesy looking.

So it's just a matter of point of view. We'll see how the complaints register when the discs are released, I guess.

-- Jough

caiman

Ok, good point. But I think the difference here is that adding SFX or removing wires is something that was planned and determined ahead of time. There was never a chance of the wires in the Matrix or the big blue mats in Star Wars being seen in the final versions. These things aren't "clean ups" as much as they are simply a part of the production of the film. The Indy reflection, on the other hand, is something that they are just now changing. So in effect, yes, it does have to do with the amount of time passed. The movie was finished decades ago, snake reflection and all, but why was it not a problem back then, but it is now? Because now we have the technology to digitally remove anything we please? If that is a justifiable reason, then let's go back and colorize all the old classics, or digitally change the cardboard tombstone in Plan 9 From Outer Space to keep it from falling over. I say once the movie is finished, leave it the hell alone.

Kerborus

Both sides, I can appreicate... (weird Yoda voice).

I think they should both be offered. I do think that cleaning up mistakes will help make movies relevant to future generations when all of us nostalgiacs who love the 'snake reflection' are dead and in the ground.

kevin75

could someone refresh me on the "snake reflection?" it has been a few years since i have seen these and i don't own a copy of these so i can't check it out.

Pants

These films (and all films) aren't just great naratives and fun stories, they are time capsules. In the case of Raiders they are time capsules of how effects looked in 1981. To smooth them out in order to look as good as today's effects is wrong. What was seen in 1981 was state of the art for its time, when I watch the film again one reason I might watch it is to see what "state of the art" was back then.

I wouldn't want to see a Stan Winston fix up job called The Wolf Man Special Edition w/ new wolf tranformation effects over Lon Chaney Jr's performance and Jack Pierce's original make-up. Sure the old make-up is bad by today's standards, but I watch the film to appreciate what was state of the art in 1943.

Rypro 525

I did go to the ending of the movie where supposingly new effects were added for the widescreen vhs, even though it looks like a little bit of cgi got in, it isn't that bad looking and still looks pretty natural looking.

sracer

Very well said. Unfortunately, there is very little regard for the "art" of filmmaking. Today, hardware technology drives the medium...and changes to it.

The advent of the technology to alter the color of B&W prints, ushered in a temporary wave of colorizing films. The technology was not perfect so it faded away, but will soon be returning with the newest wave of artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic processing.

Widesceen films are chopped to fit the "technology" of 4:3 AR televisions.

Films with mono soundtracks are being remixed with artificially created surround sound stereo to support HTS systems.

Digital technology has ushered in a new wave adding new content, altering existing content.

It's sad, but that's where we're at.

jough

Indy falls into a pit of snakes. He hates snakes. A particularly nasty-looking cobra raises up and you can see the snake's reflection in the glass that of course isn't supposed to be there, but is there to protect the actor. It ruins the scene, in my opinion, although it's a little funny to see, especially since it's so obvious.

-- Jough

Lono

Oh darn it somebody beat me to it... now Short Round will be played by Jar Jar binks.

Rehevkor

The changes for the Star Wars Trilogy SE were nearly all cosmetic; upgrades to effects shots using newer technology. Which doesn't look too great when compared to the 70's effects that are still present and can also alter the "feel" of a particular shot. Plus, the mix of high and low tech effects can drastically reduce the believability of the movie's effects sequences.

From what we've heard, the only changes in the Indy trilogy are corrections of filming mistakes, not effects improvements. Since these mistakes have nothing at all to do with the movie's plot or styling, removing them will either have no effect or will improve the overall production quality. In my opinion, there is little difference between such changes as the reflection being removed and typical transfer improvements such as reduction of film grain and color adjustment. It's all to make the visual experience better without changing major elements.

caiman

I disagree. As I stated previously in this (old ass) thread, "Who's to say that these errors are necessarily a bad thing anyway? I remember watching RotLA as a kid and finding great enjoyment in spotting the goofs. The snake pit scene just wouldn't be the same without that goofy reflection."

So to change something like this in order to "improve the overall production quality" could potentially be doing more harm than good. When you reduce film grain and color adjustment, yes, you are improving the film because I doubt there are too many people who find sentimental value in print defects (but hey, who knows). But when you change something like the snake reflection, you're changing the movie. That's what I don't like.

masetodd

So an HTS system is a Home Theater System System?

lpetschauer

I refuse to purchase unless MORE scenes with Short Round are added.

And they should take out the snakes. Snakes are gross. They should digitally alter them into spiders and have HF re-record his lines to talk about not liking spiders.

Spiders are cool.

Rizor

From all the announcement news, I gathered that there would be no changes whatsoever and the report was just a rumor.

isamu

Nah, he's just trying to be /33t by saying that.

caligulathegod

Books fix typos all the time.


This is obviously a hard one, but such fixes could be looked upon as fixing typos. Star Wars SE was more like rewriting chapters.