I'm not a big Bond expert, but I always thought Never Say Never Again was down there in "Casino Royale" territory.

With all due respect, you are completely wrong. Lucas wrote drafts two and three of the ESB scripts, which is where the basic script, beat for beat, was created. He then handed off to Kasdan for a polish. Leigh Brackett's script was dumped and it bears little resemblance to the final film. Both Lucas and Kasdan have both confirmed many times that virtually nothing from Brackett's script was used. Brackett was given script credit because Lucas was fond of her and appreciated her work. Brackett was very sick when she wrote her draft of ESB, so Lucas gave her and Kasdan credit.

ESB and ROTJ were Lucas' vision. Not directing those films doesn't change that. Kershner and Marquand were brought in to bring those visions to life. While Kershner had creative control on set directing the actors, he had little creative control on the actual story and visual look of the film. Kershner did a great job, but it was still primarily Lucas' vision, and even Kershner would tell you that. I know the disgruntled Lucas haters can't stand that fact, but it's the truth.

As for ROTJ, Lucas ended up directing quite a bit of that film due to fallouts with Marquand.

I've heard all the details, but I have to say watching all six movies together, there is a distinct tonal shift when watching TESB. Whether it's the directing, the actors firing on all cylinders, or even something leftover from the early draft, there's something there that's different.

It's a credit to whoever was responsible for that feel that even Lucas' tinkering can't take away from TESB's greatness.

It could simply be that Kershner was a better director at working with actors than Lucas or Marquand.

As for the special editions, I can stomach most of the changes. I don't love all of them, but I can stomach most of them.

But Return of the Jedi went down to Phantom Menace territory with its SE. And it's not because of the Hayden ghost, which to me is the least insulting thing Lucas did. That goddamn musical number in Jabba's palace is easily the most disgustingly awful thing in any Star Wars film bar none, including Jar Jar and Christensen's "Sand" speech in Clones, or anything else. That dance number is sickeningly awful. I almost wanted to walk out of the movie theater when I saw it. Aside from being awful in any context, it detracts from the rest of the sequence, which establishes just how bloodthirsty Jabba is, and introduces the Rancor, which is important for when Luke arrives. But instead of thinking about those things, I sit there, mouth agape, amazed that anyone, ANYONE, would have ever even considered that musical number, let alone use it. Especially when the puppets in the original looked so good, and these new ones look far worse than the best CGI that ILM is capable of.

Anyway, that's my rant.

,...Leigh Brackett & Irvin Kershner, perfect writer/director combo. I wish Brackett wouldn't of passed away and they could've worked together on more scifi/fantasy movies.

And many Bond fans as well. You need to stop judging this film based on content like an aging Connery, no EON production, no barrel sequence/Bond music and instead judge it on how the film stands on its own - it's a very well made film if you grow more familiar with it and is much better crafted than many of the Bond movies themselves.

And Casino Royale 67 is a joke, not the funny kind.

On Empire: Note how of the three SEs, ESB was the one changed the least. No added scenes. All changes were merely cosmetic. (Even the new Emperor scene for the 2004 versions - just cosmetic.) New effects, a few new replacement shots, an added scream here or there, but nothing that ever affects the flow of the story itself.

Not sure if that says a lot for Lucas' feelings toward the original edit as flawless, or if it says anything about his not wanting to step on Kirshner's toes. Either way, it says something, yes?

I've often felt, that after he worked on 1-III, and how nice and polished they look , and then the IV-IV take place "after" but look like they happend 1000 years before, that he should just clean up the prints for the originals, and release them in a "ONE TIME" offer, kind of like the Disney Vault, then just reshoot the movies with new actors and skullfuck my childhood one last times. He can add whatever crazy horseshit he wants then.

He added shots to the Wampa sequence, which showed the Wampa chowing down on Luke's tauntaun. He also added the scene where Vader goes to his shuttle...for some reason.

In the next comparison pic they show that the room Leia is in has a windowed ceiling that shows the outside. The original matte painting doesn't match up with this, thus the change in the SE so that the room is obviously at the top of the building. So there was a reasoning for that change.

For the 2004 DVDs, Lucas added a scene of Vader traveling via shuttle to the Star Destroyer, using some footage taken from outtakes for RotJ. I'm not sure why he thought we needed to see that, but it's there.

It seems to be the one he was most pleased with effects wise, or possibly Ep 4 and 6 just took priority in '97, and he didn't have time to fully mess it up. He seems to have meddled with it more than the others since 97.

:lol: You've made the funniest post so far.

Actually, that might not be a bad idea for Lucas to fully remake IV-VI, since he's obviously never going to be fully happy with the current films. Although considering that he's already messed with I-III on DVD, he might just never be done meddling with any version of these films. Maybe he can just rotoscope out all the actors in the Original Unaltered Trilogy (OUT) and place them in all-new CGI environs. I can envision him already doing that.

As for the "one time" only release of the OUT, the question would be: what format would be the best to put the "final" release of OUT on? Lucas originally stated that the last VHS release had been the final release of the OUT, but that didn't stop people from wanting it on DVD. Now that it's on DVD, people want it anamorphic. If released anamorphic, people would eventually want it on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, and then on whatever format follows that. People are always going to want a newer release on a better format, so an "absolutely last time" release is never going to please everyone.

I get so confused when I read this thread. :hscratch:

I just want to know if I should buy these new editions, the previous ones, or wait for another release.

It depends on what you're interested in.

If you just want the Special Editions of Episodes IV-VI with the most extras available right now, get the 4-disc boxset.

If you want the Original Unaltered Versions of Episodes IV-VI in addition to the Special Editions, you can buy these new releases and settle for non-anamorphic transfers of the Original Unaltered Versions.

As for the future, who knows? It's all speculation right now as to what the 30th Anniversary set will have. Almost certainly it will contain Episodes I-III and the SEs of IV-VI. It's debatable whether or not it will contain the Original Unaltered Trilogy as well. The currently new releases may or may not be the last time to grab those. Any other extras are up in the air as well, although a n anniversary boxset would promise to be extensive in that regard. The rumors are that Lucas will include all supplementary material made for the series up to this point, with the exception of the Holiday Special of course.

Despite that notion that one man (or woman) is usually the driving force behind a film, I have always maintained, and will continue to maintain, that a motion picture is a collaborative work.

While the basic concepts of the films may have been Lucas’ “vision,” did he design and build all of the spaceships? Did he design and sew the costumes? Did he do the acting? Did he write and perform the music? Did he bring the donuts?

I am certainly a big believer in Capitalism, and I have always said that Lucas is free to do whatever he likes with his films. But to refuse to make the originals available in the media of the day is simply an insult to the hundreds of hard-working individuals that brought them to fruition.

That's a risk I just can't take. I'm getting these new ones.

The original architecture did not portray a penthouse apartment, so the view out the windows had visible spokes, as opposed to open sky with a cloud car.

http://www.starwars.com/episode-v/re...ew/img/110.jpghttp://www.starwars.com/episode-v/re...ew/img/111.jpg

There are thousands of films yet to be released on DVD. Are all the major, and minor, studios insulting the hundreds of thousands to millions of hard-working individuals who brought them to fuition by not releasing them already?

How about the scenes that didn't make it into the film? Aren't the director and producers insulting the hard-working individuals that worked on those scenes by not including them in the final cut?

I think it's a bit much to say its insulting them to make changes. It may be nice to see your work to come to fruition, but you were essentially working for-hire to achieve someone else's creative vision. It's no more an insult than it's an insult to a construction worker to renovate a building he worked on.

And the OUT is being released in the "media of the day," it comes out next week, just not in the quality of the day.

We dont need another 1,000 posts of lucas and Star Wars bashing. If you don't like it, don't buy it. I already own the SE's and I have the LD transfers on DVD. I plan on renting the new OT disks that are coming out but that is all.

But for the love of God let it rest already it is a $&@^(@ movie.

You are under no obligation to read these threads. For the most part I think the conversation has been fairly civil in comparison to some of the stuff I've seen on these boards.

I think I read that the originals are non-anamorphic. That's not true, is it?

They are not anamorphic. They are letterboxed.

You do know Brackett had very little to do with TESB? It's been stated numerous times in this thread alone. I honestly don't even think she worked much if any with Kershner. I'd credit the Kasdan/Kershner combo over the (relatively non-existent) Brackett one.

Still Lucas deserves more credit for TESB than people are willing to give him. Although I will say, Lucas should have really forced Kasdan to work on the prequels.

Here's to hoping for anamorphic releases of the originals some day.

Were the non SE's (well 2 disc sets) being released in a boxset on R1 or R2 or can they only be bought seperately? :)

EXAAAACTLY!!

Josh, I don't think you're giving enough credit to Marquand and Kirshener; certainly, Lucas can't take too much credit for the quality of the writing and acting in Empire, and the drama (in my view) of Jedi. The second trilogy makes that pretty clear.

I have a hard time believing that.