Star Wars
02-24-17, 01:48 PM
#4151
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
This rumor could end up being true AND you still will regret it. A release of the OOT could still have some alterations that aren't the type people have rallied against Lucas for doing. Things like the effects of laser blasts on humans, light saber colors/effects, and other very minor changes that are not Han shooting first, Jaba in ANW, the force ghosts, etc. And then of course there is always the possibility the color timing will be different or any other number of things that don't have to do with the Lucas SE changes.
02-24-17, 02:09 PM
#4152
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
To be fair, the Song of the South has really strong racial undertones tied to it, as do parts of Fantasia. Disney has at least looked into ways into releasing Song of the South in a socially responsible way, although they haven't ever settled on one.
Star Wars, on the other hand, isn't having the original "suppressed" due to any racial or social issues, but simply because its creator and long-time owner preferred the revised versions he made.
Star Wars, on the other hand, isn't having the original "suppressed" due to any racial or social issues, but simply because its creator and long-time owner preferred the revised versions he made.
02-24-17, 02:09 PM
#4153
DVD Talk Legend & 2021 TOTY Winner
re: Star Wars
That's a pretty strong "if." The existing agreement is pretty strongly in Fox's favor, and the unaltered versions are pretty good leverage. And while releasing the unaltered versions during the 40th Anniversary of the first film is nice, I'm not sure it's enough of a marketing boost to justify basically just handing them over to Fox.
02-24-17, 02:12 PM
#4154
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
If that wrangling was going on, then yes it would be more complex. However, if, in order to get them out this year, Disney was willing to let Fox distribute them under the original agreement, it would be very simple.
MAYBE even letting Fox distribute them now under the existing agreement is part of an agreement to get the rights to Episode IV back to Disney (ie, we'll let you distribute the unaltered OT for a few years and make a bunch of money, but ANH reverts to us with the rest of the films in 2020. Otherwise we'll sit on them until then, and you'll only make money from ANH).
MAYBE even letting Fox distribute them now under the existing agreement is part of an agreement to get the rights to Episode IV back to Disney (ie, we'll let you distribute the unaltered OT for a few years and make a bunch of money, but ANH reverts to us with the rest of the films in 2020. Otherwise we'll sit on them until then, and you'll only make money from ANH).
02-24-17, 02:30 PM
#4155
DVD Talk Hero
re: Star Wars
You guys aren't looking at the bigger picture. If Disney comes knocking on Fox's door asking to strike a deal on Star Wars, Fox will undoubtedly try to leverage that into negotiations over other properties of mutual interest as well. Like, for example, using Marvel's MCU characters in X-Men movies.
I'd just like to see the Fantastic Four end up in the MCU. If it means letting Fox use some MCU characters in their X-films, so be it.
It's kind of a situation where Disney is holding most of the cards, but Fox has two big ones that Disney would probably like to get their hands on, and they'll have to give up a lot to get both of them. Fox striking a deal with Disney like Sony did with Spider-Man would be mutually beneficial to both parties, but Fox may be too proud to bite.
02-24-17, 02:41 PM
#4156
DVD Talk Hero
re: Star Wars
I would also be fine with SE versions of the OT as part of the greater "saga" with cleaned-up special effects and the like as long as they remove all of the stupid shit like the added screams, Han shooting first, etc. Stuff like the Jabba scene in ANH, "Jedi Rocks" and Hayden at the end of ROTJ, I'm ambivalent about, but I could live with them as long as the original version is available in good quality.
Hell, I wouldn't even object to some new scenes being put in the OT like a scene on Alderaan with Bail Organa in ANH, or Vader's castle or the Emperor's throne room in any of the movies as long as they could be logically worked into the story. Things that expand the movies are better than crap like "Jedi Rocks" or Jabba that add nothing. But the original versions of the movies need to be available.
02-24-17, 04:22 PM
#4158
DVD Talk Legend
02-24-17, 04:30 PM
#4159
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Rec...tures/id/15617
Pinocchio (1940): Color timing issues are the concern in the digital restorations and a negative impact on lighting depth. There IS a chance the restoration is correct. The problem is a lot of people feel that it is accurate to the cells but not how the animators expected it to look once transferred to film.
In other words, for both of these issues, at worst you can say the issue was incompetence. But it's still not the same as Star Wars, as nobody at Disney was actively preventing the original versions from being released.
Whatever the deal, it was favorable to Lucasfilm, which was a (relatively) small studio that couldn't distribute the films on its own. The distributor not only handles manufacturing and distribution, but also can handle promotion of the film. The size of the cut depends a lot on how much work the distributor is putting in.
https://stephenfollows.com/average-f...ribution-fees/
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.c...tribution1.htm
http://www.fictionvillemedia.com/fil...ou-make-a-deal
The thing is that now that Lucasfilm is with Disney, Disney is a distributor itself, so Disney isn't going to be so willing to hand over a cut of the gross to another distributor, when they could do it all in-house and keep the entire gross to themselves. It's not a bad deal, but it's not as good as if, say, Disney just waits until the rights to the 2nd-6th films revert back to them automatically, and it may be in Disney's interest to negotiate for the distribution rights to the first film too.
02-24-17, 10:19 PM
#4160
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
re: Star Wars
Spoiler:
.
Finally, imagine the outcry that would happen if people learned that Disney had performed 4K scans and remasters of the original versions and then were simply sitting on them until the proper release window presents itself. At least right now there's the mental buffer of "oh, the work hasn't been done yet." If 4K masters existed but weren't being released, fans would be foaming at the mouth, and release rumors would be popping up every other week.
With lossy audio, but yeah. I've learned not to think anything is possible when it comes to Star Wars. It's special, magical outlier where OOT fans always draw the short straw.
Because Disney doesn't care. They bought Lucasfilm for the franchise IP rights so that they could churn out tons and tons of new Star Wars content every year. The older movies are, in Disney's mind, already played out. The return on investment for another re-release would probably not recoup the expenditure of a major restoration effort.
There's an echo in here
.
Keep in mind also that Disney has just as bad or worse a track record for altering, censoring and suppressing its old movies as Lucasfilm does. Song of the South will never see the light of day again, nor will the original version of Fantasia.
Star Wars, on the other hand, isn't having the original "suppressed" due to any racial or social issues, but simply because its creator and long-time owner preferred the revised versions he made.
If that wrangling was going on, then yes it would be more complex. However, if, in order to get them out this year, Disney was willing to let Fox distribute them under the original agreement, it would be very simple.
MAYBE even letting Fox distribute them now under the existing agreement is part of an agreement to get the rights to Episode IV back to Disney (ie, we'll let you distribute the unaltered OT for a few years and make a bunch of money, but ANH reverts to us with the rest of the films in 2020. Otherwise we'll sit on them until then, and you'll only make money from ANH).
MAYBE even letting Fox distribute them now under the existing agreement is part of an agreement to get the rights to Episode IV back to Disney (ie, we'll let you distribute the unaltered OT for a few years and make a bunch of money, but ANH reverts to us with the rest of the films in 2020. Otherwise we'll sit on them until then, and you'll only make money from ANH).
This rumor could end up being true AND you still will regret it. A release of the OOT could still have some alterations that aren't the type people have rallied against Lucas for doing. Things like the effects of laser blasts on humans, light saber colors/effects, and other very minor changes that are not Han shooting first, Jaba in ANW, the force ghosts, etc. And then of course there is always the possibility the color timing will be different or any other number of things that don't have to do with the Lucas SE changes.
You guys aren't looking at the bigger picture. If Disney comes knocking on Fox's door asking to strike a deal on Star Wars, Fox will undoubtedly try to leverage that into negotiations over other properties of mutual interest as well. Like, for example, using Marvel's MCU characters in X-Men movies.
The truth doesn't hurt. It's torture
.I would also be fine with SE versions of the OT as part of the greater "saga" with cleaned-up special effects and the like as long as they remove all of the stupid shit like the added screams, Han shooting first, etc. Stuff like the Jabba scene in ANH, "Jedi Rocks" and Hayden at the end of ROTJ, I'm ambivalent about, but I could live with them as long as the original version is available in good quality.
Why did they ban him? And sorry, the 40th was just pretty much the last chance we had. You might say "our only hope."
Color timing issues are always controversial, since it's hard to know what is the "correct" color timing, and comparisons are typically done with previous home video releases, which could've been wrong themselves.
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Rec...tures/id/15617
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Rec...tures/id/15617
Spoiler:
As for "digital substitutes," I'm not sure about the Lion King, but I know for Beauty and the Beast the issue was that they put 3 versions on one disc, including one that was "enhanced" and expanded with a new song, and some the "enhanced" footage got into the "original theatrical version. But this seems more like an issue with the authoring, and incorrectly branching and/or using alternate angles for the different versions.
The thing is that now that Lucasfilm is with Disney, Disney is a distributor itself, so Disney isn't going to be so willing to hand over a cut of the gross to another distributor, when they could do it all in-house and keep the entire gross to themselves. It's not a bad deal, but it's not as good as if, say, Disney just waits until the rights to the 2nd-6th films revert back to them automatically, and it may be in Disney's interest to negotiate for the distribution rights to the first film too.
02-24-17, 11:18 PM
#4161
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
It's not that Fox has distribution rights, but those distribution rights mean they get a significant chunk of the revenue earned by any such releases. Fox owns distribution rights for Star Wars in perpetuity, but only has the rights to the other films until 2020. Disney could restore and release the original versions now and let Fox take a cut of all 3 films, or they could wait until 2020 when the distribution rights to ESB and ROTJ revert back to them and they get all the revenue from those two titles. Disney may also be working behind the scenes right now to work out some deal regarding Star Wars, like they did with Paramount with The Avengers.
I guess you don't know about Sunflower, the black centaur that was cut out due to being a racist caricature.
https://thesocietypages.org/socimage...neys-fantasia/
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Sunflower
http://deadline.com/2013/05/toldja-p...engers-507337/
They also made a deal with Paramount for Indiana Jones.
http://variety.com/2013/film/news/di...nt-1200927216/
Disney even made a deal with NBC/Universal for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit:
https://ohmy.disney.com/insider/2016...-lucky-rabbit/
Disney actually seems pretty open to making deals to secure full rights to its properties.
Which is kinda my point. People dealt with the issues with that release because it was the OOT. An HD release of the OOT doesn't have to be "perfect" to see a lot of demand.
DVD is 20 years old and "still around," most of my Blu-ray purchases include it as a disc. Blu-ray is only about half that age. And then, it's possible they'll make a UHD Blu-ray release instead.
02-25-17, 06:17 AM
#4162
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
This should be a surprise to no one, but Pablo Hidalgo has confirmed that there are NO plans for a release of the original 77 version:
https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2017...-and-more.html
https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2017...-and-more.html
02-25-17, 07:54 AM
#4163
DVD Talk Legend & 2021 TOTY Winner
re: Star Wars
Oh well, I'm still selling my 2006 DVD's. Even if a re-release isn't eminent, there are better quality versions of the OOT available.
02-25-17, 10:06 AM
#4165
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
Pablo seems to be saying it's up to George to release the original versions but he sold Lucasfilm. He does not own it anymore. Why does there seem to be so much contempt and disdain towards the Star Wars community from the people in charge? I don't give a shit about the theme parks or the celebrations or even the toys any more for that matter- I just want a good, clean version of the goddamned movies that made Lucas a goddamned billionaire and changed the face of movie making for-goddamnned-ever.
What is so goddamned hard about that?
What is so goddamned hard about that?
02-25-17, 10:56 AM
#4166
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
Alternately, the rumor was that the LE DVDs with the laserdisc masters only came to be because some of the people at Lucasfilm pestered him about releasing some version of the original edits. Maybe since Lucasfilm was sold, nobody has asked George, or pestered him enough about it, just letting his previous wishes stand.
Or maybe the "one person" is someone else, like Bob Iger. Or, since Pablo Hidalgo says that it's "as far as he knows," maybe he doesn't know the full reasoning for why they haven't been released yet. Sure he works at Lucasfilm, but I doubt he's involved with the legal negotiations with Fox, for example.
02-25-17, 11:48 AM
#4167
DVD Talk Hero
re: Star Wars
Just when I get a little bit of hope, a little optimism, you sons a bitches gotta come in here and ruin it for me! 
02-25-17, 05:54 PM
#4169
DVD Talk Limited Edition
re: Star Wars
I don't give a shit about the theme parks or the celebrations or even the toys any more for that matter- I just want a good, clean version of the goddamned movies that made Lucas a goddamned billionaire and changed the face of movie making for-goddamnned-ever.
What is so goddamned hard about that?
What is so goddamned hard about that?
02-27-17, 10:49 AM
#4170
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
As for "digital substitutes," I'm not sure about the Lion King, but I know for Beauty and the Beast the issue was that they put 3 versions on one disc, including one that was "enhanced" and expanded with a new song, and some the "enhanced" footage got into the "original theatrical version. But this seems more like an issue with the authoring, and incorrectly branching and/or using alternate angles for the different versions.
In other words, for both of these issues, at worst you can say the issue was incompetence. But it's still not the same as Star Wars, as nobody at Disney was actively preventing the original versions from being released.
In other words, for both of these issues, at worst you can say the issue was incompetence. But it's still not the same as Star Wars, as nobody at Disney was actively preventing the original versions from being released.
02-27-17, 12:16 PM
#4171
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
From one review of the Blu-ray:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/71295...rsary-edition/
...there's a slight change to the theatrical version that appears to be the result of a small branching error: near the end of "Something There", a short dialogue between Mrs. Potts and Chip ("I'll tell you when you're older") uses animation from the Special Edition instead of the original shot, which ends a half-second or so too early and feels like a rough edit. I doubt this small issue will be addressed or rectified by the studio...but if there's ever some sort of replacement program, I'll be sure to post more information here.
http://animatedviews.com/2010/beauty...amond-edition/
Happily, Beauty’s sound is an area that provokes much less criticism, even if the previous DVD did delete a line of dialogue from the Beast that was among one of the reasons that I loved the movie. A stutter from Robbie Benson’s recordings was left intact in the final animation, and it was this attention to rounding out a character that made Beauty something special. Who would intentionally leave a stutter in an animated film? Wow, I thought…that’s a really good pairing of vocal and animation performance. Except that someone at Disney thought it was a mistake, and deleted the portion of audio from the previous DVD – but hurrah!…it’s been reinstated here, so all is once again well in the world.
When the film debuted on DVD.. That disc also offered the three different editions of the movie, but space demanded that, post the Human Again sequence, the rest of the movie, either in theatrical or special edition form, basically played the cleaned up version...
Thankfully, we get a bit of a hybrid here that at least more closely echoes the theatrical cut, even if the branching offers a hideous cut between the end of Something There and the Beast being washed for his night with Belle... But now, instead of the cleaned up castle, the film does revert to how things looks originally, even if there are a few other tweaks, though the original end credit scroll has been inserted, with a bit of aged gateweave, as opposed to the “flat” credits.
Thankfully, we get a bit of a hybrid here that at least more closely echoes the theatrical cut, even if the branching offers a hideous cut between the end of Something There and the Beast being washed for his night with Belle... But now, instead of the cleaned up castle, the film does revert to how things looks originally, even if there are a few other tweaks, though the original end credit scroll has been inserted, with a bit of aged gateweave, as opposed to the “flat” credits.
Edit: here's some screencaps of the differences between the Beauty and the Beast versions:
http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=168768
Last edited by Jay G.; 02-27-17 at 02:09 PM.
02-28-17, 09:50 AM
#4173
Senior Member
re: Star Wars
I put mine on ebay after I burned the Despecialized editions to Blu-Ray and got $170 for them. Now I have almost $200 I didn't have before AND superior versions of the films. Works for me.
02-28-17, 08:36 PM
#4175
re: Star Wars
I'd love to get the despecialized versions and the silver screen edition, but I don't have a bluray burner. I saw someone sell them (for a ridiculous amount) on ioffer but that didn't include the silver screen edition.