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Author Topic: Star Wars Original Trilogy on dvd??? Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 02-14-2004 03:36 AM                        Another point is that movies are made for people and it is those people who finance the movies by buying tickets and videos (and in the case of Star Wars and some other movies, books, coffee mugs, towels etc). People spend their money on those things because they relate to these movies. In the case of Star Wars more than in any other case, countless millions of people have grown up with these images and it is a vital part of their personal history. It`s not that all these people ask for something out of line, like having nude footage of Leia added, they just want to have the option to watch the movies as they did when they were kids. Yes, George can do with his intellectual property what he likes, but it is a shame that he simply ignores what a lot of people who have been his fans for decades ask for. Especially as with DVD, you have the option of having both versions on one disc.  |  IP: Logged Mike Bianchi Film Handler Posts: 40 From: Independence, KY, USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-16-2004 07:26 PM                        Dave W: several THX laserdiscs are listed on ebay right now. They may be of dubious origin, but at least they did/do exist on LD. The DVD's listed are conspicuously shipped from Asia and are certainly dubious, but LD's at least exist legitimately. If it ships from the US and lists some wear on the packaging, it's probably legit. I'd be wary of the "brand new" ones, though.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 02-16-2004 10:05 PM                    Maybe the negatives don't exist anymore, but there are IB prints in private hands - including in George's hands, and I'd be willing to bet Spielberg has one too. And they're not the only ones that exist. One can easily be scanned into the digital realm, cleaned up a bit, and then dumped to DVD. That's all the fans want. Nothing fancy. And don't change a thing. Just a THX supervised transfer of George's personal IB print would be wonderful. And it would be cheap to do. And he'd make another mint. Come to think of it, the original versions of the films probably already exists in the form of digital files. Does anyone think George would NOT want to scan them in and preserve them digitally... especially when he was preparing to do the special editions anyway? He has to have them. I think he's just holding out for a while.  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-16-2004 10:58 PM                      |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-16-2004 11:16 PM                     Here's another point of view in all this CG-revisionism in films these days. A film can only be so old before a CG "update" of its visuals will just seem out of place. I think the SE versions of "Star Wars" suffer from that. Sure, a lot of the newer visuals look great. But you know they're not quite at home in those movies over two decades old. The point made about Ray Harryhausen and stop motion animation was a good one. Most any good film fan would be rightfully outraged if someone came along and decided to replace the swordfighting skeletons with new GGI versions. Lucas may think he is keeping his films "current" with respect to technology, but he really isn't winning over the newest generation of film fans. They think "The Matrix" and "Lord of the Rings" are the movies that define state-of-the-art now. They're new movies, not something ported over from the 1970's and 1980's. The core fan base of "Star Wars" is NOT the kids of today. People who were kids back in the 1970's & 1980's make up the core fan base of "Star Wars". It only makes sense to have the versions we grew up with available. The news of the release being SE-only rings just a bit hollow. I don't care how dated the old 1977 "analog" effects look. They're still pretty damned impressive. By comparison, my reaction was not nearly as enthusiastic regarding the newer CGI visuals in the SE versions. You figure, "so what, it's CGI, they can do anything with that stuff." The original visuals defined a new leap forward in motion picture special effects development, and many of the shots were horribly difficult to put together. I think it is a pretty sad thing that film fans and historians are now kept off limits from seeing those visuals. It is a shame that all the hard work in many of those shots is now left on the cutting room floor.  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 02-16-2004 11:57 PM                    The one scene I found most annoying in the SE of Star Wars A new Hope other than the Han scene being changed around was the whole inclusion of the Jobba the hut sequence. To me it was one big joke and took away from the whole feel of the movie at that point. All fake looking and that rediculous stepping on the tail sequence so he could look like he was walking around.  |  IP: Logged Michael Gonzalez Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 790 From: Grand Island , NE USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 02-17-2004 03:01 PM                     You know I had always thought that it would have been better if instead of using a "physical" Jabba the Hut, they should have used a hologram instead (especially considering how much they were used in the films anyway). That way when Han walked around Jabba, he would have just passed through the hologram (maybe causing the hologram to fizzle or something) instead of the stupid stepping on the tail thing.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-17-2004 06:18 PM                     The whole Jabba scene in "Episode IV" sucked. The main reason why it sucked was piss poor characterization. The writing was terrible. Jabba the Hut is supposed to be a scary mobster with a reputation worthy of Attila the Hun. Yet, this little addition just paints the villian as some sort of stupid goofball. It's no wonder why the scene remained "unfinished" and cut out of the original 1977 release. Oh yeah, and it really did look fake when Han stepped over Jabba's tail. Han just looked like he pogo-ed up through the air.  |  IP: Logged Paul Linfesty Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1383 From: Bakersfield, CA, USA Registered: Nov 1999 posted 02-17-2004 10:27 PM                     Not only was it bad, it was also redundant. Everything we needed to know was included in the bar scene when Hans fired FIRST!  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 02-18-2004 12:51 AM                        quote: when Hans fired FIRST! What Hans? Of Hans and Franz?  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-18-2004 05:32 PM                     I am having a difficult time believing that George Lucas has no access to the original versions of the first trilogy. As a good friend of mine used to say: "That dog won't hunt." Surely they must have been scanned or preserved in some way. I can believe that the original negative was cannibalized but, as John Pytlak points out, there should still be all kinds of elements from which a high-quality DVD release could be made. Any effects elements that were "thrown out" were certainly scanned first for the SE releases. I recall reading that even the shots that were not revamped were still recomposited digitally to get rid of matte lines and garbage mattes. I find it odd that the Lucasfilm rep said: quote: "We want watching this DVD collection to be as memorable as seeing the movies for the first time." I guess they only want our kids, neices and nephews to have that experience coz these ain't what I saw the first time...Or, are they hoping that we'll all be having memory lapses at our age? If they "technically don't exist" then perhaps there's technically nothing they can do about the inevitable bootleg versions?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-19-2004 06:21 PM                        I can't believe you guys haven't picked up on the Lucasfilm line of BS. The 'original versions' of Star Wars "technically don't exist" NOW. But in a year, when everyone has shelled out for the SE DVDs, the originals will magically surface in a vault and then Lucasfilm will bring out a "by popular demand" Star Wars CLASSICS edition, the original versions NOT SEEN IN 20 YEARS! And Lucas will laugh all the way to the bank....again.  |  IP: Logged Ron Lacheur Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 650 From: British Columbia, Canada Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-19-2004 07:08 PM                     I was reading on the HomeTheaterForum about a year ago, a thread that a guy that posted there had in his posession a dvd trilogy set of Star Wars, original versions given to him by Lucas. He said he did some work for Lucas and he gave them to him as a token of his apprication. He even had photos to prove it. They looked like the early Fox discs ( like True Lies and Strange Days ).  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 09-15-2004 11:24 AM                    Looks like Uncle George tweaked a LOT of little things especially in A New Hope. There is a list of changes and a ton of screen shots here if anyone is interested.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 09-15-2004 01:33 PM                     Since I work for a video and music retailer right now, I've been telling customers not to buy the Star Wars set  |  IP: Logged

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