Posted by
michael
on from the money-money-money-money-money-money dept.
twigstamc420 writes "USA Today is reporting that Lucasfilm has announced the details of releasing the Star Wars episodes IV through VI on DVD as well as a bonus DVD with commentary."
From the man who refuses to release original editions and continues to "rice" out his movies said this about movie purity:
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas, who testified with Steven Spielberg before Congress in the 1980s against colorization and other forms of alteration, said the process yanks such slapstick performers as the Stooges out of the black-and-white universe they belong in.
-- Bel, the mostly sane..
"Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Han shoots first?
by
Alcimedes
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If he does, I'm not buying them, period. I can't believe that they'd change what basically amounts to a massive character development over three movies, and rework it to crap. all because it's not nice for Han to shoot first. that was the WHOLE FREEKING point. ugh.
i hate people sometimes.
Re:Now that does not make sense?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Interesting
the theory is that when a jedi dies he comes back in his purest form..so yoda and obi wan come back as they were when they died, but anakin returns as he was before he went to the dark side
Re:Some of the changes (possible spoilers)
by
Aero+Leviathan
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I saw on some interview that the minor dialogue changes weren't even intentional; when they were remastering the film for 1997, they sometimes had to use different takes that hadn't deteriorated as much (or so they say). They claim they didn't even realise they had changed any of the dialogue until diehard fans started complaining... ^_~
-- ~ Aero
To point out the obvious (not a conspiracy theory)
by
kamapuaa
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· Score: 5, Interesting
George Lucas is about making money, not about establishing or preserving legacies or whatever. I just have to believe that he'll release these DVDs, claim they're the only official release ever, and wait for every nerd to buy them, even though they grumble about it being the revised version.
Only then, after the DVD saled have slowed down, will he decide to relent, release the original movies on DVD, and snap up the profits from nerds re-purchasing the DVDs of the original movie.
Kind of the inverse of Lord of the Rings DVD strategy - Lucas realizes if he releases the original versions first, nobody will buy the revised versions later.
-- Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Wake me up when they put the ORIGINALs on DVD
by
neurojab
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· Score: 3, Interesting
An open letter to George Lucas.
Dear George,
The nostalgic value for DVD collectors of these movies is very high, but your changes destroy that value. No one who loved the movies in the 70s and 80s wants the "special edition" release, or the changes you have made since. The changes make them new movies, lesser versions of their former selves, they certainly are not the same movies I enjoyed in my youth. One of the great things about Star Wars was the amazing effect work that was very groundbreaking using the technology of the day. Updating the films with new technology destroys that accomplishment.
I will not buy Star Wars (again) until the original, unmodified movie is on DVD. Likewise for Empire.
Thank you. -an 80's Star Wars fan in your target market.
How hard would it be...
by
multiplexo
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· Score: 4, Interesting
To get LaserDiscs of the original movies before George started fucking around with them and remaster them onto DVDs and then distribute them underground? I have no desire to see the new and improved _Star Wars_ and it just shows how unoriginal Lucas is, he can't come up with anything new so he just reedits _Star Wars_ and re-releases it every time he needs a few more bux (just like the way Francis Ford Coppola) keeps re-editing _Apocalypse Now_ and adding new footage.
I'd be willing to bet that with decent equipment you could make a pretty good transfer from a LaserDisc and while it might not have the resolution or sound of the new versions it would retain all of the stuff that made the original movies so great.
-- cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Perhaps it's because I'm too young to have seen the original movies in theater, but I *like* the newer versions. They have a couple of extra scenes, and they look better. More, better looking Star wars can't be a bad thing? I also think they make some scenes feel more alive, with more people in the background and so on.
There, now you can go ahead and mod me down.
... If George Lucas would've learned something from his good friend Steven Spielberg. Make movies, don't muck around with your old ones (well, muck around as little as possible, I'm aware of the E.T. walkie talkies. Something tells me Spielberg didn't put in a fraction of the effort coming up with that.) Do something new every now and then. Take your skills and knowledge and try and tell a good story, maybe even break away from science fiction a bit. I know he had it in him at one point, American Graffiti's a great movie.
But I guess Lucas isn't a director at heart. If he was, he would've directed Empire and Return. He likes his special effects and he's good at them-- the last two movies felt more like advertisements for Industrial Light and Magic than labors of love.
Though to his credit, the Star Wars video games have generally been great... Fun, well-made, darker and more true to the promise of Star Wars than any of the movie's sequels have been.
(No, I didn't call it "Episode IV" or "A New Hope." I still call the first one Star Wars. The eight-year-old me would've wanted it that way.)
Saddest part about the whole thing:
by
dioscaido
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· Score: 3, Interesting
That even with all the caveats about the changes, most people will buy the DVDs. Giving Lucas another $1 billion dollar smash hit, and further shielding him from the truth that most fans, while they consume his movies faithfully, hate them nonetheless.
Re:Some of the changes (possible spoilers)
by
ideonode
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Lucas's revisionist history really does bother me as a geek.
Here's an interesting question for you. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937. When he was writing The Lord of the Rings, he realised that the 'Riddles in the Dark' chapter that he had originally written didn't really fit in with the whole ring mythos of LotR (basically, in the original, Gollum simply gives Bilbo the ring after the riddle contest is won - but of course, we know that there's no way that the ring-consumed Smeagol would have simply handed it over because he couldn't guess a riddle). My question to you is, is that ok? Is that any more or less wrong than Lucas' revisionism?
I think it's a tricky issue. Tolkien alludes to his re-write in the LotR (Bilbo occassionally mentions how he changed his story - cf. 'The Council of Elrond'), whereas Lucas tends to simply re-write the story and erase the previous versions.
Still, I think it asks interesting questions as to whether authorial control can ever be retained once the original text is out in the wilderness.
Re:Some of the changes (possible spoilers)
by
CrazyTalk
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
OK, your mention of Jabba in ANH gives me a chance to rant a bit - he shouldn't be in that movie at all. Period. (In my mind, this is worse than the famous Han-shoots-first controversy). Having grown up watching the original movies, having Jabba be this unseen, mysterious figure added to the interest and suspense in the sequels. In ROTJ when he was finally revealed, that was a defining moment in the movies. Showing what he looks like up front in the "first" movie just ruins the ending! Of course, by now everyone on the planet with any remote interest at all knows what Jabba the Hut is and what he looks like, but in my mind his presence early on does nothing but hurt the story.
Slashdot Mirror
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
If he does, I'm not buying them, period. I can't believe that they'd change what basically amounts to a massive character development over three movies, and rework it to crap. all because it's not nice for Han to shoot first. that was the WHOLE FREEKING point. ugh.
i hate people sometimes.
the theory is that when a jedi dies he comes back in his purest form..so yoda and obi wan come back as they were when they died, but anakin returns as he was before he went to the dark side
I saw on some interview that the minor dialogue changes weren't even intentional; when they were remastering the film for 1997, they sometimes had to use different takes that hadn't deteriorated as much (or so they say). They claim they didn't even realise they had changed any of the dialogue until diehard fans started complaining... ^_~
~ Aero
Only then, after the DVD saled have slowed down, will he decide to relent, release the original movies on DVD, and snap up the profits from nerds re-purchasing the DVDs of the original movie.
Kind of the inverse of Lord of the Rings DVD strategy - Lucas realizes if he releases the original versions first, nobody will buy the revised versions later.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
An open letter to George Lucas.
Dear George,
The nostalgic value for DVD collectors of these movies is very high, but your changes destroy that value. No one who loved the movies in the 70s and 80s wants the "special edition" release, or the changes you have made since. The changes make them new movies, lesser versions of their former selves, they certainly are not the same movies I enjoyed in my youth. One of the great things about Star Wars was the amazing effect work that was very groundbreaking using the technology of the day. Updating the films with new technology destroys that accomplishment.
I will not buy Star Wars (again) until the original, unmodified movie is on DVD. Likewise for Empire.
Thank you.
-an 80's Star Wars fan in your target market.
I'd be willing to bet that with decent equipment you could make a pretty good transfer from a LaserDisc and while it might not have the resolution or sound of the new versions it would retain all of the stuff that made the original movies so great.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Perhaps it's because I'm too young to have seen the original movies in theater, but I *like* the newer versions. They have a couple of extra scenes, and they look better. More, better looking Star wars can't be a bad thing? I also think they make some scenes feel more alive, with more people in the background and so on.
There, now you can go ahead and mod me down.
Martin
... If George Lucas would've learned something from his good friend Steven Spielberg. Make movies, don't muck around with your old ones (well, muck around as little as possible, I'm aware of the E.T. walkie talkies. Something tells me Spielberg didn't put in a fraction of the effort coming up with that.) Do something new every now and then. Take your skills and knowledge and try and tell a good story, maybe even break away from science fiction a bit. I know he had it in him at one point, American Graffiti's a great movie.
But I guess Lucas isn't a director at heart. If he was, he would've directed Empire and Return. He likes his special effects and he's good at them-- the last two movies felt more like advertisements for Industrial Light and Magic than labors of love.
Though to his credit, the Star Wars video games have generally been great... Fun, well-made, darker and more true to the promise of Star Wars than any of the movie's sequels have been.
(No, I didn't call it "Episode IV" or "A New Hope." I still call the first one Star Wars. The eight-year-old me would've wanted it that way.)
That even with all the caveats about the changes, most people will buy the DVDs. Giving Lucas another $1 billion dollar smash hit, and further shielding him from the truth that most fans, while they consume his movies faithfully, hate them nonetheless.
Lucas's revisionist history really does bother me as a geek.
Here's an interesting question for you. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937. When he was writing The Lord of the Rings, he realised that the 'Riddles in the Dark' chapter that he had originally written didn't really fit in with the whole ring mythos of LotR (basically, in the original, Gollum simply gives Bilbo the ring after the riddle contest is won - but of course, we know that there's no way that the ring-consumed Smeagol would have simply handed it over because he couldn't guess a riddle). My question to you is, is that ok? Is that any more or less wrong than Lucas' revisionism?
I think it's a tricky issue. Tolkien alludes to his re-write in the LotR (Bilbo occassionally mentions how he changed his story - cf. 'The Council of Elrond'), whereas Lucas tends to simply re-write the story and erase the previous versions.
Still, I think it asks interesting questions as to whether authorial control can ever be retained once the original text is out in the wilderness.
OK, your mention of Jabba in ANH gives me a chance to rant a bit - he shouldn't be in that movie at all. Period. (In my mind, this is worse than the famous Han-shoots-first controversy). Having grown up watching the original movies, having Jabba be this unseen, mysterious figure added to the interest and suspense in the sequels. In ROTJ when he was finally revealed, that was a defining moment in the movies. Showing what he looks like up front in the "first" movie just ruins the ending! Of course, by now everyone on the planet with any remote interest at all knows what Jabba the Hut is and what he looks like, but in my mind his presence early on does nothing but hurt the story.
Sure there is. The originals are supposed to go into the public domain within a "limited time".
The fact that there may be situations where a given work is "lost" just goes to show just how badly broken the current copyright system is.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.