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378 Terabytes Of Star Wars on 600 G5s
Mrbill points to this USA Today story on the
digital makeover given to the original Star Wars trilogy, noting that the digitized films have also been converted to HD for later release as high-definition DVDs.
Why exactly did it need to be restored again anyways? I mean, wasn't it restored for the THX video re-releases a decade ago and further restored for the theatrical re-releases with new scenes?
I have been refusing to give any more money to Lucas, be it the new DVDs or Episode III, but the commercials for the trilogy DVDs almost (ALMOST!) changed my mind) they change is very apparent, even if you've watched the LDs or especially on cable. All three films look much crisper and brighter - I almost thought for a second that Lucas had added some new stuff.
I still won't be buying the trilogy, but I'm amazed at how good the restoration looks.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Like honestly, I understand keeping with the original, but in retrospect if you really wanted the true triology, you would pull out your VHS tapes, and watch it into oblivion. When you put in a dvd that is low-quality, poor sound, yeah the novelty will be pretty cool, and the story carries it, but it would get old fast. In comparison to everything we have now, the late 1970's were not known for their technological feats. And while I would rather him not add the extra scenes to the movie, the fact that he remastered the audio, and is hidef'ing the video is a plus. Basically its either original and crappy, or hidef sweetness and alterations.
je suis parce que j'aime
"Go for it George Lucas. Ruin all of your movies. "
Empire Strikes back, despite being 'special', is still entertaining.
Though I agree with the sentiment, we've been around this block a million times. Don't buy it. Let the people who do enjoy it. In the mean time, let's talk about something a little more up-beat:
- Lots of people were employed to work on this.
- The technology and experience will help ILM make better effects for upcoming movies.
- SW in HD will hopefully make broad adoption of higher-resolution DVD players an easier transition.
- Just the number '378 Terabytes' is enough to cause underwear tents to rise all over the Slashdot population.
"Derp de derp."
Its nice to see that we're finally getting the original 3 films on DVD
We certainly are not.
You people are getting something very close to it though. With a few inane and useless change here and there. The orihinal, these are not.
You can't take the sky from me...
If you want to see what real bilking is all about, take a look at the various versions/packaging of the Die Hard series. Or, how about the hosing taken by those who bought the South Park discs with four episodes a piece while the series is now being released season by season with more extras. In the "for kids" category it gets even worse with shows like Justice League and X-Men released in multiple un-numbered editions only to be collected in yet another edition - at particularly high risk for accidental re-buys since often the parents don't even pay much attention to the cartoons.
In short, George Lucas is NOT a multiple-release offender except in the imagination of those projecting his future actions. Of course, I don't think taking advantage of new technology (such as HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.) even counts - it would be like complaining that since Star Wars is out on VHS, there's no reason to buy the DVDs (there are other content reasons not to buy the DVDs but that's a different discussion entirely).
"...people have to buy the trilogy six times..."
Really?
As far as I know, nobody is being forced to buy it even once.
Just shut the fuck up. Please? They're movies, for fuck's sake. Some of us enjoy them and would like to continue doing so without you and your gloomy band of whiners coming along to piss in the pool. I love the original movies too. I've watched them more times than I can count and can recite my favorite lines, but it's not my religion. I cannot relate to you whiners who consider these films to be some cornerstone of your existence. I wish you would all just fuck off and stop spazzing out every time the words Star Wars flash in front of your face.
There... much better. Now on with the comment.
They were part of my childhood too, but I had lots and lots of other great things in my childhood that had nothing to do with Lucasfilm Ltd. so even if Lucas decided to replace the characters in films with Looney Tunes animations, it wouldn't really make that big a dent in my life. If Lucas wants to futz around with the originals to make them his ultimate vision, then more power to him. Yeah, it sucks a little because it drills a little hole in that precious bag of nostalgia that we carry around, but in the end, is it really that big a deal?
Seriously? Did you really feel the need to scream rape of your childhood like that?
Get over it. Quick. And please stop drawing attention to yourself every time you feel your precious youth has been violated by a fucking movie. It gets tiresome REAL quick.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I've downloaded the laserdisc rips you refer to, or at least, "some laserdisc version of the original Star Wars trilogy ripped from laserdisc and available online through various p2p applications." Disclaimer done.
Anyway, the version I looked at was pretty crappy; it was blurry like I would expect a VHS version to be.
I'd rather see a couple apocryphal scenes (obligatory reference to Han vs. Greedo) than look at grainy 200-lines-of-resolution rips.
Seriously, at this stage of my life, I understand the nostalgia, and I'll gladly trade 480p and surround sound for the price of Han vs. Greedo and the other additions of questionable worth. I *want* the cleaned up special effects transparencies, and I don't mind a little cleaning up here and there, although I would prefer the original soundtrack, not any substituted audio or music.
On another topic, at the risk of being shouted down by hordes of fanboys, the original Star Wars is overrated. It was a great trilogy (I was disappointed by Jedi, but it was Completion to the series, and I am a forgiving person), but there was something more behind it that caused all of us kids growing up seeing the movies to become fans like we did: marketing.
The marketing juggernaut behind Star Wars is what got the hundreds of action figures and model sets, fast food cups and posters and toys, t-shirts, towels, lunchboxes, watches, cookie jars, etc. etc. into our homes.
I would argue that the toys themselves are what kept Star Wars alive much longer had there been a mediocre marketing campaign behind it. When the movie was out of the theater (after an amazingly long run IIRC), we still had our action figures and toy sets to put them in. Personally, I had several friends with Star Wars figures, and we would pool our Star Wars toy resources and set up bases and enact elaborate battle scenes, scenes from the movies, and scenes we would create on our own. We still had the posters, the magazines, the watches, the lunchboxes (I had the original metal Star Wars lunch box, but the last time I saw it (about 15 years ago) it had already rusted up pretty badly.) the bedsheets, etc., etc., to remind us and keep Star Wars close in our thoughts.
This indoctrination of a whole generation in the Star Wars mythos created the best ongoing Star Wars marketing; fans who had SW so ingrained in their life that their favorite philosopher wasn't Socrates or Plato; philosophy and wisdom meant Yoda. Kids (mostly kids, some weird adults) who saw these movies as they were growing up, took Star Wars almost as a replacement for religion or oral tradition, or as a replacement for every Mother Goose story their parents never read them because they were too busy working overtime because they were single parents, or because dad was an emotional cripple as a result of his dad being an emotional cripple.
I'm sure if some interested college psych major wanted to, he could interview hundreds of 30-something children who gravitated to Star Wars and come up with a great dissertation subject about marketing and the psychological effects on young children who become overdoctrinated with commercialized fictional characters.