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Star Wars DVD Box Set Released
dealsites writes "CNN reports that George Lucas is releasing the Star Wars DVD box set early on September 21, 2004 due to piracy concerns. Lucas had intended to release the box set of the original 3 movies after Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was released. However, he mentions that due to piracy concerns the profits are being eaten up and there might not be a market for the films at that time. The box set contains the changes that Lucas has made from the original releases. CNN also reports on the top 5 major changes. Lucas is quoted as saying that he never intends to re-release the original 3 movies in the first CNN link."
Attack of the Clones!!!
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Yeah, the Star Wars franchise is really suffering due to piracy.
Versus, say, producing two completely crap prequels, oversaturating the tie-in market, and then not releasing the original versions that many people want to buy.
George Lucas doesn't need any more of your money, and this seems to be reflected by the decisions he has made as of late.
It can look better on DVD because VHS is lower quality then film.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Star Wars here and Empire and Jedi here
Get the EULA T-shirt
No Market? seriously now...there are 1,000,000,000 people foaming @ the mouth at the prospect of buying an "official" Star Wars Trilogy DVD Set....right?!?!
... and here's a user-edited, unauthoritative, small, article from Wikipedia about the changes in case anyone missed them. Please use multiple sources to confirm the validity of this information.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
However, he mentions that due to piracy concerns the profits are being eaten up and there might not be a market for the films at that time
Yeah, and I'm sure that it has NOTHING to do with
1. The fact that everyone in the world who might want to buy copies of the Star Wars trilogy already owns it
2. The people who love the Star Wars trilogy enough they might buy new copies even though they already own it don't want anything with Lucas's stupid "digital enhancements" on them
It's becoming increasingly the case where ANYTIME anyone says ANYTHING about piracy, all this means is "we can't create a quality product people are willing to buy, and we're going to blame it on others". I mean, people have been talking about piracy for years, but at least at one time the people whining about so-called "piracy" were people whose products were actually being illegally traded online in some small quantity.
George Lucas is releasing the Star Wars DVD box set early on September 21, 2004 due to piracy concerns.
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
Looks really good in terms of picture quality, but Han/Greedo obsessives will not be placated; they now shoot at almost exactly the same time. And Sebastian "Anakin Skywalker" Shaw (at least in his non-disfigured state) has been CGI'd out of history and replaced with a mulleted Hayden Christensen.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Lucas used Microsoft's strategy which consists of pre-announcing a product long before it'd be released.
The problem is that I made my mind and I am not sure I want to acquire this set because I am unsure I might watch it again and again...
This observation came after somebody lent me the 3-DVD set of the Indiana Jones Trilogy (which happened to have gotten really... obsolete) : I then thought it could be the same with SW.
But otherwise, had he released it today without pre-announcing it, I might have considered buying it... Simply because of the surprise effect which he voluntarily spoiled.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Hm, let's see here:
* Fans are screaming after the original, non-Special Edition version.
* Lucas admits he's never going to release the original version.
So, the only way to get the original trilogy, on a decent medium (VHS doesn't count, Laserdisc isn't an option for 99% of the people out there) is through... piracy?
Now, here comes the big irony:
* Lucas releases the Star Wars SE DVDs early, over fear for piracy concerns.
Way to go Lucas!
From the article:
(sadly, Greedo still shoots first on the DVD of "A New Hope")
Damn you Slashdot!
My hopes were up for nothing, why should I buy this now?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Film has vastly more resolution than modern video devices are capable of displaying, including HDTV.
The process of transferring a film goes (roughly) like this:
Source material (film) -> master (video) -> cleanup -> duplication master -> consumer product.
"Remastering" refers to re-transfering the original film elements on a telecine, and cleaning them up to provide the best quality master for mass production possible. Unlimited quantities of DVDs may then be created from the duplication masters.
So they aren't creating the consumer DVDs from the VHS masters, but rather re-transferring from the original film elements. That, with the additional cleanup work (e.g. Scratchbox) is what makes a remastered/restored film look good.
I've been in Europe for 2 weeks, and it's been available at least since last week. It's selling for 79 euros, about 100 dollars. They're having TV promotions and everything. I thought most stuff showed up in Europe last?
Lucas was misquoted! He actually said "I will never ever release the unaltered originals unless it would be profitable, which it would, so I will."
Lucas went on to say that "I will only release these altered versions if I think people might buy them, which they wouldn't if I'd already announced the unaltered versions, which I never ever will."
The Lucas-bot then began spinning uncontrollably, shouting "Abort! Abort! until his handlers declared the press conference to be over.
Doesn't the saying go "you can't get something from nothing"? How do they get "DVD quality" from old film? How could it look any better than the original VHS quality?
....
I'm sure there are 50 people replying right now, but
It's better because the original film is significantly higher res than VHS (one would think this goes without saying, but anyway). Even if it were a simple direct from master copy to DVD, you'd still get a significantly better end result than could be achieved by VHS. But typically they'll do other things in the process like cleaning up the print (digitally) while they're at it. Also note that the 35mm film is higher res still than DVD (which is actually quite low res) so there is still a lot of headroom there for even better quality formats in the future (e.g. DVD-HD).
mine arrived Friday, preordered it from a Swiss online store. When they sent me the "Status: shipped" -email on wednesday last week I was quite surprised. And compared to the LD-rips I own they look damn awesome. Whats not reported in the CNN-Story is the change to the han-greedo-fiddle. It was changed to my pleasure, they fire almost at the same time. BTW jabba now looks quite realistic...
this sig is useless
The majority of Slashdot readers seem to be pissed about the greatest trilogy of all-time being released on the most popular video format right now.
Yes I know it isn't the original trilogy. But the SE is damn close to being it. Some of Lucas' "improvements" are *gasp* actually improvements! Yes, I know it isn't what was originally released, but this is Lucas' story and he owns the rights, so he is allowed to tinker with it until he is satisfied.
When I watch the SE, I don't vomit, I don't cry, I don't think about some part of my childhood slipping away. The great parts of the movie are still there. Luke meeting Obi-wan, the sunset, meeting Han, saving Leia, Obi-wan vs. Vader, "I am your father", the final duel, etc. It is all there still, just like it was back in the day.
The movies still give me that chill during certain scenes, where they just touch some part inside that you never knew you had.
Yes it might not be the originals, but I'll take 99% of the original on DVD over nothing. Maybe if you don't agree you should go watch again with an open mind. Instead of saying "why the fuck did Lucas change this! It isn't the same!" ask yourself "there must be a good reason for this."
Now I am going to go watch my copy of the trilogy...on DVD!
... to buy a laserdisc player, buy the trilogy on LaserDisc (my dad still has the original trilogy), record to DVD, and voila. Star Wars Episodes IV, V, and VI the way they were ORIGINALLY viewed. As an added bonus, the LaserDiscs do sound better than any VHS your going to find and the picture (barring laser rot or a warped LD) is pretty nice too. :)
CliffH
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
Take a look at these pages for alleged quality differences between recent home releases of the films, including the 2004 DVD release.
- Episode IV
- Episode V
- Episode VI
So now it might be on all the torrent trackers, nice.
A thought: if I have bought the original VHS movies, is it morally wrong if I download this higher quality version of the same movie that I have already bought?
There wouldn't be so many of us dedicating bittorrent bandwidth to sharing these if he'd just release the damn movies in their original theatrical release.
I personally had already waited years for the DVD release, and would have happily waited another year and just bought the damn thing. But I've bought the original series THREE TIMES already; on CED videodisc, then twice on VHS (the first one wore out), then I bought the "special edition" on VHS, which was good because it told me I didn't want to ever see THAT again.
All I want is an archival quality copy of the ORIGINAL movies. I would have paid for it even though I've already bought the damn movies 3+ times. But it's not for sale. I hate to call it pirating, it's just that I'm just not buying what Lucas is selling.
- Jedi Don't Scream
- Boba Fett has a new voice
- A new and improved Jabba
- The emperor's new clothes
- The big finale
Final Verdict: mainly positiveThis is a good, it sounded stupid. Kudos to Lucas for correcting a mistake
Again, not a bad for consistency.
Thank god, the SE scene looked incredible dumb. Hopefully they have also removed the Han walking over Jabba's tail bit with some creative editing. Actually, I wish that the whole scene was removed, or greatly shortened since Greedo basically repeats all the information to Han later on.
Fair enough, since we all know by now that Palpatine is the emperor (or do we...)
Everyone seems to be complaining about this, but I think it makes sense. The picture circulating on the net looks a bit stupid though, seeing Christensen smiling untouched at the end looks somehow wrong. He could at least look a bit guilty for wiping out the Jedi. Still the original wasn't much better.
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
"These aren't the DVDs you're looking for."
"But the most noticeable change -- and perhaps one some "Star Wars" diehards will have a tough time stomaching -- is Hayden Christensen (who plays young Anakin in the prequel trilogy) now appearing in the scene where the "force ghosts" of Anakin, Obi Wan, and Yoda smile at Luke."
he stoles it from us, my precious
Filthy filthy changeses!!
Look, it's well established that the first three movies are a classic. But some of the changes seem to bring the classic in line with the latest shovel-fed garbage. Redubbing Boba Fett's voice? Replacing the Anakin Skywalker ghost?
It's like taking Dracula (the original) and "updating" it so it's got smoother continuity with all of the cheesy vampire moves made over the years.
Guess what - there already is a break between the original trilogy and the 2/3 releases prequel trilogy. If you need to adjust to bring them in line, adjust the new junk to be in line with the classic, not the other way around!
Hopping mad,
=Blue(23)
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
It could never look as good as that night when my dad took me to the cinema when I was just 7 back in 1977. Largely because, after the subsequent years of squinting at cathode ray tubes and tft screens, my eyes where better when I was 7!
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
This is not to say that piracy is good, but considering how the movie studios treat the customers, I don't feel bad for them one but. Maybe if the movie studio's treated me better I would have more sympathy for them (for example, quit with the half hour advertising before a movie). Oh, and my biggest DVD gripe, STOP WITH THE ADVERTISING THAT CAN'T BE SKIPPED.
BTW, in unreleated news, I was reading that movie studios will now accept advertising in movies. Like in "I, Robot" the studio recieved money for a shoe commercial (converse shoes, I think). What is next? I can just see some of the classic movies, improved with product placement. I can just imagine Citizen Cane where everyone where's nike shoes and drinks Pepsi.
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
Got to be a first, we actually got a US release *before* the US, rather than 3 months later as is usually the case.
Wife and I watch epIV last night (and yes Greedo and Han do shoot at the same time) and thoroughly enjoyed it: the improvements are noticable: especially compared to our worn out VHS copy ;-) some changes (all the wild life wandering in and around Mos Eisley for example) seem a little gratuitous but not over the top.
I'd give it a thimbs up so far (but then I always did like IV, V was risible, ewoks *spit*, and VI was OK).
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
That's probably down to dirt/degradation of the film, rather than a lack of resolution (which would manifest as a lack of fine detail and blurriness)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
From interview:
Q: Why did you rework the original trilogy into the special-edition versions in the late 1990s?
LUCAS: To me, the special edition ones are the films I wanted to make.....
I knew it all along. Given enough time and money, he would have fucked up the first 3 episodes anyway. Obviously they were all just luck.
Has anyone spared a thought for this poor guy? For years, he was Boba Fett.. that was his claim to fame.. Now even his voice in has been replaced by Temura Morrison or as we down here in NZ like to call him "dear old movie whore" for his ability to pop up in the most unlikely movies (the worst being Vertical Limit with that horrible fake shifting accent as the helicopter pilot). I mean sure he can say "thats me" and point... but people will just say "you don't look Maori to me man.." :)
For once video piracy has a positive effect. I bought the HK bootleg dvd several years ago, but I already owned several versions of the SW trilogy on Laserdisc, let alone the countless vhs tapes I still have. In effect, Lucas has given free reign to pirates to pirate the original trilogy (unenhanced) for good. Lucas himself has said that the original trilogy does not exist anymore, thus giving free reign to copy it. If he really did push up the release of the original trilogy because of piracy, then he did it for the wrong reasons.
People will buy the Star Wars Trilogy FOREVER, no matter what formats come after DVD. In 2020, people will buy the "Holovision" version of the Trilogy, just as many bought the dvds today.
I can agree with Lucas' decision to "enhance" the trilogy to his original vision, but to deny the release of the original versions, just because he is stubborn is just him being a prick.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
"At least we got the original trilogy DVD."
I hate to disagree, but we did not get the original trilogy. We got a trilogy that has been monkeyed with and, in parts, made worse while in other parts made better. On the whole, I like what he did to the three (even though I have seen the Hayden Christensen thing at the end of Jedi and hugely dislike it), but this is definately not the original trilogy.
Personally, I think that is what Lucas is worried about. Here you have three movies how he wanted them, now complete we can assume. But, a great many people hate the changes. So much so that in recently (like in the last couple of years), those with the laserdisc originals have been painstakenly moving those over to DVD and those are appearing online. I believe this is the piracy that Lucas is talking about. He wants to make those originals go away (he said so recently).
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
My mom knows that I enjoyed Star Wars and even bought a great number of the Lego sets a few years ago. I think my wife and I may have singlehandedly kept Vermont Toy and Hobby open for a while...
My mom heard on the TV a long time ago that the Star Wars DVDs were coming out. Last time I talked with her, she excitedly told me that the release date was coming up, and of course I knew about it, but was it marked on my calendar? I tried to fend off this Christmas gift in the making becase I recognized that excited tone in her voice.
Most of us have a decent ability to explain pet peeves and flaws in our obsessions to others with similar backgrounds or obsessions. My mother has nothing in her universe that can compare with enjoying Star Wars. She sees bad acting and a story line reminiscant of the Lone Ranger and his predescessors, so she thinks that even better special effects and additional scenes can only make it better, can't they?! I tried explaining the cantina scene to her. She remembers vaguely that there was some violence, but she remembers Han Solo (Harrison Ford) being involved. I explained that Lucas changed his mind on who shot first and the repercussions involved to me.
I'm not sure I actually got through. The difference between Han Solo defending himself and shooting first (under the table no less) is a world of character development to me, and my mother seemed to understand what that meant in terms of defining who the characters were. I told her that we had just inherited the laser disc version of the original triology so that one of these years we'd just have to transfer that to a better version. Of course, we could save ourselves the work and just find a torrent since we have all the source material bought, paid for and licensed just not yet ripped to DVD / MPEG.
Of course, maybe she was just listening to the sound of my voice. I probably should expect the DVDs under the Christmas tree this year. I have to ready a look of absolute childish joy on my face because she cares enough to remember my insterests.
Home video sales now account for nearly 60 percent of Hollywood's revenue. DVD sales are not only the fastest growing part of the movie business, they're changing the way Hollywood does business.
He says DVD sales can save a film like "Dark Blue," which pulled in a modest $9 million in theaters. "It actually did more revenues in DVD than it did at the box office," says McGurk, because the DVD market is a man's world.
Blockbuster films now often sell more than 10 million DVDs in the U.S. alone. And that's at $20 a pop. And with DVD players still in only half of American homes, Hollywood believes those soaring sales will just get hotter still.
Finding Nemo grossed $320 million from DVD sales in 2003. "Consumers spend more money on the DVD version of almost every movie than they do on that same movie in theaters, including blockbusters such as The Lord of the Rings, Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean" (USA Today). CNN/Money reports that the movie studios "pocket roughly 80 cents of every dollar on each DVD sold, a take well above the 50 cents for each dollar at the box office" and The Hollywood Reporter says that "studios are earning about 60% more upon initial release from video sales of theatrical feature films than they did during the VHS-only era". So, not only are video sales up overall, DVDs are more profitable for the media companies than VHS or the box office.
And the future looks rosy as well. PriceWaterhouseCoopers has a sample chapter of their Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2004-2008 report online which says:
We project filmed entertainment spending in the United States, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), Asia/Pacific, Latin America, and Canada will rise at a 7.5 percent compound annual rate, reaching $108 billion in 2008 from $75.3 billion in 2003. EMEA will be the fastest-growing region, rising by 10.3 percent compounded annually to $36.9 billion in 2008 compared with $22.6 billion in 2003. The U.S. market will expand at a 6.3 percent rate, from $34.3 billion in 2003 to $46.6 billion in 2008. Spending in Asia/Pacific will increase from $13.3 billion to $17.3 billion in the five-year period, growing at a 5.4 percent compound annual rate. Filmed entertainment in Latin America will total $1.6 billion in 2008, up from $1.3 billion in 2003, representing a 4.6 percent gain compounded annually. Spending in Canada will rise from $3.9 billion in 2003 to $5.6 billion in 2008, 7.7 percent compounded annually.
This is anything BUT piracy eating into sales. Mr. Lucas, would you like to change your answer?
Hollywood has cried "wolf" far too often, using "piracy" as a convenient explanation for any and all problems (even problems that are obviously the result of its own poor products).
Thus, Hollywood claiming to have found yet another "piracy" problem is about as credible as Dan Rather claiming to have found another set of Bush's National Guard records.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
*sigh* It has 525 lines of which it uses 480. It then uses interlacing so you have a 50Hz refresh rate at approximately 240 lines per field. With DVD you can get the full 480 lines because it is deinterlaced.
Some additional thoughts on the subject:
Usually, when I try to improve upon some art form I've created, I end up obsessing and eventually screwing it up completely. (I'm not really drawing an analogy here, or am I?)
I like the fact that they replaced Boba's voice with Jango's, since they committed themselves to it in the prequels.
Most important prequels question: Will they figure out a way to erase that damnable mitichlorians BS? The Force should not be constrained to biological constructs, IMO.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
I just saw his re-re-release of THX 1138. I liked it a lot. I don't remember his re-release well enough to have an opinion on whether I liked it more or less.
I think it was his best movie. Too bad it was also his first.
I did notice some echos of his Star Wars universe in it, and it sort of makes me wonder if the world we see in THX 1138 is the 'dirty little secret' of the Star Wars world. It adds an new dimension to consider maybe that world is what is under the cloud city.
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Pretty Bad Privacy (PBP) Public Key
6
Not sure how Back to the Future was an advertisement for De Loreans since BTTF was released in 1985 and De Lorean filed for bankruptcy in 1982.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Hi, I missed this link when submitting the article, but here is an interview with Mark Hammill via CNN.
--
Live deals
That list is just the major ones, not all of them.
Free Mac Mini
In addition to which, 35mm film does not have 4k resolution vertically, particularly not by the time it's shown on a cinema screen. An awful lot of CG work, for example, is done with scanned film at closer to 2k x 1k, which is pretty much the same as HDTV. 4k across the film (and about 2k vertically) is really the best you'll get from current low-grain 35mm film in ideal conditions, not a general figure.
Also the record and movie industries never take into account the fact that every pirated copy does NOT mean one less sale. Many people will take something for free that they would never buy. Of course there are also some people will buy what they can get for free.
This is just a guess, but I think every movie garners a certain "integrity" in the technologies which were used to make it. Certain techniques were used to create it, and the movie audiences know based on viewing LOTS of TV and films over the years what fits and what doesn't (perhaps without quite appreciating it). CGI doesn't fit in the original Star Wars, at least not for major visible additions (clean up and touch up is fine).
Of course, a lot of it is nostalgia, too. But what's wrong with that? I still don't get why Lucas doesn't do a "historical release" and make another zillion bucks.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
What you're watching it on will probably be a factor. On a big-screen TV, the difference is really apparent.
Remember, the original film wasn't filmed in VHS. It was filmed in a much higher resolution film format and then downgraded to VHS for release. It was, after all, filmed to be displayed on a 40 foot screen. That actually captures a lot of detail that gets discarded when you format for NTSC.
Sometimes the digital mastering just cleans up the colour palette or removes a lot of grain and artifacts. But it really does have an observable difference on the right display.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
That's no moon!
I might not like all of the changes (especially Greedo shooting first), but I see GL's point. It's not just that GL is an "artist." He's a professional. He wanted to put his vision on screen, and he couldn't do it exactly the way he envisioned. I can completely understand the desire to go back years later, when he has his independent resources, and re-work the old movies to more perfectly match his original vision. It's his legacy, and he has control over how the movies will be viewed long after he is gone.
Keep this in mind: J.R.R. Tolkien made minor revisions to the Lord of the Rings several times after the books were first published (and then published in successive editions). And Tolkien didn't have to deal with a movie studio taking a huge chance on something that essentially no one had done before. Professionals (and I speak from experience) have an irrepressible desire to revisit our past work, because we always have a feeling that the demands of time and the client (or the editor or the studio) force us to push out work product that could be tweaked to perfection if only we had a little more time.
"If we cannot be free, then at least we can be cheap" -- Frank Zappa
Film has nowhere near 4000 lines of resolution - you are in the territory of grain at that point. More like 1000 - 2000, depending on the quality of the film stock and the lenses used. VHS sits at around 300 lines of resolution. DVDs potentially carry up to 780 lines of resolution (this is the maximum provided for in its digital image format) but chances are, your TV set, unless its HDTV or top of the line NTSC, is showing you 500-600 lines of resolution.
All of these mediums have exactly the same number of raster lines - 525, of which you can see approximately 480 - again depending on the overscan properties of your viewing device.
planet texture maps and more
Actually you can download the original trilogy in DVD format copied from the laser discs here.
Piracy my ass, these versions are dead and the community who wants them should be keeping them alive.
You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
So far nobody has mentioned the sound - I've been waiting 27 years to *hear* it properly again..
I was conned by an old man in a cloak. It turns out those *were* the droids I was looking for.
Yes if your screen can do higher then 1024x768. A 1280x800 16:9 screen laptop is best.
According to this (9/20/04 - 12:30 PM PDT), this (9/20/04 - 10:30 PM PDT), and TheForce.Net, there are audio issues in Star Wars Trilogy DVD set.
Lucasfilm denied with this statement, "We are always impressed with how closely fans listen to the many different sound mixes we have made for the Star Wars movies over the years. It is flattering to know that, indeed, the audience is listening. Consequently, each mix comes out differently and any changes that you hear on the all-new Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX tracks on the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set are deliberate creative decisions. We can confirm that there are no technical glitches as reported."
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Another great victory due to piracy!
* It makes legit DVD's cheaper, otherwise there would be no incentive for movie studio's to offer competative prices.
* It enabled the public to enjoy Lord of the Rings as soon as it was out, worldwide. Instead of having to wait 6 to 9 months for a European release.
* And now it saves us legit customers from artificial waiting times..
All I can say is, huzzah for piracy!
Ok,
what I want to know is - can you still see the square outline around the ships (X-Wings and T.I.E. fighters) in the final battle around the Deathstar in IV?
It was very visible in the VHS versions.
First they burn books, then they burn people.
See this article for more information on how and what was used to do the remastering.
Article follows:
John Lowry: Restoring Films to the Galaxy
September 16, 2004
On September 21, when Star Wars fans insert A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi on DVD for the first time, they are going to see picture quality no Star Wars audience has ever seen... including those at the first screening of the first day back in May 1977.
The growing popularity of films from all eras on DVD format has helped to illuminate a growing problem with some of the movie industry's greatest treasures -- they exist only on physical film stock, and that film stock is fragile and deteriorating rapidly.
When Lucasfilm began to prepare the trilogy for a digital release, they called upon John Lowry and Lowry Digital Images to step in to save the day. In the past four years, Lowry Digital has been hired to use their patented custom software processes to digitally clean and restore hundreds of films, including high-profile efforts on Snow White, Citizen Kane and last year's acclaimed Indiana Jones Trilogy DVD set.
At the Lowry Digital Images facility, over 600 Macintosh dual-processor G5 computers utilizing over 2400 gigabytes of RAM and 478 terabytes (over 478 million megabytes) of hard drive space processed each of the classic Star Wars films for over 30 break-neck days to create the stunning new versions fans will see in the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set.
"There are three key contributing factors to the degradation of film," Lowry explains. "Dirt, time and chemical damage due to conventional restoration processes."
When creating a duplicate of a scratched original, a wet-gate printer is commonly used. The master copy passes through a special fluid which temporarily fills any scratches or holes in the original. According to Lowry, this process is physically harsh and actually adds more grain and softens the images. Proper storage of the fragile film is also an industry issue. "Storage problems in the past have led to flicker, color damage and color flicker," says Lowry.
But the greatest challenge on the Star Wars trilogy was dirt damage. The more a film is used, the more dirt it accumulates. The unexpected success of A New Hope took a particular toll because each copy of the film ended up being played far more often than is usual, to the point where even Fox Studio's master originals began to wear out keeping up with demand.
"We have never seen anything quite this bad from a dirt perspective," says Lowry. "At some point the dirt becomes part of the picture and very, very hard to get rid of."
Over the years, Lowry Digital's computer algorithms have evolved from automating the removal of hundreds of pieces of dirt in a scene, to handling the 100,000 pieces of dirt in the Indiana Jones trilogy, to taking on the Star Wars trilogy which required automated and manual removal of up to a million pieces of dirt in scenes like R2-D2 and C-3PO's arrival on Tatooine in A New Hope.
The Star Wars restoration process began with a 10-bit RGB high-definition scan of the original negatives. This data was then used by a team at Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic to work with George Lucas to do some significant color correction to the movies. This color-timed data was then transferred to Lowry Digital hard drives, to begin the massive clean-up effort.
Most effects in the original trilogy were achieved, at least in part, with the aid of optical printing -- a process in which one piece of film is passed through a printer multiple times, once for each effects element. With each optical effect layer, grain can be introduced and some of the original clarity reduced. "Every time there was a lightsaber in frame, it was exceedingly grainy due to opticals," Lowry recalls.
"Sometimes the scratches were very bad," says Lowry, "at one point in Return of the Jedi there was a literally
I don't do this for karma, I do it for cash. It's much better.
I'm not sure I understand the comment about "there won't be a market for the DVD's in 3 years". Why? Because people are downloading the original untouched version of the movie and won't want the crappy CGed version that is being released? That's a big f*ing clue stick if I've ever seen one.
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
"At least that's how I remember it... "
Yeah. I've been telling my wife all about the elementary school I went to. The one with the 16 foot ceilings in the classrooms and the 20 foot basketball rims. For some reason she thinks my memory may be exaggerating the details.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
And in a perfect world every DVD would be properly remastered and cleaned up before release. Unfortunately, it seems like some DVDs - particularly earlier releases that were rushed to market have horrible transfers. I have some DVDs that look grainy and spotted with a flat color range.
Oftentimes these movies are cleaned up and rereleased on DVD later as a special or deluxe edition with a cleaner transfer.
It's a a good idea to check out DVD review sites for information about the quality of the films transfer.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
4. Boba Fett has a new voice
Since Boba Fett is a clone of Jango Fett, and Jango Fett is played by Temura Morrison, doesn't it make sense that he should sound like him, too? That's exactly what George Lucas thought, so Morrison was brought in to revoice the four lines of dialogue (yes, believe it or not there are only four!) Boba spoke in the original trilogy.
Does anyone else think this is shit? Bobba Fett in the original trilogy, the way I understood it, was the son of Jango Fett - you know, that kid that was with Jango in Episode 2? Seems like saying Bobba Fett was a clone simply discards the purpose of even having the kid in Epside II at all.
I also seem to recall something in one of the novels, or something like that, about Bobba Fett being Jango's progeny. This would make sense, as progeny is more likely to follow in their father's footsteps than a clone is to follow in the footsteps of the person they were cloned from, no? I'd think a clone would be more interested in seeking their own identity.
And what's with changing Bobba Fett's voice? Even if he were a clone (I'm not believing it), half of what made Fett such a badass was his -voice-. It was fucking hardcore and made you fear the guy. Now, Jango? Not so much. Not only that, but a clone is going to have different cultural influences than Jango, and thus his accent is going to be different anyway. But I digress.
In conclusion, Lucas sucks. What a hack.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Maybe the difference between old school and new school Star Wars fans is their memory
of the first time they saw the Trilogy.
I was an impressionable eight years old when Episode 4 came to the movie theater. I remember my mom
dropping me off to see a different movie. Star Wars had not yet arrived in theaters.
While standing outside, waiting in line, I saw a poster. It was completely back, accept for a small space
ship (Tie Fighter) and a small bright spec in the center (Death Star). The poster said STAR WARS.
I remember thinking, "What the hell is this movie about. It is obviously a movie with space ships.
That's good, but where is the war.....I have to see this movie, with or with the war."
At that time, SCFI was hard to come by, and good SCFI was absent. My diet of SCFI, up
till then, consisted mostly of poorly translated, weird, Japanese robots and monsters.
When I sat in my seat and the lights went down. The sights and sounds
of the opening sequence blew me away. Space ships blasting each other, super menacing
evil dark helmet guy, princess spies and robots running for their lives by escaping to the dirty, back-water,
desert planet below. Orphaned farm boy (space cadet wanta-be), hermit old wise man,
space cowboy gun slinger and his trusty, two legged, woolly horse side-kick. All taking up arms
to fight the evil empire who has a weapon that makes nukes seem like mouse farts.
This was deadly serious SCFI, the only thing funny was Han's contempt for chatty droids.
"Holly Shit this movie totally kicks ass!". I saw that movie 10 times when it was first released and
countless times since, in its original form. I was eight and I didn't need floppy ear clowns or
teddy bears to keep me entertained.
I am 36 now. Time has delete and faded countless memories.
But the pure awe and sense of wonder revealed to me in original Star Wars,
still lives vividly in my memory as it did when I was a boy.
For me, any noticeable change in the original, is pure blasphemy.
For me, Star Wars is the holy scripture of a SCFI profit.
Copyright has become the only way to save the faith.
Alas, it looks as though I will have to pirate Lucas's original vision
to preserve for future generations.
It is sad to see one who was once so powerful in vision, fall weakened by the temptations of the dark side.
Lucas, by all appearance seems to be following in Anakin's footsteps. Maybe he will also,
redeem himself on his death bed at the hands of his adopted (orphan) son.
If anyone is still reading:
I created a small and short animated GIF of the Han/Greedo sequence. You can get it here.