Why Disney Can't Give Us High-Def Star Wars Where Han Shoots First 210
An anonymous reader writes "Lost amid the disappointment of the Star Wars prequels were the unfortunate edits George Lucas has made to the original trilogy when he re-released them. Lee Hutchinson points out a few of the worst: 'In Return of the Jedi, Jabba's palace gains an asinine CGI-filled song-and-dance interlude. Dialogue is butchered in Empire Strikes Back. And in the first movie, perhaps most famously, Han no longer shoots first.' Lucas flat-out refused to spend time and money remastering the original versions of the movies. But now Disney is in control of the franchise (and the business case for releasing different versions of the same films has been proven). So there's hope, right? According to Hutchinson: maybe, but not for a while. While technological advances have reduced the price tag for such an endeavour, lawyers will keep it expensive. It turns out 20th Century Fox still owns distribution rights to the Star Wars films. Because of complex and irritating legal reasons, Disney was not able to acquire those as well. Thus, Disney will have to get Fox's approval and probably cut Fox in for some of the profits, if they were to re-release the series."
At least there's hope . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not his fault...
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. . . because there was no reasonable chance of this happening with Lucas. Man, how do you mess up Star Wars?!
Forgotten about JarJar Binks, have you?
You agree with him (Score:2)
Forgotten about JarJar Binks, have you?
No, he hasn't. That's why he said:
"there was no reasonable chance of this happening with Lucas."
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Tron Legacy (Score:2)
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Machete order: 45236 (Score:3)
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No, you still have the clumsiest, most cringeworthy love story in the history of cinema. Queen Natalie cradle-snatches 'Little Ani', afterwards this pathetic whiney little runt commits genocide against his own kind based on a prophecy. Obi-wan couldn't even bring himself to finish the job...
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I never really found him to be all that funny, but then I never found C-3PO funny either. Jar Jar was just the new C-3PO. You'll notice that Jar Jar is most active in movies where C-3PO is not, and vice versa.
Same bungling comic relief, there to entertain the kids.
Re:At least there's hope . . . (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
When Disney plunked down $4 billion at the end of 2012 for the Star Wars franchise, it didn’t actually get everything, because Lucasfilm didn’t actually have everything to sell. Disney can release whatever new movies it wants, or dress Mickey Mouse up in Jedi robes and have him wave a light saber at guests in the Magic Kingdom, or hand-wave away the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe—it paid for the rights to do all of those things.
Turns out, what it can’t do is sell you new copies of the six Star Wars movies (aka Episodes 1 thru VI). "Fox owns distribution rights to the original Star Wars, No. 4 in the series, in perpetuity in all media worldwide. And as for the five subsequent movies, Fox has theatrical, nontheatrical, and home video rights worldwide through May 2020."
When George Lucas filmed Star Wars in the late 1970s, he had to turn to 20th Century Fox to both finance and distribute the film; the success of the first film enabled Lucasfilm to finance the other five movies itself (though Lucas did require some additional assistance from Fox in fully funding The Empire Strikes Back’s production). Lucas continued to use Fox as a distributor for all of the six existing Star Wars films—and Fox retains those distribution rights under the Disney sale.
Re:At least there's hope . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand why the initiative to do this doesn't come from FOX, there's got to be enough interest to make it profitable. All that I want them to do is to clean up the artifacts from the editing process (where one can obviously tell that it was multiple rolls of film layered through the machines like in the space battles) and to clean up any degradation in color or texture from the film grain itself. Hell, they could even remix the audio into AC3 or whatever surround sound system people like, but they don't need to do more than restoration-type work.
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And that's why you can have my widescreen Laserdisc editions when you pry them from my cold, dead hands...
Good luck finding a laserdisc in good working order.
There was a release of the original trilogy on DVD that used the Laserdisc master, and included both Theatrical and Special Edition.
I recall the howling of rage when people figured out it was not a true 480p release (this of course was years before BD).
So the OP really doesn't have to keep those Laserdiscs and try and keep a player going.
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Which is a major contributing factor as to why I won't bother to get the DVD version either, it almost looks worse than the LD.
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...
So Disney and Fox won't see another $, €, £ or Yen from me for the forseable future. Original movies 4-6 or nothing.
I would rather see the whole franchise disappear than give Rupert Murdoch one more nickel... and I really like the originals.
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Good luck finding a laserdisc in good working order.
LD players are very easy to get in working order. You can get a lower-grade player for pretty cheap, and even nice-quality ones are in good supply. Heck, the last model (a middling-quality DVD/LD combo player) was still being made until just a few years ago.
So FOX owns "Star Wars: Han Shot First"? (Score:3)
I've been annoyed that I haven't been able to see the original movie since it was first in theaters back in the 70s; SW4:ANH just isn't the same thing.
Re:At least there's hope . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, how do you mess up Star Wars?!
It must really annoy Lucas to hear people ask this even after he produced a detailed three-part instructional video on the subject.
Despecialized Editions (Score:5, Informative)
If you look around, there has been a fantastic fan effort to create the Despecialized Editions that are as close to the original theatrical runs as possible for the original trilogy. They've mixed in the HD sources for the current releases with older footage to undo all the changes. It's pretty amazing.
Re: Despecialized Editions (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Despecialized Editions (Score:5, Informative)
Just as an FYI followup to this, Harmy has been working on the despecialized editions for years, so there are a few different versions hanging around. The latest version is v2.5. The improvements in quality from his first release to his most recent release are huge.
He also did preliminary attempts at Empire and Jedi, but he only did a rough first pass on those, so the work on them is nowhere near the quality of his work on Star Wars. He plans to revisit Empire and Jedi once he's satisfied with the original.
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This sort of thing is the only reason I haven't really dug into the fanedits yet, even their own forums are a mess with no real chronological pruning so it's impossible to tell what the latest versions of everything are or if there's a clear consensus as to what's the "best".
Re: Despecialized (Score:4, Informative)
Adywan's Star Wars Revisited isn't better, it's got completely different goals. Harmy's goal was to rebuild the theatrical cut, Adywan's goal was to make a better special edition. Neither one is "better" than the other because they're completely opposite directions.
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But that fucking dancing singing alien... Jesus... Someone should have really called Lucas out on that.
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No one watches Star Wars for dialogue. At least no one with a functioning Brocca's region.
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I feel like ivcw just been pedanted by a Monty Python skit
Re:Despecialized Editions (Score:5, Insightful)
Han shooting first shows just what kind of a dangerous scoundrel the Rebels have to rely on. It's the beginning of his character journey from rogue to respectable.
If he starts out semi-respectable, it weakens his character development a great deal.
There Can Be Only One (Score:3)
How many bloody versions of the movie do there need to be?
There only needs to be one. It's just that no-one has yet made it fully in HD yet.
We buy some of the others to get a close approximation.
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I don't need to see it in HDTV. I'd gladly go to a theater to watch the original Star Wars movie again.
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A theatre presentation is (or certainly should be) higher than HD quality.
Re:There Can Be Only One (Score:5, Informative)
Nota bene:
The version of the film that you might have seen on television in the 1980s, or on VHS in the 80s or 90s, is not the theatrical edition either. Lucas made several subtle changes to the editing, color and particularly the sound mix of the trilogy throughout the 1980s. Every time the elements came out of the vault he redid something.
Frankly it's not clear if any of the 1977 theatrical source materials (the "intermediates" or the camera negatives) still exist. Lucas straight-up claims "the negatives were destroyed" in the process of creating the special edition, which is possible, but it would have been very careless and required him to go out of his way to destroy them. The "camera negatives" that most people refer to when they're talking about movie archival are the negative A/B rolls, which is the edited camera negative. It's almost impossible to re-edit a film from A/B rolls so it's never done, so either a film dupe is made of these, or the A/B rolls are transferred into some kind of HD digital workflow, which would certainly have been available around the time of the Special Edition.
Fox, being the distributor, would have certainly produced several intermediate, theatrical-grade elements -- you take the camera negatives and the printing company makes positive -> negative -> positive iterations as a part of integrating the sound track and blowing-up the final image to the theatrical aperture. The intermediate positive in that process, the "IP" or interpositive, will have all the original color correction ("color timing") and reframings Lucas did; contractually Lucasfilm had to hand over a "fine grain IP" to Fox, this is what used to appear in all the contracts, it's the key deliverable, it's what Fox made all the release prints out of. (Nowadays producers just deliver a DCP to their distributor.) So, it stands to reason Fox is in possession of an IP somewhere.
There's definitely an economic factor involved, they couldn't just transfer the IP, they'd probably have to do some restoration, and that's crazy expensive. Also there's no way they could release it with the 1977 Dolby Stereo mix, it would just sound too low-fi compared to people's expectations, they'd have to remix it into 5.1 or 7.1, and who knows if Fox would be able to obtain the rights to the source sound elements necessary to do this. I believe Lucasfilm retains physical possession of the sound elements for all the Star Wars films, but again as with the IP, Lucasfilm would have been required to deliver to Fox both a Dolby Stereo mix of the film, a stereo "M&E" or music and effects mix (for foreign countries to dub over with their native language), and stereo "stem" mixes, separate mixes of at least the dialogue, sound effects and music.
If they had just a film print of the theatrical, unfortunately this would probably not be economical to use. Even if the print itself was pristine and unscratched, there will be some color issues after all this time, and release prints have a relatively high contrast and this usually makes the transfers not good enough for sale. Also, again, the only audio on a release print will be the Dolby Stereo, and optical Dolby Stereo at that, which never transfers very well.
(I work in theatrical film post in Hollywood and have done some restoration work with films from the 1980s.)
Crazy Expensive compared to Crazy Profitable (Score:2)
they'd probably have to do some restoration, and that's crazy expensive.
Thanks for the great observations, I agree with all of them- including this one.
But even though it's crazy expensive it also seems like that cost is nothing compared to what they would earn.
The crazy expensive part could be a blocker for a company without enough capital but Disney is anything but lacking capital.
I am pretty sure we'll see a re-release of Star Wars in HD (again) as the original movies, in part I'm sure of it because the
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I seem to recall that Lucas claimed the restoration process used for the special editions, which was chemical, trashed some of the original materials. They got one good scan but the film then degraded. Then again he does talk a lot of crap.
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Probably the same sort of people who were making anime music videos of Linkin Park and Hellsing.
Holy legalese crap Batman (Score:3)
If that's what happens when a studio buys something, I don't want to see the mess involved for Netflix to acquire streaming rights for different countries.
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If that's what happens when a studio buys something, I don't want to see the mess involved for Netflix to acquire streaming rights for different countries.
Yes, it generally is. I was amused by this quote in OP:
Because of complex and irritating legal reasons, Disney was not able to acquire those as well.
Well, boo-hoo. Disney is perhaps most famous for its own injection of "complex and irritating legal reasons" into their own contracts. Who are they to complain?
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fox put up the original cash so they own the distribution rights
most movies cost so much to make you have different investors involved and everyone shares the different rights
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Although I'd love to invest in a movie personally.
Have you seen the return on a average movie? Incredible! Better than a term deposit.
Look for a good Fan Edit (Score:5, Informative)
There are some very well done Fan Edits which take footage from various versions of the film and create a fan-friendly version. Han shoots first, no CGI Jabba the Hutt, etc.
You can often spot the differences when they went from HD to a DVD or Laserdisc source to keep the story true to the original, but that's part of the fun.
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The better edits (like Harmy's Despecialized Edition) are done at a sub-frame level, rotoscoping in original elements from the highest quality available sources. The bluray is the base, the somewhat less "specialized" HDTV rips are used after that, and then from there anything goes. Upscaled DVDs, magazine scans, cell scans, 35mm print scans... After years of effort on them, you can't really tell where the "seams" are, except in the handful of most difficult edits.
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> Greedo never got a shot off.
That's because Han Solo shot first.
Fuck You George Lucas... (Score:2)
Cut 'em in - do y'allll hate money?? (Score:4, Informative)
Who cares if Fox has to be cut in, does Disney not really care about the results $3B in profit that would result from a HD recoversions of the untouched original?
I think it's great there's any hope at all, from the headline I thought Lucas burned the originals.
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It's called negotiating. The question is not, "Would you like half of $3 billion?" The question is "What percentage of $3 billion would you like?"
And the best leverage Disney has is to play the "It's my ball and I'm going home if you don't want to play by my rules" routine.
Reality check. (Score:4, Informative)
Who cares if Fox has to be cut in, does Disney not really care about the results $3B in profit that would result from a HD recoversions of the untouched original?
3.2 million copies of "Frozen" were sold on its first day of DVD and Blu-Ray release --- returning about $65 million gross.
"Frozen" as a global cultural phenomenon is damned impressive even by geek fan-boy standards. I would expect an HD restoration of the 37 year old Star Wars to be financially viable ---- but, as these numbers suggest, not the pot of gold at rainbow's end.
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Some sources claim that he irreversibly destroyed them when making the special editions. We don't know for sure whether that's the case or not.
Some sources claim that everything was irreversibly destroyed with the creation of Jar Jar...
Obligatory (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia, Khena Solo shot first!
Disney & Fox: I will pay $300 for it (Score:2, Informative)
Do you have any idea how much money people are willing to pay for a faithfully restored version of the original trilogy??? Do you???
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Do you have any idea how much money people are willing to pay for a faithfully restored version of the original trilogy???
I haven't got a clue and I doubt that you have either.
I don't see anything happening until Disney's take on Star Wars is solidly anchored and begins to rival its success with Marvel Comics.
Get some diplomacy going then! (Score:4, Insightful)
Fox should get nothin! (Score:3)
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20th Century Fox had nothing to do with Firefly, any more than the company that made your refrigerator made nuclear bombs. Different companies with a shared owner.
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Fine (Score:5, Informative)
I'm contractually obliged to mention this in every Star Wars thread on the Internet.
It's not "Han shoots FIRST"! (Score:5, Informative)
First implies an order.
An order implies there is more than one.
Han doesn't shoot *FIRST*, Han shoots.
There is no "first," because there is no "second."
There is no "second" because Greedo doesn't shoot at all.
Stop with "Han shoots first" - start with "Greedo never shoots".
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My favorite version was the "Director's JFK Cut", where Han, like John F. Kennedy, shot himself.
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First can also imply pre-emption. A nuclear first strike, for example, is intended to knock out the other guy's arsenal so that there is no counter, no second attack.
First can mean "before some other thing, event, etc.: If you're going, phone first." [reference.com] Or "[b]efore or above all others in time, order, rank, or importance: arrived first; forgot to light the oven first." [thefreedictionary.com]. Or "[b]efore anything else; firstly. Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook. [wiktionary.org].
"Han shot fir
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Just get on with it (Score:2)
Disney will have to get Fox's approval and probably cut Fox in for some of the profits, if they were to re-release the series.
First, why hasn't Fox put out DVDs or Blu-rays themselves?
Second, why would Disney scoff at such a deal? Even minus some to Fox, Disney would make a lot of money.
The originals in high resolution would be snatched up, both by fans who just like them that way and by collectors who deem first things higher.
Too bad it's not Paramount (Score:2)
After seeing what Paramount did with the Blu-Ray release of the original Star Trek, there might actually have been hope that they would put out a proper restoration of the originals, possibly with selectable audio mixes and VFX.
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It would've been nice to get the Director's Cut, though I think I'm right in saying it was only completed at DVD quality (and, in fact, looks pretty bad even for DVD).
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Paramount did a great job, and continues to do a good job (COME ON DS9) with the Star Trek blu-rays.
On the other hand, the special director's edition of The Motion Picture is far superior to the theatrical cut, but the theatrical cut is the only one available on Blu ray.
Most insightful part of the post (Score:3)
"while technological advances have reduced the price tag for such an endeavour, lawyers will keep it expensive"
This is true of far too many things, beyond just the movie industry.
What's worse than uninformed bullshit? (Score:2)
What's worse than uninformed bullshit posted as an "article" on the Internet?
Uninformed bullshit that then gets picked up, summarized in a modern game of telephone via a retarded summary, compounding the uninformed bullshit to complete horseshit, and then posting it on /.
There are bits of truth in there, but since this is all speculation on everyone's part until Disney announces anything (or Lucas/Fox spills the beans, see below), It's easier to just lay it out instead of trying to refute/correct all t
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I would tell you why, but if you didn't read the summary which has the answer, or the linked article I doubt you will read it again when I repost it..
Honestly, can't walk and chew bubble gum? (Score:2)
Why are you worried about police powers when the NSA is spying on the electronic communications of the entire planet? Since this is we-can-only-pay-attention-to-one-thing-at-a-time month, or something.
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Why are you worried about police powers when the NSA is spying on the electronic communications of the entire planet? Since this is we-can-only-pay-attention-to-one-thing-at-a-time month, or something.
Is that a serious question? Spying is just information gathering. Information alone is powerless - it has to be used to be a threat. To be precise, it can be used to direct where the police should apply their power. It seems reasonable to worry about both, as they go hand in hand.
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Yours wasn't. Walk and chew bubble gum....it can be done.
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I'm working on it. Almost there, but I still trip and fall down if I don't alternate chews and walking steps. I'll master the skill eventually, thanks to your helpful encouragement.
Once I have achieved walking/gum chewing mastery, will you respond with something more intelligent than a silly non-sequitor question that adds nothing to the conversation, makes you snicker to yourself at your clever superiority though you've really said nothing of substance?
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Addendum: I was right. Modded as Troll. Another /. achievement recieved. Yay.
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why all this fuss about Star Wars. The movies were good when I was a 10 year old. Now they are unwatchable and boring to me.
Because they're cinema history. I showed Star Wars to my artsy tenant, pausing every now and then to explain the importance of different scenes - important not just in story context, in EU context, but in real world context. Doing that, he could then appreciate Star Wars for what it has done.
- Before Star Wars, space fantasy was very bland. Aliens were variants of humans, the the extent that people struggled to accept even Mr Spock's pointy ears. Most Star Wars sentients still are humanoid (and that lac
Horseshit (Score:2)
no, Obi-Wan lied to Luke to prevent Luke from wanting to know anything about Vader or his father.
It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Lucas' grand pre-planned nine episode story was created on-the-fly AFTER the unintentional and accidental success of the first movie named "Star Wars", not "A New Hope." Every incongruous element in the series from Princess Lay-uh/Lee-uh's name pronunciation, to Obi Wan's bullshit explanation for his description of Anakin's "death" to Leia's unexpected sibling kinship to Luke was made up on-the-spot without regard to continuity, storyline development, or cr
And Another Thing... (Score:2)
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Like it or not, George Lucas never wanted Han to shoot first. He made it the way he wanted it, and that's the end. Maybe we should all get over it.
After making billions off the franchise, the man decides to make a rather drastic change to an original scene in some vain attempt to secure a level of morality that was in question for all of 60 seconds out of hours of Han Solo's screentime.
And decides to make this change... thirty fucking years later.
And you're telling us, to get over it?
Oh, that's fucking rich.
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Well... It bothered him, and he changed it when he was able to. If bothers the rest of the internet, and all they can do it bitch about it, forever. So yeah, I do think you need to get over it. Go take a break, drink some blue milk, then come back and look at the anger in your own comment, and think about things you're allowing to get under your skin.
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Well... It bothered him, and he changed it when he was able to. If bothers the rest of the internet, and all they can do it bitch about it, forever. So yeah, I do think you need to get over it. Go take a break, drink some blue milk, then come back and look at the anger in your own comment, and think about things you're allowing to get under your skin.
Uh, changed it when he was able to?
There's a word to describe where the following of the franchise elevated to after 20 years.
Cult.
Once it rises to that level, it's best to not screw with things. Even if you are the man.
On top of that, I'm certain other directors, musicians, or actors have had regret or embarrassment about previous works, and would like to change the past. But they don't, and know why they shouldn't. Filmmaking contains a certain element of preservation. To capture the time and era th
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Filmmaking contains a certain element of preservation. To capture the time and era the film came out in, and leave all nuances intact.
So how do you feel about the aforementioned and highly lauded fan cuts? Why is it okay for fans to make edits, but not the original creator? I seem to remember the praise the internet had for other editors, such as Topher Grace, when he re-cut the prequel trilogy, and people were rabid about wishing to see it. Or the endless reappropriation of Disney princesses into other forms of art, or Garfield Without Garfield, or Nietzsche Family Circus, or I could go on...
Where is the line between re-editing, and reap
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Filmmaking contains a certain element of preservation. To capture the time and era the film came out in, and leave all nuances intact.
So how do you feel about the aforementioned and highly lauded fan cuts? Why is it okay for fans to make edits, but not the original creator? I seem to remember the praise the internet had for other editors, such as Topher Grace, when he re-cut the prequel trilogy, and people were rabid about wishing to see it. Or the endless reappropriation of Disney princesses into other forms of art, or Garfield Without Garfield, or Nietzsche Family Circus, or I could go on...
Where is the line between re-editing, and reappropriation, and why is it okay for some people but not others? I'm genuinely wondering. Perhaps people were bitter because they felt that Lucas was cashing in again?
The main aforementioned "cut" in question relates to fans attempting to piece together an HD (or near-HD) version of the movie that is merely as intact as the original release.
Attempting to un-fuck the directors own doctoring is not exactly a "fan cut" as compared to any other editing done for any other reason. Bootleg live recordings are popular among fans too, but they also still appreciate the original..to the point of society even reverting back to vinyl recordings these days oddly enough.
People were
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One is making a play on a part of our culture. The other is trying to rewrite our culture. The law may allow Lucas to do this, but it doesn't make it morally right.
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You really need to stop and think about your life. You are getting angry and outraged over movies that were released more than 30 years ago. Yes - Lucas made billions off *his* movie. You watched the movie. That is the end of his obligation to you or any other O2-wastin' sperg out there.
Yes, we watched his movie, just like we watched hundreds of other directors make damn good movies over the years. We became fans of them, just as we've become fans of the concept of artistic integrity.
Lucas made a movie. Then he decided to change it decades later for nothing more than selfish personal reasons.
That was the end of his artistic integrity, which is my only point here. I'm not angered or even a Star Wars die-hard. I'm merely floored over the concept of changing a body of work that has been
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1977 Lucas did, and wrote the script [imsdb.com] and made the film that way. The guy who changed the film, 1997 Lucas, had the edge and artistic integrity that 1977 Lucas had.
It's unfortunate that 1997 Lucas can screw with the work of 1977 Lucas.
Or maybe we should try to preserve a work of art against the deprivations of corporate scum, and of screenwriters and directors who lose their talent.
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You can't go by the imsdb, it's just not authoritative. Notice that the script (such as it is) is portrayed as a "reading draft" and doesn't have scene numbers or any revision marks. Even if the script said it we have no idea what he actually shot that day, the editing is heroically saving his generally terrible setups throughout that sequence, and it's not clear what happens without the sound effects and the cutaways spelling it
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You can't go by the imsdb, it's just not authoritative.
In the absence of any other cites, it trumps everything you posted to support the "other side". So IMSDB wins. Well, that and IMSDB matches what was actually made (directed, performed, edited, and presented), so why would you doubt evidence that matches reality?
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Evidence suggests he did, he just tried to retcon the real world with that claim.
Besides, it no longer matters what he wants, the story is now part of culture.
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Like it or not, George Lucas never wanted Han to shoot first.
How do you know? He put Han shooting first into the first movie. That proves you wrong. Yes, he later changed his mind, but to say he "never" wanted it is silly. That's how he wrote and directed it the first time. He just didn't understand the rest of the movie, and changed his mind later.
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Like it or not, George Lucas never wanted Han to shoot first.
How do you know? He put Han shooting first into the first movie. That proves you wrong. Yes, he later changed his mind, but to say he "never" wanted it is silly. That's how he wrote and directed it the first time. He just didn't understand the rest of the movie, and changed his mind later.
Well, I KNOW because he has SAID so, many times, all over the place, ever since the beginning. I'd cite some sources, but I;m sure you know how to use the internet. The only thing that is "proven" is that someone, some editor or effects tech was a bit too ambiguous, and Lucas didn't change it at the time because he didnt notice, didnt think about it hard enough, or lacked the time or money to do so. You don't think Lucas himself hand painted every frame of film? Or that he had the sort of iron-fisted creati
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OMG, like no other scifi movies have been released during this whole time
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Second: There is no second.