Do not want! - Lucas messes with the trilogy again.

I0Q1A.jpg
I love the little stormtroopers on top of the Pepsi machine. Great touch.
 
Colorizing movies, electronic duets with dead singers, dead celebrities placed in commercials; these are abominations. A guy tweaking his own movies owes the public nothing. Have fun GWL. Tweak to your hearts content.

I dream to make a Star Wars, a Tucker, an American Graffiti and have full control of it. Life is good.

As much as people may not like it you're pretty much on point here. It's his, he can do with it as he pleases. And that's why it's his. Now the public can say "I won't buy it", but he's owe them nothing. He may want to listen for the sake of sales, but then again, does he NEED the money? I haven't heard anything about him going bankrupt or ILM having money woes, so yea, he can do what he wants.

-Nate
 
As much as people may not like it you're pretty much on point here. It's his, he can do with it as he pleases. And that's why it's his. Now the public can say "I won't buy it", but he's owe them nothing. He may want to listen for the sake of sales, but then again, does he NEED the money? I haven't heard anything about him going bankrupt or ILM having money woes, so yea, he can do what he wants.

-Nate

The real issue for fans is that he hasn't preserved the older, unaltered films. The best is a letterboxed dvd of an ancient laserdisc transfer, which looks pretty crappy on anything bigger than a 30 inch tv. If he had done like Spielberg did for E.T. and issued a separate, good quality transfer of the old version, or as Cameron and Ridley Scott have done on their directors cuts and have multiple versions on the same blu-ray with seamless branching, most people wouldn't be so upset. Spielberg said he issued both versions because he knows their are purists out there, and he respects that. Lucas does not.
 
Can we start a Kickstarter project for this? Or maybe 4...

IF WE RAISE $1,000
We pay someone to rip the Blu-Rays, get the audio from the DVDs without the Noooo, splice that in, and give you a new Blu-Ray or disc image thereof.

IF WE RAISE $50,000
All of the above, except we get each Kickstarter donator so drunkenly hammered that they blot the Noooo out of their memories entirely. We also destroy all the offending Blu-Ray and replace it with a perfectly-printed Nooo-less version.

IF WE RAISE $100,000
We find a 35mm print and digitize it - and send THAT out. Han shoots first!

IF WE RAISE $1,000,000
We hire ninjas to find and free the real George Lucas - and destroy his evil clone that has been perpetrating all of this silliness.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

I think you should actually do it. I bet you'll make some cash on it and maybe even get Lucas's attention.

-Nate
 
As much as people may not like it you're pretty much on point here. It's his, he can do with it as he pleases. And that's why it's his. Now the public can say "I won't buy it", but he's owe them nothing. He may want to listen for the sake of sales, but then again, does he NEED the money? I haven't heard anything about him going bankrupt or ILM having money woes, so yea, he can do what he wants.

-Nate
Now hold on a second. If he doesn't NEED the money, there's no reason or excuse to release his tweaks to the public at all.
The guy can just tweak to his heart's content at home without ever showing his work to ANYONE.
I think it's pretty clear the only reason he's doing it is because the day he releases the original uncut versions on Blu-ray (or decent DVD transfers for that matter) is the day the films stop selling. The last time he released the films were when we got the supposedly "limited" editions in 2006 that included the unaltered original trilogy and that are to this day fully available EVERYWHERE five years later. If those were "limited", they were "limited" to a VERY high number.

In fact, the day he releases any new transfer of the unaltered original trilogy is the day when he's admitting they're NOT lost and that he can very well do it any time he wants. If they were available, NOBODY would pay money for his tweaked versions.

Right?
 
As much as people may not like it you're pretty much on point here. It's his, he can do with it as he pleases. And that's why it's his. Now the public can say "I won't buy it", but he's owe them nothing. He may want to listen for the sake of sales, but then again, does he NEED the money? I haven't heard anything about him going bankrupt or ILM having money woes, so yea, he can do what he wants.

-Nate

George Lucas did not direct The Empire Strike Back and Return of the Jedi. Surely the director should have the final say?
 
The real issue for fans is that he hasn't preserved the older, unaltered films. The best is a letterboxed dvd of an ancient laserdisc transfer, which looks pretty crappy on anything bigger than a 30 inch tv. If he had done like Spielberg did for E.T. and issued a separate, good quality transfer of the old version, or as Cameron and Ridley Scott have done on their directors cuts and have multiple versions on the same blu-ray with seamless branching, most people wouldn't be so upset. Spielberg said he issued both versions because he knows their are purists out there, and he respects that. Lucas does not.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/51176
 
See that's how it starts tho (just like Michael Jackson's first plastic surgery). That's why I say, in Barry's version, we don't EVEN include "IV: A NEW HOPE"...
 
See that's how it starts tho (just like Michael Jackson's first plastic surgery). That's why I say, in Barry's version, we don't EVEN include "IV: A NEW HOPE"...

It's a slippery slope to be sure. There's even some cleaned up stuff I prefer about the Star Wars Special Editions, like the improved spaceship mattes, and the no longer see-through snow speeders. Or in Blade Runner and Superman they did some wire removals. Man With the Golden gun they also removed the reflection of the crew in one shot. But I know some people can't leave well enough alone.
 
I don't think Spielberg should have put in the walkie-talkies. HOWEVER, when thinking about it, it's understandable -- not for any touchy-feely reasons, but because come on . . . was there any possibility they'd really shoot the kids? The ostentatious closeup of the shotgun being pumped -- that was going to lead up to . . . what? It's just not believable. So, I get it. I'd have left it alone, but I get it.

The worst part about it, for me, is the resulting sequence of jump cuts on Elliott.
 
Those jump cuts were there in both versions. They just aren't motivated, because we don't see the threat, or is that what you meant?

Seemed to me that the jump cuts were produced by simply removing the shots of the agents with guns, so instead of Elliott-Agents-Elliott-Agents-Elliott, it became Elliott-Elliott-Elliott. I don't recall the jump cuts being there in the original version, but I'm not 100% on that.
 
Seemed to me that the jump cuts were produced by simply removing the shots of the agents with guns, so instead of Elliott-Agents-Elliott-Agents-Elliott, it became Elliott-Elliott-Elliott. I don't recall the jump cuts being there in the original version, but I'm not 100% on that.

No, there were jump cuts in the original. Two jump cut push ins, then the gun, then back to Elliot closing his eyes. On the new one they just held on the last push in to Elliot closing his eyes, and did an awkward fade on the music so it doesn't flow as well. They were timed better so you probably didn't notice them as much first time around.
 
Last edited:
It's a slippery slope to be sure. There's even some cleaned up stuff I prefer about the Star Wars Special Editions, like the improved spaceship mattes, and the no longer see-through snow speeders. Or in Blade Runner and Superman they did some wire removals. Man With the Golden gun they also removed the reflection of the crew in one shot. But I know some people can't leave well enough alone.
But those removals/edits work for you, who knows which ones will work for others. You gotta go back to square one, or it's all for naught...

Gotta give Zemeckis credit for saying HELL NO.
 
Don't get me wrong...I hear you.

I like some very minor tweakage too... like the cobra's reflection removed in Indy's Well of Souls closeup.

We used to be able to trust Spielberg to wield that power. Then he kinda lost it. Not kinda, he lost it.
Hopefully the business about the E.T blu ray is a sign he's trying to earn it back from us.
 
I don't think the main problem has ever been change.
When they take a classic action movie from the early 80's and remix the sound from mono or stereo to 6.1 DTS, that's pretty much exactly the same thing as changing visual effects from practical to CG (although CGI never really looks as good as a great DTS track sounds).
The problem is when they first make changes that affect characterization and story, and then refuse to release the original versions on top of that.

I'd be fine with a completely untouched original star wars trilogy with stereo (or was it mono?) mix.

But what I'd really prefer is the untouched original starwars trilogy with 6.1 DTS (or lossless Dolby) and cleaned up visuals but no added CGI, no extra scenes, no change in characters or story and Boba Fett's original voice etc.

At this point, the movies have been so ****ed with I'm not even sure what "untouched" means anymore.
 
Back
Top