Lucas announces Star Wars Saga Release

OK what more did he leave out? yesh.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=73057

I don't think this first Blu-Ray release of Star Wars warrants this comment.

Yes, it does.

There's only so much you can do with material that was recorded on actual film and is 30+ years old. Not to mention the plethora of iterations prior to Blu-Ray. Look, I like Star Wars as much as the next geek (have an original Millenium Falcon + an original AT-AT sitting in my geek den along with a AT-ST that I had as a kid), but there comes a point when it's time to say Enough is Enough.

He's released a DVD edition of the original, pre-special edition original trilogy, so it's not unreasonable to think he'd include it on one or more of the blu-ray sets as well.

Because it was recorded on actual film means it will have an actual improvement when put onto Blu-Ray.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

That was just the laser discs ported over to DVD without even being remastered. I swear he did it as an afterthought.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Actually that only happened because Wal-Mart threatened with not promoting or stocking Star Wars unless Wal-Mart got to sell DVD editions of the original, pre-special edition trilogy. LucasArts countered with requiring that the DVD prints be sold as bonus discs with the special editions, rather than allowing Wal-Mart to sell the originals without the special editions.

Or did you just forget the whole thing with those DVD editions of the original, pre-special edition trilogy being a Wal-Mart exclusive: http://jediinsider.com/index.php?catid=243&itemid=9773

Film of any age is essentially a much higher resolution than blu-ray and there is much demand for high-definition versions of the films. I'd much prefer the original version over special edition, but we'll see how much it costs.

Jer

Well Lucas does like using the movies to test new CGI tech, hence all the revisions of the classics and the CGI extravaganza that was the prequels.

Of course, it is his sandbox we are just playing in it....

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

How much higher demand? Watching the originals on an upconvert DVD player is good enough for me (and I'd venture a lot more people as well).

Of course, you'll have the same people saying that the special 100th Release Anniversary Edition on Chartreuse-Ray is just so much better than all the previous releases that one just has to have it.

As if Wal-Mart isn't a billion dollar company w/out Star Wars *sigh*

it's Star Wars being slapped onto Blu Ray. They made announcements and commercials for other series and trilogies ending on Blu Ray (BttF, LoTR), and slapped stuff on the Blu Ray that wasn't on the DVD editions, and you're griping because Lucas is doing the same thing? i don't see how it matters to you if you're not planning on spending any money on the new versions.

3. D.

Lucas will commit that atrocity when he has to digitize the original trilogy to make the 3D versions of them.
Just give him some time.

Until it stops making money.

Who waits 30+ years to release deleted scenes to a film!?!

I didn't know, and I don't care. The reason they were available isn't important to me, the fact that they were available is. There's no reason to believe that, either for the same reasons or for others, there necessarily couldn't be versions of the non-special editions included. Whether that happens because Wal-Mart throws a fit or because Lucas smartens up and realizes people want them really isn't my concern.

You'll notice that bit refers to the complete saga set, which includes the three newer films. My guess is that most, possibly all of the "never before seen" stuff is from those.

Well even "normal" movies tend to have dozens if not hundreds of hours worth of leftover footage that usually never sees the light of day. When those movies are made into DVDs they'll usually scrape together the best leftover hour or two for their "special features" and be done with it.

Star Wars on the other hand is a huge franchise which as we all know has been around for decades. If we can assume it had several 100 hours of deleted/unused footage spread across all the movies there are probably still a few of those hours worth that we haven't seen yet. The only real difference between the Star Wars movies and regular movies in this regard is that people are still buying enough of the various releases for them to keep digging down through the remaining hours worth of leftovers.

George Lucas.

Actually, to be honest, some of this stuff probably has taken this "long" to recover. When the prequel trilogy was announced, LucasArts started work on recovering the original Star Wars film: http://savestarwars.com/filmpreservation.html

I'd actually recommend picking up the DVD release of the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood: http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Rob...4419920&sr=8-1

The bonus disc has a segment on the history of Technicolor and how it compared to other film technologies. As best as I can research, Star Wars: New Hope, nor the other 2 movies, were filmed in a Technicolor strip format. Although color was by Technicolor, the 1970's were a turning point towards the film industry using the Kodak-Eastman format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technic...or_and_decline

The 1974 GodFather II was the last film to use Technicolor's Dye Transfer format... which meant that Star Wars: A New Hope and the following two movies had to be filmed in the Kodak-Eastman format.

From a physical film standpoint the Kodak-Eastman format lacked the longevity of even the 2-strip Technicolor dye transfer format. The result that was just 2 decades later, the original source footage for Star Wars: A New Hope had lost a great deal of quality. Darth Vader's cloak, for example, was blue instead of black.

For the 20th anniversary, LucasArts worked on restoring the original films to their original color qualities: http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html http://savestarwars.com/filmpreservation.html

It there-for, is possible, if not likely, that many of the side-cuts of various filmed scenes, deleted scenes, and shots of the set, were also in a similar deteriorated state. It isn't entirely unreasonable to assume that these side-cuts required similar levels of restoration that the original film required.

It also is not entirely unreasonable to assume that George Lucas and LucasArts are paying for the restoration of these side-cuts out of their own pocket, where-as the restoration of the original films was largely paid for by 20th Century Fox. Assuming that George Lucas and LucasArts are footing the bill themselves, and doing the work on their own time, it not entirely unreasonable to assume that any restoration work is being done off the clock, or being done as part of the experimental process of creating new technology to recover and remaster deteriorated films.

Ergo, it is not entirely unreasonable to assume that it really would take over 30+ years for such side-cuts to be made available.

The fact is, many side-cuts from the big motion picture films are often discarded, and simply written off. Deleted scenes from the films of Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, or Douglas Fairbanks Jr are likely never going to be recovered or restored. We know that the estates of many a Hollywood Star also sit on footage that has never been released to the public, often because that film is not in a condition that it could be released to the public (Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra stand as two examples).


Now, on the subject of using footage as a retail prop? Well, yeah. At this point, it is more than a little tacky of LucasArts to still be trotting out never before seen footage.