The Original Trilogy in HD

I’d buy em!

I don’t have the skills, know-how or technology to do it, but I’d be gald to help in any way I could. I’d enjoy helping clean up the copy but I want someone that knows how to do it well doing the actual work. If you need contributions I’m in.

There have been fans that have been trying to get this done for a while now but it’s not as simple as you have tried to make it out to be.

Reasons why this would be near to impossible to achieve:

1. George Lucas/ Lucasfilm took back all the 35mm copies of the movies from cinemas and the only copies of the unaltered version are in the hands of a few collectors.

2. Most of the remaining copies in collectors hands are from low grade stock which have faded badly through the years, many turning almost pink.

3.To do a proper restoration you would need an unfaded first generation copy and not a version that was released to the cinemas because the detail is nowhere near as great as that of a first generation or the original negative.

4. legality. No decent transfer house would touch these movies with fear of a very hefty law suit against them. It is highly illegal to do a professional transfer of a copyrighted movie so you would have to purchase your own professional equipment to do it, and unless you have a very wealthy benefactor, to the average Joe this would be impossible. So you saying it’s a small investment is pretty clueless.

5 George Lucas has already had the offer from professional avenues to restore these movies for free, yet he has refused to let them do it, so what makes you think that a version done by fans would in any way convince him to release them?

Maybe you should research things a little more before writing your editorials and trying to put down the people who want these movies restored the way they should be instead of having to “settle” for the Special Editions. And you do realize that they were called the “Special Editions” originally and not the “only editions”. And that’s the way they should have remained, a special edition of a classic movie trilogy.

And having to change the Original trilogy by adding in things to tie in with the prequels is wrong. Shouldn’t the prequels have been written so that they tied in with what was known in the Original Trilogy?

Ady,

1) Copies exist. Hell, I have copies of all the lightsaber duels from Phantom Menace on 35mm. It won’t be easy, but you’ll need to find them in restorable collections.

2) There’s nothing that can’t be fixed with motivated individuals and money.

3) Let’s start looking.

5) Not so. If you’re doing it in conjunction with a film preservation non-profit and you’re not planning on releasing it officially but giving it to LFl, they’ll do it. Hell, they’ll probably want to do it as bad as you want it.

6) When? Let’s get those guys to work on the restoration.

Lastly, changing them to tie in wasn’t “wrong”. You just didn’t like it.

And yes, I’m happy that you guys care enough to comment. Even if you don’t agree with me.

I gotta go with Tyson on this, I know fuck all about film restoration but I’d throw some money at Kickstarter if a fund was building up and I would eventually get to see the movies.

Swank, yet again you have proved yourself to be not so knowledgeable about any of this. For one i do not hate all the changes or the prequels. I enjoyed the special editions except for what a lot of people hate, Greedo shooting and the Jedi Rocks dance number, and now with the DVD versions hayden’s ghost which was very badly added in.

To answer your reply:

1: just because you have the duels from TPM on 35mm means absolutely nothing. Isn’t TPM one of the prequels? I’m pretty sure i was clear that i was talking about the original trilogy. Cells from the original trilogy exist but that doesn’t mean that you can gather them all together and create a full movie to restore.

2: you said that you had no problems with the 2006 DVD versions so you obviously have no idea about high quality. If you work from a destroyed copy then you cannot restore it to it’s full glory.

3 & 4:(or 5 as you put it)Preservation efforts have been attempted for year and i should know because i was involved with one. It is illegal to transfer a 35mm movie from a commercial source even for a preservation without the permission of the copyright holder. Lucasfilm would have to sign off on the transfer or the company that did the transfer could be sued for millions, even if it is non for profit. We had a half decent copy of episode 4 and fell at every hurdle to get this transfered. not one place would touch it without permission from Lucasfilm, so i do know what i am talking about. Owning a theatrical copy of the movie is illegal also which is why most collectors don’t talk about having a copy.

To scan this copy of the movie at anything less than 2k would have been pointless as it would only have been worthy of DVD quality and would have looked bad @ 1080p. So a home made transfer was out of the question. And even if we could have got it scanned @ 2k it still wouldn’t have had the detail of a copy scanned @1080p from the original negative.

6: Robert Harris publicly offered to restore the theatrical versions of the movies but his offer was declined/ ignored. So if he isn’t going to let someone in the profession to do it for free you can certainly bet he would take a hard stance about some fans doing it.

Clearly, you don’t understand Fair Use. I deal with it daily as a documentary filmmaker. For educational and historic purposes a case can be made for the fair use of that transfer. I’m not saying my 35mm would do you any good, but yes, preservations have been performed from piece meal prints and sources.

It’s obvious you guys don’t really want to work for this. You just want to bitch.

If you wanted it bad enough, you’d make it happen.

Do a transfer ourselves?

Okay. Let me preface this by saying that I work in film post-production, so I know a little bit about how these things actually work.

First, getting your hands on a 35mm print of the original theatrical version of just ONE of the three films that’s still in good enough shape would be difficult enough, let alone all 3. Owning a 35mm print of a copyrighted film is illegal.

Second, I have absolutely no idea how you’d be able to transfer the print short of owning a film scanner that can do 35mm at high quality. No transfer house would touch it, it’s copyrighted. And there’s no way you’d be able to sneak it in, they’d know as soon as the first shot rolls through.

“Fair use?” Fair use doesn’t apply when you’re talking about transferring an ENTIRE FILM, fair use only applies to small pieces.

“If you wanted it bad enough, you’d make it happen?” If I had the money that Lucas spent to convert ONE of the six films into 3D, then I could make it happen. But I don’t. Lucas does. He’s just too stubborn to do it.

Hell, it’s not like he wouldn’t make an enormous profit out of it. I’d be willing to bet that he’d make more money by restoring the theatrical cuts of the original trilogy and re-releasing them in theaters than he will with this whole 3D business. At the very least, he’d make more on DVD and Blu-Ray sales.

A case could be made for fair use for historical preservation.

Did you not read anything i wrote Swank? I’m pretty sure i mentioned about the efforst and brick walls that were hit trying to do a restoration. So how can you dare to say that we don’t want to work for this and only bitch. And you cannot use the fair use argument when transferring a whole movie.I think you need to go back and read up on the Fair Use law.

So let’s have a lawyer look at it.

Real smart getting a lawyer in on George Lucas. We have no right to bring George to court, and even if we did we couldn’t afford to.

You could just do it illegally. But that’s only if you want it bad enough.

I don’t see Lucasfilm pursuing a legal suit against you guys preserving a historical document.

“So let’s have a lawyer look at it.”

don’t you think we already went down that route? We’re not super rich people so we wanted to know what legal problems we could face if we went ahead with a proper restoration without GL’s permission. Fair use cannot be used in this case.

Civil Disobedience goes a long way with juries.

I don’t understand why you’re still defending Lucas when he has an easy way to get in the good graces of all of fandom.

Remember the “Blade Runner” 5-disc DVD/Blu-Ray? What about the “Close Encounters” Blu-Ray set? Or the recent “Apocalypse Now” Blu-Ray?

What do these all have in common? They contain ALL THE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE FILM(S) IN HIGH QUALITY.

That’s all George needs to do. That’s the set I will buy. That’s the ONLY set I will buy, and the ONLY way he’ll get any more money out of me.

Why is it so hard to do? Well, it isn’t. Not at all. George has high-quality interpositives of the pre-SE trilogy in his vault that he can use to make such a set. It will cost him far less than this 3D conversion B.S.

Why doesn’t he do it, then? Because he’s stubborn, and refuses to admit that he’s wrong, and because there’s brainwashed “fans” like yourself that keep insisting that he’s doing nothing wrong.

Seriously, why are you against this happening?

I wish things were as easy as you think they are.

“You could just do it illegally. But that’s only if you want it bad enough.”

OMG you really don’t read anything we have said in here do you. And that’s really cleaver telling us to do something illegally on a public site isn’t it. So if anyone could do this and they get sued then they can now just point straight back to you telling them to do it.

Ady, that was the ENTIRE point of my article. It’s obvious he’s not doing it himself. He’s not out anything if you do it for him. You’re not doing it for commercial gain, and it’s obvious your petition isn’t going to work.

There is no other way around it. George would have to have the last word and we all know what word that would be.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

And he has that right. It is different with George, he practically owns it all.

There isn’t a lab in the world that would touch it. They won’t transfer something that the client doesn’t own.

Eye, why would he say no? He’s already put them on DVD with the best possible copy he had. You give him a better copy, I’m sure you’d be surprised.

Anyone remember that GL quote where he mentioned putting “Star Wars” in the public domain?

“He’s already put them on DVD with the best possible copy he had”

That was a 93 laserdisc transfer. He has the original print.

Scanning the original print and tossing it on DVD as is would look like more crap than the 93 laserdisc.

[FACEPALM]

If you dont want to take a look at this as something that can actually be done you can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut or…………

He’s a way around your fair use qualm.

Take different pieces of film to different houses, each working independent of each other. You take just the pieces that were futzed with with the SE’s. That would definitely count as fair use.

Then you take the 1080 SE’s when they come out and combine them with your non-SE bits.

Obviously we don’t know what we are talking about. Go and make the same observations many before you have made and find disappointment around the corner. We won’t get the OT in HD unless George Lucas says so.

So basically, the idea is this: having located a print, go to a lab, get into the bay and force the technicians (at gunpoint, Die Hard-style?) to perform the transfer. Got it.

Like I said above. Just do the Special Edition-ized bits.

A) It makes it a ton cheaper, less money to raise.

B) It helps your fair use argument with the transfer houses if you’re only doing one sequence for historical and educational posterity.

“You give him a better copy, I’m sure you’d be surprised.”

You walk up to George with a pristine copy of Star Wars and I guarantee he would smash it with hammer before releasing it to the fans.

Doubt it.

“Scanning the original print and tossing it on DVD as is would look like more crap than the 93 laserdisc.”

Oh, so you’re just an idiot then. Okay. I’m outta here.

“Scanning the original print and tossing it on DVD as is would look like more crap than the 93 laserdisc.”

That has to win the award for the most misinformed comment on here

The transfer houses will NOT do it. NONE of them. They will physically not do it, whether it’s the whole movie or just a 1000 feet.

Ady, why would you think that’s misinformed? Just grabbing some random, filthy print from the archives would NOT look as good as the remastered 1993 version.

Do you really not understand or are you just lonely?

George has pristine Technicolor IPs from which to transfer, not “some random, filthy print.” They were used as color reference for the 1997 SEs (which, by the way, also no longer exist and have NEVER been released on DVD).

The 1993 laserdisc version was, in all likelihood, a “filthy” release print with too much DVNR (digital video noise reduction) applied.

With those facts, plus the fact that any modern transfer would be done with film scanners and software 17 years more advanced than what was used for the 1993 masters, means it would be almost impossible for any modern transfer to be worse – or even as bad as – the transfers released on DVD in 2006.

You’re avoiding answering to the solution I proposed.

What solution? Somehow get a hold of a 35mm print – WHICH IS ILLEGAL – and get it scanned by a post house – WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE AS NONE OF THEM WILL TOUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL – or scan it ourselves – WHICH IS COST-PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE, AND ALSO ILLEGAL – then “give” it to George and hope he doesn’t sue the pants off of us, and on top of that, that he’ll release it?

I’ve been avoiding it because it’s an impossible pipe dream.

Nooooooooooooo!!!!!

The problem with using the Fair Use claim to get small sections of the movie done is that you end up where the movie currently resides; the movie which garnered the public’s praise and attention is ‘Illegal’ in it’s original context. (the theaters)

That’s rather sad but also baffling.

So yes, you could get the whole movie Fair Used preserved in pieces, but you are not allowed to have those pieces meet. and no one’s talking about grabbing some random print, the idea is to do it as right as possible, with the means available. Right now the means are limited, so the goals get hightened a tad. (and why some resort to name calling instead of dealing with the few facts able to be debated)

Here’s a Cease and Desist from when Star Wars was attempted to be shown in what they thought was a Fair Use way.

http://www.seattlepi.com/theater/192350_lucasfilm.html
Quote: “Jet City, which is part of Wing-It Productions, has been screening old movies and redubbing them live for about seven years. The cease-and-desist letter they received from Lucasfilm Ltd. on Sept. 15 was their first.”

Thanks for taking this debate out of the circles it usually wallows in. It would be nice if not every decision needed a monetary value on it to prove the public’s desire for it. Hopefully through all the opinions, more people will realize that the movies as shown in their original form were the ones which started the meteoric rise of Star Wars, and that’s what some people are attempting to preserve. It’s fine to like the changes which came after and support if you can the new and improved.

At the recent Open Video Conference (http://www.openvideoconference.org/), there was a speaker in one of the lighting round who had extremely depressing stats on the amount of unpreserved film material from big studio movies to home recordings. Something like .0005% have undergone some form of preservation.

Star Wars could be used as the spark for this preservation movement. LFL dedicates the 1977 ‘Star Wars’ to the public domain so that the Library of Congress print can be lent to the Prelinger Archive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Prelinger) who through the Archive.org structure could harvest freely offered man hours from the public to clean up “Star Wars” to start, but all those other films currently awaiting the ability to be seen by future generations would then have a pipe line to getting saved and restored.

I DON’T LIKE SAND.

No, just doing the parts that were enhanced for the special edition with different houses. Collectors have the prints, you admitted it. They said they wouldn’t do the whole film, you bring a sequence or two to different places.

Fair use would cover small sequences.

And then you combine those with the 1080 version he’s putting out to make your own version. What about that?

I’m advocating that you break the law and let civil disobedience and fair use be your defense on the off chance you get sued. You’re preserving a history you care about and working toward something you believe in.

Instead of trying to do that, you’re bitching anonymously on the Internet.

You’re coming off like you want us to rob a bank and get arrested for it so we can give the money to the people.

What collector would ever agree to cut up their prized print so we could take sections to get transfered? It’s looking more like you’re trying to act like a dumbass just so you get more comments and hits to your page.

Well, something similar has been attempted with the 2006/2004 DVDs, to varying degrees of success (Mr. Sayce up there has actually pulled off the most successful one I’ve seen yet, for “Empire”).

However, the biggest issue is the 2004 SE transfer. It’s bad.

It’s too dark, with detail lost in the crushed blacks. It’s too “clean,” with all the film grain scrubbed off to make it look more like the shot-on-video prequels, thus losing more detail. Finally, the colors are all over the place. Honestly, I don’t know why that’s the case, but the colors on the 2004 DVDs/HD broadcasts are atrocious (Luke’s “green” lightsber on the Falcon in the first film, Vader’s pink lightsaber in several shots in ESB and ROTJ, the Tantive IV and Hoth being blue instead of white, etc.), and while this is the least-pressing issue, it’s still an issue.

Finally, and most importantly, a lot more than you think would have to be transferred. For instance, every wipe and fade in all 3 films was re-done for the SEs, so those would all have to be transferred and spliced in. Also, a great many effects shots were re-composited, especially on Hoth, so those would need to be transferred and spliced in. Any time a matte line was removed in 1997 or 2004, well, that would need to be replaced, too.

In the interest of preserving what was seen on screen in 1977, 1980, and 1983, a brand-new transfer of original prints, IPs, or negatives would be necessary.

Besides, even with the “fair use” excuse, I’d be absolutely SHOCKED if any post house would transfer even an inch of film from any “Star Wars” movie.

Basically, while it’s not a bad idea in theory, it just won’t work in practice.

They won’t do ANY of the film. None. But whatever, I know you have to just power through this so maybe no one will notice you wrote an editorial based on an incredibly shaky premise.

If I were worried about hits, there’d be ads on the site.

And I want to thank ChainsawAsh for giving me a reasonable answer.

You’re welcome.

If you’re interested, I suggest you check out this website: http://www.savestarwars.com/ – it has a lot of good information on the problems with the 2004 SE DVDs, and the 2006 “Original Version” DVDs, among other valuable information.

Como usted bien puede saber que he estado trabajando en la industria del cine durante muchos años ahora y esta discusión ha llegado a ser muy tonta. George Lucas no ha conseguido un cuello.

Bang!

This is the biggest load of rubbish i have ever read. You call yourself a documentary film maker yet are completely oblivious when facts are presented to you. You come back with some really dimwhit replies.

You are accusing some of the posters here of not doing anything about restoring the Unaltered versions and just bitching , even after one has disclosed the problem that were faced when it had been tried. Being someone who works in the industry here are the facts-

Scanning from an old 35 mm celuloid print that was used countless times in the cinema wouldn’t give the amount of image detail that an inter-positive or Original negative scan would. You could compare the lines of resolution that would be achieved to that of a standard DVD, around 500 lines. These prints would have faded probably beyond restoration due to the film stock used at the time (maybe apart from Return of the Jedi).

The laserdisc master used for the DVD bonus discs was NOT restored. It has countless problems that isn’t even present on the laserdiscs themselves. I was very surprised when someone showed me these discs and just how bad the DVD conversion was. For an example take a look at when the stormtroopers are searching the desert. Keep your eyes on the one that stands up and says “look sir.. droids”. in some frames he has 4 eyes. This isn’t there on the laserdiscs. It was also taken from a dirty print so saying that if George Lucas scanned in a dusty old print from his archives (which you are wrong because he has a pristine version that is stored in the archives in a freezer)that this would look worse than the DVD. Sorry but you are wrong, yet again. Using todays scanners this would look far superior even without a full restoration. Are you sure that you are a film maker because even a first year student would know that a 4:3 laserdisc master could never be comparable to a scan done today, even from a dirty print.

Cutting the film up just to scan in the sections that would need to replace the restored Special Edition versions is also a very bad idea. Not only is the colouring on the restored version that are available on DVD completely messed up and has crushed blacks that omit so much of the detail in darker areas, but unless these scenes were scanned from the original negative they would not match up with the restored footage no matter how good your colour grading was. You might as well use the DVD’s and splice in the onus disc footage because you would get a comparable result.

Fair usage will not apply even when scanning in sections of these movies. Lucasfilm lawyers have a very tight grip on anything Star Wars. All the houses that deal with transfers that i have ever worked with would want written permission by the copyrite holder before they would scan in a single frame. It is also known that this has been tried in the past, with a company agreeing to handle the transfer then handing over all the reels to Lucasfilm. Unless this was done in house with your own equipments i highly doubt that a collector would risk losing something they very likely treasure and paid a lot of money for. And, as has been already said, they would never allow their prints to be cut up. Doing it “in house2 would require a high resolution 35 mm film scanner. Well theres about 100k to begin with for a low spec model.

Mr Lucas doesn’t want these films to be released because he is pissed at the original trilogy fans for hating his prequels. So he is punishing them, nothing more. He hates the original versions so even if someone did manage to do this no one would ever get to see it because his lawyers would be down on the people involved like a tonne of bricks. Maybe he will release them restored one day. Who knows. but it certainly won’t be until the blu-ray first release and certainly not before the set is released again with the 3D versions. So we’re saying at least 2020 before theres even a chance of this happening and only because he would want people to but yet another Blu-Ray release.

If you honestly think that these aren’t out because George Lucas “hates” fans for hating the prequels you’re delusional.

i’m sorry Swank, but you are clearly the delusional one around here. You only have to watch or read some of the interviews he has done to know that he is pissed at the original trilogy fans for slating the prequels. And having worked with people who have themselves worked at Lucasfilm you’d be surprised at what truly is happening over there.

I wish there was an eye-rolling emoticon.

I don’t know for sure if any of u know about the Star Wars Revisited project but that is most likely the closest we will get to the best versions. But then again we are talking about Original versions of the trilogy well if Lucas will think for one moment he might see that this is what he should do. But doing anything illegal is got to be the most stupid idea i have ever heard for some movies. I LOVE Star Wars as much as the next guy but no way in hell would i risk never being able to experience anything with Star Wars for a long time just because i want to get them the original way. I am sorry.

I am super excited for the blu-rays of all 6 star wars films in fall of 2011. It will be a day 1 buy for me.