Star Wars films coming to Bluray in 2011... and 3D Cinema!

[Perry Vale]

Yes, it's been a long, long wait, for all those 20th Century Fox executives and shareholders, but Lucasfilms have just announced that the original three groundbreaking movies that first wowed audiences all those years ago back in 1997, and the following three prequels, will be coming to Bluray in the fall of 2011...

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ray-next-year/

I really hope that they do well and sell by the bucketload, as it appears Lucas is putting the future financial security of his company at stake by paying for the very, very expensive process of "digital remastering"....

[Rob McCow]

Mr. Lucas said that to release the original versions of these films on Blu-ray was “kind of an oxymoron because the quality of the original is not very good.”

“You have to go through and do a whole restoration on it, and you have to do that digitally,” he added. “It’s a very, very expensive process to do it. So when we did the transfer to digital, we only transferred really the upgraded version.”

Phew! So we don't need to buy the Blu-Rays, the DVD version is still definitive!

I really need to tell George Lucas that he should simply re-shoot the original Star Wars movies from scratch. It's the only way he'll be happy!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Wow - exciting - the first of many releases of these onto Blu Ray.

I think I'm going to hold off buying them in 2011 ... as I'm pretty sure they'll rerelease them in 2012 with new features.

I was thinking it felt a while since the last Star Wars DVD boxset rerelease ...

[brandynigma]

Is it really going to cost Lucas that much? Is the man not richer than God?

[Perry Vale]

Of course it isn't, he's talking out of his arse making up excuses. They managed to do it for Bladerunner, for five different versions of the film.....

He just knows that this way he'll get a lot of double-dipping when they finally do get released a couple of years down the line.

[SiHart]

It's the same ploy he did with the DVDs and even then he wouldn't remater the original films properly because he doesn't consider them the proper versions any more.

Quite frankly I never want to buy the Star Wars ever again. This is the most cynical marketing of any franchise ever. The problem is they'll sell well and keep on selling, no matter what he does with them.

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Even the pied piper could learn a thing from this guy ...

It's funny how your mind plays tricks with you. As a kid I never really saw any defect in the special effects. Mind you I remember Han Solo shooting Greedo first too.

As JNT used to say "the memory cheats" ...

[Alex]

Turns out that George Lucas is an even bigger tosser than I previously thought he was:

David Prowse banned from all Lucasfilm-related Star Wars

Darth Vader’s body has been banned from all future Lucasfilm-sanctioned Star Wars conventions, according to Cinematical (via The Force). David Prowse, the actor who portrayed Vader’s bionic body in the original Star Wars trilogy, posted the news to his website last month stating he learned from organizers of Celebration V, taking place August 12-15 in Orlando, FL, that he was not to be invited, nor would he be invited for all future events. After inquiring into the decision, he claims he was told by Lucasfilm representatives that he had "burnt too many bridges” between Lucasfilm and himself.

Prowse has notoriously opposed George Lucas over the years for his replacement of Prowse’s voice as Vader with James Earl Jones in the original trilogy, and for the casting of Sebastian Shaw as the unmasked Vader in Return Of The Jedi. This ban is a hit to Prowse’s mini-industry of autograph sales which he has used to fund arthritis and prostate cancer charities. Nevertheless, he still has a full schedule of conventions ahead which Lucasfilm does not control.

Celebration V is scheduled to feature such regular convention guests as Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Jeremy Bulloch, with a special appearance by George Lucas himself. Lucas not wanting Prowse in his sightlines will make Prowse’s absence a great disappointment to fans, whose only chance of any Darth Vader interaction at the event is at Jake Lloyd’s table.

Whilst I'm here, here's another recent SW related news story:

Gary Kurtz outlines original, darker, Ewok-less ending for Return Of The Jedi

It’s become de rigueur to say that George Lucas sullied his Star Wars legacy through garish CGI revisions and lackluster prequels, but if this L.A. Times interview with producer Gary Kurtz is to be believed, Lucas gave into the dark side of marketing-driven decisions a long, long time ago.

According to Kurtz, after helping to create the first two Star Wars films, he became disillusioned with Lucas just before Return Of The Jedi, when he noticed that Lucas’ priorities had shifted away from story and character toward selling some toys. Eventually the two decided they couldn’t work with each other anymore, especially after finding themselves unable to come to an agreement over what form Jedi should take—particularly given Lucas’ idea of framing it around a second Death Star, which Kurtz felt was “too derivative.”

Things apparently came to a head over the ending, which Lucas completely rewrote—all because, as Kurtz avers, it might have affected the merchandising—and which he outlines here to give you a glimpse of what might have been, had Lucas not been guided by the all-powerful Force known as Kenner:

“We had an outline and George changed everything in it," Kurtz said. “Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn’t want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason.”

The discussed ending of the film that Kurtz favored presented the rebel forces in tatters, Leia grappling with her new duties as queen and Luke walking off alone “like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns,” as Kurtz put it.

Kurtz said that ending would have been a more emotionally nuanced finale to an epic adventure than the forest celebration of the Ewoks that essentially ended the trilogy with a teddy bear luau.

Luckily, Lucas later turned his little teddy bear luau into an interplanetary rave and invited Hayden Christensen, so all’s well that ends well.

[SiHart]

What a git.

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Well lets face it he's not been doing much since the original Star Wars trilogy - just reselling the franchise in all it's forms.

Yeah I remember at the time there was all these rumours of Revenge of the Jedi having a much darker story ending, and some people dying.

[Lissa]

I may be alone but I don't really care about getting the original theatrical versions of Star Wars. I'd like a decent restoration/tinkering documentary which goes into detail about the process - technical, creative, retrospective etc - and shows me things like the two different Emperors in the different versions of Empire Strikes Back but I've no burning desire to see a slightly different and slightly inferior version of a film I'll watch maybe once every five or ten years.

The Alien franchise shows what can be done with a boxed set - the Quadrilogy DVDs were unsurpassable until the Blu-ray set was announced. Despite never having watched any of the Star Wars extras, I want something like that.

And - like the Bonds - the Star Wars saga will never be definitively released until the stars do commentaries. Or they die. No matter how many features they do, how many documentaries they produce, how many different CGI options they give us, while Ford, Hammill, Fisher et al remain silent there is always the possibility of something better coming along.

[Alex]

I just can't be arsed with the whole thing anymore. I loved the original trilogy to pieces when I was a kid, and thinking about them (and the countless hours playing with the toys) will always make me smile fondly, but I've now seen them so many times over the years I have no interest in seeing them again. There definitely overrated in my mind, with each film having a good few dull sections that should have been cut out, and some very dodgy performances in places too.

Sure, I might watch them again in a decade or so's time if there's nothing else to do, but I've definitely no intention of lining the pockets of George Lucas any further.

[Rob McCow]

Have they really not even got Mark Hammill in for a commentary?

It might be worth buying if the films had more frank and honest features. Such as what Ewan McGregor really thought about working with George Lucas. Or what Carrie Fisher thought about her role in Return of The Jedi. Or a really big interview with the guy in charge of Kenner toys in the 80's.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Heck for the offer of a free meal, and buying one of his comics, Mark Hammill would probably come around your house and do the commentary in person.

Isn't Mark Hammill another person who's fallen out of favour with Camp Lucas?

[Martin Penny]

Heck for the offer of a free meal, and buying one of his comics, Mark Hammill would probably come around your house and do the commentary in person.

Hamill's widely regarded as one of the best voice actors in the business, I don't think he's struggling for work, to be honest.

Lucas is a bit of a git, but I don't really have much of a problem with anything he puts out - I enjoyed the prequels, and the Clone Wars series is excellent. I'll probably get these new releases just for the deleted scenes.

[Rob McCow]

This 'sudden' finding of deleted scenes is a bit strange. There's probably a legitimate reason why there have been these bits of film sitting in a can for 20-30 years that everyone had forgotten about, even when they went to the original films and carefully restored them.

On the other hand, can't Lucas afford someone to do his cataloguing properly?

[Martin Penny]

They've had the deleted stuff all along, just refused to release any of it - some of it is of too poor quality (The scenes from the first film with Biggs are in appalling condition), and I guess Lucas was just keeping the other stuff to himself for an occasion such as the Blu Ray boxset!

[Rob McCow]

It's really telling that he refuses to release stuff that fans might find interesting. 90% of other movies cope with having substandard quality film on their deleted scenes. Some of them even have half-finished scenes with animatics!

They can't all be that poor quality either, because some of the deleted scenes were good enough to be included in the 'remastered' versions.

I can't imagine that the Star Wars Holiday Special could possibly be any less entertaining than the Prefab Trilogy.

[SiHart]

It doesn't surprise me at all. If you keep holding things back, but let it be known that they exist, the fans are going to be all excited, and when you let the scenes trickle out on various releases down the years you're guaranteed sales, because of it. fans being what they are will lap up any tantalising glimpses of things they've heard about bu have never seen.


Si xx

[Perry Vale]

So what tinkering is there left to do? Has he replaced the puppet Yoda with CGI yet, so that they all match the last film?

[SiHart]

Perhaps he'll be replacing all the actors with CGI versions.

Si xx

[Perry Vale]

He should do, so they match The Clone Wars....

[brandynigma]

I'd love to hear Samuel L Jackson on the commentaries somewhere, mainly because of a comment he made on Letterman:

"Working with George Lucas - as a director - isn't easy. I mean, the green screen stuff, he's great with: "What am I fighting, George?" "It's the size of a Buick, Sam!". But he has trouble directing the drama. Ewan and I got the impression that he feels like "That's Ewan McGregor! That's Natalie Portman! I can't tell them what to do!" Meanwhile, we're sitting around thinking, "I should have more to go on, but that's George Lucas- I can't tell him what to do!"

[WhiteCrowNZ]

A long time ago ... in the 70s, there were a noble cicle of Knight Errant Filmmaker students - Master Coppola, Master Spielberg, Master Scorsese and Young Padowan Lucas.

Young Lucas envied the other knights, and set about making a sci fi space opera that would be his masterpiece. But his heart became corrupted by the Dark Side of filmmaking, and he succulmed to the quick and easy path of merchandising tie-ins. It was quicker, easier, more lucrative yes, but far less powerful.

The other knights felt he had gone too far and betrayed their cause, pitting as he did teddy bears against the might Empire and have then not only triumph, but be purchasable in a range of collectable figures, backpacks and lunchboxes. "Where is the passion", cried Master Scorsese, "You talkin' to me?".

But Lucas defied them all, even turning the greatest of them Spielberg to his dark merchandising cause. And before you could say "Adorable alien on BMX bikes" the two, master and apprentice ruled over a celluiod empire with an iron fist, and a schmatzy ending ...

[Perry Vale]

I really dread what Lucas is going to serve up with Indiana Jones 5....