No, he's a master business man. He wanted everyone to own the versions he altered 18 months before announcing that the orginals will finally come out. If he put those out in 1997, why would everyone buy the special editions? For what, the "enhanced picture and sound"?HerrSchreck wrote:Its unbelievable it took this long. George Lucas is nuts anyhoo.
Bingo. That's what I thought. But let's be realistic. Like any great party, the best guests always arrive last, so expect the same late arrivals with dvd, E.T., Schindler's List, etc., to arrive years after the launch of hd-dvd...a7m4 wrote:I'm sure a HD DVD set is already in the works that will be announced right after all his fans have bought this new set.
Will they at least be anamorphic? Otherwise, I'm seeing a lot of annoyed fans coming out of the woodwork over this.kevyip1 wrote:Expect crappy picture quality on the original films' DVDs.
According to this article, the video quality will not match up to that of the restored versions. Lucasfilms' Jim Ward says, "It is state of the art, as of 1993, and that's not as good as state of the art 2006."
1993 was the era of laserdisc, which is what the DVDs will probably look like.
I thought the next permutation was going to be the proposed new-"Special Edition" 3D Theatrical versions Lucas is working on.a7m4 wrote:I'm sure a HD DVD set is already in the works that will be announced right after all his fans have bought this new set.
It means they'll look great. I mean, c'mon, Lucas isn't going to purposely make bad transfers to prove his point that the 2004 versions are better. These should look as good as any 80s sci-fi films that have been transferred HD with care, no?Gordon McMurphy wrote:State-of-the-art circa 1993 - what does that mean? .
I don't think getting a copy will be a problem. It's just like those Disney releases that are in "limited" sales for a few months. The only thing "limited" about them is going to be how many they can produce before December 31st cutoff.Gordon McMurphy wrote:I predict an agonising scrabble, both online and in store. Terrible marketing, I feel, but the folks are getting what they asked for, I suppose.
The Star Wars Trilogy
We've been getting a lot of emails here from readers regarding this week's big Star Wars announcement. Specifically, many of you are concerned about the video and audio presentations on the three films. Are they going to be remastered? Anamorphic widescreen? Why Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround only? I'll admit that the LucasFilm's announcement isn't as clear as it could be, but a full press release with final specs should remedy that.
As you may already know, I've kept a rather detailed timeline log of the Star Wars films on domestic home video here on this site. I won't go so far as to call myself the know-it-all expert on the subject, but for what it's worth, here's what I think is going to happen.
What these DVDs will include are the 1993 THX-Certified widescreen remasters created for the $250 "Definitive Collection" laserdisc box set and which were re-released separately in 1995 on three CLV LD sets and VHS.
The materials used to create the 1993 laserdisc set went through a lot of dirt and scratch removal before they were transferred, and while they won't look anywhere close to the recent DVD special editions, these 1993 remasters are really impressive and still hold up. You also have to realize that this was the last time that video masters were created of the original versions. I'm not sure if suitable film materials even still exist were they inclined to make new 2006 video masters. My guess is that LucasFilm will make anamorphic conversions of these 1993 transfers.
It also appears from the official announcement that the original 1977 title crawl - sans the "Episode IV: A New Hope" moniker - will be substituted in for the first film.
On top of that, sound designer Ben Burtt supervised the creation of a new sound mix - the fifth official Star Wars audio mix - for these transfers and they were presented in Digital Stereo Surround. I'm almost certain that the 1993 multi-track masters still exists somewhere deep in the Archives, but whether it would be financially reasonable for LucasFilm to dig them out, prep them and make a 5.1 track isn't for me to say.
It should be noted that there are many resourceful fans who have been offering their own laserdisc-to-DVD transfers, some anamorphically enhanced, for years. My guess is that these official DVD releases may be due in some part to this.
NEW YORK — George Lucas is looking for a lot more than just fortune and glory these days.
Contrary to how Hollywood usually hypes its blockbusters, the writer/producer says Indiana Jones' next adventure actually won't be
any louder, bigger or faster than his last one. In fact, if Lucas gets his way (hint: he usually does), the Jones sequel will prize dialogue over decibels.
"I think Tom Cruise proved that people are getting bored with that kind of stuff," Lucas said Monday at a Jazz at Lincoln Center dinner celebrating Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people (see "Diddy, Daddy Yankee, Angelina Jolie Rub Elbows With Bush On Time List"). "What they want to see is something different. And 'Indiana Jones,' if nothing else, is always different."
And Lucas is, if nothing else, reliably vague. He's not yet ready to give up the treasure trove of what lurks in the plot for the first "Indiana Jones" movie since 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," except to say the script is finally done and the flick will "probably" start shooting next year.
"We're working on it, we're working on it," Lucas said. "We've been working on it for 10 years. I think it'll be a great film, but it's completely different. It's still got a lot of action, and it's still very funny. I think it works like crazy."
Lucas added that he's still working on his "Star Wars" 3-D theatrical project as well, but when asked when it might come out, he laughed. "I don't know!" he said. "Eventually. We're working on that technology, seeing if we can get that to work out."
Until then, he says he's curious to see what the reception will be for the upcoming limited-edition DVD release of the three original "Star Wars" films (see "Three Original 'Star Wars' Films (Finally) Coming To DVD — But Not For Long"). "It's just the original versions, as they were," Lucas said. "We didn't do anything to it at all. But we're not sure how many people want that."
You might say quite a few, considering how many fans were angered by the digitized, expanded updates of episodes IV, V and VI. Lucas claims he's not re-releasing the originals to appease fans, but rather to bate them. "Now we'll find out whether they really wanted the original or whether they wanted the improved versions," he said. "It'll all come out in the end."
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocentsWe've confirmed something that we'd begun to suspect... and it's probably going to disappoint a lot of you. It certainly disappoints us here at The Bits. Those new DVD editions of the Star Wars films? The original theatrical versions of the films are going to be non-anamorphic (our original post on this indicated otherwise, but we have confirmed that the widescreen versions will be letterboxed only). What this likely means is that Lucasfilm has simply re-purposed the previous non-anamorphic transfers that were done back in 1995 for the last laserdisc and VHS release of the "original" versions of the films. And with that, our enthusiasm for this DVD release has just dropped through the floor. Anamorphic-enhanced versions of the theatrical editions, we'd buy in a heartbeat. But what we're going to get instead is little better than a ported-over laserdisc. In this day and age, releasing a widescreen film without anamorphic enhancement on DVD is just unacceptable. Does Lucasfilm really think fans want those versions of the films on DVD so badly that people just won't care? Yes Virginia, they do. How many versions of these films do you suppose Lucasfilm will try to get fans to buy in high-def over the coming years? And think about it... you just know the studio has to be prepping yet another standard DVD release for next year's 30th Anniversary of the original Star Wars. Do you suppose this means that the theatrical editions won't be included in the super-über box set of all six films? Probably. Ugh.
