How the Death Star battle was saved through editing

[Eric Paddon]

Well I just bought the "Despecialized" set on E-bay for $50. I'll see how these look on my standard Sony Blu-Ray player.

[AndyDursin]

Definitely shouldn't be selling those on eBay. Surprised it's up there, they shut boots down fast.

Best thing to do is file a PayPal claim that theyre bootlegs after you get them, keep the discs and they will refund you!

[Eric Paddon]

There are actually quite a few of those auctions going on, on e-bay. Prices are ranging $50 to $100 from different vendors (some others cram other items in them) and I just went with the cheapest. I agree it's surprising e-bay has them up since usually ioffer is the place where you're more apt to find things like re-edits of films or live camcorder shoots of Broadway shows. I freely admit I've gone this kind of route before and it really doesn't matter to me. This way I'm saved the hassle of putting it on Blu-Ray with cover art and it'll go fine on the shelf with everything else!

[KevinEK]

As someone who makes their living in this business, I'm never comfortable with people selling what are essentially pirated copies of someone else's movie. I get that fans are frustrated that Lucas would not put the original versions of the Star Wars films out in high definition or even in anamorphic for regular DVD. And I get that some fans want to share whatever they can with each other. But piracy is piracy. Among other things, it can threaten the livelihoods of the people who work in the business. Whoever is trying to get people to pay money for an illicit copy of one of these movies is doing themselves and the rest of us a disservice.

We should also keep in mind that the original versions of the Star Wars films actually have been preserved at Lucasfilm. When Lucas has made comments about the original versions "no longer existing", he's referring to the original negative, which he recut to make the Special Editions. But there are separation masters and interpositives of those movies - one generation away from the OCN but still plenty good to be able to generate a 2K scan for a Blu-ray. I've frankly expected to see Disney put these out, but not until the rights for as much of it as possible revert to them in 2020. I'm anticipating them doing something like that as a bonus feature for the inevitable box set of discs for Episodes I through IX in 2020.

The one thing Lucas goofed, in my opinion, was the shooting of Episodes II and III in 1080p - it meant that there is literally no more information to be gleaned from a higher resolution transfer or presentation. A 4K edition of either of those movies would at best just be an uprez. That could have been avoided, but Lucas wanted to use the newest tech and was too shortsighted to understand that 1080p would be outdone in short order.

[AndyDursin]

There aren't many on eBay, they must shut them down quickly. That said Eric if you want you can get your money back, these versions arent supposed to be sold for profit...the actual versions of them specifically have a disclaimer about it. Also PayPal will just give you a refund too, you wont even need to return it. Just tell them it's not a pressed disc and you want a refund.

[Eric Paddon]

I appreciate what you're saying, but I really don't feel like going that route (it took forever to get results when I had a serious reason for getting a paypal refund, when someone refused to recognize a discount I was entitled to and charged me $147 for something that should have cost only $33). I fully agree it's not good for people to sell this kind of stuff and if they get shut down, that's okay with me. The ideal way to get this kind of stuff is through the trade route as I have done for decades in trading old sports broadcasts and everything else I've collected over the decades but this to me is just a drop in the bucket and I view this only as a one time thing just because of what it is (much as I did the same for "1776" with a fan-edit that eased the bitterness over the compromised DVD and Blu-Ray versions).

[AndyDursin]

Understood but it's so easy to get an eBay refund now, sellers have no choice and when you are talking about illegally pressed discs they will give you your money back fast. Since you bought it thru eBay you are entitled to all of their buyer protection.

Either way I do understand.

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, but let's be honest, I went into this knowing what it was and it'd be dishonest for me to claim something to take advantage of that when I'm not naive at all about what it is. It's a willing "mistake" on my part, so I'd rather just get what I want from this which is to be able to watch the films the way I want to see them (and as I do with any boot recording, the instant something legitimate comes I'll gladly toss this out. I can remember having certain "boot" CDs way back in the day I was so happy to get rid of!) and be glad I have a placeholder on the shelf (like the old "Spartacus" boot used to be on the CD shelf) to make me less self-conscious about the absence of a legitimate release.

[Monterey Jack]

As someone who makes their living in this business, I'm never comfortable with people selling what are essentially pirated copies of someone else's movie. I get that fans are frustrated that Lucas would not put the original versions of the Star Wars films out in high definition or even in anamorphic for regular DVD. And I get that some fans want to share whatever they can with each other. But piracy is piracy.

This is akin to saying that the Rebellion shouldn't have happened, because the Empire knows best.

Hey, I'd love to lay down a hundred bucks for spiffy, authorized, high-def Blu-Ray releases of the OT, and if it ever happens, I will, but it's been SO FRIGGING LONG since I've been able to watch the unmolested versions of those film in reasonable picture quality, I think that fans are justified in working the black market in order to own these. I would also buy good-quality HD bootlegs of The Abyss and True Lies if they were made available. Back in the day, I spent more than a few dollars on those lousy Tsunami boots because who would have ever expected scores like 100 Rifles, The Illustrated Man and Morituri to ever receive legit CD releases? And when FSM went through pretty much all of those early Goldsmith scores and gave them the loving, fully-licenced treatment a decade later, I re-bought all of them.

I mean, it's not like ANYONE involved in Star Wars is going to have food taken off their table by the sale of bootlegs, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the BILLIONS these films generate every year.

[Eric Paddon]

Hey, I'd love to lay down a hundred bucks for spiffy, authorized, high-def Blu-Ray releases of the OT, and if it ever happens, I will, but it's been SO FRIGGING LONG since I've been able to watch the unmolested versions of those film in reasonable picture quality, I think that fans are justified in working the black market in order to own these. I would also buy good-quality HD bootlegs of The Abyss and True Lies if they were made available. Back in the day, I spent more than a few dollars on those lousy Tsunami boots because who would have ever expected scores like 100 Rifles, The Illustrated Man and Morituri to ever receive legit CD releases? And when FSM went through pretty much all of those early Goldsmith scores and gave them the loving, fully-licenced treatment a decade later, I re-bought all of them.

I mean, it's not like ANYONE involved in Star Wars is going to have food taken off their table by the sale of bootlegs, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the BILLIONS these films generate every year.

Amen to that. The case to be made against boot sellers is NOT that it's going to make people in the industry suddenly go through hardships. A boot industry for something like this only develops when the industry is too dense to realize the marketplace that is already there for a legitimate release and when the people in charge for reasons that are absolute garbage, refuse to do so. This isn't about unusable elements in need of a restoration that's never going to happen (think "The Alamo"). Nor is it about something where legal issues are blocking a release from taking place (think the "Batman" TV series and how it was held up for decades on DVD). And this isn't about niche items that could never be justifiably released on home video (think of all the old sports broadcasts I trade with people) This is about something where the word could have been said at any time in the last 15 years, and the one person in particular who could have made that happened suffered from a case of bullheaded obstinancy unmatched by anything else in the history of films.

[AndyDursin]

The only thing I would add, and I am not trying to lecture by any means because I agree with the overriding sentiment , is that the creators of these versions did not want them sold. They are freely available if you know where to look and come with disclaimers that if you've paid for them, you've been scammed. So I realize it's convenient but you are paying a premium not to the creators of these versions, but to someone with a DVD burner who hasn't been caught yet. That's why frankly I don't think you should "feel bad" about getting your money back because they should not be profiting off it.

The point of making these available was purely and simply to have the original versions available and circulating for fans who have been treated badly over the last couple of decades...and I heartily agree about the why and the justification. IMO there's more leigitmacy to watching a 4k scan of someone's privately held print than a DVD version of a Laserdisc master which is what Lucas thought would appease everyone.

[Monterey Jack]

The point of making these available was purely and simply to have the original versions available and circulating for fans who have been treated badly over the last couple of decades...and I heartily agree about the why and the justification.

It's akin to that old MST3K tagline, "Keep circulating the tapes", back in the day before DVDs (and there are episodes of that series that have never and will never be preserved on DVD, due to insurmountable rights issues, like the Godzilla films they riffed on). The Star Wars OT is one of the most culturally significant series of movies in the history of cinema, and beloved by BILLIONS of people for the last 40 years, so it's appalling that those original theatrical cuts (which made George Lucas a very, VERY wealthy man) have been consigned to ancient VHS and laserdisc-era transfers slapped onto non-anamorphic DVDs over a decade ago. At this point, I don't even care about extra features...just slap the theatrical cuts on a cleaned-up Blu-Ray from the best available elements, and I would honestly plop down a hundred bucks for that, day one. Disney HAS to know there's an audience keen for those versions of the films, so they're sitting on a potential fortune not giving it to us.

[AndyDursin]

It's akin to that old MST3K tagline, "Keep circulating the tapes", back in the day before DVDs (and there are episodes of that series that have never and will never be preserved on DVD, due to insurmountable rights issues, like the Godzilla films they riffed on).

That's exactly how I view it, and I think fans in general do.

Disney HAS to know there's an audience keen for those versions of the films, so they're sitting on a potential fortune not giving it to us.

I truly wonder at this point that, within the parameters of the Lucasfilm buyout, there's some kind of language involved in terms of Lucas himself only wanting the Special Editions to be circulated. Otherwise why wouldn't you keep trying to gouge fans with release after release? Fox as it stands still owns the 1977 STAR WARS and will forever until they're sold (and even then, that will transfer over to whoever winds up with the catalog) -- what's keeping THEM from at least doing THAT particular film? Yes, Disney takes over distribution of the other movies in physical form in 2020 (they control the streaming of them all currently), but it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The only thing that does is that George doesn't want the original theatrical versions out there and has done everything he can to make sure they aren't. Even though he doesn't own his own franchise anymore, you wonder if that didn't end up a condition of the sale.

[Eric Paddon]

Shame on him if that's the case (to add to everything else he should be ashamed of). Some people might argue that there are other films that are no longer available to us in their "theatrical" cuts because in later years material that was cut was put back in etc. but I think there's a big difference between something like restoring "1776" etc. because what you're giving us there is a vision of what an audience contemporaneous to the film's release would have seen originally or been likely to see and you are not intruding things that are totally divorced from the technology of the day. Lucas's intrusion of the modern F/X could be appreciated as something interesting IF he had gone the route the Star Trek people did by giving us new F/X in the TV series but presenting them ALONGSIDE the original cuts. I confess to enjoying the new F/X in "The Doomsday Machine" but I know that at the click of a button I can still see the old version with the model kit version of the Constellation. If I had the ability to toggle back and forth, we could have some fun with the stuff but when it becomes his perpetual rewriting to add things that aren't significant and to merge the original with later films that leave much to be desired, then he's just cheapening the original.

[KevinEK]

I've seen no indication that George Lucas or anyone else put in a condition of sale that Disney never allow anyone to see the original versions of the Star Wars Trilogy. It looks to me that this is more of a fiscal thing with them - I don't believe they would want to issue the original versions as a separate release. The fans who want them are vocal, but the numbers simply aren't enough to justify a major expense by Disney. (It's not the massive number some fans think it to be.) I find it more likely that Disney will quietly have 2K scans done of the separation masters (if they haven't already done so) and they'll include those on a later edition as bonus features, much as Lucas did on the DVDs. These won't be huge restoration jobs - just 2K scans with whatever sound mix Disney wants to put on them, and they'll eventually be included in a big box set to get the fans to shell out yet again, now for all nine movies (so far).

Disney really is cheap enough to want to wait until they have all the movies under one roof. It makes sense for them to wait to see if they do acquire the Fox library and then they don't have to share a dime with anyone. This is part of what makes the Comcast bid interesting - what does Disney do if they have to share the revenue for one of the movies with Comcast? Having worked with and for Disney, I can attest to their cheapness. Given that they will want to maximize their profitability to themselves, they have no incentive to release a set with those bonus versions until they own either 8 out of 9 or 9 out of 9 movies in the set. Also, it makes sense for them to wait for Episode IX to come out, and then have a big maxi-set of everything so far, with the original versions thrown in to make this palatable for the fans who already bought the Blu-rays of everything in the earlier releases.

As I said, I understand people's frustration with Lucas for not making the original versions available in a better form than he did. I totally understand people crying foul about the non-anamorphic old transfers with 2.0 sound on the DVDs, where Lucas was obviously saying "If you want to watch the old, moldy versions, here they are. But wouldn't you rather watch my new-fangled, souped up versions that fill your screen and speakers?" But there are two huge issues with the bootlegs and we really need to pay attention to them. The first is that it's not correct to say that circulating bootlegs does not impact the movie industry's bottom line. Bootlegs absolutely do affect how many people are going to buy legitimate copies of movies or see them in the theater. If everyone could just get a decent bootleg of current movies for free or almost nothing, then it does follow that the industry itself would not be able to bring in the money to continue making those movies. Saying "it's just a drop in the bucket" is mistaken - I've heard it as an excuse from friends of mine who have tried to bring bootlegs to my home and have been turned away. Piracy is piracy - people can justify it in their own minds all they want, but it's not something I can countenance. Secondly, the "restorations" done for things like the "Despecialized" versions or the Adywan thing or whatever, are amateur attempts done by fans without much background in this work. I have major issues with someone like "Harmy" or "Adywan" in that they are messing with someone else's movie and adding their own color timing and other "corrections" where they have no idea what the full impact will be of their tampering. (Case in point: When I worked on JAG, we had a shot that could see inside a hangar at Camp Pendleton and we set the exposure so you could barely see it. Someone in Post decided they wanted to see more of the interior in the background, so they changed the values to bring it up a little. What they didn't notice was that our olive green camo truck had suddenly turned blue - and that wound up going on the air before anyone caught it. Imagine that mistake multiplied by 100...)

I appreciate that people are willing to legitimately purchase the original versions of these movies when they become available, and I agree with that. I agree with the frustration over why it hasn't been done yet. I just don't hold with the piracy idea, and I particularly don't when someone is trying to actually sell those versions.