Star Wars

[Aractus]

OK, so it's time for me to vent all my frustrations about SW in a discussion thread where we can all hate-on Lucas/Disney together.

Let's stat with the prequels. Lucas has been unable to resist from altering "Phantom Menace", and he directed all three even though he said he wouldn't in 1995. One of the most controversial moves he made was to shoot Episode II, and then Ep III in digital, all the while claiming that it was "better quality than 35mm" film. Really?

Ep II (Attack of the Clones) was filmed at 1440 x 1080 24p and cropped to 818 vertical lines. There's a misconception that it was filmed at 1920 x 1080, it was not. Specifically it was "1920 x 1080 3:1:1" meaning that both the Luma and Chroma was compressed (the Luma compressed to 1440 x 1080, and the chroma conveying just 1/3 of that!) The camera did capture 1920x1080, but the tape stores it at 1440x1080.

Although the camera he used was "designed for the movie" it didn't even store the picture in the way that Lucas actually needed it. I mean, why couldn't it crop the picture 75% vertically (810 lines) and then store it 4:2:0? What's the point of filming the full vertical resolution of 1080p when you're going to crop it 25% anyway?

I don't hate digital cameras - far from it. Wolf Creek (2005) was also filmed in 1440 x 1080, however it was a low budget Australian film (I think the budget was $1.4 mil). Plus it was only cropped to 1.85:1, not 2.35:1

Ep III (Revenge of the Sith) was filmed at "full hd". I use quotations for a few reasons, yes it was filmed at 1920 x 1080, however the colourspace was 4:4:4 RGB (10 bit) which is equal to 4:2:2 YPbPr. So it certainly did not have the dynamic range that film has.

DLP cinema projectors in 2002 (when Attack of the Clones came out) were 1280 x 1024 and 1440 x 1080 resolution at the time, so the movie would have been scaled from 1920 x 818 to those two sizes for DLP cinemas (I'm assuming the films were mastered at the full resolution with effects, although in my opinion the Blurays do not convey more picture information than 1440 pixels you can decide for yourself).

When Phantom Menace came to home video in 2000 (or was it 2001) Lucas released it on VHS, and Laserdisc only in Japan! He refused to release it on DVD claiming that the complete 6 film saga would come to DVD at the "same time".

So piracy prompted a more immediate response. Here's a screenshot of SW (bare in mind that there were also 1997 Special Edition bootlegs which were a bit higher quality than this one):





Back in the day everyone thought these were fantastic quality - when compared to VHS. There was also one made from the Japanese LD of TPM.

Thus Lucas brought the updated version of TPM to DVD in 2002, and then the Special Editions of SW, ESB and ROTJ in 2004. Now here's where we're gonna have an argument.

Lucas refused to release the originals - although (partly because of the Laserdisc bootlegs as above) he did release them in 2006, but they were mastered from the 1993 telecine D1 tapes, they weren't even converted to anamorphic. Here's a screenshot from that DVD for comparison (NTSC version):



And of course, this post wouldn't be complete without mentioning the fact that the "bootlegs" (as so labelled by starwars.com) are still well appreciated by the fans, eg Wil Wheaton. FYI on the issue of the "Special Editions" that Lucas justified by saying they're "his movies" - no they're not. He directed Star Wars, but he didn't direct Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, ergo they aren't "his" movies to alter.

But, even if you're a fan of the Special Edition, which had a DLP limited screenings on the weekend in Australia and some other countries, you too should worry. When Lucas released the Special Edition DVD in 2004 he had a 2K scan done of each movie (2k is 2048 x 1556 and essentially 1080p resolution). They were never intended for HD release, nor are they even on par with the standard technology these days. The 2014 Robocop (1987) Bluray, for instance was mastered from a 4k scan of the camera negatives. The 2006 and 2007 releases of Blade Runner were mastered from the 35mm camera negatives scanned at 4k resolution, and the 65mm effects shots scanned scanned at 8k resolution (link).

It is unacceptable to release a film to Bluray in 2011 based on a 2004 DVD transfer!

Disney has not had a strong track record with their recent releases - crushing out the blacks in all your favourite animated films including Beauty and the Beast, Fantasia, etc.

So don't hold out much hope for future releases, now going back to the DLP's - what I want to know is anyone who paid for a $25 ticket to see, essentially, exactly the same resolution as is on Bluray (and bittorrent and usenet) - WHY?? I wouldn't give Disney $1 for that. It's 2014 not 2004! Surely if you're going to have a limited cinema run you should at least scan the films at 4k/8k/10k resolution first and master a 4k DLP (4096x2160) which is the current resolution of cinema DLP projectors.

OK, now that rant is over we can discuss what we're all gonna hate, etc, about VII!

[Elskidor]

I suppose I'm more of a casual fan and not a die hard one, because I'm looking forward to the new Star Wars films and thought 2 out of 3 of the prequels were fun films. I know absolutely nothing about the formal that any of the movies were released, or filmed.

[pocaracas]

Nice rant.

I can't argue over those details of scans and cameras, as you seem to know more about them than me, so I'll take them for granted.
But I can argue the bit of whose films Ep. V and VI were.... While you're right that George didn't direct them, he did produce them (as executive producer) and write them (although not the screenplay on ep. V - maybe that's why it's the best one?).

Writers tend to think of the movies as theirs, because they came up with the idea for the story.
Producers came up with the money to pay for the whole thing.

So yeah.... I'd say he has the right to think of the movies as his... as long as such credit is shared with the rest of the crew, mainly directors, screenplay writers and producers.

[Bad Writer]

OK, now that rant is over we can discuss what we're all gonna hate, etc, about VII!

I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that they're altering the canon established by the Extended Universe (EU). Certainly what they're doing with the script is meant to draw in as much mainstream, casual audience members as possible, but it also alienates the hardcore, ever-loyal, years-long fans of Star Wars.

I have a small example of how the prequel altered the canon, and since I was a fan of the EU, it threw me for a loop. In one of the Star Wars "Tales" collections, the one about Bounty Hunters, a writer had established a very clearly-defined origin story for Boba Fett. Not only was it intelligently and thoughtfully written, but it was gospel to many of the people that loved the character. Soon after the release of Phantom Menace, rumors of what Episode II would involve began to surface. A vaguely Boba Fett-ish character in Mandalorian armor surfaced amongst all the hype. We soon learned that this was Jango Fett, Boba's father (read: clone). So Fett's backstory was destroyed in one, fell swoop.

To caveat off of that, the fact that the Clone Troopers were all based off Jango's genetic code was another canon-destroying plot device. In Timothy Zahn's bestselling Star Wars saga known as "The Thrawn Trilogy", Luke Skywalker actually comes in contact with the clones left over from the Clone Wars, but they are all individuals, based on many different genetic codes, very very different from how Lucas penned it years later.

So much to retcon, so little time.

The latest bit of canon fodder (tee hee) is the fact that Peter Mayhew will reprise the role of Chewbacca. Don't get me wrong; we love the big, hair lug. However, the time frame in which Episode VII is set should not allow for this. Only a few years earlier during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy (from another galaxy far, far away) Chewbacca dies in the first bout of planetary assaults. He doesn't just die with the possibility of resurrection or that he was missing in action and possibly just long lost...no. He was crushed by a moon. Yes, it took a moon with a decaying orbit to kill him off.

I don't think there's any coming back from this; this may just be the defining moment where the EU and the films go their separate ways.

[Aractus]

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Nice rant.

I can't argue over those details of scans and cameras, as you seem to know more about them than me, so I'll take them for granted.
But I can argue the bit of whose films Ep. V and VI were.... While you're right that George didn't direct them, he did produce them (as executive producer) and write them (although not the screenplay on ep. V - maybe that's why it's the best one?).

Writers tend to think of the movies as theirs, because they came up with the idea for the story.
Producers came up with the money to pay for the whole thing.

So yeah.... I'd say he has the right to think of the movies as his... as long as such credit is shared with the rest of the crew, mainly directors, screenplay writers and producers.

---

I disagree - 1. often the writers are not even welcome to be present on-set (including the authors of the original novel if it's adapted from one), 2. Lucas didn't write the ESB and ROTJ, he co-wrote them. 3. He didn't produce any of them - Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back ere produced by Gary Kurtz and Return of the Jedi was produced by Howard Kazanjian.

[pocaracas]

---

Nice rant.

I can't argue over those details of scans and cameras, as you seem to know more about them than me, so I'll take them for granted.
But I can argue the bit of whose films Ep. V and VI were.... While you're right that George didn't direct them, he did produce them (as executive producer) and write them (although not the screenplay on ep. V - maybe that's why it's the best one?).

Writers tend to think of the movies as theirs, because they came up with the idea for the story.
Producers came up with the money to pay for the whole thing.

So yeah.... I'd say he has the right to think of the movies as his... as long as such credit is shared with the rest of the crew, mainly directors, screenplay writers and producers.

---

I disagree - 1. often the writers are not even welcome to be present on-set (including the authors of the original novel if it's adapted from one), 2. Lucas didn't write the ESB and ROTJ, he co-wrote them. 3. He didn't produce any of them - Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back ere produced by Gary Kurtz and Return of the Jedi was produced by Howard Kazanjian.

I looked it up on IMDB...
He was Executive producer on those two films.
And writer for both as well.
IMDB may be wrong, though...

[Foxaèr]

I suppose I'm more of a casual fan and not a die hard one.

Same here.

[Aractus]

I looked it up on IMDB...
He was Executive producer on those two films.
And writer for both as well.
IMDB may be wrong, though...

On the content of his changes his reasoning is absurd, for instance: ESB SE (1997) he inserts a scream from Luke as he falls into the abyss - yet in the 2004 he removes it again. In ROTJ 2004 SE he removed Sebastian Shaw and replaced him with Hayden Christensen to appear alongside Kenobi and Yoda. He then claimed that "Anakin died when he became Darth Vader"; yet it's integral to the ROTJ story that Anakin dies in the arms of his son when Vader's mask is removed (this is the bio that was on starwars.com and probably still is).

FYI it's irrelevant whether he was the Exec Producer because:

• "There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rough cut,' it'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.' The same thing happens with plays and earlier drafts of books. In essence, films never get finished, they get abandoned. At some point, you're dragged off the picture kicking and screaming while somebody says, 'Okay, it's done.' That isn't really the way it should work. Occasionally, [you can] go back and get your cut of the video out there, which I did on both American Graffiti and THX-1138; that's the place where it will live forever. So what ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you'll be able to project it on a 20' by 40' screen with perfect quality. I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's to go back and reinvent a movie."
  ―George Lucas on the Special Editions

Lucas himself says, in his own words, that "it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's to go back and reinvent a movie".

So then, in SW - the one film that he can claim he has a right to make a long string of never-ending "director's cuts" to - first he decides that Greedo shoots first (1997) - he could have done it that way in 1977 in the first place if he had so wanted, but then in 2004 he decides that they shoot at the same time and also that Han Solo moves in a way he never asked Harrison Ford to do in 1977... then he re-inserts Jabba the Hutt to do the same dialogue with Solo that Greedo just did (why?) The extended hanger scene with Wedge is probably the least "offensive" change he made.

[pocaracas]

Oh, I agree that all those changes were... err... stupid, on his part.
To call them director's cut when he didn't direct them is also a bad move... unless he had some input from the original directors... you seem to be "in the know", did he?

[Aractus]

• When the film was released in 1997 and later put into DVD, I was very gratified that it was almost unchanged, except the sound was much improved, whereas Star Wars and Jedi had big changes.
  
  -Irvin Kershner