* Some of the following editorial contains hearsay, heavy speculation, and rumor. This article is not meant to trash anyone’s name or state absolute facts. It’s merely an “educated opinion” piece. While some of the things below are indeed factual—mostly the technical bits—I won’t vouch for the authenticity of certain other parts. I have done my best to label the text clearly. Nothing has been fact-checked or confirmed with Lucasfilm. *
(Original Posting: May 23, 2006)
THEY’RE HERE…
Ever since the DVD format decided it was going to stick around for a while, people have been hounding the powers that be at Lucasfilm Ltd. to release the Star Wars Trilogy. At first, George Lucas was quite reluctant, willing only to re-release it on VHS “one last time” in order to, we assume, start prepping for DVD technology. Then, in 1997 Lucas released his Special Editions of the films which were marketed as his “definitive visions” of the classic trilogy. This was later debunked in a way, since he made even more changes down the road. It eventually got to the point where people started saying, “Enough, already.” The fact that Lucas continually tinkers with the films is no longer looked upon as an artist tweaking his much-valued piece of work, but as a joke and a new way to make money out of something old—or at least that’s how it’s been perceived by many long time fans.
Flashback with me to February 6th, 2003: George Lucas makes an announcement at an “ILM & Skywalker Sound Tribute” in California stating that the original, pre-Special Edition versions of the three original films will not be released on DVD at all – ever. We will get the Special Editions in all their newly enhanced glory as soon as Episode III is in the can and there’s time to perfect and release them. Of course, Lucas released the 2004 DVD set well before Episode III was in theaters, but some felt there were too many mistakes made in the process, resulting in the 1997 editions now being replaced. It wasn’t that the process used to clean and transfer the films was bad, it was just severely rushed and there didn’t seem to be a lot of QA done. This led to color correction problems/mistakes and all sorts of other issues. In short, fans were happy to have the set on DVD, but were not necessarily tickled pink—as Vader’s lightsaber ended up in the new transfers.
Flashback again with me to May 03, 2006: Starwars.com announces that the original trilogy DVDs in fact will be coming to DVD in September 2006, despite what Lucas said a few years earlier. It pains me to say it, but you can pretty much take anything Lucas says with a grain of salt these days. Always in motion is the future. Look back to all of his quotes on how many episodes there were supposed to be in Star Wars over the years and you’ll see what I mean. I hate to add fuel to a fire that I believe has long gone out, but what about the possibility of Episodes 7, 8, and 9? Lucas had sworn up and down that these films would never happen and there were only six films in total from the get-go. Gary Kurtz has gone on record many times in disagreement—and he was there from the beginning. There was talk of things that happened after what would become Return of the Jedi, but they never made it to the concept stage and we can therefore surmise that they only exist in outline form. Yet, they did exist.
At first, there was elation after the DVD announcement article on Starwars.com. Everyone was jumping for joy looking at the headline in disbelief. Then they started to read a little deeper and the smiles flattened out, lips slightly pursed. There was some confusion, the details were vague, the sound bytes were carefully worded with just the right spin… something was amiss.
I noticed that Starwars.com changed their original post on the web site the day after the posting. They usually update at night some time and those updates then appear to be fresh to the morning crowd. Somewhere between May 3rd and May 4th, the following paragraph disappeared from the posting:
“See the title crawl to Star Wars before it was known as Episode IV; see the pioneering, if dated, motion control model work on the attack on the Death Star; groove to Lapti Nek or the Ewok Celebration song like you did when you were a kid; and yes, see Han Solo shoot first.”
Later the next day, however, the text reappeared. Perhaps they spoke too soon and one (or more) of the facts had changed? It was probably an innocent thing and not worth going on about. They still say that you’ll be able to see the films as they were seen in 1977, 1980, and 1983 and that would mean that the title A New Hope wouldn’t be there since it was actually added in 1981.
I actually knew about this a good week or two before the announcement was made. A friend of mine in the industry shared a few rumors with me about the decision to release this particular set at this particular time, so I’m openly labeling them as such. With that disclaimer firmly in place, I’ll continue.
MARCIA MARCIA MARCIA
What on Earth does George Lucas’s ex-wife Marcia Lucas have to do with any of this? When they divorced, George Lucas was quite wealthy and Lucasfilm was doing well. As with any divorce, there was the issue of how to split up the money. Without getting into details, it’s safe to assume that Marcia Lucas is compensated whenever the original Star Wars films are re-released or aired. I am told by a friend in the industry, however, that because the Special Editions are altered and therefore not the originals, Marcia either does not receive money, or she gets very little. I’m not 100% sure, of course.
Shifting into speculative territory, one could assume that some time in the late 1990s, when it was clear that VHS was on the way out, the stars aligned and George Lucas must have realized that if he made altered versions of the films and released them, he wouldn’t have to give Marcia as much money. Add to that the marketing value of re-releasing the original films with added/altered footage before releasing the prequels to keep Star Wars in the public eye and you’ve got a good plan.
One wonders if Lucas believed that the fans would love and unconditionally accept the Special Editions as superior, not caring if the old films were ever put back out again. When the “final” VHS set was released, containing the pre-special edition versions, it was marketed as the last time you could get the originals. Lucasfilm then said many times that the originals would never, ever be released on DVD… until now. So what changed? If the plan was to never release the originals on DVD because of Marcia’s profiting from them, then why did he finally agree to release them?
A friend of mine in the industry believes the answer may be this: If the original versions of the films are released as Bonus Features, then that would nullify most if not all monetary obligations to Marcia. I was told this was going to happen a while back and wrote it off, but then I saw a public ad that confirmed it. It read: “DVDs include special bonus material – the original theatrical movies from 1977, 1980, & 1983!” Then I was sent a sales ad distributed to retailers and other salespeople that read: “These are the DVDs fans have been demanding – Huge sales potential for new and core fans!”
Of course this could mean nothing at all, but it could also mean that Lucasfilm went to some effort to make sure Marcia Lucas didn’t get more Star Wars money.
LET’S TALK TRANSFER
Another thing I heard from my friend in the industry is that Lucasfilm is allegedly not going to use the original masters (film) for these transfers to DVD. It will instead be a straight video transfer—D2 tapes, we could assume. I was surprised and disappointed to learn this.
For the Special Edition work in the late 1990s, there was a complete restoration of the films done utilizing the original film masters which were cleaned up and had new material added. Before this, there was a previous transfer done for the “Definitive Edition” Laserdisc collection. This transfer used a kind of “automatic” cleaning process called DVNR or Digital Video Noise Reduction. While it looked great for 1993, some people felt that the set was over-enhanced a bit too much. Everyone who bought into the Laserdisc phenomenon was glad to have it, though.
What I’m trying to get at is that the older video transfer used to make the laserdiscs in 1993 is allegedly the master they’re going to use to make the new DVDs. To avoid confusion, the 2004 Special Editions included in these limited edition sets will be the same ones available now. I’m talking specifically about the original films added as bonus features. They are not re-transferring from film according to what I’m hearing. Let me say that again. Instead of using today’s industry standard and doing a film-to-anamorphic DVD transfer, these classic films in their original states are going to be transferred to DVD using an outdated video master and using outdated technology not up to today’s minimum standards for release with acceptable quality.
These masters from the laserdiscs, mind you, are in 4×3 ratio, letterboxed. This means they’re formatted for your television. In this format, you should see black bars at the top and bottom of the screen and the movie is essentially using half of the frame, or 200 lines on the screen. This would make it virtually equivalent to VHS quality. By comparison, on an anamorphically transferred DVD, the film uses roughly 75-85% of the frame so there’s considerably higher quality involved. Real widescreen of today’s standards is in 16×9 anamorphic (almost all video transfers today are anamorphic) but to give the original films the best quality, you’d have to go back to the actual films and re-transfer them so they look right.
There are mainly two ways to do video transfers these days: the old and the new. The old way is to transfer a film from 2.35:1 aspect ratio to 4×3 with some black at the top and the bottom to make the film retain its 2.35:1 aspect in the middle of that 4×3 screen. At some point, people realized that this black space was really just a waste so the new way of transferring video was born: anamorphic. What happens during the anamorphic transfer process is that the film is transferred in a “squeezed” state so that more of the image is actually in the video frame. Then, on a 16:9 screen, the squeezed frame is stretched back out to fill it all up resulting in more picture information and higher quality.
Creating an anamorphic transfer from the 4×3 laserdisc master is really just blowing up some scan lines without enhancing the image at all. It’s just a fancy form of “zooming in.” So, if the rumors I’m hearing are true, and Lucasfilm does the transfer the old way, the best they can do is take the 4×3 video transfers, blow them up to 16×9, and hope they look good enough. You wouldn’t gain any quality, however. The result would be a sub-standard DVD product, which I feel is a poor choice for these classic films. They might not even take this step, though. They could just do a straight transfer from 4×3 letterbox master to 4×3 letterbox DVD and call it a day.
Basically what I’m saying here is: in order to do it right, you need to do a completely new transfer but for some reason, probably budget related, Lucasfilm appears to not want to do this. These original films are probably not a priority to Lucas and he’s spent enough time and money on restoring them already. The only real reason not to do a new transfer, in my opinion, would be if the company simply couldn’t afford it, but certainly Lucasfilm has a few extra bucks to spare. I’m not sure of the actual costs, but it can’t be unaffordable. We’re not talking millions here. So a multi-million dollar company is going to forego this process because it’s cheaper to use the old Laserdisc masters? In order for me to have these versions I now have to repurchase the set I already own. They’re going to be transferred from a substandard master, which is most definitely not state of the art. They’re going to look and sound inferior to even the crappiest of crappy films that comes out today on DVD. I can’t get too excited, especially since I already own at least 3 sets of bootlegs, most likely made from the laserdisc versions anyhow. I mean, even the trailers for the Star Wars films located on the 4th bonus disc of the 2004 set are in 16:9 anamorphic.
In my opinion, the whole thing reeks of sloppiness, laziness, and quick-and-dirty marketing to capitalize on sales for what’s probably going to be a really slow holiday season for the Star Wars brand since we’re “in between” movies. I’m glad to have them, but I’m disappointed with the way they’ll be represented on screen. It seems they’re choosing the “quick and easy path” when they should really just bite the bullet and go for quality. The old way of releasing 4×3 letterboxed transfers has been dead for a while now. When DVDs first came out, it was acceptable, but now there are other options. We are guaranteed unacceptable quality for today’s standards.
Lucasfilm’s Jim Ward publicly admitted that the original films’ quality on video will not compare to that of the 2004 restored versions. “It is state of the art, as of 1993, and that’s not as good as state of the art 2006,” he told the USA TODAY. George Lucas himself then went public to MTV.com saying this: “It’s just the original versions, as they were. We didn’t do anything to it at all. But we’re not sure how many people want that. Now we’ll find out whether they really wanted the original or whether they wanted the improved versions. It’ll all come out in the end.”
So the question is: Will Lucasfilm actually create new anamorphic transfers of the original versions at some point in the future and market those to us too? Will they finally do it the right way? Well, if the whole (alleged) Marcia thing can be resolved somehow, then perhaps. However, it just feels like we’re being set up for another “double-dip” situation in order to make sure we buy these films again and again and again.
WHAT’S THE DAMAGE?
The May 3, 2006 article at Starwars.com is pretty vague. It doesn’t mention price, although the sales ad I mentioned gives an S.R.P. (Suggested Retail Price) of $29.98 each with an M.A.P. (Minimum Advertised Price) of $19.95. Sales will be in effect I’m sure, but what this means is that fans like me are going to have to dish out approximately another $60-$90 to buy these films again. Something tells me this won’t be the last time we’ll be buying them either. More limited runs? Perhaps. New formats? On the way. 3-D versions? They’re coming to theaters eventually, so will DVDs follow in 3-D? Will he tinker more and more for each version, essentially “forcing” you to buy them all if you want all the changes?
From a certain point of view, they really screwed up this whole DVD thing. I thought Star Wars was always supposed to be on the cutting edge of technology and pushing the envelope, but it took them a long time to release Episode I, even though Episodes II and III had a “normal” release schedule. They put out what some feel is a substandard Original Trilogy set that was rushed without proper care and quality assurance, not to mention the lame packaging. Then they released the same 2004 set with better cover art but without the bonus disc. Now they’re re-releasing the same 2004 set again but with the unaltered original versions as bonus features in a substandard format. When will they finally start treating these original versions of the films with the respect they deserve?
So we’re back to waiting for something we’ll probably never get, at least not any time soon: a high quality anamorphic DVD transfer with a nice 5.1 surround sound mix. Instead we’re getting what’s probably going to amount to a nice laserdisc transfer with Dolby 2.0 sound. There’s probably some kooky reason for all this but what it is, I’m not 100% sure—though I can speculate…
Lucas had already sunk a ton of money into reworking the Star Wars films between 1996 and 2004, regardless of how well you feel that money was spent. I mean, I still see the matte boxes around the TIE fighters in many of the scenes and it drives me nuts. They spent all that time jerking around with Greedo, but no one cleaned up the effects that were screaming “Clean me!” like the finger-written text you see on a very dirty car. Lucas was pretty dead set against releasing those original films. Speculatively, he could have just been trying to keep more money out of Marcia’s pockets. That said, one thing Lucas is probably not going to do is throw more money into the original versions of the films, especially if Marcia stands to benefit from them. So it looks to me like everyone came up with a way to make all the parties happy. They’ll stick the originals out there as bonus features for this limited run and market them as, “Buy the Star Wars films on DVD now and as a special bonus, see the films the way they were originally released in theaters!”
WHY NOW?
Why release this now? I have a few speculative reasons.
1. There’s nothing to sell this holiday season with a Star Wars logo on it. The Episode III hype is over and the prequels have been released. There isn’t much else out there film-wise they can release to get those coveted 4th quarter sales, so here we are with a marketing blitz that’s starting in May, will run slowly through the summer, pick up steam in September and then climax in December with ads screaming about the “limited time offer” and what not. This release fills a void. They could always release the 1978 Holiday Special, but Lucas has said he hates it and it’ll never happen. Then again, what Lucas says and what Lucas does are sometimes two separate things.
2. It helps to stop bootleggers. Recently, Lucasfilm has become quite vocal in the fight against piracy. The digital age has made piracy a lot easier and Lucasfilm has taken a beating, missing out on all that money that he (and Marcia!) could have been making with the original versions of the films. People wanted them so bad they were willing to resort to bootlegs, mostly made from the laserdisc transfers. I own about 3 sets of them myself.
3. It quiets the fans. Star Wars fans, like any other collection of people, are a diverse group. They can be very cool, insanely demanding, fickle, or highly unforgiving at times. They are a smart bunch, so it’s best to never underestimate them. If you give them something substandard, they’re going to complain about it and not just guzzle it down. The varied commentary about this DVD release is evidence of this. Everyone was immediately all over the map on whether or not this release was good or bad or somewhere in between. Their attitudes stem from years of learning how to wait patiently for things and having to buy different versions of the same films. Star Wars fans are patient but that patience can wear thin at times, especially when the end result doesn’t prove itself worthy. So in Lucasfilm’s eyes, this will sate some fan appetites, but will it spark a different debate over quality?
FINAL THOUGHTS
In the end, I don’t know what to think. I’ll give you my honest opinion as a fan and you can take it or leave it. All that stuff up there about Marcia Lucas doesn’t bother me. I sure hope that Lucas doesn’t make all of his artistic decisions based on money, but my sources tell me that this stuff about Marcia has some truth to it.
A transfer from the laserdisc masters to DVD might look better than the laserdiscs that came out in 1993, but it still doesn’t give us a quality product worthy of watching in 2006. As a fan, all I’ve ever wanted on DVD was the original versions of the films with a really clean and spectacular transfer, along with the good state of the art audio mix it deserves. You can “clean” all you want, just don’t alter the scenes. For example, remove the garbage matte lines from the dogfight scenes but don’t alter the actual shots. Don’t drop in new shots of CG ships (or anything else for that matter.) Scrub, clean, wipe it dry and transfer it over. Don’t go overboard with color correction; just make the old films look nice and clean and give them the authentic love they deserve.
So like many fans, I’m happy and ticked off all at the same time. I’m glad that they’re doing this but something in my gut tells me that it’s for all the wrong reasons and really has little to do with making the fans happy since they’ve been asking for this for years now. I think that the general public will sort of shy away from this release since many already have the current box set. Sadly, many of them don’t even know anything’s different. Then again, ignorance is bliss sometimes. Of course, I could be wrong about all this, but where there’s smoke there’s fire, I always say. Having heard a few things about the goings on at Lucasfilm, I see smoke, and occasionally some mirrors.
Let’s hope for the best, though, shall we? Something tells me that the best is yet to come. 2007 brings us to the 30th anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars. You can bet your bottom dollar (literally) that the marketing machine is already thinking about what they’re going to do then. Then again in 2010, and again in 2013…
UPDATE
Since so many fans have written in, it appears that Lucasfilm’s publicity department has drafted a sterile form letter to send to certain disappointed fans. Here’s what they said:I wanted you to know how much we appreciate the passion and enthusiasm you have for Star Wars, and thank you for sharing your concerns about our upcoming DVD release.
The DVDs being released in September will contain two versions of Star Wars: Episodes IV, V and VI – the Special Editions (which represent George’s vision of the movies) and the first versions, which will be included as bonus material. We hoped that releasing those “original” movies on a bonus disc would be a way to have some additional fun with the debut of the movies as individual DVDs. We certainly did not want it to become a source of concern or frustration for any of our fans.
As you may know, an enormous amount of effort was put into digitally restoring the negatives for the Special Editions. In one scene alone, nearly 1 million pieces of dirt had to be removed, and the Special Editions were created through a frame-by-frame digital restoration. The negatives of the movies were permanently altered for the creation of the Special Editions, and existing prints of the first versions are in poor condition.
So many fans have requested the original movies, we wanted to find a way to bring them to you. But since these movies do not represent George’s artistic vision, we could not put the extraordinary time and resources into this project as we did with the Special Editions. The 1993 Laserdisc masters represented the best source for providing the original versions as DVD bonus material. Although these are non-anamorphic versions, they do preserve the original widescreen composition of the movies.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans – now or in the future – to restore the earlier versions.
We hope you will understand our decision and, again, want to let you know how much we appreciate your interest and enthusiasm.
Sincerely,
Lynne Hale
publicity@lucasfilm.com
(Original Posting: May 23, 2006)