RUMOUR - Original Star Wars Trilogy to be released on DVD?

[LARF]

This looks great though...

Link: http://www.starwars.com/meta/rd/expand/video.html?world=gaming&url=http://download.lucasarts.com/legoswii_480.mov&mw=480&mh=375&ww=480&wh=375&ap=true" target="_blank">Star Wars Lego

[Richmond Clements]

Ohhhh, now THAT I am looking forward to!

[W. R. Logan]

>It's pretty sad. My favourite version is still this one...

Thank god they didnt have video cameras and the interweb thingy when I was a kid.

[Devons Daddy]

sad to say this has been avaible on DVD for a couple of years  out here in asia. not the officail version of course. but an original as first scene in cinemas all them years ago.i think looking at the quality its a VHS to DVD copy.

but how come these guys are aware of what will sell and old george takes so long. geuss thats what happens when your filthy rich.

yes star wars is and always has been sadder then star trek. especailly the fans,losers the lot of them.

[+rufus+]

Thanks for that version Paul!
I haven't been able to think about Star Wars without dry retching fer years...that cheered me up no end.
 I just wish Lucas's CGI ninjas could grow him a chin...
:-) Rufus

[SamuelAWilkinson]

Holy lego goodness! That's what I'm talking 'bout, Willis.

[paulvonscott]

I don't think Star Wars was always as sad as star trek, it was always to me about a shared great experience we all had as kids.  It's why the Spaced style references and humour were always a shortcut to get you feeling like a kid again.

Star Trek on the other hand was an entertaining camp 60's TV show.  I had fun watching it, but it was really a generation too early for me, and it had already fallen victim to sad knackerism before it came back as movies.

I used to go to the cinema a fair bit as a kid, but The Cat from Outer Space never left the same impression on me.  It was Star Wars, literally something I'd never seen before (much like the effect 2000AD had on me), and about the most exciting form of entertainment you could have as a kid, the nearest thing you could have to a mystical experience.  Each movie was a huge event, it was self-contained and made every other film you saw look dull in comparison.

The prequels did a very good job of slapping you around the face and telling you to grow up, this stuff really is a bit shit.  All the 'expanded universe' stuff is where the sad knacker syndrome comes in.  

A small rant now follows, feel free to tune out.

Like Star Trek, Star Wars gives you a universe to get lost in, and everything ever mentioned is stripmined for its own series of novels.  I used to think that getting immersed in these universes was cool, there weren't that many to choose from when I was a kid.  Now they are like a rash of tar pits, if you're not careful, you'll get stuck in them and then you'll be sorry.  

Marvel Comics, DC Comics, the Judge Dredd world (largely awful spin offs, but it carries on growing like a mutant cancer), Aliens, Matrix, Star Trek, Doctor Who.  To be a fan, (and I've known fans of all the above, and I'm really not knocking them) to get that involved in it, you really have to lower your standards and expect to have your faith in these universes be abused and for you and your goodwill to be exploited as a result.  All of it trading on your initial investment, and with ever diminishing returns.

This fan industry has grown, like a parasite, along with fans hopes and dreams.  The fans are much derided, even by the people who supply the product, but they always have my sympathy.  How can you not be sympathetic to someone who feels the need to watch Aliens versus Predator trying to warm their hands around the dying embers of something that once fired their imagination?

Besides I'm slightly envious (and perhaps scared) of people who have gone that far into something.  I like Judge Dredd, I love it, think it's one of the best SF concepts of the 20th century.  But I still find it quite easy not to read most of the spin off stuff published under its banner.  The point where I feel I have to read it all, is the point I would probably step away from it.  As that's the point where I think you become a real fan.

Anyway, that goes someway to explaining my problems with Star Wars and the sheer scale of the exploitiation.  Even though many people are perfectly happy with with the way things are, and are getting a lot of fun out of it.  They pay their money, they get their kicks.  Good for them, as I say, it's not the fans who I have a problem with.

Apologies if that came out of nowehere and has scared you, I needed to get if off my chest.

[Radbacker]

yeah, these damn re-issues, heaven forbid the creator and owner would actually mess with their OWN movies to do the stuff he couldn't do when they were originally made!
Not a Starwars nut, I actually liked the re-issues(except for a couple of bits of the originals that i didn't like when they first came out anyway)  If Lucas wants to play in his own sand box let him, I certainlt think the Death Star raid in the first movie is way better on the re-issues too.

CU RAdbacker

[paulvonscott]

My initial problem with that was when the original is no longer available apart from formats which are becoming obsolete.  Fine to endlessly bugger about with your own movie (some artists took 30 years to paint a picture I suppose), slightly worrying that all the books, films and comics we've ever seen will be endlessly edited and updated.  And once that's the norm, it won't just be the original creator doing that, it'll be the estate, distant relatives and any old work for hire spud employed by the corp.

Has anyone seen the 30th Anniversary edition of Night of the Living Dead?

I enjoy THX1138, his first SF movie, but I still haven't bought it as he has only released the buggered about version.  Fine, I'm happy to watch that, but not at the expense of the original.  This sounds daft, but movies are made in their place and their time, they say something about the world beyond the story in the film.  When all we have to look back on is rehashed and rehacked works of fiction, you'll need a literary archaeologist to make any sense of them.

As for the effects, I think it would be hard to argue that he always wanted to have it CGI quality, before CGI quality existed.  Those CGI shots in star wars look old now.  Once he has started updating special effects to still look realistic, he has set himself a lifetime task.

As for the extra scenes, it's debatable whether he originally planned to have a song and dance routine in jabbas palace, or couldn't have had bloody Boba fett chatting up women before.  I'd guess that 90% of what was added, if not more, were just new ideas that he fancied doing.

That's fair enough, but it's hard not to break into a coughing fit of 'bullshit' when he claims he always wanted to do this stuff.

It's one man, albeit one very talented man, who is a god in his own universe, supremely powerful, and nobody will say 'no george, that's shit' to him.

There's a lot of spin from the Lucas estate, but the upshot is that he has sold fans the same movie 5 or 6 times.  Original, Widescreen, Digital Widescreen  (where the effects were first cleand up), mucked about I, mucked about II (and eventually mucked about III), across a raft of format changes which to be fair they've exploited no more than any other movie company.

Now they are back to the original, something they swore they were never going to do.  Now the cycle is complete... except, it's just going to go on.

When I see Star Wars I do see the future, but it's a fairly warped future.  Star Wars may have been a great film, but it was possibly the worst thing to happen to cinema and as time goes on, I see it only as a force for evil.

Yes I know it's just a bunch of daft movies and I'm taking this too seriously.

Oh and I saw some star wars toys with big hands that annoyed me yesterday too.  Fucking Lucas and his big handed han-solo!

:p

[Quirkafleeg]

Cheer up, the Star Wars tv series is just around the corner!

[ming]

What kind of a twisted mind would come up with this?  I am now deeply scarred.http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/4683/picture22ko.png">

[IndigoPrime]

:: It's one man, albeit one MILDLY talented man

Fixed.

Seriously, Lucas really isn't a great talent, as the three recent Star Wars efforts showed. When he takes something on alone, the plot, dialogue and direction are all pretty piss-poor. The original three somewhat stand the test of time, because they are more collaborative efforts (and you had actors willing to say "George, my character wouldn't say this shit" and just deliver different lines).

As for these reissues, I suspect the only thing that people will be happy with is the originals, rather than slightly cleaned up versions (i.e. versions where the shots and stories aren't changed, but where intrusive effects issues, such as matte lines, are removed).

[Steve Green]

I don't think they'll be cleaned up or matte lines removed (I seem to recall there are still some shots in ROTJ which have garbage mattes).

My cynical side expects that they'll do a cleaned up version for any BluRay/H-DVD version witht the excuse that the higher definition requires it.

I would have thought that a cleaned up original exists (or virtually all of it), they just want to bleed it dry.

- Steve

[paulvonscott]

":: It's one man, albeit one MILDLY talented man"
"Fixed."

Perhaps I over egged the pudding fearing some rabid star wars fan would offer to cut me up.

[scutfink]

There's a Panel in an old issue of Ambush Bug where there's a huge explosion on the moon, it goes something like this:

SFX: BOOM!!!

CAPTION 1: I KNOW, YOU CAN'T HEAR SOUND IN    SPACE. THEY TOLD GEORGE LUCAS THE SAME THING, HE IGNORED THEM...

CAPTION 2: MR. LUCAS IS NOW A MILLIONAIRE.

...So, yeah, he may not be the best Writer, Director or Editor in the world, but he's certainly got a great talent for making cash.

:)