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Star Wars series etc. not on Disney+.

Started by Glebe, January 02, 2021, 10:33:08 PM

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Glebe

So I've been looking to get a bit of a Star Wars fix with season 2 of The Mandalorian having finished and that, watched the 2008 The Clone Wars animated movie last night, it's a little silly in places but it's well made and fairly entertaining. Anyway, I was searching Disney+ to see if the original Genndy Tartakovsky The Clone Wars series is on there, as I've never seen it, but it turns out it's not. And it's not the only SW-related thingy missing from Disney+.

So the original Clone Wars series originally aired on Cartoon Network, which is owned by Warner Bros., so there must still be some kind of rights issue involved. In any case, it doesn't appear to have ever gotten an official HD release, but fortunately the whole thing is currently available in Full HD on YouTube!:

Star Wars Clone Wars Vol 1 (1080p, not upscaled).

Star Wars Clone Wars Vol 2 2004 1080p Upscale Remastering ATLA.

It's not surprizing that Disney haven't got the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special on there (although of course did release a tongue-in-cheek LEGO thing inspired by it over Christmas), it is however on YouTube (with thanks to bgmnts for the heads up):

Star Wars Holiday Special, The (1978) [Nice Copy].

TV movies the The Ewok Adventure (released outside the US theatrically as Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure) and it's sequel Ewoks: The Battle for Endor are also MIA, as is the Ewoks cartoon and Droids... they're both up on YouTube, remember them being a bit crap as a kid, but it anyone feels brave enough:

Star Wars - Ewoks - The Complete Series (1985-1986).

Star Wars Droids-The Complete Series (1985).

In any case, I'll definitely be giving the Genndy Tartakovsky series a look!

Dex Sawash


Some of the Clone Wars isn't that bad. They seem to do 4 episode blocs that are one basic story and then move on. 4 eps of Mace Windu and Jarjar do a mission, absolute shit. Just saw a set where Yoda sneKs away and learns how to be a force ghost, that was almost good (despite sounding like it wouldn't be).

Glebe

Quote from: Dex Sawash on January 02, 2021, 11:36:55 PMSome of the Clone Wars isn't that bad. They seem to do 4 episode blocs that are one basic story and then move on. 4 eps of Mace Windu and Jarjar do a mission, absolute shit. Just saw a set where Yoda sneKs away and learns how to be a force ghost, that was almost good (despite sounding like it wouldn't be).

Apparently Lucas decided to make a movie out of the first four episodes, which is why there's the movie.

Replies From View

Quote from: Glebe on January 02, 2021, 10:33:08 PM
Star Wars Holiday Special, The (1978) [Nice Copy].

I think I'm alone in regarding this to be the best entry in the Star Wars universe.  I'm not even joking[nb]I do think I am alone in regarding it to be the best entry in the Star Wars universe.[/nb].

Glebe

Cracking news!:

Disney+ will add rare Star Wars spin-offs in a new vintage collection.

QuoteDisney+ has a big treat in store for Star Wars fans as the streaming service is set to add some rare spin-offs to a new Star Wars vintage collection.

On April 2 (in the US and UK) Disney+ will add 1984's Caravan Of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, its sequel Ewoks: The Battle Of Endor, and 1985 animated series Star Wars: Ewoks for your viewing pleasure.

Also ready for streaming is the original Star Wars: Clone Wars animated shorts and the animated short The Story Of The Faithful Wookiee, which originally aired as part of the Star Wars Holiday Special.

The Story Of The Faithful Wookiee features the first appearance of Boba Fett, and this will be the very first time any part of The Star Wars Holiday Special is getting an official release – but there's no word yet if we'll ever get the full special on Disney+.

I've never seen the Ewoks films and I don't care how crap they turn out to be are I'm watching 'em.

Dex Sawash


Glebe

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 19, 2021, 10:31:54 AMDid you burn through  Clone Wars yet?

You know what Dex, I gave up. Too much other stuff to watch!

Dex Sawash

You're not going to be ready for You'll probably be able to ignore Bad Batch, 4th May.

Glebe

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 19, 2021, 11:05:15 AMYou're not going to be ready for You'll probably be able to ignore Bad Batch, 4th May.

Yeah, not up to speed with animated Wars!

Replies From View

WankDavies Jnr (Skywalker) isn't on Disney+ yet but it might be on the Disney Star offshoot.

idunnosomename

Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars is coming to the platform in April. I remember it made General Grievous seem cool. then in the film he was a pile of wank who fannied about on a trike and got shot. rubbish.

St_Eddie

I like the anecdote from a LucasArts developer regarding George Lucas...

QuoteStar Wars: The Force Unleashed's protagonist, Starkiller; "[That name] was only supposed to be a nickname or call sign, not a proper name from the beginning," a former LucasArts employee says. The development team hoped that Lucas would give Vader's apprentice a Darth moniker, which at the time, was something that didn't happen often.

"The team threw a Hail Mary to George, saying the game would have more credibility if the apprentice had a 'Darth' title," a Force Unleashed team member says. Lucas agreed that this situation made sense for Sith royalty, and offered up two Darth titles for the team to choose from. "He threw out 'Darth Icky' and 'Darth Insanius.' There was a pregnant pause in the room after that. People waiting for George to say 'just kidding,' but it never comes, and he just moved on to another point."

My own suggestion would have been Darth Bastardio.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Darth Sodbollocks.

So the terms of the Lucasfilm buyout do allow the most notoriously bad spinoffs to be shown, but not the theatrical cuts of the original films?

mjwilson

I think I read that the Disney takeover of Fox eliminated the last obstacle to them releasing the original versions of the original trilogy, if they wanted to. Prior to that Fox still had some rights (distribution rights to A New Hope maybe?)

St_Eddie

There's a rumour that one of the stipulations made by George Lucas when signing the contracts for the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney was that they weren't allowed to distribute the original cuts of Star Wars.  Not sure of the validity of that rumour but it certainly sounds like the sort of petty thing Lucas would do.

An tSaoi

Quote from: mjwilson on March 21, 2021, 08:32:25 PM
I think I read that the Disney takeover of Fox eliminated the last obstacle to them releasing the original versions of the original trilogy, if they wanted to. Prior to that Fox still had some rights (distribution rights to A New Hope maybe?)

Yes, Fox had perpetual distribution rights on the first one, which is now moot. Lucas had a bit more sway when they made the sequels, and got a better deal.

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 21, 2021, 08:44:13 PM
There's a rumour that one of the stipulations made by George Lucas when signing the contracts for the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney was that they weren't allowed to distribute the original cuts of Star Wars.

You can almost guarantee that's true.

A few years ago a TV station wanted to screen THX 1138, and advertised it as the original theatrical version. When it actually aired, it was the Special Edition. Either they didn't check what cut they had, or Lucasfilm intervened. We can assume the same goes for Star Wars. You sometimes hear rumours that some indie cinema will be screening the original versions, but they always end up not going ahead, or switching prints in the end.

Even the Library of Congress doesn't have the original cut of Star Wars.

The most recent official Lucasfilm release of the unaltered trilogy was a letterboxed and pillarboxed laserdisc copy that was put out on DVD as an extra feature. It has been suggested that because the restoration of the original trilogy and the creation of the special editions happened in tandem, the two can't be separated, and the unaltered versions don't really exist anymore, at least not in a high-quality state. Maybe Lucas has some pristine reels buried in a salt mine, but considering the hash they made of the restorations (and I don't just mean the SE additions), I wouldn't be surprised if they basically destroyed the proper versions. Look what happened to the Sistine Chapel what it was "restored": a lot of the detail was ruined.

An tSaoi

#16
Eddie, you might find this article interesting: http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryofstarwarscom/secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html

That site went offline a while ago, nice to see someone saved it.

Quote
Footage from documentaries on the SE reveals that ILM had gone back to the original special effects elements, which had been meticulously saved, and then scanned and digitally recomposited them (in some instances, their placement is slightly different than the original, even though the principle was to match them as closely as possible--for instance, the seeker ball in the scene of Luke's Millennium Falcon training is positioned not quite the same as the original composite, though the difference is basically imperceptible while in motion). In American Cinematographer, it is never stated that this re-compositing process was enacted for every visual effect, but it seems that at the very least most of them were. When these were finished, they were printed back onto film and cut into the O-neg, again replacing the originals. The O-neg was slowly being subsumed by new material.

Had the film remained like this, we would have a restored version of Star Wars, perfectly matching the original release but with pristine quality, even to the point where it was better than what could have been possible back then (as with the higher quality optical transitions). However, this was only part of the process of making what was eventually called "The Special Edition." ILM was working on many dozens of new shots, and an even larger amount of enhanced shots, using digital effects to re-do, expand, re-edit and otherwise alter many scenes in the film. When these were completed, they apparently were printed onto film and re-cut into the negative, replacing the original negs.

As a result, the negative for Star Wars is filled with CGI-laden modern alterations. When Lucas says that the original version physically does not exist, this is what he really means--the negative is conformed to the Special Edition.

It was released again in 2000--this time removing the titling of "Special Edition." Because this was supposed to supplant the original, all prints in circulation of the original were recalled (studios control all rented prints--none are sold privately, though a black market exists), and possibly destroyed (studio print masters are, of course, kept). Today, Fox/Lucasfilm--Lucasfilm gained the rights in 1998 or 1999--only loans out prints of the Special Edition (no theatrical prints were ever made of the 2004 SE).

The film needed to be digitized to release it on DVD in the first place, and when Lucas decided to make further changes to the film, the highest quality source was sought for scanning--the negatives. This would create a new master digital negative that would serve as a base for Lucas' definitive version of the film. There are a number of caveats that resulted from this, however.

One was that the negative was scanned only in HD resolution of 1080p, in 10-bit RGB. This was a state worse than the primitive 2K scans ILM had done for the SE. By contrast, when Blade Runner was restored and enhanced in 2007, the live-action was scanned at 4K, the normal standard, and the visual effect shots at 8K. Godfather's 2008 restoration was scanned at 4K for the entire film, while Wizard of Oz's 2009 release was done at 8K. Why Lucas chose to source his master from a paltry 1080 HD scan is hard to fathom, especially when 4K was long in place as the standard, with 6K and 8K looming on the horizon as a viable replacement since data storage was becoming cheaper. One reason may be because Lucas was shooting the two prequels--Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith--on the Sony CineAlta, which itself was 1080 (being the first generation of HD feature-film cameras).

With the new 2004 SE existing partly to link the six films, this was indeed the case as the original trilogy was lowered in resolution to that of the first three episodes. Ironically, as Lucas moved into more "high tech" digital arenas, the quality of the image slowly declined, going from a 35mm original, to a partly-2K 1997 SE and then a fully-1080p 2004 SE. According to Videography, the negs were scanned on a Cintel C-Reality telecine, at 1920x1080 resolution, in 4:4:4 RGB, recorded to Sony SR tape.

The second caveat that resulted from scanning the O-neg is one that was irrespective of the output resolution, and this was that they were once again working from a copy of the film without color-correction, since the meticulous work YCM Labs did existed only on the SE's Interpositive (again, the O-neg can't have its physical image corrected, it has to be produced on a copy). Perhaps because of the fact that Lucas had lost all of his color-work, he embarked on a new principle--instead of faithfully reproducing the look of the original release and photography, as had been the case on the previous re-release, it could be digitally manipulated to have a slicker look that matched the high-saturation, high-contrast look of the three prequels.

In short, the various special edtions are a complete bodge-job that had irreparably diminished the films, regardless of the new CGI gubbins.

St_Eddie

Interesting.  Thanks for that.  They still could theoretically release 4K versions of the original cuts, given that fans have already taken it upon themselves to do it with releases such as Harmy's Despecialized Editions.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I guess there's less incentive as time marches on. Horrifyingly, the Special Editions are older now than the originals were back in 1997. To an increasingly large section of the audience, they are the proper versions.

Replies From View

I find Lucas' viewpoint on this so bizarre.  Yes, I appreciate the desire to keep tinkering with older work, especially when there have been deadlines along the way and you maintain a desire to keep going with it.  We probably all share elements of that across the work we do.


But there are two aspects that he seems to overlook or deny:  1) a work-in-progress is a perfectly valid version for people who might want to see it, and 2) once you have made your work public, it is no longer entirely owned by you.  Other people - if you are lucky - will have their own attachments to aspects of the work you hadn't fully envisaged or intended to be there, and it is not your right to strip those out in your own personal crusade for perfectionism.  Perfectionism is limited.  Your intentions are not perfect.


Anyone who tinkers should really be embracing the fact that their work can be seen and loved in its multiple versions, and aim to keep all those versions out there, as they all represent important parts of its story.  Spielberg eventually understood this when he made sure the original version of ET wasn't erased from history.  He tinkered with Close Encounters and kept all its versions available, too.  By and large, "important" films are never entirely replaced by their director's cuts.  And Blade Runner is absolutely the textbook example of how it should be done:  the theatrical version with its voiceover narration is almost universally derided, but a) a minority of people actually prefer it and nobody has a right to take it away from them, and b) it's a fucking fascinating slice of cinematic history however you look at it.  Studio meddling, or the decisions agreed by writers and directors to make a film more accessible after test audiences have ripped it apart.  Regrettable to most people involved on a purely artistic level, but it still existsFour versions of Blade Runner sit on the shelf alongside the "final cut" for people who value them.  It's a marvel.


So yeah, Lucas is being absurd.

Replies From View

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on March 21, 2021, 11:17:10 PMHorrifyingly, the Special Editions are older now than the originals were back in 1997. To an increasingly large section of the audience, they are the proper versions.

This fact is indeed horrifying.


St_Eddie

Quote from: vainsharpdad on March 22, 2021, 10:38:35 PM
Has this been mentioned yet?

https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/project-4k77/

I alluded to it in my previous post but it's good that you weren't lazy like me and actually provided a link.

Dex Sawash

Bad Batch is on D+ today. Clone Wars spinoff about some clones that didn't turn out exactly right.  Seems a bit rum in concept, maybe. They are valuable to the team despite imperfect vision or being too tall.

beanheadmcginty


phantom_power

I am pretty sure even the "original versions" aren't the real original versions as some tinkering was done after its initial release. The most obvious one is the title change but also I read a while ago that there are other things like blaster shots being toned down