Josh-da-man

Very few of the DVD special features were carried over to the blu-rays. Off-hand, the only special features the DVDs and BRs have in common are the commentary tracks.

Jay G.

Well, Fox (20th Century Fox, the movie studio, not FOX the network) would've originally owned everything related to the first movie, since they originally owned copyright.

However, they transferred the copyright back to Lucasfilm shortly before the prequels (rumor is it was part of the deal in getting distribution rights to the prequels), and Fox only retains distribution rights to the original film, in perpetuity. I don't know if that extends to distribution rights to all materials related to the first film or not.

Disney is going to have to make a deal with Fox to put that first film into any future box set, so if Fox owns certain special features, those may be part of the deal too. But it's not guaranteed.

hanshotfirst1138

That's actually a good question. I wonder where various ancillary stuff-documentaries, deleted scenes, etc. falls in legal terms?

Assuming any future boxed sets are in the works. The originals aside, unless they want to repackage the old films in a boxed set with the new ones (and maybe DMA codes), I don't know what the point would be.

gerrythedon

http://www.disneystore.com/live-acti...26%7c#longDesc

Jay G.

Is it the original theatrical cut though?

Josh Z

This may have just been a rumor, but I recall hearing scuttlebutt that Lucas deliberately excluded Empire of Dreams from the Blu-ray because some of the interviews and footage in the documentary contradicted the "official" story of the trilogy's production that he wanted to promote - i.e. that the 1997 Special Edition versions reflected his original vision that he always intended from the beginning.

hanshotfirst1138

Given his views on the matter, from Lucas, that's sounds depressingly plausible and likely.

rocket1312

http://moviemezzanine.com/the-fans-who-saved-star-wars/

This article is long and a lot of it will be old news to people who already follow these sorts of things closely, but it's a good overview of the current state of Star Wars fan restorations. It's focus is mainly on the recently released Team Negative1's Silver Screen Edition, but it also touches on Harmy's Despecialized Edition and Mike Verta's Legacy Edition (for my money, far and away the most exciting thing going) as well as a handful of others.

Jay G.

Interesting part from the article:
I believe this is the demo reel being referenced:
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/95919913" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>

RMW Image Processing Demo Reel from Reliance MediaWorks on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/95919913

E Unit

So all of the mythical ones we never got, like Cameron's classics (True Lies, The Abyss), Star Wars...they're all being remastered? Dare to dream I guess, that'll we'll get all of those in 4k. And I was wondering if the Bond catalog would get updated to 4k.

rocket1312

Yeah, I thought the Reliance stuff was common knowledge by now. The work was done a few years ago, and there's speculation that perhaps it was done for use with the 3D versions that never saw the light of day. Either way, we already know that if Disney ever plans on doing anything with the OT, the current BD masters will have to be replaced. They're garbage. And of course any re-scan of the original elements will revert the films to their 1997 configuration, since any of the other changes only exist digitally in who knows what resolution/format. Maybe it would be easy for Lucasfilm to just reapply all of those changes to a new scan, but something tells me it wouldn't be. You might as well just go the extra mile and re-assemble the original versions at that point.

E Unit

Just wondering why that demo shows The Abyss and True Lies cropped.

Iron_Giant

Just saw that the total for all 3 box set is around $390 million, not bad at all.

OT/Prequel/OT+Prequel

Star Wars just keeps making money, even on BR.

Wonder how much has gone to Disney and how much to Fox? Lucas had rights to 5 out of the 6 six movies, so he (now Disney) much get a chunk of the profit?

rocket1312

Lucasfilm/Disney owns the copyright to all 6 movies. They've always earned a chunk of the profit. Fox currently owns distribution to all 6, but 5 of those revert back in a few years. Lucasfilm/Disney already has digital distribution rights for those 5.

rocket1312

Are they cropped? Or are they open matte? They were both filmed in super 35, which means the 2.35:1 presentation is when the cropping happens.

E Unit

Ah, well if it was Super 35, that explains it.

hanshotfirst1138

What is the native ratio of pre-cropped Super 35? About 1.78? I think that a lot of times, Super 35 was formatted for scope, but also show to allow a lot of stuff to happen center frame so that it could also be cropped to 1.33 for VHS and DVD.

rocket1312

The native ratio of 3 perf super-35 is close to 1.78:1. 4 perf is closer to standard 4:3. The big benefit to the format is that it is easily adaptable to a number of different aspect ratios.

hanshotfirst1138

You lose some resolution, but not only is it adaptable, Cameron says that he took to it because he had some FX problems when he tried working with anamorphic, and preferred shooting flat. Super 35 also couldn't be used for distribution proper, but was very useful for this reason for shooting TV since it was transferred to video. The small handful of movies which still shoot on film usually use Super 35 as well because all of the post-production and distribution is now handled in the DI. Though most HDTV airings of Super 35 films I see tend to crop instead of open up.

Shannon Nutt

Could this be leading up to an unaltered A NEW HOPE announcement, or do you think it's related to something else?

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/02/18...s-script-pages

rocket1312

Who knows? Either way, I have no doubt in my mind that the OOT will come at some point. I just don't see any rational argument as to why it wouldn't happen.

Doctorossi

Well, no one ever accused George Lucas of being terribly rational about this and, while he's no longer in control of release decisions, he did choose Disney to be the guardian of his legacy and they may have a desire to honor his wishes and intents (at least while he's alive).

Texan26

His big announcement will probably be that he's back for episode 8. He has not been confirmed to be in it.

Shannon Nutt

It could simply be the announcement for THE FORCE AWAKENS on home video in April...which Disney hasn't "officially" announced yet (meaning no press release, box cover art, extras, etc.).

hanshotfirst1138

I'm amazed that Disney and Fox haven't brought down a world of legal heat on all of this stuff. If it weren't for fear of legal repercussions (and my own incompetence at burning them), I'd be all over many fan-edits of interest. For films I own, I hasten to add.

What would they be mastering from? The last time there were actual 35mm prints was the 1997 rollout, unless they're going back to IPs, separation masters, etc, and that sounds way too good to be true.

At this point, The Abyss and True Lies have become almost as mythical the OOT.

I guess a possible option would be to go back to the 1997 prints, try to fix the color-timing, then go back to other sources (release prints, separation masters, IPs) for the OOT footage and cobble it together. But I seriously doubt Disney or Reliant would spend the time or effort on that. Did the Blu-rays look that bad?

As mentioned about the Super 35 thing, does anyone have comparative shots of the 2..5 versions or even old full-frame VHS copies to check against? Or the color timing, since we know it'll be teal . Well, there's also T1 with the mono and T2, but those look even more like pipe dreams.

The Star Wars franchise is a virtually guaranteed money-maker. Audiences love it and always keep coming back to it. The fact that it still sells like crack does not give me confidence that enough people care about the OOT to make Disney consider it a profitable endeavor, but that's a separate issue.

They could strike a deal with Fox, but obviously none of us are privy to the multibilliondollar board meetings.

Maybe he's just bored .

Well, some pessimists such as I have speculated that Lucas may have contracted Disney not to, there isn't any evidence to that as far as I'm aware. That said, people have been saying this since the Disney buyout: "It'll happen." WHEN?! I'm depressed and not getting any younger, a bit of good news will be nice .

As I said, he may have also contracted them that way. Given how Lucas felt about the issue, it wouldn't surprise me if he'd tried to safeguard it that way.