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Lucas Gives With One Hand and Takes Away With The Other! Star Wars fans rejoiced when the announcement of the unaltered original SW films being released on DVD was made. Finally Lucas had decided to pay heed to the unending laments from fans. All seems well at last in that far away galaxy but wait! What’s this? A disturbance has been sensed in the Force! It seems Lucas has managed to pervert this joyous occasion.
For those Home Theater afficiandos, the name Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits website is a trusted source. This latest tidbit is sure to spark up many light sabres! Read the following that Bill posted in his daily column for May 17th:
“Well details on the specs of the DVDs are starting to come out and contains a big shock. The movies will be not be enhanced for widescreen presentation. That means no anamorphic enhancement – a standard feature for DVDs today.
We’ve confirmed something that we’d begun to suspect… and it’s probably going to disappoint a lot of you. It certainly disappoints us here at The Bits. Those new DVD editions of the Star Wars films? The original theatrical versions of the films are going to be non-anamorphic (our original post on this indicated otherwise, but we have confirmed that the widescreen versions will be letterboxed only). What this likely means is that Lucasfilm has simply re-purposed the non-anamorphic transfers that were done for previous laserdisc and VHS releases of the “original” versions of the films. And with that, our enthusiasm for this DVD release has just dropped through the floor. Anamorphic-enhanced versions of the theatrical editions, we’d buy in a heartbeat. But what we’re going to get instead is little better than a ported-over laserdisc. In this day and age, releasing a widescreen film without anamorphic enhancement on DVD is just unacceptable. Does Lucasfilm really think fans want those versions of the films on DVD so badly that people just won’t care? Yes Virginia, they do. How many versions of these films do you suppose Lucasfilm will try to get fans to buy in high-def over the coming years? And think about it… you just know the studio has to be prepping yet another standard DVD release for next year’s 30th Anniversary of the original Star Wars. Do you suppose this means that the theatrical editions won’t be included in the superdupber box set of all six films? Probably. Ugh.”
So there you have it. Buyer beware. Looks like Lucasfilm is poised to release multiple versions of the unaltered films as well. Save those pennies.
AH! Thanks Adam – I get it now. So if you have a widescreen T.V. the original versions Lucas will be selling will either be…
A.) Letterboxed AND Windowboxed
Or…
B.) Zoomed in but the resolution will be lost.
I think I understand now. Quick question though. I have the originals on VHS and was going to do what The 1mperfex Collector said he was going to do – burn them to DVD. (This was before Lucas made this announcement).
But this will produce the same effect won’t it? It won’t be any better than what Lucas is selling will it?
Oh – sorry, Ryan – I neglected to refresh the window I’d opened last night before responding. I didn’t mean to imply that your explanation was incorrect.
Most of what is stated above about how widescreen movies are presented on DVD is incorrect.
These are the various options, with the terms that are usually used to describe them (but of course, there’s no standard, and sometimes different terms are used):
4:3 original
“Full screen” = the movie was shot (or rendered) in 4:3 TV-size ratio, and is presented as shot. Alternately, the movie was shot in Super 35 and is presented unmatted (or differently matted) for the TV ratio. When presented on a widescreen TV, the movie is windowboxed (bars on the side) or zoomed (the top and bottom is cut off and resolution is lost).
“Pan and Scan” = the movie was shot in some wide format, and the sides of the frame have been clipped to make the movie fit on the TV ratio. When presented on a widescreen TV, the movie is windowboxed (bars on the side) or zoomed (the top and bottom is cut off and resolution is lost).
Widescreen original
“Letterbox” = the movie was shot in some widescreen format, but the picture is a standard 4:3 aspect ratio picture with black bars inserted at the top and bottom. When presented on a widescreen TV, the movie is both letterboxed (bars on the top) and windowboxed (bars on the side) or zoomed (restoring the full picture width, maintaining the letterboxing, but resolution is lost).
“Anamorphic Widescreen” or “Widescreen” = the movie was shot in some widescreen format, and this is preserved in the picture. On a normal TV ratio, this is presented identically to a letterboxed movie. On a widescreen TV, the full picture resolution is utilized to let the movie appear in widescreen with no zooming. There will still be bars at the top and bottom unless the aspect ratio of the movie matches the ratio of the TV exactly, but they’re not “in the picture”, so no data on the disc is being wasted to display them, and no resolution is lost. If a widescreen image is displayed properly, there’s no vertical stretching. If you see vertical stretching, your TV or DVD player is improperly configured to display a widescreen image.
Widescreen originals may be in a number of different aspect ratios.
Star Wars was filmed in PanaVision anamorphic, so it could have been presented that way on DVD, but that does take more work – it requires a new transfer. It’s not like they haven’t had the time to do a proper presentation. Instead, it sounds like they’re using the old non-anamorphic transfer used for the VHS and Laserdisc versions, which is not technically “the original theatrical version” but “the original transfer of the theatrical version we used on this old technology home video release”.
An addendum: James Berardinelli of Reel Views offers up an interesting and balanced look at Lucas’s method of releasing the Star Wars DVDs on his blog:
http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/reelthoughts.html
It’s the May 18, 2006 entry: “The Big Dipper”
This is very disappointing. I already wasn’t planning on buying these re-releases, but, c’mon, all Lucas is doing here is re-releasing the laserdisk version of the movies on DVD.
Yes, fans want the original uncut, unchanged versions. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to see those versions in as good a format as possible. Cleaning up the prints (i.e. getting the best source possible for the DVD transfer) and making the DVDs anamorphic is the _minimum_ you do to make a film presentable. This is not “altering” the film in any substantial way; it’s just making it presentable for a particular home format. (The films looked good on the big screen when they first came out, so they should look good on your TV too.)
I’m not really understanding hobbit’s complaints about the anamorphic format. Yes the source image of an anamorphic DVD is “stretched”, but you will never see this on screen unless you have an improperly set-up DVD player. Anamorphic DVDs don’t waste on the black formatting bars that letterbox DVDs do. This means they can devote more space to the actual movie image (and simply format the “black bars” in automatically for those with 4×3 TVs). Letterbox DVDs are not more “authentic” than anamorphic ones and they are not “exactly” what you saw on the movie screen. Letterbox and anamorphic DVDs are both transfers from film, which is superior in resolution and quality to both. However, anarmophic DVDs have the potential to be closer in quality to the film original, meaning that they’re the more authentic transfers.
Anamorphic DVDs are a step up in quality in much the same way HD-DVDs/Blu-Ray discs will be from DVDs. And letterbox DVDs look absolutely _terrible_ on a widescreen TV. (Believe me, once you start watching movies on a quality widescreen TV, you’ll never want to go back.)
Sorry if I went on a bit of a rant there, but I’d thought we were finally done with film studios being cheap and not releasing anamorphic DVDs. It’s a pet peeve of mine (along with movie studios pushing “full”-screen DVDs over widescreen ones).
The way I see it, George could’ve made a profit by just releasing a single disc of the original versions (with deleted scenes) for $10 to $20. Glad I found a store nearby that has these tapes. I figure to wait for the DVD, but I’d rather burn the tapes to the DVD.
If anyone really wants to get under George’s skin, burn the original tapes to DVD, and sell them, just like the Phantom Edit, LOL!
Yeah, I’m gone!
Anamorphic enhancement is something that affects widescreen TVs only. It only looks stretched if you have 16×9 mode enabled on you DVD player but are watching on a 4×3 TV. It enables DVDs to have more resolution for 16×9 TVs. I have an HDTV and there is a big difference between zooming in on a letterboxed movie and watching an anamophicly encoded one. Shame on Lucas.
No, I read it right. The picture examples at Wikipdedia show exactly what the Anamorphic process does. It stretches the picture vertically. You get the whole theater frame (side to side) but everything is “Taller” than it should be.
Call me nuts but I don’t like that – I prefer the Letterbox. Good old fashioned plain old EXACTLY the same thing you saw in the theater.
Of course Lucas STILL is acting like a spoiled little brat being forced to give back the candy he stole. There’s no reason he couldn’t offer an anamorphic version as well.
The fact that he’s even bothering to include the new fucked-up versions on the same DVD is testament to that.
Nobody is going to be buying those DVD’s to look at Franken-StarWars George.
The new movie stuffed up the originals for me.
I just can’t watch them now knowing DV was such a pussy.
I’ve officially jumped ship. Lucas can keep the bloody films.
That’s it! Execute Order 66!
Now, Lucas should release the damn Star Wars Holiday Special, just because, well, who gives a damn anymore? Fans? What fans? Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em anyway you can, front, behind…the pocketbook….
Why do so many people have this undying loyalty and love for George Lucas when he constantly uses them as tools and then spins it like he’s doing them a favor? Stop falling for eveything this guy does just because it’s got Star Wars on it. So many folks keep doing it and he keeps bending them over. Stop making excuses for the guy.
It’s ok to call crap “crap” and release after release after release “greedy”. To be objectively critical and to love the films (The first three. Sorry, prequels) are not mutually exclusive.
Ok. Ranting done. Proceed.
I dont see what people are crying about. They wanted the untouched originals. People cried for it. Petitioned. Marched en mass in the streets for it.
George is offering up what the fans want. They wanted untouched, they are getting untouched. No DVD enhancements. Original and Untouched.
The part I am choked about is that the $70 boxed set of these untouched will have a two disc set for each of the three movies. One disk is the untouched, and the other is the enhanced Special DVD Editions. Yeah, the ones you bought last fall.
I personally think George isn’t putting this out to give the fans their Original Versions. He is doing this just to DARE you to play them side by side. Do he can say “LOOK! This is what I did to make them better, now shut up!”
The frame is squeezed in but it projects to look like normal widescreen on a regular TV and fills the whole screen on a widescreen TV. I think you just misread it.
This sucks though. This is obviously just Lucas trying to kill off the original trilogy with one last stab to the chest. Saying “Sure you can have it. But while you’re having your cake, we’re gonna be going Deliverance on your ass.”
Dance Sequences + Star Wars = Lameass Version of Star Wars
Yeah… see here…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic
I actually prefer the Letterbox over the Animorphic. I like the original shot with the original proportions – not the Animorphic (which stretches everything vertically).
So this announcement should be good news… (for me?)
Okay… Now I’m confusered… Somebody help me here…
WTF exactly is the movie going to be? Letterbox no?
I mean I know what Letterbox is – you see EVERYTHING. It’s the entire 16:9 with big black areas in the top and bottom of the screen.
Now on the other hand I know that some DVD’s are coming with what’s called “Widescreen” – which isn’t true Letterbox… it’s just “Sort-of Letterbox”. You see more than you would with a regular 4:3 pan and scan but you don’t see the ENTIRE theatrical picture like you do with letterbox.
Now I actually prefer Letterbox, so I should be happy no?
But on the other hand does true Letterbox look crappy on Widescreen TV’s? That sounds like what you guys are talking about…
The fuck?
Knew it had to be too good to be true. Goddamn, Lucas is a bigger pain in the ass than Jabba the Hutt.
geez, i’m a big star wars fan, and always bought the dvds the first day it came out. now, it looks like will be a first when i won’t be buying it. fuck that pisses me off. guess i’ll just wait for the right version of the original to be released. i for one do not need all those versions. lucas… take a lesson from peter jackson. better yet, peter don’t follow in lucas’ footsteps!
i say everyone chip in a $1 and buy the set and burn copies for everyone ;)
Oy vey!
After hearing this, I’d rather find the original versions on VHS (and I know where to find one!). Looks like I should get use to the Special Editions, because I find it hard now to do a freakin’ double-dip.
Sorry, Lucas.
You just lost another fans who could’ve bee willing to buy the Limited Edition. But, yeah, I think there might be suckers out there.
Just explaining how I feel.