Trailers featuring footage that does not appear in the film they're promoting

[Satsuki Murashige]

I hope that Lucasfilm under Disney ownership will see things the same way. It's really no different then preserving the early Disney cartoons warts and all as artifacts of their time, or all of their classic features.

[Carl Looper]

The updates that were done to the 1977 Star Wars film were really quite terrible.

 

I was fortunate enough to see the original film when it was first released. I was a teenager at the time, and it was really quite an awesome experience.

 

While the original effects work of the time are really quite clunky (from our contemporary vantage point), they nevertheless possess their own specific kind of magic, and one that increases as time goes by. The "clunkiness" becomes a feature rather than a fault. Or would have had done so had Lucas not become obsessed with the idea that the effects were faulty.

 

It's like the effects work in 2001. Some of the orbiting satellites look like cardboard cutouts in the way they move (the perspective not changing as they otherwise move in perspective), but they acquire their own kind of magic anyway - and one that just grows with age.

 

If one wants to "improve" on a film one really should just make a brand new film, rather than endlessly working over an old one.

 

C

 

ps. I have a Super8 edition of Star Wars in colour. Would have been optically printed from the original film as digital intermediates didn't exist at the time. Watching it - projected on a wall - it's amazing how vivid and beautiful it is. Looks heaps better than any video copy. But of course it's in 4:3 and only 10 minutes.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Satsuki Murashige]

While the old effects arguably have more charm, I think the bigger problem is that once you start making changes to a historical artifact you are taking it out of its original context and creating something completely new in its place. If they two can co-exist side by side, then nothing is lost. But when we are told that not only does the original context no longer exist, but that we should forget its existence as quickly as possible then that rubs many people the wrong way.

 

Personal and cultural history exists, and we should remember all of it even if we are ashamed of some parts.

[David Mullen ASC]

The original negative of "Apocalypse Now" was also disassembled and reassembled to make the Redux version, so now the original cut only exists on dupe elements.

[Satsuki Murashige]

One field where important cultural artifacts are constantly modernized is in architecture. There are practical realities of safety and the need to use the space that make this basically impossible to avoid, but at least records and photographs are kept to preserve the continuum of its history.

 

Imagine if every time the Great Pyramids or the Coliseum were worked on, any evidence of their former state was expunged and the public was told that this is how those monuments have always been and were meant to be. It's Orwellian.

[David Mullen ASC]

But unlike a working building, there is no "need" to modernize a work of art just so that it can be repackaged and resold again, other than for making more money. Though I don't have a problem with these alternative versions created by the original directors OTHER than the fact that the original should be preserved, not erased is if it didn't happen. If the 1977 version of "Star Wars" is an artifact of its time, so is the 1997 version, which is fine if both exist and both are available.

[Tyler Purcell]

The original negative of "Apocalypse Now" was also disassembled and reassembled to make the Redux version, so now the original cut only exists on dupe elements.

Interesting and sad at the same time. It's really to bad they felt they needed to work from the original negative. I mean don't get me wrong, they did a great job with the redux, it looks better, sounds better and is a complete film, unlike Star Wars which lost almost all of it's charm in the redux's. It's funny because I thought Lucas did a good job with the redux of THX1138. Only adding sparse elements, cleaning up the image over all and of course, remixing the entire film to bring it up to where it SHOULD have been at the time of the original release.

[George Ebersole]

Yeah, but you're talking about a man who quit film making so he could "raise his kids". That's fairly egocentric and condescending, as if other parents had that option or were less parent worthy for not doing so (and yes, if he's reading this, then I've closed that job door ... big deal). When what he probably should have done is to keep making small 16mm shorts to keep his skills sharp.

 

Revamps of old works seems to be more appropriate for keeping them interesting to a newer audience. When classic 1960's Star Trek was given a SFX makeover I thought it was a good thing. Growing up watching the show I always considered the SFX to be mediocre at best, since 2001 Space Odyssey showed that you could do realistic and interesting space shots, but for whatever reason the Desilu SFX team didn't seem to be able to duplicate that. So when the new CGI SFX version came around, I was glad.

 

Tons of other examples.

 

One does wonder what "Jason and the Argonauts" or "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" would look like if the Harryhausen's monsters were replaced with CGI facsimiles. Again, to keep those works interesting to the public, I think if the creatures could rendered with the same exact sculpting, only have their motion replaced with more realistic CGI movements verse the jerky stop motion, then I think that would breathe new life into those films. But, is it worth it?

 

The almighty dollar decides.

[Mark Dunn]

IIRC the ST effects were recreated because the originals used a lot of CRI duping which ages very badly, for the same or similar reasons that every non-IB print made before the 80s has pinked.

Whatever suspicions one may have as to refusing to provide a 1977 version to the register, one may be that LFL simply can't. Odd that they don't have one of the English IB prints, though.

[George Ebersole]

But if all the information is digitized now what difference would it make?

[KH Martin]

IIRC the ST effects were recreated because the originals used a lot of CRI duping which ages very badly, for the same or similar reasons that every non-IB print made before the 80s has pinked.

 

It's because the original elements are GONE. Recomping the original elements digitally if they had ever been found would have been a decent compromise, but I find the so-called remastered TOS TREK effects to be godawfully cartoonish, especially the ship stuff, which doesn't have the nice strong key look that was the best thing about the originals.

 

All of the TMP fx elements are gone too ... Paramount apparently didn't want to pick them up, so EEG and Apogee wound up tossing them when they ran out of space in the early 80s. ILM did some tweaking to a Trumbull warp drive shot for the first time the ship goes warp in WRATH OF KHAN, but I think they were just doing stuff to a dupe taken out of the first film, not working with original elements.

[David Mullen ASC]

One does wonder what "Jason and the Argonauts" or "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" would look like if the Harryhausen's monsters were replaced with CGI facsimiles. Again, to keep those works interesting to the public, I think if the creatures could rendered with the same exact sculpting, only have their motion replaced with more realistic CGI movements verse the jerky stop motion, then I think that would breathe new life into those films.

 

The main reason anyone rewatches those old Harryhausen movies is for Harryhausen's stop-motion effects, not the acting or directing.

[John Holland]

I don't really belive you are serious about replacing the stop moption !

[Tyler Purcell]

Also... the star trek redux effects honored the original perfectly. They did SUCH a great job with the re-release, the show looks brand new. That's what failed in the Star Wars redux, they didn't honor the original, they manipulated everything they could. Wouldn't it have been easier to have Harrison Ford re-read a line so the Jabba scene which is so horrendous, could have been played out like it was in the original camera negative? As if it's one of Jabba's henchmen who was coming after him? That would have been a lot simpler and matched the look of the original film. But alas, they added this horrible CG creature that was bad when it came out and looks even worse today.

[Mark Dunn]

Also... the star trek redux effects honored the original perfectly. They did SUCH a great job with the re-release, the show looks brand new.

Have to dissent there. It's cropped to widescreen and looks awful. I can scarcely bring myself to watch it... or rather the middle two thirds of it.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Mark Dunn

[David Mullen ASC]

I think the new vfx are 4x3 on my blu-ray, wouldn't make sense if they were 16x9 when all the shots around them are 4x3...

[KH Martin]

Also... the star trek redux effects honored the original perfectly. They did SUCH a great job with the re-release, the show looks brand new. That's what failed in the Star Wars redux, they didn't honor the original, they manipulated everything they could. Wouldn't it have been easier to have Harrison Ford re-read a line so the Jabba scene which is so horrendous, could have been played out like it was in the original camera negative? As if it's one of Jabba's henchmen who was coming after him? That would have been a lot simpler and matched the look of the original film. But alas, they added this horrible CG creature that was bad when it came out and looks even worse today.

Usually agree with you, but couldn't disagree more strenuously on the TREK part of your comment. Contrast, color, style, the CG doesn't do justice to the originals at all, except in a couple of new matte paintings that look halfway like they could be period. Now if you were to cut the new space shots into the Trek animated series from the 70s, I'd agree, because the ships look like damn cartoons.

[Mark Dunn]

I think the new vfx are 4x3 on my blu-ray, wouldn't make sense if they were 16x9 when all the shots around them are 4x3...

It is being broadcast here in widescreen. Obviously we're being short-changed, then.

[Guest]

I think a bigger problem is the studios cutting trailers that totally misrepresent the movie. The list is very long.

 

The trailers for Gravity promised a George Clooney Sandra Bullock two hander. Only one problem, George Clooney is killed off in the first 5 minutes of the movie, ooops.

 

And of course there's the now famous quip from every person in history who has paid to see a comedy film......hey, they put all the funniest bits in the trailer!

 

R,

[Satsuki Murashige]

But unlike a working building, there is no "need" to modernize a work of art just so that it can be repackaged and resold again, other than for making more money. Though I don't have a problem with these alternative versions created by the original directors OTHER than the fact that the original should be preserved, not erased is if it didn't happen. If the 1977 version of "Star Wars" is an artifact of its time, so is the 1997 version, which is fine if both exist and both are available.

Exactly my thoughts. Nail, head, etc.

[David Mullen ASC]

Even the trailer for "Hail, Caesar!" was a bit misleading, it suggests that all the stars of Capitol Pictures were going to end up helping Eddie Mannix solve the kidnapping mystery when the movie turns out is not a tightly plotted caper, more of a Day in the Life of Eddie Mannix sort of meditation.

[Satsuki Murashige]

Yeah, but you're talking about a man who quit film making so he could "raise his kids". That's fairly egocentric and condescending, as if other parents had that option or were less parent worthy for not doing so.

 

Must disagree with you there. Lucas could afford to never work again after 'Star Wars' and what he chooses to do with his own time is his affair. Good on him if he chose to spend more time raising his kids. I admire him for that.

[Carl Looper]

Re. Harryhausen

 

Replacing Harryhausen's stop motion work ???

 

That's completely ridiculous.

 

There's a philosophical riddle which asks the question: if forced to choose between the destruction of Newton's Principia, or Plato's Republic (a Sophies choice), which would one choose?

 

The answer is the destruction of Newton's Principia.

 

Why?

 

Because one can always rewrite Newton's Principia from scratch, from a study of nature (and mathematics).

 

In film making part of the art of such is akin to Newton's Principia - it is recoverable from a study of nature - the laws of physics etc. It has to do with that which happens in a predictable and repeatable way. For example, if a film ages in a certain way one can model that according to study of such and use that to reverse the aging process (to the extent one can).

 

But the other half (a much bigger half) is impossible to reverse/substitute with a reconstruction/replacement drawn from a study of nature/physics. It's to do with not only the particular physical state of the universe at a particular time and place, but the state of various individual's imaginations, and indeed an entire society at a given time.

 

Harryhausen's work (as much as any other photographic content) falls into this second category. It's irreplaceable.

 

Special effects might be interpreted as emulating otherwise physical systems but they do so in a very creative way - in ways that bend the rules, in all sorts of strange and interesting ways. And it's the way the rules are bent which is irreplaceable.

 

C

Edited February 8, 2016 by Carl Looper

[David Mullen ASC]

One could remake the Harryhausen movies, they are popular folk tales and myths after all, but to replace the effects in the original movies is crazy -- those movies are only famous now BECAUSE of Harryhausen's stop-motion effects -- Harryhausen is the real star of those movies!

[Tyler Purcell]

Usually agree with you, but couldn't disagree more strenuously on the TREK part of your comment. Contrast, color, style, the CG doesn't do justice to the originals at all, except in a couple of new matte paintings that look halfway like they could be period. Now if you were to cut the new space shots into the Trek animated series from the 70s, I'd agree, because the ships look like damn cartoons.

Maybe there are multiple versions? The old show looked; grainy, dirty, scratched, poorly composited, and had horrible color shifts. The new version looks like it was made yesterday, which is quite impressive. My point in comparing Star Wars redux to Star Trek Redux was the fact that the Star Wars redux wasn't a restoration, it was an "upgrade" which added elements that don't belong. The Star Trek Redux basically treated the project as restoration and tried to keep as close to the original as they could.