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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-about-time dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The original, unaltered Star Wars trilogy is rumored to be re-released this year to mark the 40th anniversary of A New Hope. While fans have speculated for years that George Lucas will finally release the first edits of the iconic 1977, 1980 and 1983 films to the public in a variety of formats, a concrete announcement appears imminent. Numerous industry sources have informed fan site Making Star Wars that the original edits are on their way. This is a big deal for diehard fans, many of whom argue the versions they saw in cinemas during the late 70s and early 80s are far superior to the versions later released to the public.

[...] The 40th anniversary of A New Hope occurs on May 22.

Source: http://thathashtagshow.com/2017/02/unaltered-original-star-wars-trilogy-released-year/


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Celestial on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:53AM

    by Celestial (4891) on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:53AM (#471774) Journal

    The title is a wee bit misleading. As the summary states, it is rumored that Disney will re-release the original edits of the original Star Wars trilogy on Blu-Ray. This has been rumored off and on for ten years now. I personally will believe it when I see it, and not a moment before.

    • (Score: 1, Redundant) by aristarchus on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:34AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:34AM (#471778) Journal

      Whether it is, or is not, a rumour is of very little consequence, since they plan to release on blu-ray. I have nothing that can play a blu-ray, so I guess I will just have to wait until it comes out on BetaMax tape cassette.

      • (Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:07AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:07AM (#471800) Journal

        wait until it comes out on BetaMax tape cassette.

        I'll wait until it will be posted on pinterest as a series of animated GIFs.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @12:20PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @12:20PM (#471823)

        Long wait for new betamax but if you want to know what happens:

        Darth Vader turns away from the dark side and kills the emperor to save his son

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday February 26 2017, @07:21PM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday February 26 2017, @07:21PM (#471971) Journal

          I can see this new spoiler thing is going to be big. But are you kidding? Darth Vader has a son? Who is it?

          Not enough of a plot to base an entire trilogy on.

          • (Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Monday February 27 2017, @06:05AM

            by Bogsnoticus (3982) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:05AM (#472118)

            He got it on with Chewy's mum, and spawned Wicket.

            --
            Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
      • (Score: 2) by MadTinfoilHatter on Sunday February 26 2017, @07:08PM

        by MadTinfoilHatter (4635) on Sunday February 26 2017, @07:08PM (#471963)

        I guess I will just have to wait until someone puts a torrent on TPB the day after they're released.

        FTFY.

        So it's a good thing to finally get a good quality release, as Team Negative 1 [soylentnews.org] has only released Episode IV yet. Do use a VPN when torrenting, though. Disney has a reputation for aggressively going after file sharers.

        • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday February 27 2017, @08:35AM

          by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Monday February 27 2017, @08:35AM (#472169)

          Disney has a reputation for aggressively going after file sharers.

          Should not be a problem, since even if renewed after 14 years, the copyright should have expired by now.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:00PM (#471935)

      As long as the copies necessary to make this happen exist, I'm sure that Disney will do it. They don't have the emotional attachment that George does to the version of the film he envisioned. I'm sure the only considerations they'll make are whether it's possible to do this and whether there's a market for it.

      So, they haven't announced it, but I would be surprised if it doesn't happen eventually. Disney is just too interested in profits to ignore this excuse to sell another copy of the trilogy.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:46PM (#471951)

        This current 'rumor' probably is just fishing by them to see if anyone wants it.

        Will they use one of the existing restoration projects? Or re-do the whole thing? Or just do a sloppy master copy or upscale laserdisc dump?

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy's_Despecialized_Edition [wikipedia.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:19PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:19PM (#472010)

        there's no profit in disney. nothing is created and nothing is destroyed.
        if you wipe disney from the earth today there's no gain and no lose. so how can there be a profit (or lose)?

        maybe you are misrepresenting "profit" for " wealth re-distribution" as in "money from many hands into less hands" with an overall gain of ... nothing?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @03:19AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @03:19AM (#472086)

          Hi Aristarchus, ignorant as always, I see.

          They paid something for the franchise and the money they make on top of their expenses is profit.

  • (Score: 2) by ticho on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:39AM

    by ticho (89) on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:39AM (#471809) Homepage Journal

    ...also known as Project 'Milk Even More Money From Aging Nerds'.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @01:44PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @01:44PM (#471845)

      So, first you bitch you want to buy the original cuts. Now that they might actually be released, you bitch about being milked. I swear, they can't win with you uber-nerds. You do realized you didn't have to buy every stinking release they made, right? The fact that you felt compelled to is your issue, not theirs.

      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 26 2017, @02:18PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday February 26 2017, @02:18PM (#471852) Journal

        I swear, they can't win with you uber-nerds.

        Hey, if they had put the original version on Pirate Bay, I guess that would have worked. Of course their share holders might not have been happy with that move :-)

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Lagg on Sunday February 26 2017, @03:47PM

        by Lagg (105) on Sunday February 26 2017, @03:47PM (#471884) Homepage Journal

        The new movies are showing to people just how small, dysfunctional, boring and stupid the Star Wars universe is. Similarly to how the prequels showed that Lucas is a manchild that has trouble letting the workers of the industry do their job. The essential reboot of the EU by not-darth-revans-mask-but-disney-doesnt-care further demonstrated how much of a shitty Transformers-like marketing and toy franchise useful only for that. Is it not milking if it's going to be another 3 decades of "HEY WE KILLED A DEATH STUR" and Special Editions(TM).

        My Kylo Ren doll can move all its arms and legs and has detachable lightsabers.

        I detached his greatsword-looking lightsaber and masturbated furiously at it because OH MAH GOD I REMEMBER WHEN THEY REFERENCED THAT A LIGHTSABER REFLECTS A JEDI'S CHARACTER AND REQUIRES SKILL TO CREATE THIS IS SO COOL THIS HAS THINGS I REMEMBER IN IT.

        --
        http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:22PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:22PM (#472013)

          you know .. i the real reality, real woman only mary for money. star wars dolls don't come cheap

    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:18PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:18PM (#472009) Homepage Journal

      Well, in my case, my DVDs were stolen in a burglary several years ago, and I replaced many of them from TPB. But those files are terrible; no subtitles when aliens are talking in EP1, for instance, not fitting the screen (letterbox on all four sides), compression artifacts... so I was going to replace them, anyway. This just gives me one more reason to buy a Blu-Ray.

      And "ageing?" I'm already old, I was 24 when I saw Star Wars in the theater.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:27PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:27PM (#472015)

        no, you fucking moron. it means you buy the movie and fucking perfectly mirror it to tPb so you can download it for again and again and again and forever if nature strikes. it's like making a hologram. idiot.

  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday February 26 2017, @04:00PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Sunday February 26 2017, @04:00PM (#471886) Homepage Journal

    Why alter the films in the first place? The most famous alteration was changing the scene with Han and Greedo to be "nicer": in the original, by having Han shoot only after being shot at. However, that's only one of many changes [wikipedia.org]. Most of those changes were pointless, a few add a bit of scenery, big deal... Better to get on with new projects, than to continually fiddle around with old ones. Maybe we could have gotten JarJar out of the way a couple of decades earlier...

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:05PM (#471937)

      Some of the alterations like changing the sequencing on Han shooting Gredo, make no sense. But, a lot of them are fixes to things that probably should have been done correctly to begin with. For example, the cardboard cut outs at the end of Episode IV and the various scenes where the lightsaber effects weren't right.

      The real issue more than anything else is that George didn't restrict himself to just fixing things, he also did things like having Gredo shoot first and adding sound effects to the storm trooper hitting his head that had the effect of changing the interpretation of the films.

      Most of the lesser changes aren't ones that people generally notice unless they're ueber-nerds, but changing the structure of the film results in inconsistency between the memories that people have of watching the films and what they have available.

      I'd be surprised if Disney doesn't put out both this version and the latest version that George had finished with and make both available on some sort of regular edition. Unfortunately, because so many people saw the newer versions first, we're likely stuck with them in the same way that we're also stuck with the theatrical versions even though they had warts that shouldn't have been there.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @04:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @04:00PM (#471887)

    In a terminal... telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:05PM

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:05PM (#471936)

    1) Release old movies
    2) Everyone who has seen only the new movies watches the old ones
    3) Half the people who have now watched the old, now realize the new are not as good
    4) ????
    5) Either the standards are raised or they leave Star Wars alone?

    Seems like a win/win to me.

  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday February 26 2017, @07:41PM

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 26 2017, @07:41PM (#471974)

    So, Disney, is this being released before or after Song of the South?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday February 27 2017, @12:23AM

    by Mykl (1112) on Monday February 27 2017, @12:23AM (#472047)

    While fans have speculated for years that George Lucas will finally release the first edits...

    Make no mistake - this is not George Lucas' idea and is in fact likely directly against his wishes. He has gone on the record many times to say that he'll never release the original trilogy again. This is 100% Disney.

    Whatever their motivations, I see this particular re-release as a good thing.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @10:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @10:11PM (#473072)

      It'd be great, but I don't believe Disney owns the rights to the original trilogy. I think that is still held by Fox.