RUMOR: Unedited Original Star Wars Trilogy Coming to Blu-Ray

[MovieBob]

RUMOR: Unedited Original Star Wars Trilogy Coming to Blu-Ray

Is the unrevised version of The Holy Trilogy finally coming home in high-definition?

Geek news-site Bleeding Cool [http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/05/15/new-star-wars-rumors-include-original-trilogy-re-release-on-blu-rayvod-and-more/] is claiming to have "intercepted" an internal email from Disney marketing that claims the new owners of Star Wars are planning to answer one of fandom's most prominent prayers: Releasing remastered Blu-ray versions of the Original Trilogy as they were originally produced - without any of the alterations or updates made by George Lucas for the Special Editions.

While Lucas remained adamant from the beginning that he had no intention of making the original versions of the films available ever again, he's no longer the one who gets to make that decision: When Disney bought Lucasfilm, they also bought total control over the entirety of its intellectual property; and the eventuality of seeing The Trilogy in proper form again was one of the first new possibilities fans began speculating on when the Disney deal was announced last year.

In addition, Bleeding Cool also reports a secondary rumor that even they cast serious doubt on: That Disney (and, one assumes, Lucasfilm's newly-appointed Official Story Group [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lucasfilm_Story_Group]) is considering removing the Prequel Trilogy from "official" canon and relegating it to the "Legends" imprint along with the recently "decanonized" Extended Universe material. The rumor does not specify what would be accomplished by this, other than allowing the opportunity for new films to provide new "official" backstory to the Star Wars Universe.

There has, thus far, been no response from Disney to BC's report.


Source: Bleeding Cool [http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/05/15/new-star-wars-rumors-include-original-trilogy-re-release-on-blu-rayvod-and-more/]

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[Rellik San]

OH GOD!

You mean I won't have to rely on my VHS copies inherited from my Uncle anymore?

OH FRABJOUS DAY CALOOCALAY!

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

It's a lovely, inspiring rumour.

But as with all Star Wars news... I can't in good conscience hope for the best. Even a "wait and see" attitude seems too optimistic at this point.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Two words: DO WANT

My copy of Empire Strikes Back died the death of the VCR machine, randomly bursting into smoke while watching. It would be nice to have the original trilogy again in its first released form.

 

[Nazulu]

It would be nice.

I bought the original Star Wars on dvd some time ago, because I hadn't seen it for awhile. Little did I know that they made all these goofy changes that left me scratching my head, and I am in no way a Star Wars fan. I'm still surprised that someone thought it would be a good idea to reveal Jabba in the first.

 

[MrBaskerville]

It would be cool, i allready have the originals on dvd, but the aspect ratio is a bit weird, it's not really a problem but if the blu-rays have the correct aspect ratio i might buy a new version when it gets cheap. And i'm pretty sure the dvd version where the originals are included as a bonus are pretty damn rare these days so it would be nice to get something a little more broadly available, everyone deserves to see the film in their correct version,

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The skepticism is strong with this one.

But I do so want them to redo the prequel trilogy.

 

[Zontar]

I had a feeling this would happen once Disney bought them, and if this is true I don't care how much Abrams drops the ball with Episode 7.

The skepticism is strong with this one.

But I do so want them to redo the prequel trilogy.

Given how much Disney wants our money, I'm confident this is true. Couldn't agree more on the prequels needing to be redone, but knowing how Hollywood works they'd probably not use a story which makes sense in context (like having the clones be villains since that's the only reason one would call it the clone wars instead of droid wars), but it couldn't be worst then what we got.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Let me start by saying I'm sorry. But I have to say this...

I've got a BAD feeling about this!

Again, I'm sorry.

Anyway, I hope this is true. In 2006 I bought a plasma television but it maxed out at 720p. Recently I replaced it with a full 1080p LED that looks so phenomenal. I tried to watch my Star Wars blu-rays, but the CGI sticks out SO badly that I just cannot enjoy them. Not that the "Special Editions" were ever all that enjoyable, but with a muddier picture you can kind of let it all blend together. But in full proper High Definition, they're just so difficult to watch. I don't mind touching up the explosions or them helping to blend the bounding box around the models so much. Touch ups are acceptable. But those awful Dewbacks, the added droids in the Mos Eisley scene... OH LAWD!!! MAH EYEZZ!

 

[Tradjus]

I feel like Disney are far too conservative to do anything on the scale that the latter part of the rumor is suggesting, but as for the former part.. yeah?
I mean it was obvious from the beginning that was going to happen.. Lucas, for all the talk of how greedy he was, was basically sitting on like the last un-plundered cash bucket that the Star Wars license had, with his arms folded and a pout on his face. His insistence on continuing to deny people those movies was a result of his ego, but Disney has no investment in what he thinks, just what will make them money, so this wasn't a question of if, but when.

 

[karloss01]

If they do so then it will be the first time I will own a star wars film. I've yet to buy any of them because the edits they made in the original trilogy were completely jarring.

 

[Icehearted]

Because of capitalism's reign on "creativity" and the inundation of origin stories, which is the new reboot, which is the new remake, and so on have smothered creativity, I can totally believe they're attempt an eventual "do-over" with the prequels. They can deny it till their blue in the face, we all know those movies were catastrophic to the franchise and the fandom. Another shot to get it "right" cash in would be too juicy to pass up.

 

[Grace_Omega]

"While Lucas remained adamant from the beginning that he had no intention of making the original versions of the films available ever again"

What exactly was the reason for that? Like non-fanboy answer, did he feel dissatisfied with how they turned out or something?

 

[STENDEC1]

I'd say it is very, very likely that Disney will release the originals in high-def (or even 4K) at some point, but not necessarily very soon. They know there's demand for them and the current Blu-rays of the Special Editions were produced from an old 2K scan anyway (made for the 2004 DVDs), so the quality is fairly poor by today's standards. The problem is, 20th Century Fox owns the distribution rights to the Prequels, Empire and Jedi until 2020, and they own the distribution rights for Star Wars in perpetuity. So Disney either has to wait until the distribution rights for the other 5 films revert to them and then buy out the Star Wars rights from Fox, OR they do a deal with Fox now (to either buy the rights or split the profits with them) and then re-release them. So it's possible it could happen soon, but not terribly likely.

The deletion of the Prequels though? That's more of a stretch.

However, if this actually turns out to be true, then I'll take back almost everything bad I ever said about Disney. Remastering and re-releasing the unaltered Original Trilogy AND removing the Prequels from canon?

Yes please!!

 

[Baron_BJ]

I hope that Disney chooses to touch up the movies slightly for this release. Minor changes are all that would be acceptable though, like using some CG to simply touch up parts of the some of the Alien suits that looked rubbery (like Greedo), improve how blaster fire looks, etc, not insane shit like adding entirely new characters ala Lucas.

My favourite part about all of this is how they may make the prequels non-canon, even though I really doubt that because if they made the prequels non-canon then they have to make the cartoons and the like non-canon (which is fine by me) and once you do that you're left with only a few minor things that no one would know about (like the very old Droid cartoons and shit like the ewok movies), which should probably be non-canon anyway, especially in those circumstances. This kind of just leaves you with only the original trilogy as being canon, which is also fine by me, but it's still a move that's so drastic that it comes across as unbelievable.

 

[Neverhoodian]

If this is true, then this will probably be the deciding factor for me to finally get a Blu-Ray player. In the meantime I'll get by with the DVD release (essentially a phoned-in laserdisk rip with little to no restoration work; black boxes around spaceships, inconsistent lightsaber colors, etc.) and Adywan's remake of A New Hope.

As for throwing out the prequels, I'd say that's just a case of wishful thinking. I'm betting that they'll still be considered part of the official canon for marketing purposes. Having said that, I also suspect Disney will go out of their way to ensure there are little to no references to the prequels in the new films.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Now I can finally buy Star Wars if this is true, wooooo!

 

[Evil Smurf]

Disney will get all the money if this is true. I think though that they "leaked a rumour" to see how the community would react.

 

[Waaghpowa]

For some reason I remember George Lucas saying that the original cuts don't exist anymore... So if we do end up getting the original uncut star wars on blu ray, there's a lot of 'splainin to do.