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The economics of DVD
- Thread starter Joseph DeMartino
- Start date
phoenixrising
Regular
Lucas stated the reason he did it was because that was how he saw the movies, but the technology was not up to the task at the time.
The only "new" version I saw was the first one, so I have no idea what changes they made in the other films. I have to admit, some of the new shots in SW:ANH were kinda cool, especially the scene with Jabba.
I do wish Lucas would include both films on the DVD release, but he said when the new versions came out that the old ones would not be seen again.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
Yeah, then he made them available on VHS and laserdisc "one last time" - TWICE!
And I think all that "this is really what I wanted to do but couldn't" stuff is a lot of self-serving, self-indulgent crap. If it was all that bad, he should never have released the movies. Given that he did release them, I think those versions have some claim to be considered the "original" or even the "real" versions. Because they're the ones that so many people fell in love with, and paid to see over and over again until they made George Lucas rich enough to be the self-indulgent asshole that he is today. At the very least he should make the originals available in the interest of the historical record. It wasn't the mostly wretched "special editions" that changed the film industry, it was the modest originals.
There is an old saying that art is never finished, only abandoned, and there is truth in that. Most writers, painters, dramatists and filmmakers would continue tinkering forever if they didn't have deadlines. Most of them just stop when the run out of time, and then move of to their next projects. They don't, thank Heaven, usually have the option of going back and forever screwing around with stuff that has really become part of the common wealth of mankind. I'd have for Leonardo to come back and repaint "The Last Supper" to make it more politically correct, or Michaelangelo start touching up "The Last Judgment" (Not that Lucas is remotely an artist of that calibre.)
The work isn't their personal property - and still less is that the case with a film director who is not the "author" of a film because film is an inherently collaborative art, and films have no single author. (Whatever a bunch of addled French film critics from 50 years ago might have imagined.)
Regards,
Joe
GaribaldisHair
Regular
This is actually relevant to B5 in a way. JMS has been quoted as saying that the CGI of the time wasn't up to two things in particular:
1. Producing the jumpgate/jumppoint effect he originally wanted
2. Giving hyperspace the nightmarish look and feel he originally wanted.
Because of Crusade, he was able to re-visit the jumppoint effect and have it made more like his original vision. Likewise, when LotR came around he was able to do the hyperspace thing more like his original vision. However, I have heard no rumours that he has any intention (at any time) of revisiting the original 5 seasons and incorporating these things that "couldn't be done at the time".
In that vein, GL has been able to employ the new techniques on Eps 1, 2 and 3, so why go back and alter the originals as well.
I absolutely loved the originals and have them on VHS, which my kids also now love, and the problem for me when I saw the SEs at the flicks was that I could see the join. The enhancements and added stuff were so painfully obvious that the whole movie just didn't feel right, not because they were new and (in some ways) unfamiliar, but because the look and feel of them was different to all the other "non-enhanced" parts of the movie.
Old cliche, I know, but ... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Just my $0.02 ...
1. Producing the jumpgate/jumppoint effect he originally wanted
2. Giving hyperspace the nightmarish look and feel he originally wanted.
Because of Crusade, he was able to re-visit the jumppoint effect and have it made more like his original vision. Likewise, when LotR came around he was able to do the hyperspace thing more like his original vision. However, I have heard no rumours that he has any intention (at any time) of revisiting the original 5 seasons and incorporating these things that "couldn't be done at the time".
In that vein, GL has been able to employ the new techniques on Eps 1, 2 and 3, so why go back and alter the originals as well.
I absolutely loved the originals and have them on VHS, which my kids also now love, and the problem for me when I saw the SEs at the flicks was that I could see the join. The enhancements and added stuff were so painfully obvious that the whole movie just didn't feel right, not because they were new and (in some ways) unfamiliar, but because the look and feel of them was different to all the other "non-enhanced" parts of the movie.
Old cliche, I know, but ... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Just my $0.02 ...
GKarsEye
Regular
But Lucas owns the franchise, so technically it is his personal property.
Money money money.
And if it weren't for those "addled French film critics from 50 years ago" promoting and practicing the practice of the auteur, the global and American film industries might never have accepted the likes of Kubrick, Scorsese, or Lee.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
Well, you're right about Lucas actually owning most of the films, in which he is virtually unique. (I'm not quite sure what legal the status of Star Wars - which I refuse to call "Episode IV" - is. Unlike the later films it was not paid for by Lucas, because he didn't have the kind of money in those days. Did he actually buy it back from Fox, or does he just have de facto control of it because he owns everything else?)
I have to disagree. I don't think the actual history of the industry supports you there. Certainly nobody in the American film business was reading Cahiers du Cinema or even auteurist-lite Andrew Sarris when the industry was changing in the direction that would benefit those three. The whole "theory" was essentially a way for French film critics to provide a theoretical excuse and intellectual justification for their guilty pleasure - fairly mainstream American film. For such colossal snobs to simply admit that they got a kick out of popcorn pictures - much less popcorn pictures from the capitalist-pig cultural backwater called America - would be unthinkable. No, they had to erect a completely bogus intellectual edifice - which unfortunately directors the world over bought hook, line and sinker.
That's the real reason that folks like Kubrik, Scorcese and Lee were accepted. And they guy who blazed the trail for them wasn't French, he was English. His name was Alfred Hitchcock. He was much closer to the "author" of his pictures (since he worked closely with the writers on the script and storyboarded so extensively that the shooting process amounted to just transcribing his visual plan onto film.) Did you know that the so-called "possesory credit" ("A film by Joe Blow" or "A Joe Blow film") was supposed to be limited to Hitchcock under an agreement between the studios, the Writer's Guild and the Director's Guild, in recognition of Hitch's unique contribution to the overall storyline of his films, and the large amounts of action and dialogue that he, in effect, dictated during his brainstorming sessions with his the writers he collaborated with. (And, in a way, in gratitude for Hitchcock's not taking screenwriting credit, which he arguably could have, cutting into writer's fees and residuals.) The studios and the Director's Guild later violated that agreement and started "giving" the phony credit to directors who have a hard time writing their own names and couldn't tell a coherent story if caught by their wives in the hot-tub with their secretaries.
The fact is that changes in the structure of the industry, the collapse of the old studio system and changes in the financing and distribution of films let people like Kubrick, Scorsese and Lee make films that made money and therefore got them a measure of control over their films. (Just as hugely successful actors have a degree of control over their films that would have been impossible under the old studio system - including the right to approve and even fire directors.)
The auteurists had nothing to do with any of the realities that brought this stuff about. Like most "social" (as opposed to scientific) theories it was a lot of hot air that had no practical effect on anything - except the egos of directors, the mendacity of studio heads and the thinking of critics and others who have zero power or influence within the industry itself.
As for the troika you named, they also demonstrate the downside of the "new" auteurist era - somewhere between a third and a half of their collective output is self-indulgent crap, and even their most technically brilliant films are often thematically empty. Amusing considering that the whole theory was erected on the films of men working within the strictures of the much-maligned studio system, who managed to make films nearly as "personal" as theirs while not being allowed to simply run wild.
Regards,
Joe
I have to disagree. I don't think the actual history of the industry supports you there. Certainly nobody in the American film business was reading Cahiers du Cinema or even auteurist-lite Andrew Sarris when the industry was changing in the direction that would benefit those three. The whole "theory" was essentially a way for French film critics to provide a theoretical excuse and intellectual justification for their guilty pleasure - fairly mainstream American film. For such colossal snobs to simply admit that they got a kick out of popcorn pictures - much less popcorn pictures from the capitalist-pig cultural backwater called America - would be unthinkable. No, they had to erect a completely bogus intellectual edifice - which unfortunately directors the world over bought hook, line and sinker.
That's the real reason that folks like Kubrik, Scorcese and Lee were accepted. And they guy who blazed the trail for them wasn't French, he was English. His name was Alfred Hitchcock. He was much closer to the "author" of his pictures (since he worked closely with the writers on the script and storyboarded so extensively that the shooting process amounted to just transcribing his visual plan onto film.) Did you know that the so-called "possesory credit" ("A film by Joe Blow" or "A Joe Blow film") was supposed to be limited to Hitchcock under an agreement between the studios, the Writer's Guild and the Director's Guild, in recognition of Hitch's unique contribution to the overall storyline of his films, and the large amounts of action and dialogue that he, in effect, dictated during his brainstorming sessions with his the writers he collaborated with. (And, in a way, in gratitude for Hitchcock's not taking screenwriting credit, which he arguably could have, cutting into writer's fees and residuals.) The studios and the Director's Guild later violated that agreement and started "giving" the phony credit to directors who have a hard time writing their own names and couldn't tell a coherent story if caught by their wives in the hot-tub with their secretaries.
The fact is that changes in the structure of the industry, the collapse of the old studio system and changes in the financing and distribution of films let people like Kubrick, Scorsese and Lee make films that made money and therefore got them a measure of control over their films. (Just as hugely successful actors have a degree of control over their films that would have been impossible under the old studio system - including the right to approve and even fire directors.)
The auteurists had nothing to do with any of the realities that brought this stuff about. Like most "social" (as opposed to scientific) theories it was a lot of hot air that had no practical effect on anything - except the egos of directors, the mendacity of studio heads and the thinking of critics and others who have zero power or influence within the industry itself.
As for the troika you named, they also demonstrate the downside of the "new" auteurist era - somewhere between a third and a half of their collective output is self-indulgent crap, and even their most technically brilliant films are often thematically empty. Amusing considering that the whole theory was erected on the films of men working within the strictures of the much-maligned studio system, who managed to make films nearly as "personal" as theirs while not being allowed to simply run wild.
Regards,
Joe
GKarsEye
Regular
I think he did actually buy it.
And yes, money is the prime mover in the film industry (and by definition, and industry). But I consider artistic influence as tangible as "practical" (money) matters.
The importance of the French New Wave writers is not as much the writing itself, other than to share ideas amongst each other. Nor was the anti-studio system sentiment directed mainly at the US as much as it was France at the time (it is easy to argue that before the New Wave, French cinema was stale at best, with the exception of the more "artsy" types like Cocteau). Rather, some of these writers put their money where their mouths were worth and actually made film. Damn fine films, that changed French cinema.
They were highly impressed and influenced by Hitchcock and didn't need or offer "excuses" for praising his work and enjoying his films. In turn, American and British directors absorbed some of the characteristics of the New Wave- complex romantic dynamics, cinema verite, etc. To deny the influence of Truffaut, Godard, and Bunuel is to misrepresent the state of film since the mid 20th century.
This is the kind of good stuff that can happen with two proserous countries full of talent aren't bickering with each other like school children.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
The nouvelle vague and the auteur theory weren't the same thing. The New Wave was the product of people who were filmmakers first and the auteur theory the creation of critics and academics who did need to justify and excuse their fondness for American post-war film noir and the Westerns of John Ford. And schoolchildren is precisely what the self-proclaimed intellectual elites of Paris (and New York, and London) have been behaving like (whatever the more sensible attitudes of their countrymen) for at least the last century. (Longer in the case of the Paris bunch, who pretty much lost touch with reality during the Terror and have been pursuing some intellectual fantasy or another ever since.) I have no problem with the French as a whole, only the thin and extremely flaky crust at the "top" that views their own countrymen with nearly as much contempt as they view ours. That individual artists can learn from people in other countries has nothing to do with intellectual snobs, much less with relations between governments.
Regards,
Joe
Regards,
Joe
GKarsEye
Regular
From imdb's biography of Truffaut, emphasis mine:
After his stint as a critic he founded a publishing company and then made Les Mistons, which became the basis of The 400 Blows, which made him a career director, putting his auteur philosophy in practice.
This pattern holds for most of the French New Wave directors; Truffaut is just the example I'm probably most familiar with.
Well... yeah. I would never assume anyone here is of the pouring-wine-in-the-river renaming-food type variety.
Another point on the author vs studio methods: yes, one so much power is in the hands of one man, it can lead to waste and self-indulgence. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Many folks are nostalgic for Hollywood's "Golden Age" (40s?) but seem to forget that those films were cranked out conveyer-belt style. It's just that only the good ones are remembered and re-watched. For every Casablanca there were dozens of films with hokey characters, very lame-ass dialogue, and cringe-inducing "patriotic" propoganda.
Of course I like movies that have been made with both approaches, but as I look at the films that move me the most, my favorites of all time, they mostly seem to follow the "author" approach- you can feel the stamp of one man. The directors named in this thread pretty much act as a list of my faves.
Jade Jaguar
Regular
To add to what GKE posted, much of the inspiration for French New Wave film came from film noir, 1955's Kiss Me Deadly, being the most obvious, since it very much like new wave. So, you might say that the French critics gave the new wave film makers an intellectual basis for being so inspired. Of course, film noir owes much to German expressionism, Fritz Lang being sort of an inadvertant link, since he made both styles of films. But French film makers of the 50's could hardly cite that as an influence!
Personally, regardless of who expouses it, or why, I very much agree with the auteur theory. Many, many people work on a film, and are necessary to its artistic success. Just look at the 6-8 or more minutes of credits that follow a modern film. I sit through them all, as I bet Joe does. But art can't be made by committee. Art needs the vision of an individual artist guiding - DIRECTING - it. A great director, with a singular vision, is a prerequisite to a great film, even if it doesn't guarantee one.
Personally, regardless of who expouses it, or why, I very much agree with the auteur theory. Many, many people work on a film, and are necessary to its artistic success. Just look at the 6-8 or more minutes of credits that follow a modern film. I sit through them all, as I bet Joe does. But art can't be made by committee. Art needs the vision of an individual artist guiding - DIRECTING - it. A great director, with a singular vision, is a prerequisite to a great film, even if it doesn't guarantee one.
Jade Jaguar
Regular
Whether most people could actually name Michael Curtiz, who also directed Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood
is beside the point. He was a fine director, of many films. Some were the best Hollywood ever turned out, and some were very forgettable. The only way I would modify my statement you quote is to say that few if any directors are always great, and some only manage greatness once or twice. I do think that this was implied by my disclaimer that a great director doesn't guarantee a great film. I will admit that Casablanca is one of those rare films that captures the spirit of an era, and rises far above it's humble intent. But that doesn't happen without great direction.
is beside the point. He was a fine director, of many films. Some were the best Hollywood ever turned out, and some were very forgettable. The only way I would modify my statement you quote is to say that few if any directors are always great, and some only manage greatness once or twice. I do think that this was implied by my disclaimer that a great director doesn't guarantee a great film. I will admit that Casablanca is one of those rare films that captures the spirit of an era, and rises far above it's humble intent. But that doesn't happen without great direction.
