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Check out 4k77. When the crawler starts, I still get a tiny chill. It just says “Star Wars.”
I have the whole restored trilogy they did. Really great stuff. As someone who has worked on the technical side of film-making, what interests me most is how the grain keeps changing in Star Wars, I'm guessing due to Lucas' inexperience with a film project at that scale. Empire didn't have that problem because Kirshner had a lot more experience. It comes back a bit in Jedi because apparently Lucas should have learned more.
Edit: Never mind, I forgot Lucas didn't direct Jedi.
Too bad he never did.
IMO, the real reason Star Wars was a successful film was Marcia Lucas' amazing editing. She really deserved her Oscar. Also, she told dumbass George, who was going to let Obi Wan live, how basic storytelling works. And then dumbass Joseph Cambpell decided George was the genius because he really fucking hated women.
I stumbled on it during the pandemic. My wife said she wanted to watch all the movies in story order. I was not looking forward to it for so many reasons! When I found this, it started me down a rabbit hole. All the various compilations people have put together is really amazing, and the 4k## stuff, to me, kind of refutes Lucas’ excuses for not releasing the same thing himself. He’s always said he couldn’t do the original film justice because the original film stock is damaged and/or missing. Then this small group of people come along, find something on eBay, and basically do what the fans have been asking for!
If there's one rule you can live by when it comes to Star Wars, it's that George Lucas lies.
Like when he said he was going to quit making big movies and focus on art films like what he went to film school to make. And then never made any art films.
Or when he suddenly said that Star Wars was based not on the old movie serials and Kurasawa films it was clearly based on, no, it's a Vietnam allegory. How is it a Vietnam allegory? Fuck me if I know.
Agreed. One thing I’ll give him credit for, though, is his willingness to let others have fun with it. From Robot Chicken to Mel Brooks, he’s been pretty decent with letting folks parody it. He has to have heard about the community surrounding 4k77, and AFAIK there’s been no legal action. All of this is especially Impressive considering Disney’s the one protecting the IP nowadays!
Beyond that, yeah I agree with you.
He's definitely been cool with it. In fact, he got the Robot Chicken people, along with others who had done Star Wars parodies and just good comedy writers, in to make a Star Wars show that was actually completed before Disney got the IP and then Disney shelved it since they decided to change all the canon. A handful of clips exist.
Disney, on their part, got so much bad publicity back when they were suing daycare centers for having Mickey on their walls that they seem to have stepped back and decided that as long as you aren't making money off of it, you're free to do what you like.
And, of course, the 4K77 people don't put the cuts on their own website to download. They suggest places where you can get it, but you aren't actually getting it legally. Even the Internet Archive copies are really pirate copies and Disney could definitely get them taken down. But thankfully, they seem like they are doing a live and let live thing with this sort of stuff or now.