George Lucas Wants Desperately To Preserve Old Movies... Unless They're His; So Fans Are Trying To Do It Instead

from the edit-wars dept

Kevin Carson points us to a fascinating story in The Atlantic about fans trying to recreate the "original" version of Star Wars ("Episode IV -- A New Hope for the folks who feel like being pedantic) from 1977. As various fans have pointed out repeatedly (mainly each time Lucas went back and "edited" Star Wars again), back in 1988 Lucas spoke to Congress about the importance of preserving original versions of movies, and avoiding the constant attempts to update and modernize them in ways that might erase the original versions. Key quote:

Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.

This was part of his attempt to create so-called moral rights for content creators, but the wording seems kind of strange considering how Lucas himself later did pretty much everything he described above as being heinous and troubling. The Atlantic article highlights just a few of the more famous changes (though there are many, many more):

In the original versions of the films, for example, it’s clear that Han Solo pulled out his gun and shot the bounty hunter Greedo. In the 1997 version, Greedo shoots first. In the 2004 version, they shoot at the same time. With the release of the later films, later versions of the original trilogy were edited to add in appearances from Jar Jar Binks and Hayden Christensen. Lucas even replaced the voice of Jason Wingreen—the original Boba Fett—with the voice of Temuera Morrison who played Jango Fett in Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

Even worse, Lucas has actively resisted attempts to make the original copy available. When pressed about it a decade ago Lucas claimed that the original was "half completed" and he wants people to see the "finished" product instead:

The special edition, that’s the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it’s on VHS, if anybody wants it. ... I’m not going to spend the, we’re talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I’m the one who has to take responsibility for it. I’m the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they’re going to throw rocks at me, they’re going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished.

That's all well and good, but it's yet another example of the sense of entitlement some creators have in which they believe they not only hold the copyright on the original work (which they may), but also ownership over the experience of fans who watched/heard/experienced the content. And that's where things get tricky. When the artists start to muck with that experience.

And that's what led to the result here, whereby fans are painstakingly recreating the 1977 version of the film. There's an incredible video highlighting how one of the main people involved in this project, a 25-year-old in the Czech Republic who goes by the name Harmy, goes about fixing things. It's fascinating: The "new" version is amusingly called the "despecialized" version, and uses bits and pieces from the many, many releases to reconstruct the original. While some point out that there was a DVD release of "the original" film, the video notes that the techniques used to transfer the film to DVD were very problematic, leading to a variety of problems, including "motion smearing," faded colors and aliasing.

The lengths these fans go to in order to recreate the original is quite incredible, going through all the different versions, picking up pieces from one and inserting them in the other, doing careful color corrections, "upscaling" low res versions to make them HD. It's really quite incredible, and it appears Lucas would rather they disappear entirely. He even rejected a request from the National Film Registry when it requested a copy of the original to preserve.

Curators at the National Film Registry picked the 1977 version of Star Wars to preserve for history’s sake, but they still don’t have a copy in the registry. When they asked for a copy, Lucas refused, saying that he would no longer authorize the release of the original version.

While Lucas' changes and updates to his film bother some, I've never been that concerned about those attempts to re-imagine his own work, but it does seem particularly silly to try to block people from even having the choice to view the original. It's great that fans are putting in so much effort to reconstruct it by themselves, but it seems like Lucas could just speed that whole process along by making the original available.

Filed Under: 1977, despecialized edition, fan edits, fans, george lucas, old movies, preservation, star wars

UK Woman Denied Passport Because Her Name Might Infringe On Disney's Copyright

from the transmitting-infringing-names-across-borders-for-personal-gain dept

With all the talk of terrorism keeping government officials firmly focused on travel documents (and electronics), it really comes as no surprise that they're on top of any passport anomalies. Like a traveler sporting one more "Skywalker" in their name than the other 99.9999% of the population. [via several TD readers, but first from Jon Jones]

Her namesake may be able to travel across galaxies in Star Wars, but Laura Matthews from Southend – whose middle name is Skywalker – isn't even able to get on a budget airline to the Med.

The 29-year-old added the middle name by deed poll in 2008, "for a bit of a laugh", and recently tried to renew her passport, complete with her new name and the signature L. Skywalker. Her application was refused, with the Home Office telling her it "will not recognise a change to a name which is subject to copyright or trademark".

Seeing as copyright and trademark law has nothing to do with security and/or a person's ability to travel, it's a bit odd that the passport office would be so concerned about George Lucas' intellectual property -- a stock farmboy character transplanted to a stock good v. evil storyline set in a futuristic past. After all, as Laura Skywalker points out, no other government agency has expressed a concern about her legally-changed name.

A disgruntled Matthews complained: "It's on my driving licence, my bank cards, everything. Everyone else is happy with that signature apart from passport office."

In the spirit of compromise hastened by a disgruntled would-be traveler and a bunch of negative press, the passport office is trying to work out a way to let this Skywalker board aircraft. The fix suggested is the most bureaucratic solution, involving Matthews submitting passport paperwork with her old non-Skywalker signature and being allowed to keep the new one featuring the now-famous "L. Skywalker" scrawl, which will result in duplicated paperwork that doesn't match the current passport and will likely subject Matthews to additional scrutiny from watchful and confused customs officials in the future. Never forget: the government exists mainly to generate paperwork and performing this useless maneuver satisfies that requirement.

Still, it must be asked why customs is so damn adamant that no one violate the sanctity of intellectual property with spur-of-the-moment name changes. Granted, the agency acts as a buffer between nations by vetting travelers (and their counterfeit goods), but its objective should be safety, rather than acting as guardians against the secondary liability caused by the movement of an "infringing" name across borders. Also granted, the most powerful name in intellectual property -- Disney -- now "owns" Skywalker and other associated Star Wars IP. The mere speculation that the corporation would mobilize its army of IP lawyers has been enough to shut down productions clearly covered by fair use.

We're often accused of being some sort of IP-obsessives here at Techdirt when calling out others for their inability to tell their patents from their copyrights, but the true obsessives are those who man the borders and look for potentially-infringing names.

Filed Under: laura skywalker matthews, names, passports, skywalker, star wars, uk
Companies: disney

Another Improvement To The Star Wars 'New' Trilogy Torpedoed By Copyright

from the not-helping,-you-are dept

While fan-made movie edits aren't particularly new, they don't often find themselves getting a ton of attention by the mainstream public. That changed a couple of years ago when Topher Grace, of That 70's Show fame, decided to try to learn film editing and produced a recut single film of the Star Wars trilogy (episodes 1, 2 and 3) that came out a decade or so ago. The result was a tighter, single film that decapitated a great deal of the nonsense Star Wars fans hated. Instead, it was a single movie that left in the real meat of the story, focusing on Anakin Skywalker's relationships and his fall from grace. In other words, it's what Star Wars films should be.

Only a few friends of Grace saw the recut film, because copyright got in the way, though it became the stuff of legend, with lots of people talking about it. Grace made it clear that he had no plans on putting his work up on the internet. So people were deprived of a recut, to some degree transformative work, despite how much the public wanted just such a thing.

Of course, Topher Grace isn't the only one doing these kinds of edits, and isn't even the only one looking to wrap up the early Star Wars episodes into something other than the mess that George Lucas released.

A reimagining of the Star Wars prequel trilogy edited into a single compelling movie, based on the structure conceived by actor Topher Grace. As a critique of episodes 1-3, many large plot pieces have been removed or changed to strengthen the core relationship between Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala. More than 100 video and audio edits heighten the main character's tragic fall from grace.

This appears to be an even more transformative attempt than Grace's, with scenes recut and reordered to portray an even deeper emotional storyline of the infamous Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader. Some early comments on the edited films were quite positive. I can't provide you with my own review because, well, you've probably already guessed it.

UPDATE (6:58pm): And the video's now gone, presumably removed for copyright reasons.

And so, again, viewers are deprived the opportunity to see a recut, fan-made exhibition of their own Star Wars take due to the overprotective nature of copyright holders. It's a situation that makes little sense. You can't even really appreciate the recut film without seeing the originals, so that you have the context of what was done. While many will argue that the finished recut film was itself a better movie than the 3 original films, the star here is the editing work, not the film itself. That's the transformative art. I won't go so far as to say that copyright shouldn't even apply here, but there's no way it's serving its original purpose.

On top of that, forcing Jar Jar Binks down our throats by kneecapping a film that omits him/it/whatever is just mean.

Filed Under: copyright, edit, fan edit, george lucas, star wars, topher grace, trilogy

DailyDirt: More Trendy Photos

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The news of several portrait studios shutting down marks an end of an era. Families used to get all dressed up to go to a special corner of Sears where a professional photographer would stage a nice portrait, and fuzzy warm photos would be sold in a respectably-sized frame. Sure, there are still plenty of other places to get your own image held hostage by copyright, but it's just not the same. Digital photography has brought photo-taking to the masses, and almost anyone can take a nice looking (staged) picture. Here are just a few examples of what kids these days are doing with their cameras.

• Fake Dragonball attacks seem to be a growing trend in staged photography these days. Even if you haven't seen the Dragonball anime that inspired these photos, the concept of being able to blow up stuff via telekinesis is a pretty widespread meme nowadays. [url]
• Vadering is another fad where you make it look like you're a Sith lord choking various people. I find your lack of faith disturbing.... [url]
• Owling was a spin-off of the more popular meme of planking. Unfortunately, it didn't catch on and elucidate how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie roll Tootsie pop.[url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: dragonball, fads, owling, photographers, photography, photos, picture studios, planking, portraits, star wars, vadering
Companies: cpi, sears

White House Turns Star Wars / Star Trek Mistake Into Funny Meme

from the own-the-mistake dept

As I've said before, you better have a sense of humor if you're going to be a politician. Not too long ago, the White House issued a direct response to a petition that America build a Death Star, for instance. The writer of that response proved he had his wookies in a row when it came to knowledge of the Star Wars universe. The President last week? Not so much.

President Barack Obama mixed Star Wars and Star Trek metaphors in response to a question from CNN's Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin in the White House Briefing Room on Friday, saying he didn't have the power to "somehow do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what's right."

The internet, as you'd imagine, lost their collective Sith (editor: is this a typo? I think this is a typo.). Message boards went crazy over the revelation that President Obama couldn't keep the Vulcan mind meld and the Jedi mind trick square in that noggin of his... so how can we trust him with drone strikes. Okay, so it wasn't that big a deal, but you have to give his staff credit for being able to own a mistake, silly as it may be, and turn it into an opportunity for the administration. Rather than get defensive about the silly news item, or even just ignoring it, the White House owned the mistake and poked a little fun at themselves while still trying to get their point across.

But then I saw the White House's response to Obama's unwitting mash-up and I had to admire the cheekiness of it. By the end of the day the White House Twitter account had posted the following meme photo, which in one fell swoop owned the error, proved that the White House knew its stuff in regards to Star Wars and Star Trek, and informed those following the story of the issue that the President was discussing when he made the slip-up.

We must bring balance to the Force. #Sequester #JediMindMeld twitter.com/whitehouse/sta… — The White House (@whitehouse) March 1, 2013

In case you can't see the tweet embed above, here's the image separately. If you're not familiar with the details of the two franchises, the yellow outlined words are a classic Star Wars font, while the white letters are typical Star Trek. Ditto the statements that match with the proper fonts. It's a "melding" (if you will) of the two properties in an attempt to "own" the mistake and try to actually get some political leverage out of it by pointing people to the White House's position on the matter. I'm going to leave the politics of the statement waaaaaaaaaay over there (I'm pointing to a fictional place that eats political commentary) and just say that I like politicians that don't take themselves too seriously. For the White House to also take that mistake and turn it into their own meme, utilizing the hash tag that was making fun of them for their own purposes, is simply deft.

Filed Under: jedi mind meld, president obama, sense of humor, sequester, star trek, star wars

Was An Advertisement In Vogue The Inspiration For The Star Wars Opening Crawls?

from the oh,-george dept

A long time ago, in a magazine far, far too female-oriented for me to read...

It is a period of intellectual property wars. Rebellious forces, striking from the internet, have pointed out several times in the past the hypocrisy of people like George Lucas, who at times jealously guard aspects of their creation despite evidence of his own work being a mixture of borrowed culture.

During these wars, spies managed to link to one possible example of George Lucas borrowing culture for his ultimate movie opening, THE TEXT CRAWL, possibly borrowed from an advertisement that appeared in Vogue magazine several years before the first Star Wars film premiered.

Pursued by the copyright Empires, Prince Geigner raced to post the picture of the Vogue ad, uncertain evidence that even those that embrace intellectual property know deep down the way culture works throughout the galaxy....

Filed Under: advertisement, copying, star wars

Amazon Pulls Down Memoir Because Cover Mentions 'Star Wars'

from the overkill dept

Last week we had a story of Amazon pulling a book because of a dispute over the term "space marine," which Games Workshop insisted they have full control over due to their trademark (a massive exaggeration of what protections the trademark provides). The latest may be even worse. As a number of folks are reporting, Amazon has pulled a self-published memoir by Gib Van Ert entitled A Long Time Ago: Growing Up With and Out of Star Wars. The book has received some great reviews from places like Wired, but apparently someone at Amazon thought the title is trademark infringement. The email from Amazon seems particularly silly:

Thank you for the information you provided regarding the following book(s):

A Long Time Ago: Growing Up With And Out Of Star Wars (2353856)

Your book(s) contains references to the trademarked term, “Star Wars (Trademarked Term)”. We have reviewed the information you provided and have determined that we will not be making the book(s) available for sale in the Kindle store at this time. While we cannot advise you on trademark laws, we encourage you to conduct your own research by possibly going to your local library or using other online resources that may be available to you.

This seems silly. The use is clearly descriptive, and the memoir discusses the impact of the movie on the guy's life. No "moron in a hurry" is going to assume that it is endorsed by Lucasfilm or anything like that. The likelihood of confusion here is nil. But in our risk averse age, where too many people incorrectly think that trademark gives you 100% control over a phrase, we see more and more unfortunate stories like this. Hopefully, Amazon quickly reconsiders... and the publicity from this silly bout of blocking leads to more sales.

Filed Under: author, ebooks, gib van ert, kindle, star wars, trademark
Companies: amazon

Will Disney Block Star Wars Fan-Made Content?

from the there's-a-mouse-in-the-house dept

We discussed recently how George Lucas relinquished control of the Star Wars franchise, selling it to Disney. As Leigh noted in that piece, critics have long chastised Lucas for the control he exerted over his films, as well as the meddling he did on the classics so many hold dear. While that criticism is certainly valid, one area where Lucas seemed to be open -- in many ways bucking the Hollywood trend -- was with fan-made content, such as fan films and fan fiction. In fact, Lucasfilm to a great extent embraced fan fiction, even going so far as to hold contests for such content. The fact that Lucasfilm gained rights ownership of those fan-made films led to some criticism, but at least the company wasn't suing the jedi tunics off of its own fans.
These aren't the defendants you're looking for.
Image source: CC BY 2.0
But now some folks are wondering about the fate of all this fan-made content, and how future fan content will be received, now that the Empire Disney controls the franchise. Dennis S. writes in about a piece on this topic at Ars Technica, which reads less like a question about fan-made content and more like a propsective eulogy for it.

In 2007, Lucasfilm even released tools that would more easily enable remixing of Star Wars content. A top Lucasfilm lawyer, Jeffrey Ulin, began speaking at conferences and to the media about the value of fan mash-ups and remixes. Those works were "part of keeping the love of Star Wars and the franchise alive... We're really trying to position ourselves for the next 30 years," Ulin told the Wall Street Journal in 2007.

Certainly, Disney fans who make their own movie featuring Mickey Mouse are more likely to get a cease-and-desist letter from a Disney lawyer than an award. After all, it was Disney who famously lobbied Congress to extend copyright terms in 1998, so much so that some dubbed the new law the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. Perhaps no single company more than Disney bears more responsibility for the sorry state of the US public domain, which hasn't seen any significant works added to it in decades. For the most part, culture after 1923 has been frozen in a state of private ownership—mostly owned by the large media corporations that began rising at about that time.

It's very difficult to argue with the precedent that the article lays out. Star Wars enjoys what may well be the biggest franchise fanbase ever. Part of that fanbase is so fanatical that they want to take part in the fun, sharing with one another their own creations and extensions of the Star Wars story. Many believe it's this same enthusiasm that has built up the Star Wars brand to such an amazing degree, but Disney's history suggests these contributions may no longer be welcome.

Frankly, that may pose a bigger problem than one would imagine. Obviously the Star Wars brand is big enough at this point that whatever content Disney releases is likely to be a hit...but will it grow as fast as it could if Mickey Mouse goes all emperor over the people? There's a serious risk in alienating folks over this kind of thing. Star Wars fans aren't stupid. There's a reason there's been a fair amount of hand-wringing over the sale of the franchise to Disney, seemingly much moreso than other sales like Marvel. This is a community that likes to contribute their own work to the story. I would say that such contributions are integral to the fanbase. If Disney acts to block that kind of thing, as they have in the past, the fans may well rebel against the Empire Disney and its Senate boardroom.

Filed Under: copyright, culture, fan fiction, fan films, fans, star wars
Companies: disney, lucasfilm

George Lucas Finally Relinquishes His Tight Control Of Star Wars... To Mickey Mouse

from the disney's-your-father dept

Disney surprised everyone today by announcing that they've struck a deal to acquire Lucasfilm—famously 100% owned by George Lucas—and all its valuable film properties. Lucas himself is stepping aside, and Lucasfilm Co-Chairman Kathleen Kennedy will become president of the company under Disney.

As if all this wasn't enough of a shock for Star Wars fans, Disney has also announced that they will revive Lucas' abandoned plans for Episode 7 and aim for release in 2015. One can't help finding some irony in the statement from Lucas:

“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,” said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disney’s reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products.”

As most of us know, fans of Star Wars and other Lucasfilm properties have loudly criticized Lucas for retaining tight control on his old works and, worse still, meddling with them by releasing updated versions to replace the beloved originals. There has long been a wish that Lucas would let Star Wars "live beyond" him—but I doubt selling it to Disney is what anyone had in mind.

It's unlikely anyone has high hopes for the quality of future Star Wars movies, but if Disney built a Star Wars theme park, it'd probably be a hit. Meanwhile, what are the odds that Darth Vader will finally get paid?

Filed Under: george lucas, star wars
Companies: disney, lucasfilm