Criterion and Disney

[swo17]

I assume Swo's initial Star Wars comment was largely facetious

Not entirely but I'm out on a pretty long limb assuming that Criterion is suddenly going to become Disney's outlet for respectable scholarly editions of potentially anything they own just because they announced one Pixar film

[movielocke]

I imagine there are both film elements reasons, and contractual reasons why disney hasn't made the original editions available. Obviously they'd have to budget the restorations, but that's not really an issue for star wars. and they obviously have elements for everything and access to everything, because the boba fett animated extract from Star Wars Holiday Special is on Disney+ in a new transfer.

But it's probably not just Lucas, the whole regime of Star Wars executives, from Kennedy on down poured blood sweat and tears and their hearts into the special editions for a couple years in the 90s, and they're still probably proud of their work and probably still irritated that people are still complaining about them. We're probably about twenty-five years away from them being released, as it'll take retirements and estate negotiations before anything can happen.

[FlickeringWindow]

There's extensive notes on the restoration of A New Hope in ILM: Into the Digital Realm. Camera negative was very worn, had about 15% color fade, all the CRI opticals were heavily faded, lots of dirt and scratches. They ultimately had to use newly recomposited opticals for many shots (done on film!) using the VistaVision elements, with smaller percentages taken from the 1985 35mm interpositive meant for video transfer, and a few shots were from color separations (one notable one is C3P0 hiding after R2D2 goes missing - note how contrasty the shot looks before it cuts away). There really shouldn't be any issues reconstructing the original versions since they would just have to mix and match the scans of the reconformed camera negative to the interpositive and color separations again. Nothing unusual and nothing cost prohibitive.

[MV88]

Just a thought, but now that WALL-E has surprisingly been added to the Collection, is it possible that Kyle MacLachlan’s recent visit to the office that we all assumed was for an upcoming Lynch release (whether Twin Peaks or Blue Velvet) was actually related to an upcoming release of Inside Out?

[flyonthewall2983]

Light & Magic would be perfect for a Criterion release.

Wonder if this means Get Back could be on the table now too?

[yoloswegmaster]

Andrew Stanton confirmed that the WALL-E release only happened because he reached out to Criterion first and that there is no partnership between Disney and Criterion:

When asked if the “WALL-E” deal was part of a larger partnership between Disney and Criterion, Stanton made it very clear that this was a one-off project driven purely by his passion for the Criterion Collection.

“Not at all,” he said. “It was filmmaker-driven. If it’s anything, it was driven by my own filmmaker ego of wanting to be in the club.”

[FrauBlucher]

That's too bad

[cdnchris]

Going through the features he was clearly very much behind this release and the new stuff is targeted more towards cinephiles, so this isn't too much of a surprise.

[domino harvey]

Aronofsky’s face when he realizes Criterion just hates him

[dwk]

Ha.
On the other hand, Janus did like his tweet teasing the 25th anniversary of PI next year. I believe has has the rights back, and I think that movie is something they might be interested in.

[ryannichols7]

I don't know how much stock anyone should take in what Stanton said though. there was similar speculation that Badlands was a one off with Warner at Terrence Malick's insistence, flashforward 9 years and you have George Feltenstein calling Criterion "part of the family". Criterion already had an established relationship with both Disney and Fox, and the new Wall-E disc has Disney's logo (and not one of their subsidiaries) on the back for what I believe is a boutique Bluray label first. and who's to say Brad Bird or Lee Unkrich wouldn't have a similar "filmmaker ego" moment? the door is clearly open between Criterion and Disney, and there's no way their boy David Lynch won't move on to The Straight Story in the near future, let alone other possibilities (Dead Presidents being another common request that I see happening). considering Lionsgate is now licensing out titles, legitimately nothing feels like it's off limits at this point

this was reported by David Ehrlich anyway...

[guyetgenevieve]

The way I read it, Disney would be fine with licensing at Director insistence/involvement. However, it feels like they probably will still hold on to films like Fantasia that would potentially fit in the collection. I would love to be wrong!

[FrauBlucher]

The way I see it is folks expected the floodgates to open after Wall-E was announced. Stanton’s tweet suggest that there is no floodgates, but it’s not to suggest there can’t be more one off deals. I don’t think there is a correlation between WB and Disney. There is no Feltenstein with Disney. And WB management has changed through the years.

But I do think there will be select Fox titles Disney will let Criterion have

[yoloswegmaster]

I would also certainly hold Andrew Stanton's words to a high degree, especially since he works high up at the company and is clearly in the know about these types of things.

[Kracker]

doesn't mean that WALL-E will be the only Pixar title if all it took was one of the directors reaching out to Criterion. On the contrary, it shows its only a matter of director approval for other Pixar films to follow. And there's nothing saying that there isn't a growing relationship with the Disney as a result of working with them on this first release.

[domino harvey]

Don’t assume Criterion is aching to release more Pixar based on absolutely nothing more than that they made a special one time deal that we’ve just been told by the primary stakeholder was a one time deal

[ryannichols7]

I don't understand why we're acting like this is a one time deal when

Rushmore
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Straw Dogs
Rebecca
Notorious
plus countless Fox titles

are all still in print

[therewillbeblus]

Unless I'm missing something obvious.. because those were all acquisitions pre-merger, sans Fox titles Criterion already had the rights to release and capitalized on doing so before they lapsed?

[pianocrash]

And it probably goes without saying, but Wes Anderson has had a direct line to the collection since he began to make films, much akin to Stanton's direct interest for WALL-E.

And though I'd love to see Straw Dogs on Disney+ in some sort of PG super-edit (Instagram filters have come a long way), you can't always get what you want (and all I really want is Ruthless People).

[Lowry_Sam]

If the only way Warner feel comfortable about releasing historically sensitive/culturally problematic films is by adding a disclaimer upfront like they did with Looney Tunes, even if you can't skip them, I'd take that trade off, as annoying as that hand holding is, over the films not being released at all (like Disney does with Songs of the South, not that I'm interested in seeing that film in the first place but it should be made available as a matter of principle).

I think this is where the work of the dedicated people in a boutique label shines over the crass commercially-driven studios who care more about the bottom line or their image than the cultural legacy that their product has built. I can see Criterion releasing something like Song Of The South with audio commentary and a documentary putting it in historical context and the legacy the film it & others (Gone With The Wind) have had on the popular understanding of the history of the South and its impact on reinforcing stereotypes, thereby relieving the major studio of a liability and turning it into an educational opportunity, but a project like that requires work & dedication to it properly.

[pistolwink]

There's absolutely no way Criterion releases (or would release) Song of the South. Obviously, Disney is not licensing it to anybody, but if they did, the only companies I could imagine releasing it are ones that are in an "edgier" space, like Vinegar Syndrome. FWIW, the film is "out there" in an excellent HD scan. It's intermittently very beautiful (particular in the way it integrates--pun not intended--live action and animation), but also very hard to watch much of the time.

Speaking of hard to watch... I guess I'd give it another try, but when I saw Cheyenne Autumn I felt a sense of secondhand embarrasment for Ford. Nearly every beat that even half-works in the film is borrowed from his earlier work, often brazenly and with diminishing returns. And everything that might constitute something "new" falls on its face. As an attempt to "make up" for Hollywood's treatment of Indians, it's simpleminded and hamfisted, and in its way more offensive than anything Ford had done before. It's not half as sophisticated about the clash between the U.S. and Indians as, say, Fort Apache. Happily his last feature, 7 Women, is 10 times better.

[Zot!]

hard to watch

I don’t want to be “that guy”, but it’s a topsy turvy world where Jorg Buttgereit and Irreversable are “fine”, but some truly meager and obvious racial insensitivity in Song of the South is unwatchable. If you can handle Dick van Dyke’s cockney accent you ‘ll be fine. My local public library has a bootleg dvd available to their credit, but other than the animation it is a total snooze.

[CSM126]

Yeah. Song of the South is a boring film with some outdated rose-colored-glasses viewpoints in re: the state of black people after the war. It’s the result of Uncle Walt being too hopeful/gullible that those Uncle Remus stories were in any way accurate. It’s not offensive it’s just kind of dumb.

Whoopi Goldberg has said that she would be happy to record an interview or commentary to contextualize the film and, honestly, why not. She’s popular and people would listen to her put it in its place while explaining why she thinks it’s worth watching. If Disney won’t go for that they won’t go for anything. So hold on to your bootlegs if you need to be bored that badly.

[Lowry_Sam]

The film might be dated & very much aimed at children, but its one of the earliest feature-length films to blend actors & animation and it contains one of Disney's most beloved songs.

[tenia]

hard to watch

I don’t want to be “that guy”, but it’s a topsy turvy world where Jorg Buttgereit and Irreversable are “fine”, but some truly meager and obvious racial insensitivity in Song of the South is unwatchable.

Oh, but Buttgereit's movies also are "hard to watch" and total bores.
Both can be true simultaneously.

(Irréversible also is hard to watch but while I grew a bit tired of it, I still like the movie despite its obvious weaknesses, which is why I don't lump it with Buttegereit's stuff)