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Many comments here are clamoring for immutable masters. We also see comments elsewhere complaining when historic buildings receive a an addition in a contempora

Many comments here are clamoring for immutable masters. We also see comments elsewhere complaining when historic buildings receive a an addition in a contemporary architectural style etc. For most of human history art has always been mutable. If you tour the National Gallery of Art there are plenty of paintings that have been changed throughout out the years to match changing and politics or theologies. In fact, most performance art has always been somewhat unique. Every show Shakespeare put on was slightly different.

sircastor 5y ago
See Also: Star Wars.
- ivanech 5y ago
  Oh geez the Star Wars special edition is one of the stronger arguments in favor of immutability
  - thatswrong0 5y ago
    Seriously. Like how on Earth did he think blocking the whole screen with a CGI dinosaur was an improvement? (https://youtu.be/OEch4j4KyoU?t=353 https://youtu.be/OEch4j4KyoU?t=353)
    - edent 5y ago
      Because the Special Editions aren't for you. They're an advert for ILM's services. The target audience is movie makers, producers, directors, executives etc. They can see all the whizz-bang effects that ILM are able to produce - and how they can revitalise old movies.
      - thatswrong0 5y ago
        But that shot just looks awful.
      - seanicus 5y ago
        And also a warm-up to see what ILM could do in Episode I. The people working on the SE pretty much rolled right into working on TPM when it was finished.
- anonu 5y ago
  Interesting > Luke's lightsaber During the training scene aboard the Millennium Falcon, Luke's lightsaber—which in some releases had erroneously appeared green—was corrected to blue for the 2019 release. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releas...
- jart 5y ago
  See Also: Lord of the Rings Extended Edition. That's a good reason to not take a hardline stance on film immutability.
  - seanicus 5y ago
    A key point being that both versions are available with the same quality of image and are both remastered with equal care on re-releases. By contrast, something resembling the theatrical versions of Star Wars not been available since laserdisc. I say change whatever you want about your movie; but please make available the version of the movie we fell in love with. There was a hasty and poorly implemented transfer of the LD's included as a bonus feature on a DVD release. No up-res so LD is the latest version according to moi.
    - jart 5y ago
      Please? We don't need to grovel. The Internet never forgets. Watch Harmy's Despecialized Edition. It was made by this school teacher from Czechoslovakia and he's got more talent Industrial Light & Magic. I'm surprised ILM hasn't renamed itself like Xe and Meta after what Lucas did.
brandonmenc 5y ago
> Every show Shakespeare put on was slightly different. And it would be awesome to have each and every one on film. > Many comments here are clamoring for immutable masters. Which are essentially free. We can't do this with buildings.
supernovae 5y ago
I don't really see the point for immutable masters since no one ever sees it in that state. No one tv or cinema is calibrated 100% to the master and it would be too expensive to do so.
Ardon 5y ago
I think we can have both things. There's no particular reason why the various revisions of a digital product can't be kept available. For example: I keep both the Star Wars Despecialized Edition and the blu-ray release on my jellyfin server and then you can just pick your preference with a drop-down menu. I'd love to see the same setup on official services.
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
Did the instance of the painting change? Or did what was in the art collection change? I don't care of the collection changes, but I might care if people are scribbling on the paintings for whatever reasons. Unlike a Shakespeare show, digital media can be reproduced perfectly for little cost, the fact that multiple unique instances of a theme can be different doesn't mean that we should.
- SethTro 5y ago
  In practice yes, Museums occasionally clean & restore their paintings which shifts the color balance, grain, texture similar ways. There's a some great pre/post conservation photo in this article: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/as-layers-of-old-varnish-are-removed-italian-renaissance-painter-ercole-de-robertis-brilliance-is-once-again-revealed/ http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/as-layers-of-old-varnish-are-rem...
  - rglullis 5y ago
    IIUIC, the restorers are not changing the original but merely restoring the degradation that the works of art suffer. The paintings are 600 years old, you'd figure that the colors would be a lot more vibrant when it was painted than in the "pre-restoration" state. Digital art does not have this problem.
    - LordDragonfang 5y ago
      >Digital art does not have this problem. https://xkcd.com/1683/ https://xkcd.com/1683/ On a less smug note, truly digital art might not have that problem, but digital representations of analogue art (which the topic of discussion falls under) do. Most movies are just digital encodings of analogue film, and it's only very recently this stopped being true. And that's not to mention the fact that the way you that you view digital files also affects them. There's the general trend towards denser displays requiring higher resolutions for a file to appear crisp, but even the screen technology itself is a factor - take a look at how much different pixel sprites look on modern displays compared to the CRTs they were designed for:[1][2] [1] https://twitter.com/crtpixels https://twitter.com/crtpixels [2] https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-case-for-composite.html https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-case-for-co...
karaterobot 5y ago
> For most of human history art has always been mutable. If you tour the National Gallery of Art there are plenty of paintings that have been changed throughout out the years to match changing and politics or theologies. Interesting point. The reason people object more strongly to this, then, may have something to do with the different relationships people have to popular, commercial movies and fine art, or to the difference between touring a museum and watching a movie in your home. More research needed as to the reasons why, but in any case people do feel a certain way about it.
cbsmith 5y ago
I love that people think that an immutable master would help. Because an image projected from film in a theatre in 1999 is of course going to establish how something should be rendered on an LED/OLED flat panel today.
globular-toast 5y ago
I think the problem is that choice is a burden. When there's only one version of a film available, it's great. But then a "better" version becomes available and all of a sudden it's not great. Or is it? Now you need to think twice before you watch that film as you wouldn't want to miss the better version. I believe this the subject of a book The Paradox of Choice. I've only read a synopsis of it and it seems to match my own experience.
jart 5y ago
For most of human history vandalism and violence has always been common.
jeegsy 5y ago
Consumer Complaint: we would rather "X" Response: ACKSHULLY, {everything} has always been "Y" so the "X" you want as a consumer is kinda invalid This argument sequence is a special kind of infuriating

sircastor 5y ago

See Also: Star Wars.

ivanech 5y ago
Oh geez the Star Wars special edition is one of the stronger arguments in favor of immutability
- thatswrong0 5y ago
  Seriously. Like how on Earth did he think blocking the whole screen with a CGI dinosaur was an improvement? (https://youtu.be/OEch4j4KyoU?t=353 https://youtu.be/OEch4j4KyoU?t=353)
  - edent 5y ago
    Because the Special Editions aren't for you. They're an advert for ILM's services. The target audience is movie makers, producers, directors, executives etc. They can see all the whizz-bang effects that ILM are able to produce - and how they can revitalise old movies.
    - thatswrong0 5y ago
      But that shot just looks awful.
    - seanicus 5y ago
      And also a warm-up to see what ILM could do in Episode I. The people working on the SE pretty much rolled right into working on TPM when it was finished.
anonu 5y ago
Interesting > Luke's lightsaber During the training scene aboard the Millennium Falcon, Luke's lightsaber—which in some releases had erroneously appeared green—was corrected to blue for the 2019 release. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releas...
jart 5y ago
See Also: Lord of the Rings Extended Edition. That's a good reason to not take a hardline stance on film immutability.
- seanicus 5y ago
  A key point being that both versions are available with the same quality of image and are both remastered with equal care on re-releases. By contrast, something resembling the theatrical versions of Star Wars not been available since laserdisc. I say change whatever you want about your movie; but please make available the version of the movie we fell in love with. There was a hasty and poorly implemented transfer of the LD's included as a bonus feature on a DVD release. No up-res so LD is the latest version according to moi.
  - jart 5y ago
    Please? We don't need to grovel. The Internet never forgets. Watch Harmy's Despecialized Edition. It was made by this school teacher from Czechoslovakia and he's got more talent Industrial Light & Magic. I'm surprised ILM hasn't renamed itself like Xe and Meta after what Lucas did.

brandonmenc 5y ago

> Every show Shakespeare put on was slightly different. And it would be awesome to have each and every one on film. > Many comments here are clamoring for immutable masters. Which are essentially free. We can't do this with buildings.

supernovae 5y ago

I don't really see the point for immutable masters since no one ever sees it in that state. No one tv or cinema is calibrated 100% to the master and it would be too expensive to do so.

Ardon 5y ago

I think we can have both things. There's no particular reason why the various revisions of a digital product can't be kept available. For example: I keep both the Star Wars Despecialized Edition and the blu-ray release on my jellyfin server and then you can just pick your preference with a drop-down menu. I'd love to see the same setup on official services.

x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago

Did the instance of the painting change? Or did what was in the art collection change? I don't care of the collection changes, but I might care if people are scribbling on the paintings for whatever reasons. Unlike a Shakespeare show, digital media can be reproduced perfectly for little cost, the fact that multiple unique instances of a theme can be different doesn't mean that we should.

SethTro 5y ago
In practice yes, Museums occasionally clean & restore their paintings which shifts the color balance, grain, texture similar ways. There's a some great pre/post conservation photo in this article: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/as-layers-of-old-varnish-are-removed-italian-renaissance-painter-ercole-de-robertis-brilliance-is-once-again-revealed/ http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/as-layers-of-old-varnish-are-rem...
- rglullis 5y ago
  IIUIC, the restorers are not changing the original but merely restoring the degradation that the works of art suffer. The paintings are 600 years old, you'd figure that the colors would be a lot more vibrant when it was painted than in the "pre-restoration" state. Digital art does not have this problem.
  - LordDragonfang 5y ago
    >Digital art does not have this problem. https://xkcd.com/1683/ https://xkcd.com/1683/ On a less smug note, truly digital art might not have that problem, but digital representations of analogue art (which the topic of discussion falls under) do. Most movies are just digital encodings of analogue film, and it's only very recently this stopped being true. And that's not to mention the fact that the way you that you view digital files also affects them. There's the general trend towards denser displays requiring higher resolutions for a file to appear crisp, but even the screen technology itself is a factor - take a look at how much different pixel sprites look on modern displays compared to the CRTs they were designed for:[1][2] [1] https://twitter.com/crtpixels https://twitter.com/crtpixels [2] https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-case-for-composite.html https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-case-for-co...

karaterobot 5y ago

> For most of human history art has always been mutable. If you tour the National Gallery of Art there are plenty of paintings that have been changed throughout out the years to match changing and politics or theologies. Interesting point. The reason people object more strongly to this, then, may have something to do with the different relationships people have to popular, commercial movies and fine art, or to the difference between touring a museum and watching a movie in your home. More research needed as to the reasons why, but in any case people do feel a certain way about it.

cbsmith 5y ago

I love that people think that an immutable master would help. Because an image projected from film in a theatre in 1999 is of course going to establish how something should be rendered on an LED/OLED flat panel today.

globular-toast 5y ago

I think the problem is that choice is a burden. When there's only one version of a film available, it's great. But then a "better" version becomes available and all of a sudden it's not great. Or is it? Now you need to think twice before you watch that film as you wouldn't want to miss the better version. I believe this the subject of a book The Paradox of Choice. I've only read a synopsis of it and it seems to match my own experience.

jart 5y ago

For most of human history vandalism and violence has always been common.

jeegsy 5y ago

Consumer Complaint: we would rather "X" Response: ACKSHULLY, {everything} has always been "Y" so the "X" you want as a consumer is kinda invalid This argument sequence is a special kind of infuriating