It's too bad the lpp print isn't available yet.  I wonder, how do the known theatrical bootlegs treat those shots?  I'm rather skeptical of this simply because we've never noticed it before, as far as I know, anyways. Perhaps it was just on ib prints?

If it was on all/most prints I would vote to keep it, but if it was both ways theatrically, I think there's no reason to choose the worse looking theatrical version.

Here's my take on it:

The Technicolor prints provide us two very important pieces of information -

1) The actual look of prints in 1977.

2) Proof of the wildly inconsistent color timing seen throughout the film.

In my discussions with members of the original production crew, it is absolutely clear that the color inconsistencies do NOT represent intention. For a given sequence, color timing was intended to be at least internally consistent, though not necessarily universally consistent.  That is to say that for a given setpiece, the timing of footage shot on that set might vary depending on a scene's position within the film and given the emotional/dramatic needs of the scene.  But, again, within any given scene, it wasn't supposed to jump around as wildly as it did.  I've heard many reasons for the drifts; reasons forgivable, understandable, reasonable, unavoidable, typical...  and ultimately, just "how it was."

My personal approach in restoration is a tiered one.  Legacy has two versions: Archival, and Signature.  Archival is warts-and-all.  Signature follows intent.  If 9/10ths of the shots in the lightsaber sequence were timed the same way (or reasonably so) and the remaining 1/10th is wildly different, it wasn't the intention, and so I balance the scene internally, while maintaining the overall grading for the scene. This ultra blue timing is not motivated by a dramatic need or intent.  It's an error.  It's a charming error, and respect for it is why Legacy Archival exists.  Some people like it on principle, other people will be jarred by it, because we're far more accustomed to balanced color, now.  1977 eyes were far less demanding, scrutinizing, or sensitive. 

In terms of preserving the Tech look for the Harmy version, I might recommend you consider that you're not getting the Tech look, anyway, no matter what.  Neither sRGB nor NTSC colorspaces can accurately represent the look of the film as projected, so you might as well place your Principled Perfectionist caps on the table and take a step back.  Even the luminance curves/ranges of any of our monitors are wildly different from projected sources, and if you wanted it to look on your monitor like it does projected, you'd simply have to go back-and-forth between a projected version of the film and match it by eye, based on perceptual approximation.  It's a murky, murky world.

So, personally, given all the above conditions, I would probably vote for bringing those two bastards in line. It's still Star Wars, folks, and a shit-ton more Star Wars than most anything else, and certainly moreso than you're getting from LFL anytime soon.

Nobody is going to accuse us of not having respect for, nor failing to give great consideration to these issues, but we must preserve at least a modicum of logic, reason, and sanity and acknowledge differences in the mediums which prevent anything from being absolutely 100% "definitive."  Digital ain't as good as film in so many respects.  Period.  The work continues, nonetheless, with love and passion.

_Mike

Thanks for chipping in Mike, your insight is invaluable. I actually tend to agree (which is why I did it the way I did it in the WP in the first place) I just took the opposite stance to stir a little argument, so I'd know where people stand on this. This place is pretty dead lately :-) I may shift it slightly more blue just as a sort of wink to the original timing but I'm not going to make it look like there's a deep blue foil put in front of the projector lens :-)

As someone who's hoping to show this to friends as the original cut, I'm not sure I can explain color timing issues that randomly show up.

thxita said:

I come out of my lurking status to say "top one please" :)

sciadappa iu feis!

TV's Frink said:

 

stretch009 said:

TV's Frink said:

re encoding, I've had good results with hcenc.

I don't know that much about the topic but I'm pretty sure he'd rather use the far superior x264 over hcenc's mpeg2 encoder.

Edit:  If you were talking about the DVD5 than ,yes, I totally agree.

 

-

Sorry, I was indeed talking about the DVD5.

 

you're sorry?! you should be!

go back to your room! stay there, and don't come out again!

i551 said:

It's too bad the lpp print isn't available yet.  I wonder, how do the known theatrical bootlegs treat those shots?  I'm rather skeptical of this simply because we've never noticed it before, as far as I know, anyways. Perhaps it was just on ib prints?

If it was on all/most prints I would vote to keep it, but if it was both ways theatrically, I think there's no reason to choose the worse looking theatrical version.

 

well, we will know soon enough..

but my suspicion is that it will be like the top picture.

every other source i've looked at, including all the laserdiscs,ced,

vhs etc. seem to point to the top coloring for now.

if i'm wrong, we'll probably just leave it like the bottom one,

with a small adjustment.

later

-1

I would have thought that when producing the IB Prints they'd just be copying an inter negative which would already have the colour timing of an IP that would have been used for making other INs, so all IN and subsequently prints derived from that IP should have the same colour timing (or at least the same colour timing anomalies - overall brightness and contrast and saturation may differ). Am I wrong? Or could there at least be such a substantial difference between different IPs? How did they make sure that all IPs had the same or similar colourtiming; was the process somehow automated or did they have to set the timing for each shot manually every time a new IP was derived from the ONeg?

Anyway, here's the LS fight as it will appear in the final version:

http://uloz.to/xRu8mpX/ls-fight-new-new-mp4

I managed to get rid of the pink tint that plagued a part of the scene:

I favor the top one. The bottom is so "off", so drastically different, that I'm suspicious that there's something wrong with the Technicolor print.

EDIT: The top picture on the previous page, not the two pics just posted. For some reason I thought I was on the last page when I was on the previous page. I blame Frink.

As to the LPP print, Eastman's low fade stock wasn't introduced until the early 80s, so the LPP print may not represent the original colour timing.

Stinky-Dinkins said:

EDIT: The top picture on the previous page, not the two pics just posted. For some reason I thought I was on the last page when I was on the previous page. I blame Frink.

don't worry.

we all blame frink.

later

-1

ok, what about this pic from the Senator screening.  Colors won't be 100% accurate, obviously, but this clearly shows a very different look compared to your IB reference.  I wonder why?

http://petergaultney.smugmug.com/Movies/historic/Star-Wars-at-The-Senator/13089279_nXePV#!i=948708999&k=WgoSZ&lb=1&s=A

Now that is interesting.

uloz.to taking it's sweet time. Damn feds...

And yes, using the top version of this scene is IMHO a no-brainer. mverta put it best.