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The Original Trilogy restored from 35mm prints (a WIP) — Page 32

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I’d like to see proper 1080p scans of the 1997 trilogy.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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I would love to see a nice grindhouse scan of ANH SE. But I think the only part I really want is reel 3 (where all the unique bits to the 97 SE are). My interest is in the colors and the unique bits that got changed for the DVD relese for the trilogy.

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I will be putting together a version matched to the print, so that we can see what the colour looked like and what changes were made.

I’m going ahead with ANH so any help appreciated.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
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Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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I’m on hand for any assistance…

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poita said:

I will be putting together a version matched to the print, so that we can see what the colour looked like and what changes were made.

I’m going ahead with ANH so any help appreciated.

Hell yeah bro, I’ll defiantly throw a few bones your way. Glad to see you’re doing okay!

Luke astro-projects himself to Salt Lake Planet, gets shot at by gorilla walkers, has a non-lightsaber duel with Darth Millennial, then dies of a broken heart, inspiring broom boys throughout the galaxy to get creative with their sweeping. - DuracellEnergizer

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Hi poita, how is the OOT coming along? How much is there to do per film?

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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LexX said:

Hi poita, how is the OOT coming along? How much is there to do per film?

I think that he is busy restoring the 1997 SE and is awaiting important arm surgery.

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All the best to Poita and for a successful arm surgery. Sending all the good vibes to Poita!

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poita said:

Just a little preview for our German friends.

No audio, no real correction other than an offset for the red, just a straight scan test of Reel1 to see how the print looks.

https://infinit.io/_/QQRNpkF

Can you reup the file? I’m very interested to see it.

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Hey Poita- seems like maybe this got sidelined for some other projects? Any news on when it will be picked up again? Thanks in advance!

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It was put on hold while we get some SE prints scanned.
Should be back to this full time around the end of April.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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poita said:

It was put on hold while we get some SE prints scanned.
Should be back to this full time around the end of April.

not to be rude but don’t you think you should preserve the 35+ year old films that are degrading vs the 21 year old SE ? and will they all be in 4k ?
like i said not trying to be rude thanks for doing this cant wait for ESB and ROTJ in 4k to go with 4k77

We ❤️ Star Wars and give it all the moneys. Please don’t sue us.

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I’ve thrown well over fifty thousnd dollars of my own money and probably thousands of hours over the last ten+ years at preserving the original films, both for my own projects and other people’s.
There are some missing frames still, even though I have scanned many original prints. The SE has frames that are missing from the OT, and they are frames that were not changed from the original versions, and will be as close as we can get unless an OT print turns up with those frames intact.
For that reason alone, the SE is worth preserving.
The opportunity to scan the SEs came up, and it was a relatively small window of opportunity, so I decided it was worth holding everything else temporarily to get the SE done while I could. The quality of scanner being used would usually cost about $30K per scan, so it was an opportunity not likely to come up again.

That is from my personal point of view, others feel the SE are an important film in and of themselves, and the theatrical version has never been released in full high definition unaltered, which is kind of ironic.

Either way, it represents an opportunity that I took to get them scanned while I could, and to be honest I ran out of money to continue much work on the OT for a while, and it looked like others would fund the majority of getting the SE scanned, so it seemed a good idea to get that done.

I’m sure others can put forward good reasons to preserve the SE, but the above are mine, even though I am not a fan of them at all.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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poita said:

I’ve thrown well over fifty thousnd dollars of my own money and probably thousands of hours over the last ten+ years at preserving the original films, both for my own projects and other people’s.
There are some missing frames still, even though I have scanned many original prints. The SE has frames that are missing from the OT, and they are frames that were not changed from the original versions, and will be as close as we can get unless an OT print turns up with those frames intact.
For that reason alone, the SE is worth preserving.
The opportunity to scan the SEs came up, and it was a relatively small window of opportunity, so I decided it was worth holding everything else temporarily to get the SE done while I could. The quality of scanner being used would usually cost about $30K per scan, so it was an opportunity not likely to come up again.

That is from my personal point of view, others feel the SE are an important film in and of themselves, and the theatrical version has never been released in full high definition unaltered, which is kind of ironic.

Either way, it represents an opportunity that I took to get them scanned while I could, and to be honest I ran out of money to continue much work on the OT for a while, and it looked like others would fund the majority of getting the SE scanned, so it seemed a good idea to get that done.

I’m sure others can put forward good reasons to preserve the SE, but the above are mine, even though I am not a fan of them at all.

yea as i said thanks for doing this i wish i could help and thanks for clarifying your reasons i just thought you paused doing the originals and started the SE how close are you to getting ESB in 4k?

We ❤️ Star Wars and give it all the moneys. Please don’t sue us.

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RUN_LUKE_RUN said:

not to be rude but don’t you think you should preserve the 35+ year old films that are degrading vs the 21 year old SE ? and will they all be in 4k ?
like i said not trying to be rude thanks for doing this cant wait for ESB and ROTJ in 4k to go with 4k77

Like poita said, this was a limited opportunity, and to be honest you have to take opportunities when they come up. Look at the prices normally charged by labs in LA or NY that provide triple flash scanning, the costs are in the order of $20,000-30,000 per 2hr film.

Also, 4k77 is a different project to poita’s, it’s Team Negative 1’s project. I understand for you that Empire and Jedi may be priorities because there are other restorations already of the first film, but poita may wish to get the first film done first for his restorations.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

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RUN_LUKE_RUN said:

poita said:

I’ve thrown well over fifty thousnd dollars of my own money and probably thousands of hours over the last ten+ years at preserving the original films, both for my own projects and other people’s.
There are some missing frames still, even though I have scanned many original prints. The SE has frames that are missing from the OT, and they are frames that were not changed from the original versions, and will be as close as we can get unless an OT print turns up with those frames intact.
For that reason alone, the SE is worth preserving.
The opportunity to scan the SEs came up, and it was a relatively small window of opportunity, so I decided it was worth holding everything else temporarily to get the SE done while I could. The quality of scanner being used would usually cost about $30K per scan, so it was an opportunity not likely to come up again.

That is from my personal point of view, others feel the SE are an important film in and of themselves, and the theatrical version has never been released in full high definition unaltered, which is kind of ironic.

Either way, it represents an opportunity that I took to get them scanned while I could, and to be honest I ran out of money to continue much work on the OT for a while, and it looked like others would fund the majority of getting the SE scanned, so it seemed a good idea to get that done.

I’m sure others can put forward good reasons to preserve the SE, but the above are mine, even though I am not a fan of them at all.

yea as i said thanks for doing this i wish i could help and thanks for clarifying your reasons i just thought you paused doing the originals and started the SE how close are you to getting ESB in 4k?

Dude.

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I’d love nothing more than to get ESB done, it is difficult to prioritise one project over another.
The main scan the 4K77 project is using exists in part because many years ago I sent them $3000 worth of hard drives to store it on. The 1977 crawl exists because they lent me the film to get the 1977 crawl scanned on a pro level scanner, the ESB print got scanned in part because of Harmy’s followers. If Mike Verta hadn’t started on his project, some of these prints never would have been found and scans would not have been done.
We all help each other out behind the scenes, and make massive sacrifices of time and money to do so. It often means sacrificing time on your own project to help out with someone elses.
I got a PM the other day from someone who just wants me to upload the entire 21TB scan to their computer for them to use in their own experiments. Just doing that requires days of my time to restore the scan from LTO to hard drives, to tie up a computer for weeks to transfer the files, a computer that then can’t be used for doing any work on any of the projects. They just expected that it would be done for them, with no thought to the time and money costs involved at this end.
I also copped some flak on PMs as to seeing that I am so rich and can throw this sort of money at projects, why do I need donations anyway. I get this assumption quite a bit.
The reality is, I have 4 kids, two have medical issues, one has severe mental and physical disabilities and I am her primary carer. This means I can only work on short professional projects, or ones where I can work remotely from home. This means I typically make around AUD$30K a year in income, about $23,000 US a year, and my time is split between the work I can do and the needs of my kids. The time inbetween those spaces, I spend on this stuff, and we live very frugally and I spend probably more than I should on this stuff as well. Anything I would have spent buying a coke or a magazine or a coffee or something, I throw at this instead. I love it, I love working on it, and being part of a community that has done something that the studios are unwilling to.
The purpose of mentioning all this is that it boils down to I have limited resources of money and time. I have amazing resources of access to equipment and expertise, but am severely hampered by time and money. It is frustrating for me, and for everyone waiting on these, and without the help coming in from all of the amazingly generous souls here and on FanRes, none of this would exist. You all are truly amazing.
It is so frustrating sometimes, I wish we had a Zuckerberg style sugardaddy behind our cause, for about $40K per film, we could get the OT restored to a truly spectacular 4K that would knock the socks off the Blurays, and get it done in a few months, but we don’t have that kind of money available. It is a pity, as we could genuinely restore all 3 films for less than they spent re-doing the sound for the ANH SE.
Anyway, enough of a look behind the curtain, I just want everyone to know that I am as impatient as you all are to get the OT fully restored, in a glorious 4K deep colour version that it deserves, but other projects sometimes get priority, it all helps in the end, even if it delays things for a while.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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To answer your question re the OT ESB, one scan is done, but the film had fungus that affects a lot of frames. There is another ESB print that is far more faded, but has many of the frames we need. I want to scan it and then hopefully we will have a complete set that I can then get to work on restoring.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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Poita, if anyone here is harassing you in PM’s for any reason, notify me or the other mods immediately. We have rules against that sort of thing.

And from one former caregiver to another, a gigantic Wookiee hug.

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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Thanks for the hug 😃

Harassing would be too strong a word, I would say “robust queries” would be closer to the mark, I like to think the best of people. If I feel anyone steps way over the line, I’ll let you know, thanks again for all your support.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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You’re welcome!

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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Poita I’d like to take a moment to thank you, not only for all you do for the community but also for continuing to take the high road in situations like this - it’s unfortunate that a lot of forum threads ultimately flame out because somebody says something rude, and others respond in kind. It’s all too easy to write a biting retort. Your thoughtful and reasoned reply is the kind of response that stops that nonsense in its tracks, restores perspective and allows discussions to continue. This is not the first time, I’ve seen you bite your tongue, and refrain from cutting somebody down to size, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I applaud your patience, and wish the internet was filled with more people like you.

TheStarWarsTrilogy.com.
The007Dossier.com.
Donations always welcome: Paypal | Bitcoin: bc1qzr9ejyfpzm9ea2dglfegxzt59tys3uwmj26ytj

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Aw shucks ma’am, t’aint nuthin’

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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I completely agree with everything Williarob said- I’m very thankful that there are so many people who work so hard on these projects, often using their own resources, to provide a product to the fan community. Poita, your efforts transcend most, and in addition to scans you provide, your expertise and knowledge in the areas of film restoration are monumental. Thanks!!