I'd say put back those shots, where the despecialization doesn't look seamless enough. Sadly this would mean return of such awfullnes as the ronto butt in the cantina approach, but at least it will be more satisfyable for the nitpickers.
Great that your thinking of redoing the PDEs Harmy as for me they're the definitive starwars versions. I know the quality of the films are not as sharp as the DE but although alot of the in-your-face CG has no excuse being in there the other subtle changes add to the depth of the films.
I'll have a long hard think of the things that I'd like to see gone and post them here but you've got a good eye for this as you pretty much had it spot on with PDEs new hope sadly I was'nt able to get hold of the other two versions but will glady wait for your new work on them now :]
I looked again at the PDEs about 6 months ago, and they really don't stand up to even v.1 of the DEs. The image quality isn't as good, and many of the SE effects left in actually look terrible, such as the dewbacks staggering around the Tatooine desert. Seeing the PDE and DE side-by-side really shows how poor virtually all of the SE changes are, in my opinion.
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Well you should be glad you have your definitive version in the DEs there Jar Jar's Yoda and I'm sure alot of peeps will agree with you.
I too will have the theatrical versions (DEs) that I grew up with in the 80's on my shelf also but I like alot of the subtle additions found in the special editions. Cloud cities beautiful views and to see a living city through the many windows in the scenes I like rather then a derelict hospital corridor look to it to name a few changes.
I'm still working on my list with screenshots and scene times to post up here for Harmys consideration starting with a new hope not expecting all the changes but I hope enough agree that most are to stay/remove as needed.
I guess I really will leave this to popular opinion here, since I have no intention of watching the PDEs myself. So just give me some brainstorming here and I'll go through the posts later and make up some sort of poll or something for the things I'm not sure about.
Oh, and sorry, but unless at least ten people express their desire to have this version done, I'm gonna go back to being Lucas and leave it to the fan community to restore and share the PDEs ;-) :-D
In fact, Darf Muffy, this would be such a simple, straightforward editing job that you could in fact just use some free software and construct your own ideal version using the DeEd and the SEs.
Harmy, I was planning on making my own pde after you finish Despecialized 2.0.
The theatrical version is of course my first choice, but i also want a version that combines your 2.0 with the SE death star attack. The new shots in that scene work well for me and don't distract me in the least (as opposed to every other SE alteration), so it would be nice to have that entire scene be from one high quality source.
Would this be a simple edit? Could I just replace the entire death star scene in 2.0 with footage from the PDE (or maybe directly from the 97' SE tv broadcast), or would that cause the original audio to be out of sync?
I'm also a newb, so I'm not sure how to do this yet. I work on a mac, so that may be problem too, as most of the technical threads here are only relevant to pc's.
thanks.
“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.” - George Lucas
I like that idea. Harmy, I say stick to your guns on this one (your vision, your project), but once we have a perfect V2, making our own personal version using your edit with the SE would be incredibly simple (provided it differs from what you release :-) )
I don't see any real need to update the PDEs. They were a stepping stone to the DeEds.
The PDEs are out there, and I'm sure someone can re-upload them if need be.
Getting everyone to decide on which despecializations we want to replace will be a matter of subjective taste.
Harmy, I'd rather see you spend your time on getting the DeEds just right :D
You know of the rebellion against the Empire?
IMHO, It seems like a step backwards. Yet Harmy can and will do what he wants.
Troy
looking for HDTV of the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Also HDTV of The Lord of the Rings trilogy
This was only a thing that I personally would of loved to have seen but it seems like Harmys best of spending his time and attention on his DeEds projects now then and I totally understand that.
If it's not too involved I'll have a stab at mocking up a revamped version of the PDEs myself then.
Any pointers anyone on this I'm just looking to get done exactly what Harmy got in the PDEs updated to look as good as the DeEds with a few extra SE scenes from ESB like the wompa scene and cloud city added in ultimately... So Whats the best tools and way to approach this :S
Interesting development - maybe this could turn into a make your own OOT/SE hybrid version thread :-)
Do keep in mind that the recreated 70mm mix or any other GOUT-synched audio could not be used for a version that retained the SE visual effects in the end battle, because a lot of those shots have added laser blasts and engine sounds and other things that won't match up. To make it work those parts would have to be replaced with the actual SE mix.
It wouldn't be impossible to edit something like that together, of course, but the only way I'd ever be persuaded to do it would be to stop someone else from doing it incorrectly. :p
This is pretty much what i'm doing myself, 'partly despecialised' high quality HD versions of the three films in the original trilogy. I've been using the blu-rays and highest quality hdtv versions I know of, the german hdtv streams, to replace bits that have been changed for the worse in this blu-ray release back to how they were before the blu-ray release, like R2D2 having those CG rocks in front of him now that he wouldn't have been able to get behind in Star Wars or those creepy blinkong eyes of certain ewoks in Return of the Jedi, to name but a few.I've also regraded the two sources so they seemlessly blend together.
Of course I have implemented many others changes like removing Jabba from A New Hope, making Han shoot first, getting rid of the silly CG antics when they enter Mos Eisley, removing Jedi Rocks from Return of the Jedi and reinstating Lapti Nek, removing many of the OTT celebrations at the end, in particular the ones from the prequel worlds which have no place in the original trilogy IMHO. especially Naboo with the 'Weesa Free', removing Hayden Christensen and reinstating Sebastain Shaw etc. etc.
I assumed there wasn't much interest in something like this, essentially getting rid of the bad specialised choices but keeping the good ones, but if there is, I suppose I could start a thread much like Harmy's one here, sharing what i've done. I don't know if me starting a new thread is against the rules here, me being a fairly new poster and all. If it is, apologies.
BTW Harmy, I think you were right about the blu-ray itself being a little underexposed. I've been experimenting with increasing the brightness and it does help. One problem i've run into is that some highlights tend to get blown out in certain parts of the three films. Have you got any suggestions on how to get round that?
You should totally start a thread. As far as I know, there's absolutely no policy against new posters making threads, especially if they've got something interesting to share :-)
As to the blown out whites, that always happens a little and I don't know how to avoid it but it seems a small price for an over-all much better looking picture.
Cool, glad to hear there's no problem with me starting a new thread. It'll be nice to be able to get feedback on changes i've implemented like this brightness issue, which i'm still a little undecided about. Extra brightness/exposure is needed, sure, but the question is how much. I want the brightness change to be the same for all three films and ESB on Hoth in particular has a lot of white highlights which will get blown out with too much extra brightness, so a balance of sorts has to be struck, which is kind of tricky...
I can even upload them when they're finished if the interest is there. I'll be surprised if I get any replies though, everybody's pretty much waiting with bated breath for your despecialised editions to come out, as am I :)
OMEN, I would be very interested in your project. I just want the Trilogy in the best available quality, but without all the really offensive special edition changes. There are some minor changes that aren't distracting for me and which do not alter the original intention of the story.
In a perfect world, yes I would obviously prefer to have the unaltered originals in all their glory, but it does not have to be a true 100% theatrical version for me to enjoy the movies as I did when I was a kid. Here are my thoughts on each film:
STAR WARS: The only big SE changes that I wouldn't mind keeping are the new death star attack shots. They blend very well with the original scene, in my opinion. Everything else, though, has to go. All the new cg creatures on tatooine, greedo shooting first, jabba, etc.
EMPIRE: Basically, change everything back to the original except maybe the new Cloud City shots where they added windows revealing parts of the city outside. This is much less distracting to me, than inserting backgrounds from an inferior quality source and rotoscoping movement around the old backgrounds. This was really my only problem with Harmy and Adywan's Empire restoration, as it was really noticeable.
- Obviously the old emperor scene MUST be restored. I'm surprised more people dont talk about this more, as it is one of the most harmful changes that Lucas did to his movies:
From the opening title crawl we learn that Vader is "obsessed" with finding Luke. Then later during his conversation with the emperor we hear Vader almost defending Luke: "He's just a boy. Obi-wan can no longer help him." He also expresses reluctantance to kill Luke and offers an alternative - "If he could be turned." It becomes clear that Vader's "obsession" has to do with the fact that Luke is his son. His dialogue in the emperor scene starts to reveal that Vader still has a small piece of his humanity left. Later of course in Jedi we learn that Luke was in fact correct about this as Vader redeems himself in the end and is able to save his "soul".
The new emperor scene removes all of this cool character development and even implies that Vader didn't know Luke was his son: "How is this possible?". Not to mention the fact that the new dialogue is simply horrible and is the same ridiculous, wooden, lifeless nonsense that plagued the prequels.
- Also, the new shuttle scene during the climax has to be taken out and restored so that we hear the classic "bring my shuttle" line. That new scene only breaks up the action anyway, and is completely useless.
- Original wampa scene: I'm "ok" with the new wampa scene but I much prefer the original.
- Restore the original Jeremy Bulloch / Boba Fett audio
JEDI: I'm ok with the '97 SE ending. To me the new John Williams score combined with the new shots are a more fitting way to end the Star Wars saga than the original "yub-yub" song. Still I'm completely happy with the original ending, and yub-yub brings back memories from my childhood, so either way...
- Jedi Rocks must go.
- original sarlaac.
- Hayden Christiansen - please make him go away.
- Vader does not yell "Noooooooo!" when he throws the emperor down the shaft. Seriously, George? What the hell were you thinking?
I'm sure there are more abominations that need to be restored - I'm just going off my memory of the last time i watched the 06 dvd's several years ago. I refuse to watch them today. I also don't like the new over-saturated color correction from the new versions.
All this being said, yes I can't wait for Harmy's new version 2.0. I would just like to have these "mostly-despecialized" versions, as another option.
“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.” - George Lucas
Cobra Kai said:
OMEN, I would be very interested in your project. I just want the Trilogy in the best available quality, but without all the really offensive special edition changes. There are some minor changes that aren't distracting for me and which do not alter the original intention of the story.
In a perfect world, yes I would obviously prefer to have the unaltered originals in all their glory, but it does not have to be a true 100% theatrical version for me to enjoy the movies as I did when I was a kid. Here are my thoughts on each film:
STAR WARS: The only big SE changes that I wouldn't mind keeping are the new death star attack shots. They blend very well with the original scene, in my opinion. Everything else, though, has to go. All the new cg creatures on tatooine, greedo shooting first, jabba, etc.
EMPIRE: Basically, change everything back to the original except maybe the new Cloud City shots where they added windows revealing parts of the city outside. This is much less distracting to me, than inserting backgrounds from an inferior quality source and rotoscoping movement around the old backgrounds. This was really my only problem with Harmy and Adywan's Empire restoration, as it was really noticeable.
- Obviously the old emperor scene MUST be restored. I'm surprised more people dont talk about this more, as it is one of the most harmful changes that Lucas did to his movies:
From the opening title crawl we learn that Vader is "obsessed" with finding Luke. Then later during his conversation with the emperor we hear Vader almost defending Luke: "He's just a boy. Obi-wan can no longer help him." He also expresses reluctantance to kill Luke and offers an alternative - "If he could be turned." It becomes clear that Vader's "obsession" has to do with the fact that Luke is his son. His dialogue in the emperor scene starts to reveal that Vader still has a small piece of his humanity left. Later of course in Jedi we learn that Luke was in fact correct about this as Vader redeems himself in the end and is able to save his "soul".
The new emperor scene removes all of this cool character development and even implies that Vader didn't know Luke was his son: "How is this possible?". Not to mention the fact that the new dialogue is simply horrible and is the same ridiculous, wooden, lifeless nonsense that plagued the prequels.
- Also, the new shuttle scene during the climax has to be taken out and restored so that we hear the classic "bring my shuttle" line. That new scene only breaks up the action anyway, and is completely useless.
- Original wampa scene: I'm "ok" with the new wampa scene but I much prefer the original.
- Restore the original Jeremy Bulloch / Boba Fett audio
JEDI: I'm ok with the '97 SE ending. To me the new John Williams score combined with the new shots are a more fitting way to end the Star Wars saga than the original "yub-yub" song. Still I'm completely happy with the original ending, and yub-yub brings back memories from my childhood, so either way...
- Jedi Rocks must go.
- original sarlaac.
- Hayden Christiansen - please make him go away.
- Vader does not yell "Noooooooo!" when he throws the emperor down the shaft. Seriously, George? What the hell were you thinking?
I'm sure there are more abominations that need to be restored - I'm just going off my memory of the last time i watched the 06 dvd's several years ago. I refuse to watch them today. I also don't like the new over-saturated color correction from the new versions.
All this being said, yes I can't wait for Harmy's new version 2.0. I would just like to have these "mostly-despecialized" versions, as another option.
Hey Cobra, i'm pretty much with you on most of those changes. 95% of those video changes are included in this version and 100% of the audio changes you suggested. There are some changes like the original Sarlaac pit that would be too jarring to insert though IMHO because there is no high definition source that has the original sarlacc without all the CG tentacles, so you would either have to have the whole scene in uprezed GOUT quality or be constantly cutting between blu-ray quality and GOUT quality that would be very distracting to say the least. I personally don't mind the new Sarlacc pit all that much anyway, the tentacles make it more of an active participant in the scene. The only footage i've used from the GOUT for my version is Lapti Nek to replace Jedi Rocks and Sebastian Shaw replacing Hayden Christensen at the end of ROTJ. Lapti Nek is one continuous scene taken from the GOUT, so its far less noticable because its not constantly jumping between GOUT quality and blu-ray quality, just at the start and end of the scene. Everything else is either from the blu-ray or german hdtv streams to maintain as high quality as possible.
As for the colours, I've left the colours as they are, albeit with the blue tint removed, because I always felt the original star wars was a little too desaturated and didn't want to start messing around more with the blu-ray's colour scheme but that really is easy for anybody to fix, you just lower your colour setting on your tv and problem solved, star wars as desaturated as you want.
Harmy said:
Wow, the original sarlacc pit looks really good in that clip!! Harmy, what source have you used there for all the original sarlacc footage? Is that from the GOUT!?
Look here :-)
Harmy said:
Look here :-)
Wow, i've got to say, that is very impressive work indeed Harmy!!! I'm not ashamed to say that all that work you've done with custom mattes is far beyond me. Any chance you might have a high quality version of that despecialised sarlac scene that I can borrow? ;)
In all seriousness, I really would be honoured to be able to use the fantastic work you've done there in my current project rather than the blu-ray footage with the CG tentacles but if you can't, I perfectly understand, I can't imagine the amount of time that went into doing all those custom mattes and putting everything together so sucessfully. Great work!!!
It's in my ROTJ DeEd, which can be found on tehparadox.com :-) That is currently the best quality I have of it myself (well, that plus the uncompressed shots that are not cut together and are way too big to upload).
Very generous of you to let me use your hard work on despecialising the sarlacc pit for my project Harmy, much appreciated! :)
I don't know if the image quality of your Return of the Jedi despecialised edition thats been released is high enough though to fit fairly seemlessly with the rest of the blu-ray sourced video. I really hope it is though. I'll certainly give it a shot! Thanks again! :)
I'm going to be posting another clip soon, where Luke is attacked by the wampa on Hoth in ESB. The black spots on the bottom left corner have been removed (i personally found them very distracting on the blu-ray) but I've also applied the extra brightness that your suggested, exactly the same amount as the Star Wars sand people clip I posted before. Can you check them both out when you have the time and let me know what you think about the brightness of both the clips but in particular the Hoth clip. I'd greatly appreciate your feedback.
Sorry, what sand people clip? Must have missed that.
And no problem about using my edit, that's how the community works here, if you check my source list, you'll see that I've also used the works of many talented people here in my edits :-)
And I'm pretty sure the sarlacc shots should work with the BD footage, you'll have to upscale them of course but most of them are very short, fast moving shots, so the difference shouldn't be distracting at all.