logo Sign In

Possessed Star Wars Trilogy custom edition (* part-finished project *)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Hello all. This is something I’ve been working on for a little while. It’s sortof my own semi-specialized version of Ep Iv and V. (Not including VI because I’m making a fan edit of it that I will use to match the rest of the set in presentation, unless people like IV and V enough I might release one of it too)

The controversial thing about these editions is that they will use the 2011 color timing. Sorry, but on my projector and huge screen, they really look fine. A tad dark at times but its not a deal breaker for me. However there will be a base adjustment based on settings suggested by JawsTDS. This will adjust the strange hue and has a mild gamma adjustment to fix the darkness.

These will also use telecine7’s versions as a base. Basically this means all lasers, blaster shots, and lightsabers are redone to match the modern films. They look fantastic and all credit goes to him for this.

Another serious point of effort in these editions is the audio. Theo primary audio track will be a 2.0 fully pro logic/dolby surround compatible ac3 track with a very high bitrate (for a 2 channel track) sourced straight from a dts track or a lossless pcm track of the 93 mixes for some sections. This was in aim to be able to provide people without dts capabilities or receivers to have the quality the dts tracks offer in a dolby (much more accessible) format. Being that they are mixed down to 2.0 that is a much higher bitrate per channel than a 5.1 track would, and sounds much closer to to the original dts track quality wise than a 5.1 conversion would. And great care was taken to ensure that they were downmixed properly and fully compatible with pro logic/dolby surround systems and they work great, you still get a very immersive surround experience. Also on the full bd25 versions will be provided a 5.1 upmix for folks without pro logic or an upmixing receiver, but the 2.0 track will be the recommended track due to the higher fidelity because of it being sourced straight from the dts files. (The 5.1 file will be converted as directly as possible as well but with more channels to spread the bitrate over its not quite as good. Don’t get me wrong it sill sounds quite good, just a little less full sounding, the bottom isn’t quite as warm and less fine detail) on a/b tests the only real (audible anyway… Obviously small minute differences) difference was the dialogue bleeding a bit into the front left and right speakers, but honestly who cares about that.

Here’s a more specific breakdown of the films.
 

EPISODE IV (finished)

Mostly just the (telecine7) 2011 bluray versions. However:
-Entire Mos Eisley sequence (until the stormtroopers blast at the han and crew boarding the falcon) is the original version. Taken from harmys despecialized version upscaled to 1080p and color matched to the 2011 version. (Again, I know I’m in the minority on this but while they may not be authentic but the 2011 colors just look better to be). This means no jabba, no cgi ronto, no greedo shooting, or anything else they butchered for that.
-all lasers and sabers redone by telecine7. Some jump cuts also smoothed my him also.
-Sorry, but the shot of the walking trash can in the sandcrawler has been removed. I promise it was done seamlessly but I always hated that.
-Bad audio cut during the sandpeoplec music cue is fixed by borrowing audio from adywans revisited.

The audio is sourced from the 1997 sound mix dts files for most of it. The horrid 2011/2004 mix is banished. No more inconsistent dialogue quality, no more harah, dry sound. 93 mix used for mos eisley sequence. As stated before the audio is presented as a 2.0 pro logic track sourced straight from the dts/wav files. The alternate 5.1 track in this case was actually assembled separately and is not just an upmix like in V and VI. Although the difference is negligible honestly to me and the 2.0 track still sounds better to me.
 

Episode V (almost finished)

-All lasers and sabers redone by telecine 7.
-Wampa cave reverted to original using the dreamaster degrained film scan with a stabilizing filter applied to stop the shaking. Also color matched to 2011.
-Various dialogue takes changed from 2011 put back (shelter is built instead of up, Luke is full of surprises and doesn’t grunt falling down steps, r2 is lucky he doesn’t taste very good etc.). However, the 2011 mix and it’s superior quality is used as a base so the missing speeder explosion is there and Luke tells 3po thanks while recovering. Also the fixed music cut is still fixed and the missing boba fett departure cue is still present from the special edition.
-original boba fett voice restored.
-added special edition shot of the slave ship chasing the falcon ridiculously close removed.
-Ian is the emperor.
-changes to the ending sequence reverted back. (Bring my shuttle restored, extra shots removed)
-one or two unique changes that shouldn’t matter much to anybody.

The 5.1 track included here is just an upmix but it sounds good.

 

ANH is done and ESB is mostly done. I have not authored the bd25 yet, as I am planning on having a few documentaries included as bonus features and also menus authored to mimic the menus of the SNES games, mostly just for fun. However I plan on uploading a 720p avchd compatible mkv to the spleen very soon. Once I’ve authored the full bd25 version which will be 1080p I’ll upload it as well.

Author
Time

On second thought perhaps this would be better off in the fanedit section because of the rotoscoped lasers and one or two original changes if kids want to move it.

Author
Time

Ian is the Emperor? Nice. But is it the SE dialog or edited back to the original dialog?

Author
Time

Planning on keeping it SE as it doesn’t technically conflict with anything established in the OT nor does it spoil the surprise (if there’s anybody on the player surprised by it now), nor does it detract from the film I don’t think. The crawl already establishes Vader is obsessed with finding young Skywalker, so having the emperor refer to him in that way I feel builds more tension in the film.

However, I am open to a discussion of possibly editing it to the original dialogue (except for “young Skywalker” instead of “Luke Skywalker”), and I know it’s possible as I’ve done it before, I just don’t have the edit I made anymore.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I have decided to redo these mostly from scratch (mostly because I will probably just reuse the audio tracks and just try to sync the new video to them) using the settings described by JawsTDS in the thread below for video, but still using telecine7’s redone lightsabers and blasters. This is not a shot by shot regrade, it is not authentic to any source, it’s just a blanket correction that makes the existing timing much more natural looking and less dark, and no more magenta skin.

originaltrilogy.com/topic/Original-Trilogy-Blu-rays-SPC-Single-Pass-Corrections/id/54847

I don’t actually have Sony Vegas, I just used the values he gave and fed them into other programs, mostly avisynth, but it looks very similar. I’ll post some screenshots of anh once it’s done rendering. I never shared this anyway so nows a good time to do this so I only have to share it once. So just to recap, you’ll get:

2011 version but with JawsTDS improved color and gamma settings, as well as telecine7’s re rotoscoped lightsabers and blasters.

1997 sound mix sourced from dts converted to dolby surround (this way you can get most of the fidelity of the dts track but with the increased compatibility of an ac3 track, due to each channel getting a much higher bitrate, but still surround. Actually I used a PL2 matrix so it should actually upmix even more accurately than dolby surround from the 90s. Plus this should allow for easier use since the one track will sound good on any setup whether it’s stereo or surround)
Entire mos eisley sequence reverted to it’s 1977 state, so no jabba and no greedo shooting. Can’t remember if I used the 77 mix or the 93 mix for that.

Author
Time

Would anybody like to give anh a test watch for me? I would compress it down to a 720p 5 GB or so file so it wouldn’t be to judge overall quality but more to see if there are any editing mistakes or glitches.

Author
Time

I’d love to. But I’m not entirely sure when I’ll have time to do so.

Author
Time

Possessed said:

Would anybody like to give anh a test watch for me? I would compress it down to a 720p 5 GB or so file so it wouldn’t be to judge overall quality but more to see if there are any editing mistakes or glitches.

I am down if you need a volunteer…

Author
Time

Excellent. Just need to figure out a way to share it.

Author
Time

MEGA. Free 50GB of storage. Anyone can download, no need for spleen or appendix or gallbladder.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Might do that.

Going to make one more last minute tweak then send it, probably the day after tomorrow.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Doing the big encode now, then I’ll make a compressed version to send to you peEps.

Author
Time

I have some spare time this Sunday/Monday and can give it a look on a PS3. Doesn’t take long to get it from MEGA.

Han Shot. Period.

Author
Time

I’ve been sleeping a while. Send me a link. Like to see what u have come up with. 😃

Author
Time

I shall. The “miniature” 720p encode is finished, uploading for feedback from you guys now. I think it’s pretty seamless, as much as possible anyway. It’s the 2011 version, with new modern looking lightsaber blades and blasters shots courtesy of telecine7. There is a base gamma and color correction as well but it’s not extensive it merely fixes the darkness and makes the existing color timing on the blurays look more pleasant. It also uses the 97 sound mix, but the entire mos eisley sequence is 77 theatrical, going back to the Blu Ray cut when the Stormtroopers start firing on Han and co entering the falcon. So no greedo shot, no cgi rontos or slapstick, no jabba, etc. Obviously due to limitations in the source material for that it looks sightly different. I used harmy 2.7 for that color adjusted to match as best as I could. Some shots look less than perfect, but I mean they already did. I had a screening at my house on my projector with some friends who only having a casual knowledge of star wars and all they noticed was that “Han shot first” like they’d always heard it was “supposed” to be but I didn’t say anything about why it was like that and I didn’t tell them it was something I cobbled together I kinda just made it seem like it was a rare custom edition I found and nobody said anything about quality changing or anything.

There are three original changes in this version but they are all pretty minute.
-Shot of the walking trash can on the jawa sandcrawler cut. Just that one shot of it walking, because I hated it. One of the few shots in the film that actually look very dated to me.
-Bad audio edit during the sandpeople reveal fixed with audio lifted from adywans revisited
-Edited out the section of a shot in the scene where Darth Vader and tarkin discover the princess lied to them where Vader continues gesturing with his arms well after he quits speaking. Accomplished this by lifting a shot of a closeup on Vader’s face from a different scene that takes place in that same room and he’s in the same spot and just flipped it to make him face the right way (the background is repeating panels so it doesn’t really look flipped) and color adjusted it. I think it’s seamless, but even if somebody can notice something is different about it I’m sure you’ll agree it’s smoother than what’s there now where he just kinda awkwardly gestures for no reason.

Author
Time

I do have some spare time throughout the rest of the weekend and most of next week, fortunately. So I’m available if you still need someone to test watch. 😉

Author
Time

I’m pretty new, so if it’s implied where you’re uploading it, I don’t know. Can you PM me?

And if it’s this “MySpleen” place, it would seem I am SOL.

Han Shot. Period.

Author
Time

I’m not officially releasing it just yet I’m just letting a couple people preview it. But yes the official release will probably be on the spleen. But I wouldn’t at all object if somebody else re-uploaded them somewhere else

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Sorry to all you guys that were hoping to watch it over the weekend. It’s finally uploading now and I’ll pm you guys. An issue I know about is there is a strange (but slight) green cast over about the first five minutes or so. This has been fixed for the big encode but is still present in this smaller version.

I’m terrible about this sort of thing. I make projects like this mostly for myself and finish them then am too lazy to go through the effort it takes to share it online. I’m the same with my music.

Author
Time

No worries man, and your music is great, so that bodes well for this project.

Author
Time

PM’s sent to one69chev and telecine7 (who did the rotoscoping for the lightsabers and blasters in this). Sorry to the other two, but the final version should be out pretty soon anyway. No offence to you guys, but DeckardKatarn has only been here a couple weeks and Callipso said wouldn’t know when you would have time and this is just a test run. The finished version should be out soon and you guys can have it then.

Author
Time

It’s fine, I’m looking forward to watching the final product. I’m sure you’ve done a great job.

Author
Time

I watched this last night and I would like to share some quick thoughts.

I thought is was great. There were a few small things, but overall it was a good effort.

A couple of observations:
When Luke first gets the lightsaber from Obi-Wan, he turns it on and then there is a weird kind of halo or distortion around his arm. I assumed that is ws from the roto-scoping, but I am not 100% sure. I did not notice it elsewhere when sabers were used.

There was a bit of an odd cut at 52.00 minutes when dick nose is perusing the group to the Falcon. I can’t remember if it was the same in the Blu ray; I will have to check it out.

Also, there did seem to be a bit of a drop off in resolition in the Mos Eisley scene. I know that you said you upscaled that scene and I did not mind it, as I prefer it to the SE version. Maybe a tinker with the upscale settings can make it more seemless if desired.

As far as the SE parts, the only ones you used that I still don’t like are the one scene with the Storm Troopers riding those weird beasties when they first land abd begin searching foe the droids and the scene with R2 hiding behind the rock. The CGI in both of those scenes is not very good compared to the practical effects, but the other SE scenes were not as noticable.

I think it helped that I just watched the Despecialized edition and the changes doc a few days before.

Overall, it was a really good effort. It sounded great on my soundbar and looked good, color and resolution wise on my tv, 4K Panasonic. Thanks again for letting preview it.