Fang Zei

Not sure if anyone heard the news yesterday, but Criterion is finally going 4k:

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/081121-1200

Did anyone else go to the Imax event the other night?

They showed the first ten minutes, as well as a scene from later in the movie that was shot entirely for the taller aspect ratio. They also highlighted Hans Zimmer’s score and closed with the new trailer (this was still the night before it went up online for all to see).

Trust me when I say that this thing looks and sounds incredible in a proper theater.

The AFI Silver here in the DC area will be showing ESB in August. I remember hearing last year about how the ESB screenings here and there were actually still the old 2k dcp, so I suspect this will be the same. Kinda puzzling why they wouldn’t be showing the newer 4k version, but then again LFL/Disney might not want to prepare new dcp’s until it’s time for an actual grand re-release in 3D and Dolby Cinema and Imax.

Of course, AFI Silver could theoretically be showing an actual ‘97 print (the info listed says 1980/1997, so it can’t be any older than that), but I doubt Disney even wants pre-2011 versions out there anymore.

Rodney-2187 said:

The “Vintage” section sure seems like a perfect place for them to eventually release the unaltered originals. I know that wouldn’t be the ideal scenario for many reasons, but certainly better than nothing.

It’s worth remembering that the 2019 D+ versions showed up there mere months before hitting physical UHD just over a year ago (they ditched Dolby Vision on the actual discs, but whatever).

So, a new transfer of the films hitting D+ ahead of a physical release wouldn’t entirely be without precedent.

Ryan-SWI said:

JJ himself admitted Palpatine was not the intended outcome of the Disney trilogy and they just kinda winged it.

He did? Then why was Kennedy saying at the convention that they “always intended Palpatine to return?”

I just stumbled across this clip that was shared by someone in a comments thread on twitter:

https://youtu.be/93DzOXD_91o

Did Harmy use a really, really good LD capture for the ‘97 Jabba shots? Is it an hd upscale from either an ld capture or one of the broadcasts? Is this a 35mm scan? Or is this another of his meticulous recreations?

(btw, here’s the original tweet if anyone wants to boost its signal: https://twitter.com/danslott/status/1365894127515299840?s=21 )

yotsuya said:

Currently the only versions not preserved in any form in HD are the 97 SE of TESB, ROTJ, and the theatrical version of TPM. The original TESB and 97 SE ANH are currently unfinished and only in grindhouse form.

What about the theatrical AotC (and, technically, RotS)?

Thanks for the info, everyone.

Yeah, Schorman’s I-VI was the one I was racking my brain trying to remember the name of.

As for the ‘97 versions, it sounds like we basically have a “4k97” for ANH and a “D+97” for RotJ, but the ‘97 ESB is basically in a Harmy-esque 720p form with some of the less obvious later changes still left in?

JadedSkywalker said:

The 97 35mm scan is damn near perfect, not sure why someone would want to go from that to the horribly compressed Digi Beta tape version.

I was finally able to retire my Laserdisc for that film and no pink tint/orange tint, unlike the LD and no dnr smear like the broadcasts.

Right, but isn’t that 35mm scan only of ANH? I was curious what the best source was for the entire 97 OT.

doubleofive said:

I’m not sure 97SE was ever shown in HD, but you’re right the 04SE was and that should be the highest quality version that I’m sure someone has on a hard drive somewhere.

Well, no, the broadcasts of the ‘97 version wouldn’t have been HD per se, but IIRC there were captures done of digital broadcasts in 16:9, letterboxed in 2.35:1, and these may or may not look better than the best laserdisc preservations out there.

But yeah, I didn’t see anything in the indexes about a simple hd broadcast preservation of the 2004 version.

With all the good work being done by Harmy and TN1 on the OOT, I thought it was worth asking about the pre-2011 officially revised versions and the best available preservations that are out there.

The 2011 OT blu-ray was based off of the exact same hd master created for the 2004 dvd release, but the 2004 version was never seen at 720/1080 home video resolution outside of hdtv broadcasts. I seem to recall seeing screengrabs of an hd recording back in 2005 or so. Would there still be any preservations intact all these years later?

While the 2004/2011 master was finished at 1080 resolution from a scan of the original negative, the 1997 restoration was done photochemically. Aside from some attempts at scanning in 35mm prints, it seems like the best available preservations out there would be based on hd broadcast captures.

Apologies if there’s a basically identical thread about this already, but I thought it would be worth asking for people’s thoughts on the various efforts over the years to preserve these two revisions of the OT at their highest possible quality.

Mocata said:

Disney frequently enjoys keeping movies they own locked away, and they’re certainly not in the business of releasing old versions of anything.

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is The Muppet Christmas Carol. Jeffrey Katzenberg made the executive decision to remove “The Love is Gone” from the theatrical release because he thought it would be too sad, but it was reinstated for the home video release. When it came time to release the dvd, widescreen and fullscreen versions were both included on the same disc, but only the 4:3 version had the deleted song. Apparently they’d lost the original negative for the deleted footage, so the only known source for the longer version of that scene was whatever film element they’d used for the 4:3 transfer, assuming that wasn’t simply the old fullscreen laserdisc master dumped to dvd. It’s kinda like the GOUT in reverse.

When it came time to remaster the movie for 4k and hdr for Disney+, the o-neg for the song was still nowhere to be found, so the version that went up on the service was once again the theatrical cut just as it had been on the blu-ray and the anamorphic dvd transfer. But it just so happens that the missing pieces of o-neg were finally found just a couple months ago, leading fans of the movie to speculate whether Disney will offer that version for streaming at some point in the future.

This actually brings me to something I was going to bring up earlier. We live in a post-#ReleaseTheSnyderCut world now, where something that no reasonable person thought would ever happen is now being financed to the tune of $70 million. The studios are all looking for ways to make money on the cheap with their business disrupted due to the current unpleasantness, and an OOT restoration would cost a small fraction of what AT&T is spending to finish the Snyder Cut.

On a long enough timeline, the unaltered versions get restored by Disney simply because they run out of ways to keep repackaging and reselling the same movies again and again without including them.

At this point there’s no logical financial reason why they haven’t done it yet, other than to keep milking these releases as much as possible (the deleted scenes should’ve been among the bonus features on the 2004 dvd but they saved them for the blu-ray, the 2011 blu-ray should’ve been remastered in 4k but they saved that for the uhd, etc).

Like, they’re honestly going to tell me that they thought the Maclunkey version in hdr would sell like mad but there just wouldn’t be enough interest in the OOT to make it worth their while?

I seriously doubt George cares one way or the other anymore.

As for a potential botch job, I’d gladly take a grainy transfer even if it had less fine detail than the DNR’d 2019 version.

As someone points out in the replies to that tweet, in May as much time will have passed since the release of TPM as had passed since the original Star Wars when TPM was released.

Anyway, 4k80 is roughly two-thirds done. Once it’s finished, the entire unaltered trilogy will be available for everyone to watch in not only full hd, but 2160p ultra hd as well. There won’t be any hdr versions (unless someone is working on that?), but this still feels like history repeating itself a little. A big reason the GOUT happened was because Lucasfilm realized how much money they weren’t making from all the fans who were acquiring fan preservations of the laserdiscs by downloading them for free or, worse, paying someone for a burned copy.

oojason said:

Given that George replaced Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen for this scene in the 2004 Special Edition of ROTJ:-

 
I’m surprised George didn’t also replace Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen for this scene below. Though maybe George was waiting until Hayden is somewhat older before filming it and then making the change…?

(Maybe there are plans to just change it for everyone’s Disney+ version / another Special Edition release at some point in the future! 😉 I’m just kidding, just kidding…)
 

The irony is that by 2026 the exact same amount of time will have elapsed since they shot RotS as passed in-universe between Anakin’s duel with Obi-Wan on Mustafar and RotJ.

Maybe we’ll finally see the Battle of Taanab.

Why did I hear somewhere that George was going to use digital de-aging tech on the OT actors? He mentions grandchildren in the interview. Was VII going to take place only a few short years after RotJ and then we jump way ahead PT-style for VIII and IX?

Anyway, what I find interesting here is how several aspects are in direct opposition to where the ST ended up going. Instead of stormtroopers that never quit, we got Finn’s storyline. Instead of Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order, he decides it’s time for it to end. Instead of the Emperor returning, it’s Darth Maul.

I don’t know how much of that thirty years between RotJ and TFA has been filled in yet outside of The Mandalorian, but I totally expect Lucasfilm to use at least some of these ideas for their future projects.

Could someone please explain which exact scene is being referenced here?

https://twitter.com/joefavs/status/1329645339834535936?s=21

I just realized that the director of Ant-Man had an actual ant man make an appearance in this episode.

Z6PO said:

Did you catch the format change? It went from CinemaScope aspect ratio to full screen HDTV for the action sequences!

I feel like I still noticed anamorphic bokeh in those full screen shots, so I’d be curious how they went about shooting that sequence.

I wasn’t paying super close attention to the sound, but recognized at least one version of it. Can’t remember now whether it was from ‘77, ‘04 or ‘11 (staying vague for people who wander in here without having watched the first episode of season 2, yes I know it’s the spoiler thread).

Anyway, not going to rewatch now just to listen for it again. But that was fun.

Barfolomew said:

I just caught this last week (we all knew they just had a wide expansion, right? 2000+ theaters) and I was stunned at how great it looked.

I presumed this was the new 4k master because it did not have the minty color timing of the blue rays, but looking up screen caps of the UHDs, they don’t at all look like what I saw in the theater. Much too murky and still had some of that “minty” look.

Thing is it really can’t be anything else, and I’ve noticed other movies that had rather obnoxious color timing on video or screencaps looked much more natural in the theater, I wonder why that is.

Yes, but were you watching at home on a calibrated display or just the out-of-the-box settings, etc, etc??

As far as I know, the version of Empire playing in theaters right now is still the 2004/2011 version off of that master (which, it’s worth mentioning, was only mastered by Lowry at 1920x1080 back in 2004, which isn’t even full 2k scope res).

I can’t speak for Empire, but I actually saw the 2011 bd of ANH projected in an actual movie theater several years ago and it looked surprisingly good shot out of a ridiculously expensive digital cinema projector. That might explain why Empire looked different from what you were used to.

JadedSkywalker said:

I think Villeneuve is deliberately going for a sort of real world realism, rather than the over the top ridiculousness of the Lynch version. I respect that. So far he hasn’t made a bad science fiction film.

It’s fitting that Villeneuve should make this his next project after Blade Runner 2049. Ridley Scott was the original director attached to the Dino De Laurentiis production in the late 70’s / early 80’s, and he ended up leaving the project to go direct Blade Runner.

Ridley Scott’s version, it’s worth noting, also would’ve split the book into two films just as Denis is doing here, with a style greatly influenced by Battle of Algiers.

rocknroll41 said:

dahmage said:

i doubt any plans involve ‘lets stop making money here’

None of the sequels are really all that “filmmable,” though. They’d almost be better off making up their own storylines, if they really wanted to continue this as a long-lasting movie franchise.

Like I said above, there is a streaming series in development, and I think they were originally aiming to have the first episode up on HBO Max by November in time for the movie. Obviously those plans changed, but we’ll see what happens.

All we know about the show is that it will center around the powerful Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, but no details on the story have come to light.

Denis Villeneuve mentioned in an interview over the summer that the disruptions caused to the post-production and pick-up filming schedule by covid are going to make it a real sprint to finish the movie on time now.