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Another Trilogy DVD Screw Up?

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Okay, we all know that the sound is bad on Star Wars.

Check out this screen grab from The Empire Strikes Back comparing the new 2004 transfer (top) to the 1993 THX transfer (bottom).



I'm sure all that cropping is deliberate, right? It always happens on shots like that one, with the camera looking into the Falcon's cockpit. This photo is when they are escaping from Hoth. Later, during the asteroid field chase, the same cropping is present.

Neil

Well at least the reversed surround channels have been addressed.

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Interesting indeed. I really don't think you can make a case for cropping to be a creative decision this many years later. When you are turning mono mixes and stereo mixes into 6.1 mixes, maybe you can say you want audio that way. But you'd be hard pressed to come up with a legit reason for this crop.
The Jedi are all but extinct.......
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mmmm?

dangerous and disturbing this puzzle is.
"A Jedi can feel the force flow through him".
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Han Solo joining the growing list of people who get their hand cut off in this series.


Made for IE Forum's Episode III theme month - May 2005.

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Wow this is really bad. Has any other website confirmed this? Anyone got in touch with lucasfilm? I'm kinda curious on their reply - maybe "These are artistic decisions. We thought the audience prefered seeing Han Solo than a lamp. There are no techincal problems on the DVD. Stop investigating. Please. Don't watch the DVDs again. They are perfect."
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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Maybe they thought that the instrument panel just looked too much like it wasn't really part of the falcon and was just a set, you have to admit that the panel that was cut off was kinda funky.
"I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings."
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I think the new version actually makes the cockpit look alot more cramped and like a real cockpit on a real ship instead of a set. Who cares if they done this crop? Greedo shoots first, crap, CGI Jabba, crap, but cropping this scene? Who cares?

War does not make one great.

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I do.
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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"but cropping this scene? Who cares?"

Unfortunately, the people in charge of making this the best DVD transfer ever don't.

That being said, the Definitive Collection LD set really wasn't terribly definitive, as it was rife with problems as well (both in the discs and the packaging.) The Faces set is soooo much better in so many ways.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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I've had about all the crop I'm going to take from GL. I'm really starting to get ticked off.
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Originally posted by: MeBeJedi

That being said, the Definitive Collection LD set really wasn't terribly definitive, as it was rife with problems as well (both in the discs and the packaging.) The Faces set is soooo much better in so many ways.


So, does this contradict the Faces release as well?
The Jedi are all but extinct.......
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I haven't researched this much, but I've noticed many DVDs that claimed they are optimized for 16x9 TVs. ...not necessarily the original deminsions of the frame that was shot. This cropping may simply be a type of 16x9 pan/scan. I can't think of a better way to discribe it. Unless the packaging states otherwise, Widescreen editions may simply mean 16x9 so we might be seeing a new kind of "full screen" version in the sense that it's intended to fill the screen of an HDTV television. We just lose less of the image.

- Slade

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For most of them it was because of that fact that it was filmed in a open matte process, but was meant for widescreen release in the theaters, and most teathers cropped the image to be at an aspect ratio very close to that of HDTV(slightly wider).

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

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Back To The Future was also cropped wrong like this on 2 of the 3 DVDs, but they admitted this was a problem and sent me the corrected discs. Don't expect to get a corrected Star Wars DVD, thank god I have my Faces Laserdisc Set and all the transfers from the fine folks on this board. THANK YOU ALL!!!!

“Good… Bad… I’m the guy with the gun.”

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Originally posted by: slade37
I haven't researched this much, but I've noticed many DVDs that claimed they are optimized for 16x9 TVs. ...not necessarily the original deminsions of the frame that was shot. This cropping may simply be a type of 16x9 pan/scan. I can't think of a better way to discribe it. Unless the packaging states otherwise, Widescreen editions may simply mean 16x9 so we might be seeing a new kind of "full screen" version in the sense that it's intended to fill the screen of an HDTV television. We just lose less of the image.

- Slade


It's not the case, even with a 16x9 you would still have small black bars on top and bottom, and the film aspect ratio is something like 2.35:1 or something like that...
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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This is stupid. You get an inch removed that you'll never notice unless you're comparing shots! This really doesn't mean anything.

4

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It's not stupid, because you lose information. I don't know how it looks on other widescreen editions but if this was the way it was theatrically, and the way it was in previous releases, it's a misframe. That's a mistake. You lose all action of Solo's hands.
The Jedi are all but extinct.......
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I actually like the MF "enhancement".

Some of these things are hard to call enhancements when they are probably rushed unfinshed works or oversighted errors in color, sound and FX.

I'm still at a loss for how these discs were released without someone spotting and correcting alot of obvious errors, despite a looming release date, more care should have taken to allow an appropriate amount of time needed instead of a "it's good enough" or I could give a rats ass approach, considering the OT needed to be remastered and effects touched up, it's inexcusable that the release wasn't better planned for by Lucas.

My guess is most of the errors have been noted and they will be corrected when the 6 movies are released, if not someone needs to be shot.
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It's not the case, even with a 16x9 you would still have small black bars on top and bottom, and the film aspect ratio is something like 2.35:1 or something like that...


That's what I said. The DVDs were made for 16x9 TVs - not using the original aspect ratio of the movies. These DVDs are a type of 16x9 full screen transfer - a 16x9 pan\scan version to fill a 16x9 TV screen.

I checked the DVD box while at the store the other day. It does say it is enhanced for 16x9 TVs. It does not claim to respresent the original aspect ratio.


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It's hard to say which one is correct. I work in a movie theatre as a projectionist and can tell you that part of the frame is always cropped off in projection by the aperture plate. Whether this is a case of a correction to the aperture "safe" area or not is anyone's guess.

Princess Leia: I happen to like nice men.
Han Solo: I'm a nice man.

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Originally posted by: slade37
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It's not the case, even with a 16x9 you would still have small black bars on top and bottom, and the film aspect ratio is something like 2.35:1 or something like that...


That's what I said. The DVDs were made for 16x9 TVs - not using the original aspect ratio of the movies. These DVDs are a type of 16x9 full screen transfer - a 16x9 pan\scan version to fill a 16x9 TV screen.

I checked the DVD box while at the store the other day. It does say it is enhanced for 16x9 TVs. It does not claim to respresent the original aspect ratio.


Slade, the DVDs I've seen, on a 16x9 TV, were not "16x9 pan scanned". You still get black bars on top and bottom (small ones), and the film mantains it's 1:2.35 ratio. So it's ont like they cropped this part of the frame for it to fit into a 16x9...
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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If part of the frame is missing, it can't be the original aspect ratio. I can understand a small bit missing, but from the frame capture, it looks more like a compromise was made - keeping most of the image but focusing on a key part too. I do understand that in some theaters this may happen, but I've never seen a video release that chopped off that much of the frame and still claim to be the original aspect ratio. Besides extras, even with LaserDiscs, new editions may have differences in image quality, but I've never seen a noticeable difference in the amount of the frame being shown.

This is simply a theory for the differences in the images of the original message. Nowhere on the box does the widescreen version of the DVDs claim to be the original aspect ratio. According to DVD Empire, these are supposed to be the original aspect ratio, but I didn't see this on the box I saw at Best Buy. I admit I may have overlooked it. Since I have no plans to purchase it, I don't know what's stated inside.

I'm always annoyed when I see movies being altered - everything from the original Star Wars Trilogy to the censorship of Terror of Mechagodzilla (both TV and video editions). I can't tell from the images posted here whether the aspect ratio has been tampered with. ...but any form of full screen (pan/scan) bugs me, knowing that part of the image is missing. Unfortunately, I'm finding some DVDs to be inferior to the LaserDisc. Some anime DVDs are missing subtitles that exist on the LaserDisc.

Before I drift too far off topic, I've already purchased two different copies of the Star Wars trilogy on LaserDisc (original full screen editions from CBS/Fox - Hope and Empire in CAV, Jedi was CLV, and the THX LBX CLV - I guess they're the faces edition I hear people mention). I have not been given a reason to buy the DVDs yet. I still don't understand why Lucas can't do what his friend Speilberg did with E.T. - except now Lucas has three different editions of each movie and a possible fourth planned.

I probably wouldn't have minded things as much if Lucas had done what Robert Wise did with Star Trek The Motion Picture DVD. He did re-edit and add CGI because he didn't have the time to edit the movie the way he originally wanted to. (The film was so rushed that prints were shipped while still wet with developing fluids - according to extras on the DVD) However, he limited the CGI effects to what may have been possible in 1979. It not like watching CGI added to the original Flash Gordon serial which is how I feel about what Lucas has done. The original trilogy effects were better than those old serials, but things just don't look right.

Plus, one more note, we can no longer see the effects that caused Star Wars to win an Academy Award. All records of how good the original effects were for their time are now being destroyed and lost. Lucas is destroying the records of the achievements of his production crews. We can't see what John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune, and Robert Blalack achieved on A New Hope. You can do a search at http://www.oscars.org/awardsdatabase/index.html and see whose work is lost to the public now.

Hmmm... I guess I said more than I had planned for this topic. Sorry if I drifted too far. I can get carried away at times.





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It's OK.

About the cropping: something I've noticed while watching for the 1000th time my "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" DVD. There's a goof at the end of the "castle anthrax" scene, in which an arm of a crew member can be brifely seen on the left side of the screen, right when Lancelot is scorting Galahad out of the castle ("I bet you're gay." - "No I'm not!" part). Now, when I watched the movie on my computer, using Windows Media Player, I could see the arm. When I watched it on my DVD player on a TV set, I couldn't see the arm at all... So, I guess that the player might also crop the image?
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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no, it's that your TV's picture tube crops off between 10% to 20% of the image. All TV's do it, and broadcast video is corrected for this.
Computer monitors are matchboxed to fit the screen edges exactly.

What annoys me is when stations have shows in 1.78:1 but letterbox for 4x3 broadcast, and when that show has any 4x3 video, they letterbox THAT, matchboxing 4x3 video with a black border all around.

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.