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Neverar's A New Hope Technicolor Recreation (Final Version Released!) — Page 18

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Nice! I have a set of frames from this sequence, and I believe it is a pretty close match. You really captured the warmth, that this sequence is supposed to have.

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I just want to chime in and say that every shot I’ve seen of this looks fantastic. Keep up the good work!

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DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

I always liked this shot, since not only is it the last we see of poor Owen and Beru, but it’s the only time we see this set in the film:
Bright Morning
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/206702

Here’s a regrade based on one of the technicolor frames of the dinner scene, which shows a similar warm color grading:

I would feel more confident if this were at least based off of a scan of the frame rather than a photo of it.

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yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

I always liked this shot, since not only is it the last we see of poor Owen and Beru, but it’s the only time we see this set in the film:
Bright Morning
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/206702

Here’s a regrade based on one of the technicolor frames of the dinner scene, which shows a similar warm color grading:

I would feel more confident if this were at least based off of a scan of the frame rather than a photo of it.

This is a manual regrade based on a visual inspection of the frame (I have the frames remember 😉), which resembles the photo, but with lower contrast and saturation. While the actual calibrated scan would be much more accurate in terms of hues, contrast and saturation, the hues seen in the photo are pretty close.

While this is not very apparent in any of the home video releases, the dinner scene is graded on the print as being consistent with late afternoon lighting conditions, hence the warm yellow/orange hues.

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Out of curiosity, what’s the rationale behind this reversion:
"-Returning R2’s jump cut roll in the Tantive IV secondary corridor"

Also, what source are you using to restore the original lightsabers? Are you re-rotoscoping them by hand? In the Obi-Wan shot you included in the OP, the cores look pretty dull and there seems to be some weird color artifacts emanating from the sabers. Aside from it being too dark, I actually think the Blu-Ray looks better.

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I didn’t actually notice the jump cut until it was pointed out in this thread, and since the individual asked for it to be taken out and I was already reverting other 2011 R2 changes, I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to revert this one to the 2004 broadcast version as well.

As for the sabers, the film sources that I was rotoscoping by hand had a great deal of color grain that could only be partially removed before the image quality was too greatly affected. In terms of luminosity, if you examine the Blu-ray the cores of the sabers are blown out, so they had to be reduced some way or another. Finally, the more desaturated color is representative of the original film as opposed to the saturated color used in all the other films, and I wanted to preserve this since I quite like it. 😃

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Fair enough! Still looking forward to this 😃

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 (Edited)

This transition gave me some headaches:
Strange Grossness
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/210167

Status Update:

Reel 1: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 2: Preliminary Grade 90% - Finalized 60%
Reel 3: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 90%
Reel 4: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 5: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 93%
Reel 6: Preliminary Grade 85% - Finalized 85%
Total Preliminary: 95.8% - Finalized 88%

I had been getting burned out on this lately, so I worked on other projects for a while. But it’s inching closer, and I’m determined to finish soon. 😃

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Absolutely fantastic as usual. I’m really looking forward to Despecialized 3.0 (since this will be its main source), but I’m also really interested to see how the SE looks without the awful colors. Keep up the great work.

“Always in motion is the future” 🌌

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I’ve noticed that the 1997 changes are often the most degraded shots in the film, which is strange because, as they are much more recent than the 1977 film, they should be in better shape. But more often than not I’m having to repair the color. I guess these additions were even more shoddily preserved than the original elements.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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 (Edited)

Octorox said:

Out of curiosity, what’s the rationale behind this reversion:
"-Returning R2’s jump cut roll in the Tantive IV secondary corridor"

I think I might be the individual he’s talking about.

The way I see it, one of the goals of this project is to use it as a base for one of Harmy’s future projects. As such, it’s pretty painless to just insert the nice HD 2004 copy of a despecialized shot so that someone (such as Harmy) has a color matched shot already present instead of needing to match it to the surrounding color and contrast.

There are hundreds of shots that still need to be despecialized, I just figured it was an easy opportunity to roll a quick shot back with Neverar’s color settings intact.

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That’s fair, but conversely, I thought a goal of this version was also to give people a tool to create “custom” hybrid versions between it and Harmy’s eventual 3.0 edit. Reversions like the jump cut and the sabers make that harder to do if someone prefers the recomposited blu-ray versions. If it’s just a color correction baseline for Harmy, why work on the SE scenes (Mos Eisley entrance, etc.) at all?

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I had made the decision to replace the sabers after seeing what happened when those shots were brightened to proper levels - they really don’t hold up in my opinion, being oversaturated and blobby due to degradation. In order to fix that, as well as the color variation between shots, I would have had to do complicated effects work anyway, and decided that I might as well have the original un-degraded elements. The same thing happened with the Star Destroyer flyover - the SE lasers and flashes were completely degraded and I replaced each one with film elements, so this is consistent with the goal of reverting degraded sources back to superior versions. I wouldn’t revert things like scene transitions because those were recomposited to be higher in quality than the original, on average, whereas the degraded lightsaber elements and blaster bolts were recomposited because the original negative had to be rebuilt and they decided that these elements were good enough. It wasn’t a creative decision to degrade these elements, and with more care they would have used an interpositive for these shots.

I’m rendering out a version of the lightsaber scenes that doesn’t have these changes, so I could make this available for everyone who wants it.

Whenever there is a difference between the 2004 and 2011 versions, I have chosen the source which is closer to the original. So for example, the 2011 version of the Greedo shootout stays, since it’s closer to Han shooting first than the 2004 version. The jump cut roll and the rocks around R2 are out, since they are changes deviating from the original.

So there is a method to this madness. Essentially, it’s merging all versions of the Special Edition (1997/2004/2011) together and showing this in the best possible light. Choices must be made.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

I had made the decision to replace the sabers after seeing what happened when those shots were brightened to proper levels - they really don’t hold up in my opinion, being oversaturated and blobby due to degradation. In order to fix that, as well as the color variation between shots, I would have had to do complicated effects work anyway, and decided that I might as well have the original un-degraded elements. The same thing happened with the Star Destroyer flyover - the SE lasers and flashes were completely degraded and I replaced each one with film elements, so this is consistent with the goal of reverting degraded sources back to superior versions. I wouldn’t revert things like scene transitions because those were recomposited to be higher in quality than the original, on average.

I’m rendering out a version of the lightsaber scenes that doesn’t have these changes, so I could make this available for everyone who wants it.

Whenever there is a difference between the 2004 and 2011 versions, I have chosen the source which is closer to the original. So for example, the 2011 version of the Greedo shootout stays, since it’s closer to Han shooting first than the 2004 version. The jump cut roll and the rocks around R2 are out, since they are changes deviating from the original.

So there is a method to this madness. Essentially, it’s merging all versions of the Special Edition (1997/2004/2011) together and showing this in the best possible light. Choices must be made.

Well put. I can’t wait for this to be completed!

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That makes a lot of sense. The jump cut is nothing to loose sleep over anyway. Out of curiosity, what source are you using for the sabers? The silver screen edition?

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 (Edited)

NeverarGreat said:

I’ve noticed that the 1997 changes are often the most degraded shots in the film, which is strange because, as they are much more recent than the 1977 film, they should be in better shape. But more often than not I’m having to repair the color. I guess these additions were even more shoddily preserved than the original elements.

The 2004 master is a 2k scan that has then been denoised with a bunch of DNR and then regrained to hide that fact. For the original negative and stuff recomposited in 2004, this is the only stage of detail loss. But for all the shots composited in 1997, it’s:

film, to a 2k scan, add CGI (possibly denoise based on the shot), print back to film, to another 2k scan, aggressive denoise, regrain.

The '97 stuff suffers more generational loss due to Lowery’s process.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture DE - The Anti-DNR Fanedit
Duel (1971) - The Hybrid Cut
The Phantom of the Opera - 1925 Version Reconstruction - Rare Scores Collection - Roy Budd Score

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That makes a lot of sense then. The color has often been partially eaten away.

Octorox said:

That makes a lot of sense. The jump cut is nothing to loose sleep over anyway. Out of curiosity, what source are you using for the sabers? The silver screen edition?

There’s a few sources so far, including the SSE. There will probably be more before everything’s done 😉

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)