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Star Wars Despecialized error?! - in Empire, Luke vs Wampa lightsaber ignition sound?

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Near the beginning of the movie with the Wampa when Luke gets his lightsaber and ignites it to cut his feet out, I swear I hear his lightsaber ignite twice in the Despecialized Edition. To me that’s horrible. Is this a true error or just in my head?

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It’s an error in the 1980 film. The Despecialized Edition reproduces it exactly as it was.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

It’s an error in the 1980 film. The Despecialized Edition reproduces it exactly as it was.

Really? They messed that up in the actual movie? I have only seen the originals a couple times. Just made despecialized haven’t even watched them yet

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Well, there were three 1980 soundtracks depending on how, when and where you saw it. There was the 70mm six-channel mix, the 16mm mono mix, and the stereo mix. The stereo mix is how almost everyone heard it, it’s how everyone heard it on home video until the 1993 home video mix, and it’s also the basis for the default Despecialized six-channel soundtrack.

So if you hear anything like that in Despecialized, it was definitely that way in the most commonly-heard audio mix and in home video mixes prior to 1993 (there may be some channel differences just from how the six-channel mix was constructed, but no content differences like that). I can’t vouch for the other mixes, but DeEd also includes other soundtracks, including the original 16mm mono mix and the 93 mix, so you can see for yourself if it’s there too. The 70mm six-channel mix was supposedly extremely similar to the stereo mix, but went with a different cut of the video, so it’s a bit of a unicorn.

Movies have flaws. Wait until you hear about the missing frame in Empire. You’ll never unsee it, and it’s in every version of the film ever released.

That’s not to say the current version of Empire Despecialized is flawless–there are problems. But the soundtrack? That part’s pretty much perfect (except that the video lags one frame behind it, which is a problem with the video). Not just because hairy_hen did a great job on it (which he did), but because the original 1980 audio was made available to the public in lossless form, so we had excellent-quality raw materials to work with.

EDIT: Found hairy_hen’s comment on this exact issue. Seems like it’s been there on every audio mix and wasn’t removed until the Special Editions:
http://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/724246

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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I hadn’t heard about the missing frame. Where is it? Is it really any worse than R2’s moving restraining bolt or the duplicate R5 or the Jawa with human arms?

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yotsuya said:

I hadn’t heard about the missing frame. Where is it?

it’s missing! (lol, just kidding, i felt like i had to say that though. you can’t just ask where something is, when it is missing)

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yotsuya said:

I hadn’t heard about the missing frame. Where is it? Is it really any worse than R2’s moving restraining bolt or the duplicate R5 or the Jawa with human arms?

Are you sure you want to know about it? Once you see it, you can’t look at the scene anymore without seeing it…

On Hoth, when Han’s on top of the Falcon getting it ready to evacuate, some rebel troops run by on the ground. Because the troops are fairly fast-moving, it’s easier to see if you focus on the troops and not on Han (not the normal way to watch that scene). A frame gets dropped right in the middle, not at a scene change or anything.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

yotsuya said:

I hadn’t heard about the missing frame. Where is it? Is it really any worse than R2’s moving restraining bolt or the duplicate R5 or the Jawa with human arms?

Are you sure you want to know about it? Once you see it, you can’t look at the scene anymore without seeing it…

On Hoth, when Han’s on top of the Falcon getting it ready to evacuate, some rebel troops run by on the ground. Because the troops are fairly fast-moving, it’s easier to see if you focus on the troops and not on Han (not the normal way to watch that scene). A frame gets dropped right in the middle, not at a scene change or anything.

Interesting

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I was doing a cleanup of that shot, looking at every frame for minutes at a time, but never saw the human Jawa until I heard about him. It’s so blatant but practically invisible at the same time.

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dude98ish said:

CatBus said:

yotsuya said:

I hadn’t heard about the missing frame. Where is it? Is it really any worse than R2’s moving restraining bolt or the duplicate R5 or the Jawa with human arms?

Are you sure you want to know about it? Once you see it, you can’t look at the scene anymore without seeing it…

On Hoth, when Han’s on top of the Falcon getting it ready to evacuate, some rebel troops run by on the ground. Because the troops are fairly fast-moving, it’s easier to see if you focus on the troops and not on Han (not the normal way to watch that scene). A frame gets dropped right in the middle, not at a scene change or anything.

Interesting

It’s in every release, and also in the 35mm reels we have access to. Which means that frame is long gone, lost in some early production stage. The only way they could get it back is with some nasty frame interpolation algorithm, or, in typical Lucas-style, just shoot a whole new scene.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

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On topic with the original post, I’ve never noticed the retraction sound in Despecialized. And I look for it every time, so it’s not like I’m not paying attention.

Is the missing frame in the shot where Han says “No! This one goes there, that one goes there”, right? It starts at ~29:30. That’s the only shot I could find that resembles Han preparing the falcon for evacuation, with fast-moving rebels. But I couldn’t see any missing frame while watching.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

42639

However, in practice you must take into account the “fuckwit factor”. Just talk to Darth Mallwalker…
-Moth3r

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yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

Still, much easier to do pull that off when emulating a 405-line video tape with an even lower quality 16mm telerecording as your source. Getting an HD film transfer to look as good with automated interpolation is surely trickier?

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towne32 said:

yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

Still, much easier to do pull that off when emulating a 405-line video tape with an even lower quality 16mm telerecording as your source. Getting an HD film transfer to look as good with automated interpolation is surely trickier?

Actually, a lot of the ones they were working on, particularly the latest two story finds, were full PAL 625 line video telecined at 25 fps to 16 mm film and scanned in full 1080 HD.

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yotsuya said:

towne32 said:

yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

Still, much easier to do pull that off when emulating a 405-line video tape with an even lower quality 16mm telerecording as your source. Getting an HD film transfer to look as good with automated interpolation is surely trickier?

Actually, a lot of the ones they were working on, particularly the latest two story finds, were full PAL 625 line video telecined at 25 fps to 16 mm film and scanned in full 1080 HD.

Getting off topic, but yes. A minority of 60s episodes from Enemy onwwards (and the find confirmed that it was actually a few episodes earlier than documented!) it was 625 line on 16mm. HD scans are good for cleanup, but it’s still presented as 576i MPEG2. 😃 The point still stands though that in that case they’re trying to make it look like an SD interlaced video and it’s surely more forgiving.

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towne32 said:

yotsuya said:

towne32 said:

yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

Still, much easier to do pull that off when emulating a 405-line video tape with an even lower quality 16mm telerecording as your source. Getting an HD film transfer to look as good with automated interpolation is surely trickier?

Actually, a lot of the ones they were working on, particularly the latest two story finds, were full PAL 625 line video telecined at 25 fps to 16 mm film and scanned in full 1080 HD.

Getting off topic, but yes. A minority of 60s episodes from Enemy onwwards (and the find confirmed that it was actually a few episodes earlier than documented!) it was 625 line on 16mm. HD scans are good for cleanup, but it’s still presented as 576i MPEG2. 😃 The point still stands though that in that case they’re trying to make it look like an SD interlaced video and it’s surely more forgiving.

To some extent, but now that I see the spot and can look at the level of detail, that is just the type of missing frame the the process is designed for. Most of the frame is static, Han’s hand and the soldiers below, plus some small details in the background, barely move at all. The DW Restoration team used it for big action in the center of the screen. Considering the different level of detail, the scale of detail is at least comparable.

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Sure but… why would you really want to restore the missing frame?

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

Sure but… why would you really want to restore the missing frame?

For a fan edit, maybe. For a restoration, never.

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yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

VidFire has some major limitations. If I recall correctly all of the Time Meddler, some shots from Tomb, and episode 5 of The Ambassadors of Death couldn’t be vidfire’d do to frame rate issues. Then again, 30mm isn’t a pal 16mm telerecording with NTSC color!

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Jesta’ said:

yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

VidFire has some major limitations. If I recall correctly all of the Time Meddler, some shots from Tomb, and episode 5 of The Ambassadors of Death couldn’t be vidfire’d do to frame rate issues. Then again, 30mm isn’t a pal 16mm telerecording with NTSC color!

I’m a bit of a VidFIRE nerd, and a fan of the Restoration Team’s work, so I think this post might be of some interest.

Regarding Ambassadors 5, I have never seen the VHS in person (saw a poor quality copy years back), but my understanding is that 2-4, 7 did not undergo the process (Ambassadors 1 still exists in its original format), but 5 & 6 did, simply because of time constraints caused by uncertainties regarding which scenes in the other episodes would be in color, and in the end those were presented in a hybrid B&W/Color format. That being said, the DVD release is presented in full color, and 2-7 have all undergone the VidFIRE process.

Tomb of the Cyberman, excepting an easter egg, was not given the VidFIRE process on the original DVD release, which to my understanding was due to uncertainties that the process would work correctly once the masters underwent MPEG-2 compression (it worked of course, and the story later received a special edition with the full process).

The only stories to not undergo VidFIRE for the DVD range were The Crusades: Episode 1 (The Lion) and all of The Time Meddler. This was because of the poor quality of the telerecordings available, and as a result a belief that the illusion of it being from a tape/electronic source would be broken.

That being said, the VidFIRE process CAN be used on film sequences, and rather convincingly apparently, even if not intended. The original DVD release of The Seeds of Death accidentally VidFIRE’d everything, causing it to receive a special edition to correct this (and add more bonus features of course). Typically the process only touches the studio scenes; the film sequences are left alone as they would have originally been at the lower frame-rate anyway. Also, another rule utilized was in essence, if it originally was shot with an electronic camera, it gets VidFIRE’d, regardless of whether it was originally printed to film or tape (some 60s episodes were actually shot with electronic camera’s to 35mm film, not tape, either because of unavailability of tape machines that week, complex editing, or both).

So VidFIRE is a powerful tool*, and many of it’s weaknesses come more from it’s purpose of application rather than flaws in its process, although there are some dodgy areas on rare occasions, especially in the earlier days of its use.

*VidFIRE is actually a combination of many different tools, although the identities of which are kept a “trade secret” of sorts

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MaestroDavros said:

Jesta’ said:

yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

VidFire has some major limitations. If I recall correctly all of the Time Meddler, some shots from Tomb, and episode 5 of The Ambassadors of Death couldn’t be vidfire’d do to frame rate issues. Then again, 30mm isn’t a pal 16mm telerecording with NTSC color!

I’m a bit of a VidFIRE nerd, and a fan of the Restoration Team’s work, so I think this post might be of some interest.

Regarding Ambassadors 5, I have never seen the VHS in person (saw a poor quality copy years back), but my understanding is that 2-4, 7 did not undergo the process (Ambassadors 1 still exists in its original format), but 5 & 6 did, simply because of time constraints caused by uncertainties regarding which scenes in the other episodes would be in color, and in the end those were presented in a hybrid B&W/Color format. That being said, the DVD release is presented in full color, and 2-7 have all undergone the VidFIRE process.

Tomb of the Cyberman, excepting an easter egg, was not given the VidFIRE process on the original DVD release, which to my understanding was due to uncertainties that the process would work correctly once the masters underwent MPEG-2 compression (it worked of course, and the story later received a special edition with the full process).

The only stories to not undergo VidFIRE for the DVD range were The Crusades: Episode 1 (The Lion) and all of The Time Meddler. This was because of the poor quality of the telerecordings available, and as a result a belief that the illusion of it being from a tape/electronic source would be broken.

That being said, the VidFIRE process CAN be used on film sequences, and rather convincingly apparently, even if not intended. The original DVD release of The Seeds of Death accidentally VidFIRE’d everything, causing it to receive a special edition to correct this (and add more bonus features of course). Typically the process only touches the studio scenes; the film sequences are left alone as they would have originally been at the lower frame-rate anyway. Also, another rule utilized was in essence, if it originally was shot with an electronic camera, it gets VidFIRE’d, regardless of whether it was originally printed to film or tape (some 60s episodes were actually shot with electronic camera’s to 35mm film, not tape, either because of unavailability of tape machines that week, complex editing, or both).

So VidFIRE is a powerful tool*, and many of it’s weaknesses come more from it’s purpose of application rather than flaws in its process, although there are some dodgy areas on rare occasions, especially in the earlier days of its use.

*VidFIRE is actually a combination of many different tools, although the identities of which are kept a “trade secret” of sorts

You should check out Ambassadors on DVD, sure it’s a bit pricey for a region 1 copy, but it’s well worth the price.

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Jesta’ said:

MaestroDavros said:

Jesta’ said:

yotsuya said:

The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?

VidFire has some major limitations. If I recall correctly all of the Time Meddler, some shots from Tomb, and episode 5 of The Ambassadors of Death couldn’t be vidfire’d do to frame rate issues. Then again, 30mm isn’t a pal 16mm telerecording with NTSC color!

I’m a bit of a VidFIRE nerd, and a fan of the Restoration Team’s work, so I think this post might be of some interest.

Regarding Ambassadors 5, I have never seen the VHS in person (saw a poor quality copy years back), but my understanding is that 2-4, 7 did not undergo the process (Ambassadors 1 still exists in its original format), but 5 & 6 did, simply because of time constraints caused by uncertainties regarding which scenes in the other episodes would be in color, and in the end those were presented in a hybrid B&W/Color format. That being said, the DVD release is presented in full color, and 2-7 have all undergone the VidFIRE process.

Tomb of the Cyberman, excepting an easter egg, was not given the VidFIRE process on the original DVD release, which to my understanding was due to uncertainties that the process would work correctly once the masters underwent MPEG-2 compression (it worked of course, and the story later received a special edition with the full process).

The only stories to not undergo VidFIRE for the DVD range were The Crusades: Episode 1 (The Lion) and all of The Time Meddler. This was because of the poor quality of the telerecordings available, and as a result a belief that the illusion of it being from a tape/electronic source would be broken.

That being said, the VidFIRE process CAN be used on film sequences, and rather convincingly apparently, even if not intended. The original DVD release of The Seeds of Death accidentally VidFIRE’d everything, causing it to receive a special edition to correct this (and add more bonus features of course). Typically the process only touches the studio scenes; the film sequences are left alone as they would have originally been at the lower frame-rate anyway. Also, another rule utilized was in essence, if it originally was shot with an electronic camera, it gets VidFIRE’d, regardless of whether it was originally printed to film or tape (some 60s episodes were actually shot with electronic camera’s to 35mm film, not tape, either because of unavailability of tape machines that week, complex editing, or both).

So VidFIRE is a powerful tool*, and many of it’s weaknesses come more from it’s purpose of application rather than flaws in its process, although there are some dodgy areas on rare occasions, especially in the earlier days of its use.

*VidFIRE is actually a combination of many different tools, although the identities of which are kept a “trade secret” of sorts

You should check out Ambassadors on DVD, sure it’s a bit pricey for a region 1 copy, but it’s well worth the price.

Heh, sorry if I didn’t clarify myself, but I already am a proud owner of that DVD. I was lucky enough to get all of the B&W and some of the color stories before they went out of print here. Now it’s just a long slog to grab the remaining R1 Classic Who DVD’s; out of print or otherwise.

Anyways, in regards to fixes, one error I noticed long before I joined the forums, and still exists in v2.7 is the shot starting at about 13:07 (the long shot of the Jawa’s carrying R2-D2 to the sandcrawler). The error in question is that the furthest-most mountain in the shot in the 1977 version has a stunning reflection/shadow of the light of the sunset hitting it. This was altered (in '97?) to crush it out as part of the effort to make the shot look like it was set at twilight. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been restored in any of the version of Despecialized, and would be great to see restored to its former glory in v3.0

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MaestroDavros said:

*VidFIRE is actually a combination of many different tools, although the identities of which are kept a “trade secret” of sorts

Well, a secret between Peter Finkleston and Peter Crocker for job security purposes.

That’s officially the most obscure joke I’ve made on this forum.