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Attack of the Clones 35mm - on eBay, bought - and now project thread (a WIP) — Page 4

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Hey what’s the latest update on this?

(Previously Pickle2503)

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Pickle2503 said:

Hey what’s the latest update on this?

Hello I found this forum after watching Attack of the Clones recently and doing research on 35mm prints. Unfortunately from what I can gather, poita, who owns the reels, became gravely ill following his exposure to toxic compounds on a print of The Phantom Menace. I am very worried for him as his account has not posted since October. Poita, if you are reading this, I am very passionate about this movie and would be glad to contribute money to your effort to have the reels cleaned and scanned in 4k. It is my intention to cut a noir-detective movie “Gumshoe Obi-Wan” utilizing this scan when it is completed.

I sincerely wish you recovery from that damned Phantom Menace toxin and I hope to be in contact with you in the future.

I am just a simple man making my way through the universe.

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Poita’s account was active three days ago, though you’re right that he hasn’t posted since October.

He’s a busy guy and has had his share of health problems completely unrelated to the TPM print as well, so I don’t think that incident is the cause of the radio silence. Though other health concerns sadly aren’t outside the realm of possibility.

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I got over the damn prequel poisoning, but then moved house to another city (which was a big move) and had some family crises that put everything else on hold for a while. I’ve only just started setting up my workstations etc again, and hope to have more time available for this in the coming months.

Clones is awaiting scanning, there are a few other movies in the queue, and I’ll need to get HDDs to store the scan (around 20TB for a scan of Clones), but it is on the list, and if there is interest here, it will get done.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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Very good! Based on other threads, I assume the needed drives are Seagate Skyhawk and Ironwolf? I can acquire these in my area. I have long term interest in a 4k scan of this and can increasingly help as the year plays out.

I am just a simple man making my way through the universe.

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That is what we are using at the moment, yes.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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poita said:

I got over the damn prequel poisoning, but then moved house to another city (which was a big move) and had some family crises that put everything else on hold for a while. I’ve only just started setting up my workstations etc again, and hope to have more time available for this in the coming months.

Clones is awaiting scanning, there are a few other movies in the queue, and I’ll need to get HDDs to store the scan (around 20TB for a scan of Clones), but it is on the list, and if there is interest here, it will get done.

Glad to hear you’re doing better!! The interest is certainly strong here, but your family and health comes first. 😃

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Basically once I have enough HDDs we will do the scan.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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Best of luck on the project. This is very cool and I will be following the updates!

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poita said:

I got over the damn prequel poisoning, but then moved house to another city (which was a big move) and had some family crises that put everything else on hold for a while. I’ve only just started setting up my workstations etc again, and hope to have more time available for this in the coming months.

Clones is awaiting scanning, there are a few other movies in the queue, and I’ll need to get HDDs to store the scan (around 20TB for a scan of Clones), but it is on the list, and if there is interest here, it will get done.

Holy shit, I didn’t think the movie was that bad. Jokes aside dude, I’m glad to hear you’re okay.
I don’t think there exists a proper theatrical preservation of Clones. Last time I was on the Spleen the only theatrical version was a VCD rip. I could be wrong though, it’s been a WHILE since I’ve visited the place.

Luke astro-projects himself to Salt Lake Planet, gets shot at by gorilla walkers, has a non-lightsaber duel with Darth Millennial, then dies of a broken heart, inspiring broom boys throughout the galaxy to get creative with their sweeping. - DuracellEnergizer

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I’m really excited to see this scanned. I never got to see AOTC theatrically.

The Blu-ray probably does have more detail, but I’m interested to see what the colors look like on a real theatre print, as my project isn’t exactly to be a replica of a theatre print.

I really hope one day we get proper preservations of the theatrical cuts of all prequels sourced from theatre prints.

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 (Edited)

It is in the queue, I’m currently finishing up scanning another Fantasia print, an Empire print, two prints for another two projects that the owners of the prints want kept secret for the moment (but they will be making them known once scanning is done), and another two prints that I can’t talk about, but that are from the Star Wars universe, and a bit of cleaning on a few scenes of THX-1138 as I am handing that project to another long-time OT’er that is going to finish it up.
Once those are done, I will move onto AOTC, once I have the HDDs to store the scan on. It will be later this year, couldn’t put a timeframe on it at the moment.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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I think the 35mm theatrical version of AOTC is the only major wide release version that we don’t have in some form (I wouldn’t call the theatrical filming bootleg having it as so much is cropped and the frame rate isn’t right). I can’t wait to see this.

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This could bump the film up a few points, theoretically. Attack of The Clones biggest problem is probably the visuals. The Tatooine scenes are already some of the best looking, but imagine the scene at Shmi’s grave with a layer of film grain.
Oooh la la!

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"I got over the damn prequel poisoning, "

whoa, is this stuff all some inside joke or actually for real?
just asking since I have a reel of AOTC (with the changed wedding scene, although it seems like you all know have the complete set and have it all covered) and some other stuff
haven’t heard before about prints being potentially toxic like that (so long as you don’t eat them)
although developer agents and stuff could be, but those don’t have much to do with prints

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 (Edited)

Here are a few frames I scanned in with a Nikon 2000 some years ago from bits of a film trailer, if anyone following this thread watns a look at perhaps vaguely what the full project here might look like (I haven’t ever scanned anything from the full final 35mm theatrical release reel for AOTC, with the different wedding scene, only these few scenes, scanning with a stills scanner is a slow process, from a scope trailer I got. These are the downscaled to 1920 across ones. Have the full size somewhere on my HD.):
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763497967_7a2ba39aaf_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763497907_c73275101c_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763497782_d07b2b81b9_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763308406_bdce45a5f3_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48762987598_2f256a9b62_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763308841_be3d382db4_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763308901_efdf48385c_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/1894/43971204464_43505b9757_c.jpg

in many ways the digital noise seems more apparent than the film grain, which isn’t quite as strong as maybe some might have thought (one nice thing about Nikon 2000 is that it uses diffuse lighting so it doesn’t overemphasize grain to an unnatural degree to the extent that a non-diffuse lit still scanner would, like when I first did stuff with my older lower model Nikon it made grain galore and the scans showed way more grain than was apparent during actual projection since the harsh light bounced off the grain at bad angles, wet drum scanners should likely also treat grain more naturally as well, but those make my Nikon 2000 look cheap); the resolution is not great, blu-rays are better, but they go all digital, this trailer probably had an added film stage or two and perhaps they also rush out trailers with less care

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MonkeyLizard10 said:

Here are a few frames I scanned in with a Nikon 2000 some years ago from bits of a film trailer, if anyone following this thread watns a look at perhaps vaguely what the full project here might look like (I haven’t ever scanned anything from the full final 35mm theatrical release reel for AOTC, with the different wedding scene, only these few scenes, scanning with a stills scanner is a slow process, from a scope trailer I got. These are the downscaled to 1920 across ones. Have the full size somewhere on my HD.):
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763497967_7a2ba39aaf_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763497907_c73275101c_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763497782_d07b2b81b9_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763308406_bdce45a5f3_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48762987598_2f256a9b62_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763308841_be3d382db4_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48763308901_efdf48385c_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/1894/43971204464_43505b9757_c.jpg

I don’t recall that last one being in the movie! 😉

Here are screencaps from the Blu_Ray if you want to do any side by side comparisons…
https://starwarsscreencaps.com/star-wars-episode-ii-attack-of-the-clones-2002/

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haha, yeah that scene is from part of the ‘lost cut’ 😉

thanks, maybe i’ll put together some side by sides

hmm looking at those, that reminds me that I’m missing one and now I wonder if the ones above were from my flat trailer and the missing one was from the scope trailer or vice-versa? need to track that down and figure it out

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found four more, forget whether any of these came from flat or scope or a mix, I think scope, not sure anymore, vaguely seem to recall stretching some things out, think they were scanned at something like maybe 4k-5k or something and then downscaled to 1920x across

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48767259407_eec471a1c2_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48766723163_d1966dc35f_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48767059411_69da6cfe8d_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48767059581_de00b56c05_o.jpg

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well these two are pretty close:
first cap from blu-ray from the site above:
https://i0.wp.com/caps.pictures/200/2-starwars2/full/starwars2-movie-screencaps.com-306.jpg
then my scan:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48767259407_eec471a1c2_o.jpg

actually they look quite different and compared to those screencaps, at least, mine actually does sorta show some hints of more detail (surprising since direct digital out should retain more detail for sure), certainly more microcontrast, if maybe at times a hint less detail in other cases and you can clearly see the grain in mine now, download both and then flip back and forth in a pic viewer and the grain and other differences are quite noticeable

color and luminance ramping are different too, now that maybe could be they didn’t time the trailers as carefully? maybe I didn’t have a LUT for the scanner to exactly match the film stock? the blu-ray was colored differently?

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FYI, yes, the “prequel poisoning” was real - the TPM print poita attempted to scan had grown toxic mold.

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oh wow, sorry to here what happened to him

not so much toxic print chemicals then, but wow, yikes

i had a run in with that stuff in an HVAC at an apartment, not good stuff at all