logo Sign In

The Phantom Menace - Theatrical version scanned in 4K (a WIP) — Page 2

Author
Time

looking forward to screenshots of this scan!

Author
Time

I mean, it’s barely been a month. Let’s be patient. I’m sure they’ll keep us posted whenever something of interest happens.

Author
Time

Scanning will take a while.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

Author
Time
 (Edited)

The project is moving forward, with the usual hazards for this kind of project (we are still waiting for a new 4K sensor that is stuck somewhere by a Japanese supplier).

In the meantime, I’ll post screenshots made from the first test scan (720p) ASAP so you can compare raw colors to official releases.

And as Omni and RU.08 say, it’s a long way, you’ll need to be patient… I’ll keep you informed of course!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

ZigZig said:

The project is moving forward, with the usual hazards for this kind of project (we are still waiting for a new 4K sensor that is stuck somewhere by a Japanese supplier).

In the meantime, I’ll post screenshots made from the first test scan (720p) ASAP so you can compare raw colors to official releases.

And as Omni and RU.08 say, it’s a long way, you’ll need to be patient… I’ll keep you informed of course!

Thanks man! I was hoping you would show something from the test scan! But why not the whole thing? 😃

Author
Time

Jesta’ said:

But why not the whole thing? 😃

Because the whole thing is a working file that does not present, in any way, the necessary quality for being used into a preservation or a fan-edit. So I do not want it to be released as is.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Take your time! It’s already awesome that this movie is getting scanned and - at long last - I’m going to see the true theatrical release with its correct colors. I don’t care what others say, but TPM is my favourite PT movie, and one of my favourite SW films right after the OT. I connect with so many great memories when the film was released in 1999. And it is the only PT movie that actually LOOKS like a movie (reason: recorded on film print 😃) Most of the effects aged very well. Especially in comparison with AOTC and ROTS.

Author
Time

This would be awesome to have. This is so cool.

Author
Time

Hopefully someone can sync the Laserdisc PCM 2.0 mix and the Theatrical DTS 5.1 mix to this print!

Author
Time

ZigZig said:

The project is moving forward, with the usual hazards for this kind of project (we are still waiting for a new 4K sensor that is stuck somewhere by a Japanese supplier).

In the meantime, I’ll post screenshots made from the first test scan (720p) ASAP so you can compare raw colors to official releases.

And as Omni and RU.08 say, it’s a long way, you’ll need to be patient… I’ll keep you informed of course!

Have you posted screenshots from the test scan yet? If they’re elsewhere, I don’t know where to look.

Author
Time

No, I didn’t yet. I’m very busy but I will as soon as I have time.

Author
Time

cool project

I saw this in 35mm as well as on two different digital projectors back in '99, including what might have been the first commercial digital projection of any film in the world.

Contrary to all the net rage, theaters were packed and people generally seemed pretty happy and were NOT all laughing, raging, etc. decent bit of clapping at the end at many showings.

And for AOTC, people were racing out of the earlier showings, smiling, giving thumbs up to people still on line, saying it was awesome, audiences erupted into cheers at the end. Again, contrary to all the hate you hear coming form the net crowd.

Author
Time

MonkeyLizard10 said:

cool project

I saw this in 35mm as well as on two different digital projectors back in '99, including what might have been the first commercial digital projection of any film in the world.

Contrary to all the net rage, theaters were packed and people generally seemed pretty happy and were NOT all laughing, raging, etc. decent bit of clapping at the end at many showings.

And for AOTC, people were racing out of the earlier showings, smiling, giving thumbs up to people still on line, saying it was awesome, audiences erupted into cheers at the end. Again, contrary to all the hate you hear coming form the net crowd.

Probably still high from the movie they just saw. After a few days of reflection (and repeat viewings) the cracks start to appear, not long after, they’re ripping the film’s a new a-hole (deservedly so).

Author
Time

MonkeyLizard10 said:

cool project

I saw this in 35mm as well as on two different digital projectors back in '99, including what might have been the first commercial digital projection of any film in the world.

Contrary to all the net rage, theaters were packed and people generally seemed pretty happy and were NOT all laughing, raging, etc. decent bit of clapping at the end at many showings.

And for AOTC, people were racing out of the earlier showings, smiling, giving thumbs up to people still on line, saying it was awesome, audiences erupted into cheers at the end. Again, contrary to all the hate you hear coming form the net crowd.

This!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Slavicuss said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

cool project

I saw this in 35mm as well as on two different digital projectors back in '99, including what might have been the first commercial digital projection of any film in the world.

Contrary to all the net rage, theaters were packed and people generally seemed pretty happy and were NOT all laughing, raging, etc. decent bit of clapping at the end at many showings.

And for AOTC, people were racing out of the earlier showings, smiling, giving thumbs up to people still on line, saying it was awesome, audiences erupted into cheers at the end. Again, contrary to all the hate you hear coming form the net crowd.

Probably still high from the movie they just saw. After a few days of reflection (and repeat viewings) the cracks start to appear, not long after, they’re ripping the film’s a new a-hole (deservedly so).

Actually, it is quite the opposite for me. I didn’t like the movie after the first viewing, but I began to understand what GL tried (and I began to appreciate it) after repeat viewings and a few days of reflection.

Author
Time

ZigZig said:

Actually, it is quite the opposite for me. I didn’t like the movie after the first viewing, but I began to understand what GL tried (and I began to appreciate it) after repeat viewings and a few days of reflection.

Time has been kind to The Phantom Menace, at least compared to the other two prequel movies. I still don’t love it, but I appreciate it way more than I used to. It feels the most like a work of sincere (if sometimes misguided) passion and the higher ratio of practical effects worth and film-based photography means it looks substantially better than its peers in that trilogy (just don’t watch the blu-ray version that has been scrubbed of all texture).

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Slavicuss said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

cool project

I saw this in 35mm as well as on two different digital projectors back in '99, including what might have been the first commercial digital projection of any film in the world.

Contrary to all the net rage, theaters were packed and people generally seemed pretty happy and were NOT all laughing, raging, etc. decent bit of clapping at the end at many showings.

And for AOTC, people were racing out of the earlier showings, smiling, giving thumbs up to people still on line, saying it was awesome, audiences erupted into cheers at the end. Again, contrary to all the hate you hear coming form the net crowd.

Probably still high from the movie they just saw. After a few days of reflection (and repeat viewings) the cracks start to appear, not long after, they’re ripping the film’s a new a-hole (deservedly so).

nah, more just like the sort of sneering hipster crowd took over forums and spread hate and then it became cool to hate everything

crowds were still boisterous and cheering weeks into the release

hate for ATOC didn’t happen big time for some years and all the net rage

when they came out ROTS got uber love, AOTC tons, TPM pretty decent love (but many did have quibbles with some of the baby talk given to some characters and some of the fart joke stuff and jar-jar reaction was mixed, some loved, some hated, some middle of the road; and there was the odd hater you’d meet in real life, especially among the age who had high school in the mid to late 90s and were all into being grungy/gangster rap bad ass posing and wanted Matrix, older and younger seemed to have less of the ones who hated it at the start)

after the internet distortion raging forum stuff happened now people say AOTC was always the least liked and TPM was far more liked (not remotely true) and that even ROTS was never all that well liked (note remotely true)

Author
Time

MonkeyLizard10 said:

Slavicuss said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

cool project

I saw this in 35mm as well as on two different digital projectors back in '99, including what might have been the first commercial digital projection of any film in the world.

Contrary to all the net rage, theaters were packed and people generally seemed pretty happy and were NOT all laughing, raging, etc. decent bit of clapping at the end at many showings.

And for AOTC, people were racing out of the earlier showings, smiling, giving thumbs up to people still on line, saying it was awesome, audiences erupted into cheers at the end. Again, contrary to all the hate you hear coming form the net crowd.

Probably still high from the movie they just saw. After a few days of reflection (and repeat viewings) the cracks start to appear, not long after, they’re ripping the film’s a new a-hole (deservedly so).

nah, more just like the sort of sneering hipster crowd took over forums and spread hate and then it became cool to hate everything

A brother of mine, who was around 10 at the time, thought AOTC sucked when it came out. Of course, over the course of the decade the films grew a more negative reputation, but those reputations started at the beginning. There were a lot of people who loved the prequels when they came out, but anyone pretending that there wasn’t any hate until it was “cool” is fooling themselves.

There are many people, even those who have been members of this board over the past fifteen years, who consider the prequels to be some sort of contraband that’s not allowed in their homes. Nobody can convince me that these people were peer-pressured into hating these movies so much.

There are also people like me. I enjoyed TPM and AOTC a lot when I was younger, hated ROTS, and then I came to a realization over time that even the first two aren’t very well made films, and many of their problems ruin some of the mystique of the OT. I still enjoy some aspects of the first two prequels, as they do hold some good ideas and good filmmaking, and my nostalgia for them makes them fun to revisit. I wasn’t brainwashed by internet forums, I just built a greater understanding of what I was seeing on the screen for myself. That’s enough ranting though. I don’t disbelieve that the general response in your area at least was positive.

I’m actually very excited for this project since the P&S VHS is what I used to watch TPM on.

Army of Darkness: The Medieval Deadit | The Terminator - Color Regrade | The Wrong Trousers - Audio Preservation
SONIC RACES THROUGH THE GREEN FIELDS.
THE SUN RACES THROUGH A BLUE SKY FILLED WITH WHITE CLOUDS.
THE WAYS OF HIS HEART ARE MUCH LIKE THE SUN. SONIC RUNS AND RESTS; THE SUN RISES AND SETS.
DON’T GIVE UP ON THE SUN. DON’T MAKE THE SUN LAUGH AT YOU.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I was 13 when TPM came out and remember liking it, and was especially interested in where the story could go next. Then AOTC was released, and I remember thinking, even at such an age and without the help of the internet, that GL had lost the plot. By the time of ROTS, the trilogy was an exercise in completionism more than anything else.

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

Author
Time
 (Edited)

MonkeyLizard10 said:

nah, more just like the sort of sneering hipster crowd took over forums and spread hate and then it became cool to hate > everything

Fandom isn’t influential enough to change the minds of the general audience NOW, and almost everybody’s on the internet. They were even less influential back in the early 2000s when hardly anyone was on it and the people who were, were all considered to be weirdos for spending their all their free time online talking about Star Wars movies.

Sneering hipsters didn’t really have anything to do with making it “cool to hate everything.” The much more plausible idea is that people actually believed in the opinions they were sharing. Those opinions could have been misguided, or not fun to hear, or really flimsy and easy to knock over, but I don’t think the large majority of them were being said simply because they thought that’s how you became a “sneering hipster” who is cool and respected.

What happened then is the same thing that’s happening now. The Star Wars fandom isn’t good at processing new Star Wars for what it is, until it’s become canonized to some degree via time. I don’t really like the movie myself, but time, and acceptance, has me in a place where if a 1080 fan-preservation from a 35mm film scan was announced here I’d be one of the first scrambling to try and download it because there are aspects of it I DO like, and I’d like to see them the way I remembered them that opening night.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

MonkeyLizard10 seems to be right…

Evolution of Rotten Tomatoes reviews for The Phantom Menace, according to web.archive.org:

  • 2004: Tomatometer: 62%
  • 2005: Tomatometer: 63%
  • 2006: Tomatometer: 63%
  • 2007: Tomatometer: 63%
  • 2008: Tomatometer: 63%
  • 2009: Tomatometer: 63%
  • 2010: Tomatometer: 62%
  • 2011: Tomatometer: 62% - Audience: 65%
  • 2012: Tomatometer: 57% - Audience: 62%
  • 2013: Tomatometer: 57% - Audience: 62%
  • 2014: Tomatometer: 57% - Audience: 60%
  • 2015: Tomatometer: 57% - Audience: 60%
  • 2016: Tomatometer: 56% - Audience: 60%
  • 2017: Tomatometer: 55% - Audience: 59%
  • 2018: Tomatometer: 55% - Audience: 59%
  • 2019: Tomatometer: 53% - Audience: 59%

So it seems that it was not so hated until 2012, then it suddenly dropped 10% within the last 7 years
(but it remains widely above The Last Jedi which gets an awful audience score of 44%).