4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 299

Pretty sure it’s right before the door explodes, but I’m not positive.

ChainsawAsh said:

Pretty sure it’s right before the door explodes, but I’m not positive.

Yes, it is.

Some of the confetti effects are out of sync with the Bluray during the Coruscant portion of the SE Victory Celebration. There’s no clear signs that they redid the Temple and Senate, though, which was what I was looking for. Also, the horrendous Bluray red glow over Vader’s funeral pyre (and the subsequent reddening of the bottom half of the sky) are gone.

EDIT:
I can’t believe they made the compositing of Hayden worse. And why is he wall-eyed? It’s the same in the Bluray but surely his eyes aren’t actually doing that in the original footage they used; it must be edited. I think his left eye (closest to Obi Wan) is legit and the right eye must be ‘adjusted’ so he looks more forwards. Cover up the (his) right side of his face and it looks like he’s looking at someone stood in front of Ben.

ray_afraid said:
About the “worse” compositing, can some kind soul explain? I don’t really see it…
Maybe in the 2nd shot, but I think the first looks a bit better…
(also, what’s 19SE mean?)

19SE as in 2019 Special Edition, as in the version of the Star Wars special editions made available through Disney+ and other digital distribution services in 2019. The Blurays are sometimes called the 11SE, the DVDs the 04SE, and the original theatrical release of the special editions the 97SE - mostly by DoubleOFive on twitter. Though maybe we’re going with 4KSE instead; or perhaps when they get a physical media release we’ll start calling them ‘the UHD Blurays’ or the 20SE instead…

Anyway, compositing is a VFX technique where you basically add all the stuff together to make the final film frame. The reason I reckon the 19SE has worse compositing of Hayden is the black levels - meaning the darkest blacks on his face. The shadow under his neck seems much darker and browner than any of the darkest shadows on Yoda or Obi-Wan, which are more of a medium blue. Less technically, his head generally seems less ghostly and less well integrated with Shaw’s body and the other two Jedi masters.

The blacks are less crushed for most of the film, as far as I can see.

One redone change which I think is a huge improvement is the removal of Vader’s eyebrows. They’ve much more realistically created a shaved brow appearance, with darkness and wrinkles there to get back some of the expressiveness which was somewhat lost with the eyebrow removal. I also really like the slightly pink colour correction for Vader. This shot is worse though because you can clearly see the eyebrows alteration glow with a slightly orange tint.

EDIT:
I feel sorry for the poor VFX artists who had to redo all these changes. Here’s the transition from Tatooine to Naboo redone (because Naboo was added in 2004). It’s a slightly cleaner edge. Naboo looks super desaturated in these new versions; I hope the HDR versions have sufficient colour information for us to get a more vibrant grade out of them without gross artifacting. If we can get them to look like they do on Dre’s TV on my computer monitor, I’ll be chuffed.

Here’s the undone funeral pyre change.

EDIT 2:
No visible change whatsoever in the R2 malfunctioning shot, except the colour grading of course. Maybe they just still had it lying around and could copy it across wholesale?

EDIT 3:
I don’t know if this is anything other than colour correction (Ben’s ghost).

I see no evidence of changes to the Rancor.

lol they forgot things they previously fixed… too bad, I was kinda hopping it to be the real Lucas final cut but it’s still not /:

I’d be very interested in some sort of poll or at least seeing what everyone would rate the 4K HDR Disney+ versions. For comparison maybe include a rating for other versions as well?

ray_afraid said:

sade1212 said:

why is he wall-eyed? It’s the same in the Bluray but surely his eyes aren’t actually doing that in the original footage they used; it must be edited. I think his left eye (closest to Obi Wan) is legit and the right eye must be ‘adjusted’ so he looks more forwards. Cover up the (his) right side of his face and it looks like he’s looking at someone stood in front of Ben.

Yeah, I think you’re right about the eye. Weird.

Lucas always wanted Jack Elam as the redeemed Anakin, but he wasn’t available at the time. Now with digital technology, he can realize his Original Vision™ as it was always meant to be.

It’s quite fun to use Dre’s tool to apply these colours to the Bluray. though of course you still get the Blurays’ oversharpened skin and general flat look.

Rodney-2187 said:

I’d be very interested in some sort of poll or at least seeing what everyone would rate the 4K HDR Disney+ versions. For comparison maybe include a rating for other versions as well?

Do we have polls on here? I have seen older posts where polls have taken place on this site - but I do not know how to create one.

It would be quite fun and helpful to have.

Ooh, that’s a good one, I forgot all about that.

Did we ever work out if the sound mixes are totally new? The waveforms look different to me vs. the blurays, but my hearing isn’t fantastic so I can’t really tell if they sound noticeably different.

sade1212 said:

Did we ever work out if the sound mixes are totally new? The waveforms look different to me vs. the blurays, but my hearing isn’t fantastic so I can’t really tell if they sound noticeably different.

Tarkin’s dialogue before the destruction of Alderaan is MUCH clearer than I know it was at one point but maybe this is a Blu Ray change? I don’t have them so I don’t know.

Is it just me or is the image geometry different?

DrDre said:

The new masters are now also on google play/youtube.

Are they also on Itunes now?