logo Sign In

The Phantom Menace - Theatrical version scanned in 4K (a WIP) — Page 6

Author
Time

Very cool that you’ve made the move to scan the film yourself. Thank you for sticking with this. I’ve also been closely following your TPM projects, and remain eagerly awaiting new releases. Good luck!

Author
Time

Thank you for this 😃 I’m one who, in general, doesn’t mind tinkering…as long as the original is available too. Saw this one in theater and hope to see it again as it was…

Author
Time

This is very exciting! Thank you for your efforts and dedication to this project, ZigZig!

Author
Time

so does this mean once u scanned it , that will make it the best version to watch of TPM? or will your 1080p version be betteer

Fate is best Anime/Visual Novel.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Wow… How did I miss this news? Much more exciting than any of the recent Disney announcements (although I will give them a chance to impress me once they are out, Mando has been goood).
I am almost shaking with excitement 😄 I have offered a donation to Zig Zig before as I really want to see this project finished one day, but he politely refused at the time which I totally understand (I guess any meaningful help would be quite an amount).
I am so happy to hear that you are still working on this despite the financial burden.
Seeing Episode I in HD and closer to its original glory (in terms of colors and editing) would be a dream come true.
Just look at how natural, beautiful and cinematic the colors are in ZigZig’s laserdisc preservation.
If this is anything close to that and in HD, we all win.

“The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.”

Author
Time
 (Edited)

This looks like a highly promising project. I just rewatched TPM and noticed how the pace of the movie starts dragging when it gets to the podrace and Coruscant. I would love to watch an HD TPM that contains the original tempo and editing.

Author
Time

any chance youre accepting donations? seems like youre investing a lot of time into this

Author
Time

If you’ll indulge in my stupidity for a moment. How is this possible? I know the prequels had 35mm prints for the theaters however the films had a 2K Digital Intermediate. I’m a little confused.

Author
Time

It’s true that films of the time were finished in 2K, but in order to make sure all the detail is gained from a film print, it is often scanned in 4K or higher. It’s basically like the detail of the 2K master is ‘scattered’ across the fine grain of the film, which is in danger of sometimes being lost in the grain structure unless it is scanned in sufficient detail to retrieve it. I hope that this isn’t more confusing, it’s just difficult to describe without viewing 2K vs 4K film scans.

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

AveryADiaz said:

If you’ll indulge in my stupidity for a moment. How is this possible? I know the prequels had 35mm prints for the theaters however the films had a 2K Digital Intermediate. I’m a little confused.

Actually, the first Hollywood film to utilize a digital intermediate process from beginning to end was “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” in 2000 (according to Wikipedia), one year after TPM.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Thanks for the info! Also I misspoke I was referring to the fact that the Prequels were finished at a lower resolution and IMDB’s Tech Specs listed a 2K DI (which might mean they redid it for Home Video or IMDB made a mistake.)

Author
Time

I’d imagine this is probably gonna take a LONG while but I’m very much keeping my eye on this. Hopefully soon much like with TN1’s 4K scans of the original trilogy this means we will soon have all six original Star Wars films preserved in the best possible quality.

Author
Time

AspiringCreator said:

I’d imagine this is probably gonna take a LONG while but I’m very much keeping my eye on this. Hopefully soon much like with TN1’s 4K scans of the original trilogy this means we will soon have all six original Star Wars films preserved in the best possible quality.

There’s already a scan of TPM than TN1 did. You can find it on TheStarWarsTrilogy.com.

Project creator and film enthusiast.

Author
Time

They did the whole movie as well.

Project creator and film enthusiast.

Author
Time

It’s a Czech print, so the crawl and subtitles/credits are all in Czech. Still, it’s incredible to have that print and it’s in decent shape as well.

Author
Time

BedeHistory731 said:

It’s a Czech print, so the crawl and subtitles/credits are all in Czech. Still, it’s incredible to have that print and it’s in decent shape as well.

It really is so incredible. Plus knowing the talent of the community? I wouldn’t be surprised if some crazy group of people edited the thing further to give us proper English subtitles or at least an English crawl but even so? Still great to see the movie as it was originally seen.

Author
Time

CloakedDragon97 said:

They did the whole movie as well.

I’d love to see this. Did they do any of the other prequels too? I saw their scans of the trailers on YouTube and couldn’t believe how much “smoother” the CGI looked than the digital release of Phantom Menace I started looking at the other day. Their scans of trailers for the other prequels looked good too. The darkness of a film print really seems to cut down on the distraction that can be seen on a digital version. Maybe darkness isn’t the right word, but it doesn’t feel as “bright” and cheery when you see the 35mm trailers for the prequels.

After only being able to catch Rogue One on Star Wars Day this year, I’m itching for a rewatch of them all, but part of me wants to hold off to see if I can’t find 35mm scans of the prequels to match up with 35mm scans of the OG trilogy.

Author
Time

emanswfan said:

A full 4k scan of a 35mm print of TPM would be perfect for my PT color grading project. I’m very much looking forward to this. It would work as just the right color reference for regrading the new 4K master, which I believe is just the same colors as the blu-ray but in 10 bit HDR.

Meanwhile the new 4K versions of AOTC and ROTS are accurate colors to the original 2K DCP’s, with the exception of it now being 10 bit HDR, and it’s easy enough to throw on a print emulation lut of the correct stock onto those to create 35mm print accurate colors of those. Still it would help to have 4K scans of 35mm prints anyhow just to make sure that I can tweak the emulation just right to match.

The new UHD for AOTC has contrast, colors, saturation not looking at all like the 35mm theatrical release/trailers though. I do recall the digital projection for AOTC was surprisingly a bit duller than the 35mm version (unlike with TPM), so perhaps it isn’t as far off from the digital AOTC release. But I still feel like it might be duller and it did get some DNR.