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Why are people like this?

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I just don’t get people who want to argue endlessly that it’s impossible to restore the original versions of the films and when I present them with dozens of screengrabs and video clips of the incredible fan restorations discussed at length here, they still try and act like I have no idea what I’m talking about. Some *sshat in a Star Wars group on facebook kept deflecting to every technicality he could possibly grasp at in order to discredit all of these amazing fan preservations and make his point that no suitable source material exists anywhere to ever produce any sort of passably high quality restoration of these films and that they were essentially lost forever. I explained to both of these people (there were 2 until I was blocked by the first one) that fan restorations of this nature, while not perfact, are still leaps and bounds better than any official laserdisc or DVD that Lucasfilm has released up to this point. If Lucasfilm themselves were ever to theoretically embark on an official restoration, they undoubtedly would have access to far superior source elements than we do. This dude kept claiming he’s worked in the industry so somehow that’s supposed to mean he automatically knows everything there is to know and I’m just some idiot. I stopped taking him seriously when he tried to compare the resolution of a laserdisc master to 35mm film and make some kind of aimless comparison that the official laserdisc was somehow superior in resolution to 4K77.

It blows my mind how anyone can watch a clip of 4K77 and not even be mildly impressed, or hilariously try to claim it’s an upscale of a laserdisc.

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Some don’t want the originals back, and are perfectly happy with the crap that’s been around since 1997 (in various upgrades).

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I’ll be that guy. Because, in many ways, I AM that guy.

But first, I apologize if I took the thread the wrong way. I’m here to answer the question as presented. If this was just a matter of venting frustration, just skip my response, because it’s really not going to help.

“Disappointment” is defined by expectations. If you expect something and don’t get it, that’s a disappointment. Now a lot of people who love 4K77 want to re-live the original Star Wars experience, as it literally was when watching it in a real theater back in the day. That very specific expectation is met, in spades. Those who want that will not be disappointed.

But a funny thing happened between 1977 and 2018. People’s expectations changed. Classic films are regularly restored from negatives and other source materials that have far more fine image detail than a projection print, and by the time 4K77 was released, people had been enjoying films that way for over a decade. How many acclaimed high-def releases are based on projection prints? None. And there’s a reason for that. If someone scanned a projection print of My Fair Lady and released that on UHD, people would say “What is this crap? The old UHD is way better!” Especially if it was a 35mm reduction print. And you could say “But the projection print is how it looked in the theater!” until you’re blue in the face, and you would convince essentially nobody. Because the My Fair Lady UHD looks, in a word, loverly. And that really defines the significant split in expectations: some want movies to look like they did in the theater, and some want them to look not only better, but significantly better – at least in terms of fine image detail.

So, when your random person on the Internet hears that there is a 4K restoration of the original Star Wars, there may be an expectation that it has the fine image detail equivalent to 4K restorations of other classic films. And, let me be very very categorical on this point, 4K77 doesn’t have that. Now that’s a bit of an unfair expectation, because Star Wars was first of all not a large-format film like My Fair Lady, and 70’s filmstock kind of sucked, and it’s rife with optical composites, and so on. But even then, they may have that expectation, and it will not be met. A more realistic expectation, given all that background, would be for it to have the equivalent level of fine detail of a 1080p restoration or 2K upscale. But that expectation is also not met, because people forget exactly how much detail is lost simply in the optical duplication process that creates projection prints. In fine image detail equivalency terms, what you’re really talking about is less than 720p and more than 480p, most of the time.

Is 4K resolution wasted on a projection print? Not at all. Resolving grain well is important, and supersampling is actually an extremely important principle when trying to digitize things for posterity, which is exactly what 4K77 is doing.

But when you tell people that there’s a 4K restoration of the original Star Wars, that gives a certain impression to those who aren’t versed in all this technical background. Or to those so steeped in industry trends for the past few decades that they simply expect a certain minimum level of image quality at 4K. But with this expectation, 4K77 can’t help but disappoint. It’s unfair of them to say it’s no better than the GOUT, certainly. But let’s be clear – in terms of fine image detail, it IS a lot closer to the GOUT than to the My Fair Lady UHD.

Now, I can’t make people on the Internet less rude or anything, but you do have to take people’s perspectives into account. If this guy really does work in the industry, he is probably MORE likely to have these high expectations for fine image detail than your average person. He probably considers projection print restorations as the sort of thing done for “Manos: Hands of Fate” caliber films. He likely doesn’t care about the dedication or resourcefulness that 4K77 demonstrates, only the final product. He may truly want a 4K restoration of Star Wars, but simply not this one.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

I’ll be that guy. Because, in many ways, I AM that guy.

But first, I apologize if I took the thread the wrong way. I’m here to answer the question as presented. If this was just a matter of venting frustration, just skip my response, because it’s really not going to help.

I agree with you, and this is why, as much as I like the 4K projects, Ohteedee’s D+ versions are my go-to for actually watching the movies until Despecialized 3.0 eventually happens. They aren’t fully accurate, but the image quality is a lot better.

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I actually had a falling out with someone over this. He was very insistent about how “The GOUT is what it looked like in theaters. And the 2011 versions are the true definitive versions. And that’s that, so you have nothing to complain about.” Then, when I tried explaining otherwise, he shifted to saying “Fans don’t deserve the original cuts, cause they drove George away,” which misses the point and importance of film preservation. It’s frustrating to talk to people like that.

The sad thing is, this mindset will probably only become more and more common, as there’s now a whole generation of adult fans who’ve mostly never seen the original cuts. And many of them are pretty intent on defending George’s vision for his hexalogy.

But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault.

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CatBus said:

I’ll be that guy. Because, in many ways, I AM that guy.

Wow, that was quite a long read but I agree with pretty much all of it. Anyway, here’s my novel:

The issue here wasn’t so much as to whether or not 4K77 met the quality standards of this particular individual, it was that this person pretty much went out of their way to discredit any notion of there ever being any way to watch the original cuts at all in any respectable quality and when confronted with any conflicting evidence or contrarian suggestions, he would act as if I was bullshitting him that any kind of 35mm based fan preservation existed or that such an effort was even possible until I pounded him over the head with screenshots and video clips. He tried to dismiss as “laserdisc upscales” until I finally posted a link to the actual project page. He still went out of his way to pick apart anything he could about it such as select frames from the Blu-ray having to be used as fill-ins, just so he could hold onto and push the idea that the original cuts are lost forever in any kind of watchable quality. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other as to whether or not the original versions are ever available in any capacity of if 4K77 looked good or not, he just seemed to enjoy rubbing salt into the wounds of people who do care by saying that it will never happen and that they are gone forever. He’s one of those people. He wanted to discredit fan efforts in any way that he could because it didn’t fit with his narrative.

The originating comment that I first replied to was in response to a speculative thread about the likelihood of whether or not Disney/Lucasfilm would ever actually release high quality restorations of the original cuts in any capacity (still not holding my breath on that one) and this person chimed in with a rehash of the official Lucasfilm “the original versions no longer physically exist” jargon that we’ve been fed for years, arguing that there is no usable source material anywhere on earth that could possibly ever be used to restore these versions to an acceptable, modern level of quality and that we were forever stuck with VHS and laserdisc transfers as our only option. It just so happened that I was actually watching 4K77 at the time this popped up in my feed so I took a picture with my phone of the pre SE version of the scene were Han is cornered by stormtroopers while it was playing on my 80" TV, basically just to show that it is in fact possible to watch something better than VHS. I explained that this was a 4K fan preservation sourced predominantly from 35mm release print materials and that while not perfect or “end all, be all” by any means, It still demonstrates that a competent restoration can be done of these films given the right tools, time, dedication and availability of materials. I also stated that Lucasfilm almost certainly has better resources to do this with were they ever to embark on a restoration themselves.

These 2 guys were just not having it. As the conversation went on, I don’t think either of them were even interested in what the quality of 4K77 was like, they just wanted to discredit any idea I suggested of an official restoration ever being possible. The first guy suggested I was watching a VHS even though I was quite clear about what it was in my comment. My phone camera may not be top of the line but it is quite clear from looking at my pic that it was no VHS. After a brief back and forth, the first guy blocked me after I shot down all of his incorrect assumptions and he ran out of condescending remarks to come at me with. The 2nd guy to reply to me was actually the poster of the originating comment that I responded to. Basically the same deal. The originals are gone forever, Rah Rah Rah. There will never be anything better available than VHS or laserdisc, Rah Rah Rah. The same exchange as the first guy pretty much follows. I show him screen grabs of 4K77 to which he tries to dismiss as laserdisc upscales, followed by a bunch of condescending remarks that I’m basically and idiot and have no idea what I’m talking about and he knows better becuase he worked in the industry, Rah Rah Rah. I then send him clip after clip of 4K77 followed by a link to the project page, and he still continues on with the narrative that 4K77 is nothing and that Lucasfilm would never be able to do better than the existing Laserdiscs or VHS. That any usable elements are gone or destroyed forever.

I’ve encountered many people like this from within the Star Wars fandom which is why I seldom even participate in discussions of the franchise outside of this forum. These are the type of people who act like if you don’t worship George Lucas, kiss his butt at all times and accept everything he’s ever said or done unequivocally then you’re a bad fan. That we’re wrong for wanting the option to watch anything other than whatever George’s preferred flavor of the month version is.

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Thanks for the context – that helps a lot.

I think the idea of fan restoration is still pretty edgy, and unheard of among “normal” people. When people finally hear about it, they might think it’s some garbage-quality project, or worse, that it’s a scam and people are passing off upscales and regrades as film scans. People can get really defensive when they’ve had an idea fixed in their head for 26 years and suddenly someone challenges it.

The best you can do is expose them to it and wait for it to sink in. You’ve done your bit. The rest is up to them.

But I agree that as far as officially-released versions, we’re waiting on copyright expiration – Lucasfilm/Disney have made their choice. The idea of unofficial releases just blindsides the sad Eeyore Star Wars fan, or the Lucasfilm party-line fan, or whatever these guys are trying to be.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

I’ll be that guy. Because, in many ways, I AM that guy.

One thing though is that plenty of home video releases are NOT the pinnacle of image quality. Some smear DNR all over the place, some UHD have even had parts of images with less detail than the DVD releases (for all the images and parts of images with way more detail than the blu-rays, DVD, 4k projects, there are parts of frames on some Star Wars UHD that have less detail than the 4k projects or even the DVDs like where they smushed out bark texture on Endor in some frames or dropped a smoothing brush circle on some frames or how they smeared out all the very deepest shadows to have less detail than the blu-ray used to, that said plenty of other bits have way, way more detail). Many have a weird, over-processed computery look. Some still use old home masters with haloing. Many have rid the grain to the extreme and tried to force film to look like digital camera shot stuff but that often comes out weird and artificial looking, not like film at all, but not like real digitally shot stuff either (which doesn’t look waxy and strange).

I think the idea of fan restoration is still pretty edgy, and unheard of among “normal” people. When people >finally hear about it, they might think it’s some garbage-quality project, or worse, that it’s a scam and >people are passing off upscales and regrades as film scans.

The ironic thing is some commercial releases seem to be upscales themselves, and some done poorly at that, look at Footloose blu-ray, it’s has pixel blocks and jagged stairsteps and looks like a poor DVD upscale or something. And most UHD are upscales of 2K DI.

And to the point here, I mean they certainly do have the elements to make the original OT in better quality. Just like they could easily have given the prequel deleted scenes to us in HD instead of tossing crappy DVD mastered versions of them in poor quality SD at that.

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MonkeyLizard10 said:

One thing though is that plenty of home video releases are NOT the pinnacle of image quality.

Absolutely. And a corollary argument that could be made is, even IF you accepted that Lucasfilm could release the original trilogy, would you actually want them to? Because Lucasfilm has been fucking up the trilogy on home video since there was home video to fuck it up on. Don’t make me whip out the four-eyed stormtrooper again!

I am of the opinion that even if a miracle happened and they made their best effort for a modern home video release of the original trilogy, it would still only be good in terms of supplying better raw materials for fan preservations. But something you could just watch straight? Unlikely. It would have 93 audio, 81 crawl, heavy DNR, and some dreadful color correction, and that’s your best-case scenario.

Part of waiting for copyright expiration for an official release (other than I won’t be around to see it) is that some shoestring public domain operation like Laserlight could release it, and they can’t afford all the video processing required to mess it up.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

One thing though is that plenty of home video releases are NOT the pinnacle of image quality.

Absolutely. And a corollary argument that could be made is, even IF you accepted that Lucasfilm could release the original trilogy, would you actually want them to? Because Lucasfilm has been fucking up the trilogy on home video since there was home video to fuck it up on. Don’t make me whip out the four-eyed stormtrooper again!

I am of the opinion that even if a miracle happened and they made their best effort for a modern home video release of the original trilogy, it would still only be good in terms of supplying better raw materials for fan preservations. But something you could just watch straight? Unlikely. It would have 93 audio, 81 crawl, heavy DNR, and some dreadful color correction, and that’s your best-case scenario.

Part of waiting for copyright expiration for an official release (other than I won’t be around to see it) is that some shoestring public domain operation like Laserlight could release it, and they can’t afford all the video processing required to mess it up.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider the '81 crawl a guarantee considering Lucasfilm went out of their way to splice the '77 crawl into the GOUT DVD when everything else about the release was so minimal effort that they really could have just left it as is. Everything else sounds about right tho. I think any theoretical release from Disney/Lucasfilm would have the '77 crawl at minimum just because they know that’s the #1 thing people are going to bitch about.

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As I’ve learned more about the photochemical process and having seen a few 35mm film print scans, I must admit that I am very skeptical of official home video releases these days, as they very often have drastically different colour gradings, lowered contrast, excessive DNR, etc.

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Well I for one appreciate your efforts to set them straight. For those who still insist that this is just a laserdisc upscale, perhaps this will help:

Imgur

It’s just a half resolution proxy file, but it clearly shows more picture information on all sides than any laserdisc, the optical stereo soundtrack, and the grey background of the soundtrack proves it is an IB Tech.

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Williarob: Wooow! Impressive size and quality!

I have already encountered such a case, claiming that the old VHS has a better and perhaps sharper picture than the 4K77… Well, there is such a thing.

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fmalover said:

As I’ve learned more about the photochemical process and having seen a few 35mm film print scans, I must admit that I am very skeptical of official home video releases these days, as they very often have drastically different colour gradings, lowered contrast, excessive DNR, etc.

For what it’s worth, the contrast and the color gradings are both part and parcel with going back to the negatives. Every stage in the optical duplication process boosts contrast, so by the time you get to a 35mm print, the contrast is much higher than the negative. Similarly, the color on the negative may have little relation to the color on the print.

So if you go back to the negative, you’re going to have to make some choices about contrast and colors. Most leave contrast more-or-less unchanged because the negatives still have a pleasant and natural contrast – albeit unlike a print (i.e. it’s not a choice to reduce contrast, so much as a choice not to boost it to match), but colors are where bad stuff happens. Even with the best of intentions, it’s HARD to reproduce digitally color timings that were initially achieved photochemically. And people are often not the best about checking references. But yeah, sometimes/often it’s way worse than that.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

fmalover said:

As I’ve learned more about the photochemical process and having seen a few 35mm film print scans, I must admit that I am very skeptical of official home video releases these days, as they very often have drastically different colour gradings, lowered contrast, excessive DNR, etc.

For what it’s worth, the contrast and the color gradings are both part and parcel with going back to the negatives. Every stage in the optical duplication process boosts contrast, so by the time you get to a 35mm print, the contrast is much higher than the negative. Similarly, the color on the negative may have little relation to the color on the print.

So if you go back to the negative, you’re going to have to make some choices about contrast and colors. Most leave contrast more-or-less unchanged because the negatives still have a pleasant and natural contrast – albeit unlike a print (i.e. it’s not a choice to reduce contrast, so much as a choice not to boost it to match), but colors are where bad stuff happens. Even with the best of intentions, it’s HARD to reproduce digitally color timings that were initially achieved photochemically. And people are often not the best about checking references. But yeah, sometimes/often it’s way worse than that.

I would say on of the worst offenders in that regard is the Aliens blu-ray, which has been given a blanket green tint resulting in everything that supposed to be blue looking teal, and the skin tones look pale, plus all warm colours look kinda dull.

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OFF Questions:

CatBus said:

Part of waiting for copyright expiration for …

In how many years do the rights expire? 50 or 75 years? In recent times, it was possible to read such a sick plan that they wanted to extend it to 144 years!

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In New Zealand, it’s 50 years. Here in the US I think it’s 75. So in New Zealand, American Graffiti should become public domain this year, and Star Wars in 2027.

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Williarob said:

In New Zealand, it’s 50 years. Here in the US I think it’s 75. So in New Zealand, American Graffiti should become public domain this year, and Star Wars in 2027.

And here I thought people were moving to New Zealand for the scenery. They’re just reserving a spot in line.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Nien Nunb said:

…Some *sshat in a Star Wars group on facebook kept deflecting to every technicality he could possibly grasp at…

This was your first mistake…people on those platforms are the worst. Not to say good people can’t be found there, but FB, Twitter, YouTube (shudders)…it’s just poison.

It was publicly stated years back by RAH that multiple Technicolor dye prints of each film exist in private collections, etc. That for me is adequate, as there’s plenty of classics on film who’s OCN was lost or destroyed long ago, and beautiful presentations now exist for consumption.

Just don’t engage with the worst the Internet has to offer.

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CatBus said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

One thing though is that plenty of home video releases are NOT the pinnacle of image quality.

Absolutely. And a corollary argument that could be made is, even IF you accepted that Lucasfilm could release the original trilogy, would you actually want them to? Because Lucasfilm has been fucking up the trilogy on home video since there was home video to fuck it up on. Don’t make me whip out the four-eyed stormtrooper again!

100% I wouldn’t, as they’ve proven since at least the early 90s they can’t get the QA right, and in recent decades it’s even worse. I will NEVER forget how poor those first DVDs were with the colour and saber effects…and the audio during the X-Wing attack fanfare. <sigh>

Controversial or not, I think I’d only be happy if they engaged Mike Verta to do it. Is he the best person? No. Is this what he does for a living? Big no! But in that infamous video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3W_O-tp0_g&t=6079s) he shows his anal-attentive detail he’s willing to go into, and so I think it’d be as good as it’d get. He’s at least “known” to the firm and “part of” the business of Hollywood.

I swear I still can’t get over them tweaking each release every single time. The Vader changes in ROTJ…give me a break.

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RATLSNAKE said:

Nien Nunb said:

…Some *sshat in a Star Wars group on facebook kept deflecting to every technicality he could possibly grasp at…

This was your first mistake…people on those platforms are the worst. Not to say good people can’t be found there, but FB, Twitter, YouTube (shudders)…it’s just poison.

It was publicly stated years back by RAH that multiple Technicolor dye prints of each film exist in private collections, etc. That for me is adequate, as there’s plenty of classics on film who’s OCN was lost or destroyed long ago, and beautiful presentations now exist for consumption.

Just don’t engage with the worst the Internet has to offer.

100% this. Some people on the internet, many who seem to be hardcore George fans (zealots is probably a better description I see used by some to describe them), spread their bullshit bad faith arguments on why the unaltered theatrical cuts of the Original Trilogy cannot or should not be preserved or released:

I’ll never understand the attitude of people who oppose the release of the unaltered Original Trilogy

The 'Naysayer Guide’ by people who DON’T want an unaltered theatrical release of the Original Trilogy

A topic that might upset the entire forum; (I’m sorry) (history rewritten via believing Nerdonymous & Anomaly Inc. YouTube videos)
 

^ The ‘Fandom’ section of An Index & Help Thread for Original Trilogy Discussion has more information and threads like these.

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Makes me wonder what these idiots who magically happen to have “Worked in the industry” actually did. Were they the janitor employed at a UHF station in the eighties? They usually insist on saying something technically iffy like “a 35mm print wont have the dynamic range for a bluray”. Baloney! lots of older movies on bluray were restored from release prints, it’s fairly common with older films like Woman on the Run Nothing Sacred.

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You can support the artist and still say its a BS position to not release the original cuts of his movies. I include American Graffiti and THX 1138 in this not just the Star Wars trilogy. Lucas is really his own worst enemy. Why not just release the movies the same way they looked and their original audio as catalog titles for Lucasfilm, Or at least allow Disney to do so. George might not like how grainy they look in a new 4K scan, but i would be phenomenally grateful to own the original Techniscope photography of THX and Graffiti. the DNR versions are trash. The cgi is garbage.

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People are fucking idiots. Plain as cottage cheese in the orbit of Saturn.