STAR WARS: EP IV 2004 REVISITED ADYWAN *1080p HD VERSION NOW IN PRODUCTION — Page 505

I’m with the rest of the people saying to follow the 180 rule. I think you could squeak by just flipping the 2 shots of the Sandcrawler and keeping the rest of the work you did.

Alright a new clip! Thank you for sharing, Ady! And in typical fashion, here is one of my long posts 😄

Regarding the 3PO/sand crawler shots, couldn’t speak much about filmmaking rules so I’d defer to the folks who know that stuff better, but I will say this: Did I find it jarring? A bit at first, but I think that was just because of how used to the original I am. Did I feel lost as a viewer? Nope, in fact I could confidently draw and label a triangular map. Can or should the 180 rule be broken in this instance? That I’m not sure, but if there is a possible way to avoid it then that might be ideal. So take that as you will 😃

There is another shot I am hoping to bring attention to and it’s the one with R2 heading to the mountains immediately after parting with 3PO. Does anyone else notice how the mountains ahead appear to be less detailed in the Revisited:HD than the Official version? Here’s an image:

At first I thought it had to do with the blue atmospheric haze that was applied, but then I see at the bottom that the ripples in the sand are also less obvious. I rewatched the original Revisited and that has the details just fine. Here’s an image from the original Revisited:

Thought this would be worth mentioning, just in case 😉

And while we’re on this shot, if I may, from an artistic perspective, I have to admit I do prefer the mountains of the Official better for its dusty brownish color over the R:HD bluish color. I understand it’s because of the atmosphere, but the current dark blue hue does give the mountains a bit of a lush appearance, as if there is much vegetation (which of course there’s not 😄 ), whereas the dusty brown more clearly gives that dry and arid look as it should. So perhaps maybe just a little more brown and less blue could make all the difference? Even if more like the original Revisited in the above image. A constructive feedback at least worth considering I hope!

Now as for this next part, I had a long debate with myself if I should even bring it up or not, but since I’m already here, I my as well and let the chips fall as they may. And no worries if anyone disagrees 😃

Let me first say I really do like the pretty, vibrant blue skies! That rich blue is striking and really pops against the sand, better than the Official’s mostly-colorless sky for sure. But… there is also the other part of me that thinks it could actually be too rich of a blue for Tatooine skies (most notably during the “Look sir, droids” and the sand crawler shot after that). Hear me out. Imagine if this blue hue were, overall, dialed down to be more of a light-blue with a slight hint of cyan, like how it was in the original Revisited, as a perfect example:

And for reference this is how it is currently in the Official and R:HD:

Notice how the original Revisited sky is somewhere between the Official and R:HD in color, which I feel could actually be the sweet spot for a normal sunny day on Tatooine. Then, what if that same deep blue color was instead applied to Yavin 4 and/or Endor, making it a noticeable and deliberate contrast to Tatooine. Indeed this makes sense from an artistic and storytelling standpoint by making a desert planet all the more different from the other planets we’ll see. And before anyone says “Earth has variations of blue skies,” yes I know and also know Tunisha can have vibrant blue skies too, but once again, from an artistic and storytelling point of view, I’d point out it’d look great to give each planet their own little idiosyncrasies, which is what makes a lot of these planets in Star Wars so great and memorable, even if it’s something as simple as what’s happening with the sky (such as Bespin always having beautiful clouds during the day and evening [which on a side note, if I’m completely honest, I might’ve preferred not seeing some of those beautiful clouds again for Tatooine, such as during the first good look of the sand crawler when the two gorgeous moons would have sufficed, but I admit that might be nitpicky]). But, Ady, if you are perfectly happy with how your Tatooine sky currently looks then you keep it - you’ll just have to forgive me as I tend to speak my mind from time to time 😄

I’ll finish this post by saying how I loved your attention to detail on everything else, Ady! Others have already spotted the various other fixes but I haven’t seen anyone yet mention the small blink-and-miss flash you added to the approaching sand crawler (for when the sun hits the cockpit windows), which is of course in homage to the flashing from the OG original (but not in the original Revisited). Chef’s kiss on that! Btw, I wonder if I was the only one, as a kid, who thought those flashes were actually hazard lights, lol.

ThiscouldbeR2D2 said:

Yeah, you’re right. Why would moisture vaporators be needed on a planet with clearly a lot of moisture in the air, judging by the blue skies and clouds? What are your thoughts, Ady?

Firstly, Blue skies are a sign of low moisture, not the other way around…

Also, the skies on Tatooine are blue because the skies on Tatooine (Tunisia) ARE blue… They’ve been desaturated on home media (especially in the UHD) but have always been and meant to be a deep and bright blue…

I’m not sure why we have this argument every few months. Tatooine has blue skies. Get over it.

That guy with no name said:

the skies on Tatooine are blue because the skies on Tatooine (Tunisia) ARE blue… They’ve been desaturated on home media (especially in the UHD) but have always been and meant to be a deep and bright blue…

If they’ve been desaturated on home media, does that not imply that they’re meant to be desaturated? You may as well show us pictures of Mexico City and claim that all the Hollywood movies that give it a yellow color grading are wrong. At that point, your complaint is with color grading itself, not the artistic intention behind it.

I kindly ask that you re-read/read my previous post, TGWNN. Nobody was suggesting that the skies of Tatooine shouldn’t be blue, just that the rich blue possibly be dialed down; I even mentioned how the original Revisited already had the perfect color, and that’s clearly blue. In my previous post I did also acknowledge that Tunisia can get vibrant blue skies, but frankly it’s irrelevant, as we are discussing a fictional dust ball planet in a galaxy far far away… so it comes down to what feels right to the artist, which in this case is of course Ady. If he wants to keep it the current blue, I said he should, or if he was trying things out and is open to honest, constructive feedback, that’s what we’re here for 😉

NeverarGreat said:

That guy with no name said:

the skies on Tatooine are blue because the skies on Tatooine (Tunisia) ARE blue… They’ve been desaturated on home media (especially in the UHD) but have always been and meant to be a deep and bright blue…

If they’ve been desaturated on home media, does that not imply that they’re meant to be desaturated? You may as well show us pictures of Mexico City and claim that all the Hollywood movies that give it a yellow color grading are wrong. At that point, your complaint is with color grading itself, not the artistic intention behind it.

By home media I don’t mean every single release, just the UHD. Even the 2011 BD has had the correct sky saturation, though the hues and other colors were off in that release. Also the original SD version of revisited also suffered from desaturation due to Ady’d at that point undeveloped cc skills. The sky color in these comparisons is correct. I should know, I’ve spent the past 10 years color grading Star Wars, (as you have also been) and you as much as I who’s worked on many film prints, you always get that deep blue when you dig deep enough. It’s supposed to be like that. Toning it down would make the sky appear darker than it should be…

NeverarGreat said:

That guy with no name said:

the skies on Tatooine are blue because the skies on Tatooine (Tunisia) ARE blue… They’ve been desaturated on home media (especially in the UHD) but have always been and meant to be a deep and bright blue…

If they’ve been desaturated on home media, does that not imply that they’re meant to be desaturated?

Kind of a strange question for a forum partly dedicated to complaining about all the ways the colors have been wrong on home media releases of this movie.

That guy with no name said:

NeverarGreat said:

That guy with no name said:

the skies on Tatooine are blue because the skies on Tatooine (Tunisia) ARE blue… They’ve been desaturated on home media (especially in the UHD) but have always been and meant to be a deep and bright blue…

If they’ve been desaturated on home media, does that not imply that they’re meant to be desaturated? You may as well show us pictures of Mexico City and claim that all the Hollywood movies that give it a yellow color grading are wrong. At that point, your complaint is with color grading itself, not the artistic intention behind it.

By home media I don’t mean every single release, just the UHD. Even the 2011 BD has had the correct sky saturation, though the hues and other colors were off in that release. Also the original SD version of revisited also suffered from desaturation due to Ady’d at that point undeveloped cc skills. The sky color in these comparisons is correct. I should know, I’ve spent the past 10 years color grading Star Wars, (as you have also been) and you as much as I who’s worked on many film prints, you always get that deep blue when you dig deep enough. It’s supposed to be like that. Toning it down would make the sky appear darker than it should be…

My color correction project used the 2011 BD as a base and the Technicolor print as its target, and I very much disagree with the assertion that the 2011 BD had the correct saturation. The BD was heavily oversaturated in its primaries of Blue, Green, and Red (undoubtedly an issue stemming from Lowry’s process), and it was a constant battle to tame these oversaturated colors. The skies on Tatooine were one such problem area. I settled on a much lighter and more subtle blue for the skies, in keeping with the Technicolor references.

The method I used for taming the skies wasn’t specifically targeted at them, however. I used a LUT that I had developed to adjust all the colors across the film equally, before going in and fine-tuning for each shot, and the LUT performed well in fixing the oversaturated blues across the film (such as in blue lights, sabers, engine glow), not just in Tatooine’s sky. This LUT took months to develop, testing and retesting so that it wouldn’t cause strange color shifts or go too far in areas. This helped in bringing the entire film back to a neutral state without the wild but consistent oversaturation of the 2011 BD.

My point with all of this is that nobody should be using the 2011 BD to weight their opinions of how Star Wars should look. Its problems are well-known, and my ‘defense’ of the home-media versions is just that you can’t point to set and environmental photos to claim that this is the intended look of a color-graded film. Color grading is what turns Tatooine from a place in Tunisia into an alien world, and it’s important to use the film (whether that be film prints or home media releases) in order to know what the artistic intentions actually were. We can disregard the BD or at least attempt to correct for its clearly erroneous colors, while still attempting to divine the artistic intention for Tatooine’s color grade based on the film and (to a far lesser extent) its home media releases.

NeverarGreat said:

My point with all of this is that nobody should be using the 2011 BD to weight their opinions of how Star Wars should look.

But, but, it was the only home video release personally overseen by Lucas! LOL