AOTC: Remastered (AI Upscale and HDR Regrade)

Attack of the Clones: Remastered

Hey all,

I wanted to share a remastering project I’ve been working on for Attack of the Clones.

This project started when I was rewatching the prequels on a big tv and was reminded just how rough AOTC can look. Attack of the Clones was shot in 1440x1080 and mastered using an early digital workflow, with a source master effectively limited to 1080p 8bit 4:2:2 SDR. Because of that, every release (including the UHD Bluray) is ultimately constrained by the limitations of the original source. I’ve always felt the official UHD release was very flat and didn’t fully take advantage of the HDR space. So with this project, I wanted to see just how far modern processing tools can push the image without breaking it.

For anyone interested in seeing the final results, I’ve uploaded some comparison screenshots here:

https://slow.pics/c/wzumoKvf

Keep in mind that these screenshots are gain mapped so they should appear in HDR, but only if you are using a supported browser and display. Otherwise they should appear in SDR.

Workflow

I started with the official 4K UHD Bluray and tonemapped the HDR presentation back to SDR. Since the UHD is derived from the original SDR master, I wanted a clean baseline before introducing additional processing.

The SDR source was processed through Topaz Video AI using a conservative enhancement workflow. The goal was to reduce compression artifacts and recover as much legitimate image information as possible without over processing.

Once the image was cleaned up, I used Topaz to generate an HDR pass. Given the limitations of the original source, this isn’t creating new dynamic range, but it does provide a more convincing HDR presentation with improved highlight separation and image depth.

To minimize banding and preserve as much information as possible throughout the grading process, the HDR output was exported to ProRes 4444 XQ and brought into DaVinci Resolve as a high quality 12bit intermediate.

The final stage is being completed entirely in DaVinci Resolve, where I’m handling color correction, HDR refinement, highlight management, and scene by scene adjustments.

So far the results have been very encouraging. Lightning strikes carry significantly more impact, gradients are noticeably smoother, fine detail holds up much better without looking overprocessed, the image overall has a lot more depth.

I’m currently deep into the grading phase and would love some feedback.

Cheers!

Excited to see it!

Are you going to do the phantom menace and revenge of the sith next?

This sounds nice. How did the initial scenes between Count Dooku and Obi-Wan turn out? I always thought they were too soft. Is the movie sharper now?

I will be doing the entire prequel trilogy. The result has been amazing so far with Attack of the Clones, it looks so damn good on my 75inch tv. The picture is a good bit sharper, but the goal here wasn’t just to sharpen the image, rather I wanted to bring out detail while making sure not to oversharpen. How I achieved this was to render out a very sharp upscale from Topaz, and then use selective softening during the color grading process to tame the sharpness where needed. This gives kind of a more filmic look that is simultaneously more detailed while remaining somewhat soft. This makes faces less blurry by bringing out details like pores and imperfections without making the edges of things super sharp or things like wrinkles becoming much darker and prominent. I’m about to be finished with AOTC and will move on to ROTS next. Stay tuned!

Love to see it! Are you using the latest released versions?

Great project. Screenshots look encouraging!

Hope it is going well! I think Attack of the Clones deserved a lot of editor love both because it has its limitations and because I enjoy certain parts of the film quite a bit.