Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
Could you tell us whether you thought it looked better than laserdisc or (God forbid) vhs?
Good point about calibration. Makes me wonder if the person color correcting the 2004 dvd's had too much red in their overbrightened monitor. "Wow, sure had to add a lot of blue just to make the stormtroopers look white.
Another thought.
"Lucas cut apart the original negative to make the special edition." I thought Lucas was a longtime big supporter of digital editing and tried to get Spielberg to edit Last Crusade on a computer.
Here is a couple of quotes from links provided by The Digital Bits. The first comes from Scott Swan at
Collider.com.
The next comes from Quint from Ain't It Cool News.
They showed some examples straight from the DVD and the film looks exactly like those bootlegs out there of the laserdiscs. A little washed out, pixelated and strobey. Goddamnit, is it too much to ask for the originals restored properly?
Could you tell us whether you thought it looked better than laserdisc or (God forbid) vhs?
Good point about calibration. Makes me wonder if the person color correcting the 2004 dvd's had too much red in their overbrightened monitor. "Wow, sure had to add a lot of blue just to make the stormtroopers look white.
Another thought.
"Lucas cut apart the original negative to make the special edition." I thought Lucas was a longtime big supporter of digital editing and tried to get Spielberg to edit Last Crusade on a computer.
Here is a couple of quotes from links provided by The Digital Bits. The first comes from Scott Swan at
Collider.com.
Then Steve Sansweet took the stage. I’ve liked Steve’s genuine affection for this property in the past. He’s a true friend to Star Wars, or at least has been in the past. But when he took the stage, I sensed something funky from the get-go. He launched into what I could only call a tirade about how if you complain about these new DVDs there’s something wrong with you (I’m paraphrasing, of course). He said that “the little black bars” won’t detract from our enjoyment. This part lost me. There would be black bars at the top and bottom of the screen anamorphic or not. I couldn't tell if he actually believed what he was saying, or if Lucasfilm had shoved an explosive device up his rectum and tossed him out onto stage to feed us what he damn well knows is a bunch of hooey. The second scenario is probably more likely.
It all seemed like misdirection, the same way Lucasfilm is fixating on Han shooting first (there are far worse offenses in the Special Editions). So of course, that was exactly the clip he showed next. And it looked pretty much exactly as you'd expect: An old transfer of a movie made for laserdisc, zoomed to fit a 16x9 screen. And he even acknowledged these masters were made specifically for laserdisc. I'm sorry, but the minute you say the L word, you just lost my dollar. They did a cheesy fake-out first with the Han/Greedo scene by showing really horrible looking video. Maybe this was to joke with the audience, as Sansweet suggested, or maybe there was a more sinister intent. Perhaps this was shown to make the real DVD clip they played right after look much better by comparison. Bottom line, though, none of it looked that great. It looked okay at best. But it's nowhere near the second coming they want us to think it is.
It all seemed like misdirection, the same way Lucasfilm is fixating on Han shooting first (there are far worse offenses in the Special Editions). So of course, that was exactly the clip he showed next. And it looked pretty much exactly as you'd expect: An old transfer of a movie made for laserdisc, zoomed to fit a 16x9 screen. And he even acknowledged these masters were made specifically for laserdisc. I'm sorry, but the minute you say the L word, you just lost my dollar. They did a cheesy fake-out first with the Han/Greedo scene by showing really horrible looking video. Maybe this was to joke with the audience, as Sansweet suggested, or maybe there was a more sinister intent. Perhaps this was shown to make the real DVD clip they played right after look much better by comparison. Bottom line, though, none of it looked that great. It looked okay at best. But it's nowhere near the second coming they want us to think it is.
The next comes from Quint from Ain't It Cool News.
They showed some examples straight from the DVD and the film looks exactly like those bootlegs out there of the laserdiscs. A little washed out, pixelated and strobey. Goddamnit, is it too much to ask for the originals restored properly?
Looks like I will have to pass on the '06 DVD's. I bet he will remaster the Originals at some point because he always does the opposite of what he says. If not, oh well, I've went this long without them.
Patrick