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First Impressions of the OOT ... — Page 12

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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
Here is what they said in the form letter linked to by OriginalTrilogy.com.
As you may know, an enormous amount of effort was put into digitally restoring the negatives for the Special Editions. In one scene alone, nearly 1 million pieces of dirt had to be removed, and the Special Editions were created through a frame-by-frame digital restoration. The negatives of the movies were permanently altered for the creation of the Special Editions, and existing prints of the first versions are in poor condition.
How can we verify that they sent a great technicolor print to Lowry digital?


They did not get a print, they got a digital master from the negatives. If they would have gotten a Technicolor dye print, they couldn´t have mastered the SE for DVD....
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So does everybody in here agree that the original unaltered trilogy will not be released on DVD again?
"So be it JEDI!"
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Originally posted by: RichardPX3
So does everybody in here agree that the original unaltered trilogy will not be released on DVD again?


Whether we agree or not is irrelevant. 2 years ago, no one would have bet a lousy dime that the OOT will be released on DVD.

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I am a little unclear about the specifics here.

So Lowry Digital got a digital transfer of the SE that Lucas made by permanantly altering the original negatives (to clean up for the DVD release), and they also got a digital copy of the unaltered trilogy so he could match up the color timing? Is that right?

How do we know all of this?
Your focus determines your reality.
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I just think it's so funny that stupid guy claiming to have information and the mod shuts it down. See nobody actually believed his bullshit.
"So be it JEDI!"
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Yeah. You're real smart. Now stop before another thread gets locked.
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I am a little unclear about the specifics here.

So Lowry Digital got a digital transfer of the SE that Lucas made by permanantly altering the original negatives (to clean up for the DVD release), and they also got a digital copy of the unaltered trilogy so he could match up the color timing? Is that right?

How do we know all of this?


Have you seen the '04 DVDs? I don't think any color matching was done- LOL! Whatever color timing that was done was done for the '97 SEs, when they were restoring the negatives. I think YCM labs did that work.

There have been several magazine articles with John Lowry in the last few years. One of them mentioned how the Lowry people went to Skywalker Ranch to pick up the hard-drives that contained the needed info for the DVDs.

I don't think there was any further work done with the negatives between the '97 SEs and the '04 DVD release- I would think that everything was already in the digital realm by then, and whatever changes they wanted to make would have been done using the film elements that were already scanned.

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Hey fuck you! He was a loser that was spreading lie so Zion put a stop to it.
"So be it JEDI!"
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I wish I was a mod. I would have banned his ass right away.
"So be it JEDI!"
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I am a little unclear about the specifics here.

So Lowry Digital got a digital transfer of the SE that Lucas made by permanantly altering the original negatives (to clean up for the DVD release), and they also got a digital copy of the unaltered trilogy so he could match up the color timing? Is that right?

How do we know all of this?

I could now dig all these informations, articles and sites up for you, but then again, why should I? >> I << know what I have been reading, and numerous others, too. >> YOU << are the one who wants being informed. So inform yourself.

For a start, google for "STAR WARS" "LOWRY". There you go.

Then you may find this

http://www.visimag.com/ultimatedvd/d58_feat01.htm

“It all began with the work by ILM to transfer the film from film to the digital format,” he says. “Then we moved data back and forth from San Raphael down to our place in Burbank on disk, on hard drives.


The rest, I´ll leave that to you. I promise you´ll find everything said by me. From official articles.
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Originally posted by: RichardPX3
I just think it's so funny that stupid guy claiming to have information and the mod shuts it down. See nobody actually believed his bullshit.

Did you read my response to your "response" ? Or are you just going to dodge it?

Originally posted by: RichardPX3
Hey fuck you! He was a loser that was spreading lie so Zion put a stop to it.


Guess who s going to be stopped next? Someone insulting others like that here is, well, we don´t want to sink to your verbal/spiritual kind of level now, do we?
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I appreciate your pointing me in the right direction, I was just hoping you could give me the cliff notes version of who said what, you know how we know Lucas is lying. You don't have to support it with articles, just tell me what your take is of what is really going on here.

I haven't seen all of this myself, and I certainly don't want to be running around with a ton of misperceptions about all of this, which is why I ask you this. I just want to understand why a lot of us have the stance that Lucas is lying about all of this.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Go-Mer,

This is from the USA Today article, around the time the 2004 Boxset was about to be released:

"The high-definition video transfers of the first three Star Wars films (Episodes IV-VI: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) that Lucasfilm delivered to Lowry, he says, "were a little rougher than we expected coming in the door. I thought, 'Oh, man.' "

It would seem that Lowry never got their hands on the actual prints, but high-def video masters straight from Lucasfilm, which were probably from either the Theatrical Versions or the Special Editions of '97. I'm guessing, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, that Lowry had high-def masters of the '97 Special Editions.

Now, if that's true, how come they were also in such bad shape?
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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What ended up on the DVD wasn't the '97 SEs, since there were further alterations done by ILM (a different Jabba, etc.) so I doubt that Lowry received the '97 SEs (and certainly not the OOT).

Maybe 'rough shape' is code for "not blue enough"?

Seriously, though, he was probably referring to film grain, scratches, etc. Lowry is kind of notorious for their film grain removal. I hear they went way overboard with the grain removal for Citizen Kane, and it took out a bit of film detail, as well.

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Mielr,

What I'm asking is what is the specific source of the 2004 Boxset? What masters did Lowry use to digital remaster the films?

As for the blue tint that seems to have everyone up in arms, I still don't think its as bad as everyone makes it seem. But, I will say I think the effect has more to do with time than anything else. A month per film seems like alot but clearly, it was a rushed release.

The elimination of the film grain, I personally feel, was Lucas' call, considering Episodes II and III were shot digitally. I ain't saying which is better but I like the way they look on DVD without the film grain. Just saying....
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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GoMer & Jumpman are posting here now? What has become of TFN if you guys are bolting there?

You guys continued to post on the O-OT DVD thread on TFN for months and you guys are both love the SE more, so please don't ruin these threads here. Jumpman, you said about 2 weeks ago that you hoped Lucas would never remaster the O-OT on DVD cause it was a waste of his resources, so why would you sign up for this site when the whole point of why we are here is to get the O-OT on DVD in high quality. I really hope this place doesn't get filtered with SE gushers from TFN cause nobody posts there anymore and there is zero diversity, and if you do, please don't start with 'you are getting what you deserve' crap that was fed to every O-OT fan since the May release.
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To be honest, my signing up here has nothing to do with which version is better and what the fans prefer. What I want to understand is the history of the restoration of the Original Trilogy, what was used for the 2004 Boxset, and if he actually does have pristine prints of the Theatrical Versions.

If this place isn't the place to find out the ins and outs of those questions, then I'll leave. But, it just seemed to me that this is the place that would have the best info possible on understanding this entire situation and the history of it.

Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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Originally posted by: Jumpman
To be honest, my signing up here has nothing to do with which version is better and what the fans prefer. What I want to understand is the history of the restoration of the Original Trilogy, what was used for the 2004 Boxset, and if he actually does have pristine prints of the Theatrical Versions.

If this place isn't the place to find out the ins and outs of those questions, then I'll leave. But, it just seemed to me that this is the place that would have the best info possible on understanding this entire situation and the history of it.



Hey, I have no problem with that, and I respect that you are inquisitive about the O-OT preservation. In all honesty Jumpman, I 100% believe Lucas has an original copy somewhere in those vaults. He is too smart a businessman not to have that ace in the hole.
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OK, I'm confused. Is Lowry a person or a company?

They also say the prints they do have are all in poor quality.

Ah, but this them means that they do in fact have prints, which means that they could be restored.

Either way, if he does have the pristine prints, he's still not going to spend money to remaster them for DVD.


Ah, but if he has pristeen prints then why would he need to remaster them? The paradox.

Originally posted by: zombie84
The fact that the O-neg no longer conforms to the original 1977 version of Star Wars is a technicality that Lucasfilm has been twisting into confusing people that "the original version doesn't exist anymore" as in "the original version has been destroyed and is not coming back" which is clearly absurd. Aside from the fact that an O-neg scan is by no means the only source of a high-res telecine (in fact only rarely is the O-neg used for releases), various private collectors and public institutions have undertaken preservation efforts, and it has been well documented as well that not only are the original negatives and interpositives still preserved in the LFL archives, but that Lucas himself personally owns specially-made high quality prints, and even lent these to the laboratories who restored the SE as reference guides.

Why didn't they make a new transfer for this release? Because they didn't have to. As can be seen--and the dvds are currently in Amazon.com's top ten sales--they could get just as much money from us by not spending a cent. This way we buy both these and the eventually-released restored versions. Obviously this has nothing to do with personal preference or artistic vision of Lucas, otherwise he would not be releasing them. And besides that, the whole thing was schemed up by Jim Ward, not Lucas himself, who isn't usually too involved with his companies sales. Its simply about getting money from people. 2001 was the first year of Lucasfilm dvd and they had TPM. 2002 had AOTC. 2003 had Indy trilogy. 2004 had the SE. 2005 had another release of teh SE which didn't do too good but it was okay because they also had ROTS. Now they need something else so they throw a LD transfer of the OOT and they have another huge dvd sale. Next year will have the saga box set, which i feel probably wont sell very well unless they include the OOT in a restored form.


Excellent post. I hope that you are correct about the boxed set.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: Mike O
OK, I'm confused. Is Lowry a person or a company?


Both.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
If you don't want to buy [the non-anamorphic DVDs], there are plenty of others who will.


Nobody says otherwise, Go-Mer. But keep in mind that we, as free citizens, have every right, in a free market, to also desire certain products from certain people. If those people don't want to provide that product, that is also their free choice, but we then have every right to criticize that move in valid ways. You can doubt and even disagree with those initial criticisms, certainly, but don't attack our right to express our displeasure. A bussiness usually should seek to please its customers and patrons.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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I don't mean to suggest you shouldn't express yourself about it, or to take a stand by not buying something you don't feel is worth your money.

I am just trying to talk about the position we are in on this. The idea that we are not going to "let" Lucas get away with this is just not within our power.

I am all for trying to get Lucas to make a better transfer. While I'll accept this non anamorphic if that's all we're getting. I really would like to see as many fans happy again as possible.

I just think that taking a path that invovles calling Lucas a liar, or saying he's only worried about money isn't going to be the kind of thing that motivates Lucas to play nicer than he has so far.

I mean on the one hand a lot of us are accusing him of milking the fanbase, while simultaneously hoping he'll milk us again with a better transfer of the O-OT.
Your focus determines your reality.
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So to get this thread back on track....

I am actually thinking of getting just the SW OUT....just so I can try my hand at a little restoring....

I know nothing can come of it but I like what other have already done I think it would be fun to try
some of that myself......

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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So I guess I'll post my first impressions, once I see the SW OUT for myself.......

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.