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You see some dirt, scratches and film grain, but to me that makes me feel like I'm really watching film again.
First Impressions of the OOT ... — Page 13
You see some dirt, scratches and film grain, but to me that makes me feel like I'm really watching film again.
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The Star Wars restoration process began with a 10-bit RGB high-definition scan of the original negatives. This data was then used by a team at Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic to work with George Lucas to do some significant color correction to the movies. This color-timed data was then transferred to Lowry Digital hard drives, to begin the massive clean-up effort.
It wasn't the original original negatives though. It was new negatives and masters created as part of the SE 97 restoration. As documentation around the time confirms the original negatives were in terrible shape and used for restoration effort, after which, new "original" negatives were made. This is more than guessing, Lowry confirms in the article that the negative suffered as a result of "conventional restoration processes." (which would have been the 97 restoration)
"There are three key contributing factors to the degradation of film," Lowry explains. "Dirt, time and chemical damage due to conventional restoration processes."
It wasn't the original original negatives though. It was new negatives and masters created as part of the SE 97 restoration. As documentation around the time confirms the original negatives were in terrible shape and used for restoration effort, after which, new "original" negatives were made. This is more than guessing, Lowry confirms in the article that the negative suffered as a result of "conventional restoration processes." (which would have been the 97 restoration)
"There are three key contributing factors to the degradation of film," Lowry explains. "Dirt, time and chemical damage due to conventional restoration processes."
Also, Lucas does have several Technicolour prints in perfect condition in storage. Articles surrounding the 97 restoration confirmed this - as they were used for the color-timing of the 1997 edition. A reasonable Google search should turn up some good sources. Those sources also confirm the production of new O-negs and 35 pristine prints from the 97 process. All of which was color-timed using the Technicolour prints (the best process to date for capturing color in film) as a source.
Of course, my favorite part of the article is the "significant color correction" that LFL did to the scanned-in HD copy of the already perfectly color-timed films. More like significant "candy correction" as they jacked up all the saturation, contrast and color temps to make the damn things look like the Prequels. Herein lies why the 04 release sucks so bad - green lightsabers, blindingly blue R2, red red red, orange bleeds, all kinds of stuff. Of course, when the geeks at LFL shipped it to Lowry; it probably looked "OK"; little did they realize that the Lowry algorithms would eat that crap up and magnify the problem into the monster we see today.
An OOT possible? Just do a 10-bit RGB HD scan of one of Lucas's technicolour prints in the basement and call it a day.
Really, there's no excuse for a shoddy release. Other than, Lucas doesn't want anything looking better than his latest Frankenstein.
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Either way, I think it's a mixture of stylistic choice by George and rushed schedule that resulted in the look. Majority hate, obviously but some do like it.
-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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Originally posted by: WaragainsttheCouncil
Also, Lucas does have several Technicolour prints in perfect condition in storage. Articles surrounding the 97 restoration confirmed this - as they were used for the color-timing of the 1997 edition. A reasonable Google search should turn up some good sources. Those sources also confirm the production of new O-negs and 35 pristine prints from the 97 process. All of which was color-timed using the Technicolour prints (the best process to date for capturing color in film) as a source.
Also, Lucas does have several Technicolour prints in perfect condition in storage. Articles surrounding the 97 restoration confirmed this - as they were used for the color-timing of the 1997 edition. A reasonable Google search should turn up some good sources. Those sources also confirm the production of new O-negs and 35 pristine prints from the 97 process. All of which was color-timed using the Technicolour prints (the best process to date for capturing color in film) as a source.
Don't know about 'several' Technicolor prints...he does have a dye-transfer print of SW, and most likely black and white separation masters for all three, but it's doubtful that he has Technicolor prints of ESB and Jedi since Technicolor stopped making d-t prints in the US and Britian in the 1970's.
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I think you are correct about EMPIRE. There's less info out there about the other two films. But the other two OT films didn't suffer the wear-and-tear that the original SW prints and masters suffered.
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Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
these dvd's of the oot are the most underwhelming release I have ever seen.
The quality is shit not much better than the definitive collection laserdiscs, and those have the uncompressed full pcm sound. Well, that's not really true. The quality is much better, has less ghosting, and is sharper with better colour. As for the PCM sound, as I've already pointed out - every DVD release *could* include a PCM track, just like every release could include a DTS track. But they don't use it for DVD, and it's not legal to just put on a PCM track (just like it's not legal to just put on a DTS track - the DVD format specifications require a Dolby Digital track). And besides, I'm yet to hear anyone actually do a review of the audio... and say that the PCM sounds better - my feeling is that although the DD track is compressed there will be little to no audible difference discerned by the viewer. I would like someone to do a double-blind test with a bunch of their mates... and see if they can tell which was which.
And finally, every PCM track captured from the LD and put onto DVD-R has been resampled. The resampling that was done by Lucasfilm may well be better then the home job of the bootleggers.
Both.
Lowry is a person, Lowry Digital is a company these dvd's of the oot are the most underwhelming release I have ever seen.
The quality is shit not much better than the definitive collection laserdiscs, and those have the uncompressed full pcm sound. Well, that's not really true. The quality is much better, has less ghosting, and is sharper with better colour. As for the PCM sound, as I've already pointed out - every DVD release *could* include a PCM track, just like every release could include a DTS track. But they don't use it for DVD, and it's not legal to just put on a PCM track (just like it's not legal to just put on a DTS track - the DVD format specifications require a Dolby Digital track). And besides, I'm yet to hear anyone actually do a review of the audio... and say that the PCM sounds better - my feeling is that although the DD track is compressed there will be little to no audible difference discerned by the viewer. I would like someone to do a double-blind test with a bunch of their mates... and see if they can tell which was which.
And finally, every PCM track captured from the LD and put onto DVD-R has been resampled. The resampling that was done by Lucasfilm may well be better then the home job of the bootleggers.
Originally posted by: auraloffalwaffle
These DVDs are pathetic. Just because they could do better, which no one disagrees with, doesn't make this release "pathetic".
Now, what WOULD have made them pathetic is over-saturation and inaccurate colours like say the colours you see on the 2004 release. If they remastered it and it came out looking like that I would not be happy.
Originally posted by: Mike O
OK, I'm confused. Is Lowry a person or a company?
These DVDs are pathetic. Just because they could do better, which no one disagrees with, doesn't make this release "pathetic".
Now, what WOULD have made them pathetic is over-saturation and inaccurate colours like say the colours you see on the 2004 release. If they remastered it and it came out looking like that I would not be happy.
Originally posted by: auraloffalwaffle
I have two VHS copies of each movie, one for enjoyment and one for preservation. I'm prepared to last on DVD back-ups of my tapes before I'll buy this release. It amounts to more-or-less the same thing anyway. The gains in quality with the Sepember Discs are insufficient for me to want to buy them. You see, that's why you've just lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned. There's an obvious difference in quality between the laserdiscs and these DVD's... so to say the 1993 VHS quality is "more-or-less the same" as this DVD is just stupid. The quality comes close to the 2004-DVD quality in some scenes.Originally posted by: RichardPX3
I wish I was a mod. I would have banned his ass right away.
There's a very good reason why people like you aren't in charge. I chose not to post in the thread you're talking about because I knew it would turn into a flame-war, I fully appreciate Zion's decision in the matter.Originally posted by: SluggoI have two VHS copies of each movie, one for enjoyment and one for preservation. I'm prepared to last on DVD back-ups of my tapes before I'll buy this release. It amounts to more-or-less the same thing anyway. The gains in quality with the Sepember Discs are insufficient for me to want to buy them. You see, that's why you've just lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned. There's an obvious difference in quality between the laserdiscs and these DVD's... so to say the 1993 VHS quality is "more-or-less the same" as this DVD is just stupid. The quality comes close to the 2004-DVD quality in some scenes.Originally posted by: RichardPX3
I wish I was a mod. I would have banned his ass right away.
Originally posted by: Mike O
OK, I'm confused. Is Lowry a person or a company?
Both.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith
You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked
None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Originally posted by: borisThere's an obvious difference in quality between the laserdiscs and these DVD's... so to say the 1993 VHS quality is "more-or-less the same" as this DVD is just stupid. The quality comes close to the 2004-DVD quality in some scenes.
I have to agree- I see much less of a difference between the '04 and '06 DVDs than between the '06 DVDs and the DC/Faces laserdiscs (in terms of detail and clarity).
I watched parts of the '06 DVDs in my computer last night, just to get an idea of what they would look like on a progressive scan TV (I know computer monitors are different....) but the DVDs look wonderful on my computer (as do most of my other favorite DVDs, like 'Superman-The Motion Picture', etc.)
However, the DVD-R dubs that I have from the LDs look horrible on my computer.
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-Because the original 1976/1977 negatives were beginning to deteriorate, a fairly exhaustive restoration was needed to save them. The problem with Kodak Eastman 35mm negative stock is that it does not live long--the colours and tones are never as vibrant or true as what is actually photographed, and whats worse the stock fades away and deteriorates over time...much more rapidly than people first realised. In fact certain shots had faded so much that they had "gone pink"--i believe the technical terminalogy for this may be a yellow layer failure, although i am not certain. In order to get the shades correctly certain pieces had to be duplicated and then re-timed to eliminate the pink tint. The corrected pieces were then re-inserted into the O-neg reel, replacing the deteriorated originals. Other shots had gone so bad that they couldn't be re-timed and instead had to be replaced with frames from an Interpositive print. The footage was all cleaned and washed by hand--in fact many of the tatooine shots had sand built into the film!
-Once the final reel had been restored SFX shots were re-composited into the computer. To do this they scanned the original elements--the raw bluescreen model shots and the on-set plates, both of which were kept in Lucasfilm's extensive archive, at 2K resolution (the maximum technology allowed at the time). Compositing digitally eliminates matte lines and dupe grain from the optical composite process. Transition shots--wipes, dissolves--were also redone digitially. The crawl was redone digitally as well, as far as i know. After all these changes were done they were printed back onto 35mm negative film and re-spliced into the O-neg reel, replacing the original pieces
-then there were shots that were enhanced with CG. To do this the original negatives were scanned at 2K res and then ILM did their thing. The final CGI-enhanced shots were then printed back out onto 35mm negative film and the pieces re-spliced into the O-neg reel, replacing the original shots
-then there were the totally new shots. Some of these involved filming new elements (ie more extras, sandtroopers, new model shot of sandcrawler) in which case the film was probably scanned for some touch-ups but most were created digitally. The finished shots were then printed back onto 35mm negative film and inserted into the O-neg reel
-finally, since the O-neg shots are litterally the raw footage filmed from the camera, they need to be colour timed. In order to faithfully re-produce the original colours, George Lucas gave YCM Labs, the lab that did the restoration, a perfect technicolor print of the 1977 original. Unlike Eastman Kodak, Technicolor does not fade away over time, and not only that it has superior tone and colour information as well as much less grain. It also came to light that Lucas had technicolour seperation masters made for him in 1977 as well.
-Finally, the colour-timed O-neg reel was printed into a new Interpositive. Hence the 1997 SE is born.
You can see what happened here--little by little, the original film was consumed by new pieces. This is what Lucas meant when he said "its impossible to make a new OOT, the negative doesn't exist." Well, technically, it doesn't. You may also be wondering what happened to the original pieces that were replaced: well, me too. Undoubtedly, they were put back into storage, although the pieces that had deteriorated to garbage may have indeed been destroyed.
But we're not done here. Because an equally important process occured, probably in early 2004 for the S-SE (or whatever you want to call it).
So now we have the new O-neg configuration. But Lucas wants to change it again.
-So, the O-neg is scanned--but in HD resolution. And the O-neg of course is now the 1997 SE
-Because the O-neg is scanned and not the re-timed 1997 IP that means that all the colour-timing information is lost. So the film must be re-timed, now in a DI environment. Because Lucas is linking the films up to the prequels a very different look is decided upon--very constrasty and "modern", which particularly is different for ANH and ROTJ which were very softly lit originally. Apparently Lucas approved the final colur-timings personally
-from here the O-neg is altered in the digital environment once again, but unlike the 1997 version now the entire thing is digitized. The additions are made: gungans, ESB McDiarmid, Hayden, etc.
-then Lowry gets a hold of it. My understanding is that they were the last of the line but it seems to me that a more logical workflow would be to have ILM work from the cleaned-up Lowry files. But as far as i remember, ILM did their alterations before. Then the HD files are given over to Lowry. Lowry uses its clean-up algorithim to remove thousands of bits of dirt and grain through computer-controlled software. Some sharpening filters were also used to bring out detail in certain areas deemed soft.
-From here an digital HD master is finally produced of the final product. Thus is borne the 2004 S-SE. The films are now existing purely as data, and from this data the DVD down-conversions are made.
I am going to point out the obvious here--the 2004 S-SE is only HD res. Apparently Lucas must think this is okay since thats what he filmed his prequels in but for anyone who loves the SE this is a major bummer.
I hope this clears up any confusion regarding the SE. This info comes courtesy of many articles and interviews from various sources. Go Mer I can't believe you are still asking about this--i know for sure i have explained this in the lengthy TFN thread at least ten times.
As for Lucas, yes, he did actually say that the original negative was destroyed--this is a twisted exageration based on the fact that the 1977 O-neg technically has been annhilated, but not in the sense that it has been chucked into a furnace, which is what he is trying to get people to think. It could easily be re-constructed, or, even cheaper and downright better IMO, simply use the Technicolour seperation masters to make a new DI--a perfect copy of a pefect IP. Nor would any of this be expensive, relatively speaking, and a DI of the seperation masters would probably run about $100,000 or so, which is absolutely peanuts for LFL.
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That largely agrees with and supplements my research, but I came to a conclusion that I'm not sure you did, or maybe was outside the scope of your post. In or around 1997, the O-neg was restored. Certain portions were removed for SE alteration, and we can assume that those film elements are lost. But every one was scanned at 2k so the SE alterations can be made. Hard drive space is cheap, so we can assume the digital versions of these portions are not lost. So, in 1997, we have 90% of the O-neg intact in the SE and the remaining 10% in the digital domain.
In or around 2004, the entire SE was scanned at HD resolution. At this point, the 90% of the SE that existed only on film enters the digital domain. Because those are the portions that were not substantially altered, the entire O-OT now exists in the digital domain at HD or greater resolution. Further work was done on the movies, but it isn't relevant to us, and I assume an untouched copy of the HD scan was kept for various reasons.
This gives Lucasfilm everything they need to produce a fine DVD/BD/HD DVD of the O-OT. They just have to find the relevant files and give some interns a few days with an editing suite to paste it together and color time it. (I don't mean to belittle film or video postproduction, but they don't exactly need ILM's A-team here.) The sound mix might pose some additional challenges, but with the laserdiscs and the DVDs there's enough sound material in the digital domain today to put together a quasi-authentic "good enough" stereo mix.
I think this would be easier than making a new DI from the Technicolor masters and less personally irksome to George. It might disappoint those of us who had been hoping for a full restoration, all three original sound mixes, etc. But for me, at least, it would be a buy.
There's a few potential problems with this scenario. The SE negative may have picked up some dirt between 1997 and 2004; Lucasfilm evidently skipped the film cleaning that time and trusted Lowry to fix it digitally. In this scenario, that won't happen. There's also the possibility that Lucasfilm didn't keep the initial stages of their digital work, that they just deleted them when they decided they were done. Such an act of wanton carelessness would boggle the mind; but Lucas does seem to be a packrat, and he learned how that pays off when he did the 1997 recomposites, so I think he kept them.
Thoughts, comments, flames?
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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LFL did in fact do the 04 DVD color-timing themselves prior to the Lowry Digital process, as reported on starwars.com. Although I'm not as certain if they didn't color-correct on the 97 timing, as they did have the color-timed 97 prints (not just the o-Neg) also from which to work with on the HD scan. Either way, it's this step which they used to give things a Prequel look, or try to give them a Prequel look.
But yes, it all boils down to one truth: George has all the elements he needs in his basement to do an HD quality version of 77 SW with minimal investment and effort. An HD scan of the Technicolour print. The one/s probably originally shown to Spielberg and friends, the ones that George himself refers to as: "This is the Star Wars I made."
---
adding for Scruffy: Very likely there is digital copies. But it's not burden for Lucas to use the Technicolour source, he already has once. And I bet they have the equipment in LFL to do the scan themselves. Such a restoration is really no skin off his nose...
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I think it will be done, eventually, but I'm not getting myself tied up in knots over it anymore. GL doesn't respect his fans the way he should and that's that. I have the new DVDs, and they will just have to suffice until the day GL changes his mind, when and if that ever happens.
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LOWRY DIGITAL IMAGES is now DTS DIGITAL IMAGES he sold the company to them.
There latest effort is astounding taking two years to digital restore from the original negative and film vault elements all twenty James bond Movies.
I would like to see Lowry's original fix of the star wars movies not after Lucas took them out of their hands and did bizarre color correction.
He did only give them three months to do it also. I don't fault them, the work they did on THX 1138 and indiana jones trilogy as well as king kong is simply awesome. Also there restorations of Gone with the wind, snow white and the seven dwarfs, the wizard of Oz and some charlie chaplin pictures is all great.
another quote from boris "Well, that's not really true. The quality is much better, has less ghosting, and is sharper with better colour" are you accusing me of being a liar I own the laserdiscs and the dvds and I have said point blank that this release is shit, so have other people with knowledge in the film industry. But they all wrong according to your twisted point of view, you are starting to sound like a troll or worse yet a mole Lucas has planted here.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
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Originally posted by: WaragainsttheCouncil
adding for Scruffy: Very likely there is digital copies. But it's not burden for Lucas to use the Technicolour source, he already has once. And I bet they have the equipment in LFL to do the scan themselves. Such a restoration is really no skin off his nose...
adding for Scruffy: Very likely there is digital copies. But it's not burden for Lucas to use the Technicolour source, he already has once. And I bet they have the equipment in LFL to do the scan themselves. Such a restoration is really no skin off his nose...
Yeah, it wouldn't really be burdensome, if it was something he wanted to do. But it might be irksome. By most accounts, the Technicolor masters are in his personal possession, somewhere on his property. The digital stuff is in the possession of his company. I don't know how his personal collection is set up, who has access, etc. If it is true that he doesn't like the O-OT, he may not be inclined to open up the archive again. He may decide the existing digital stuff is good enough, put it out there, and we can always do a better transfer later. But at this point, I'm just guessing at his potential future thoughts.
The one thing that is abundantly clear, though, is that there are several excellent sources for a good DVD or HD release. Claiming the O-OT "doesn't exist anymore" is one of those strongly-clung-to certain points of view.
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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Originally posted by: WaragainsttheCouncil
That spin *ahem* point of view is strongly clung to because the truth is uglier: he's a greedy lazy egomaniac whom just as soon screw fans as put effort into doing things right. And even if he could be bothered, he doesn't want anything to be the same quality as his current "version" because then everyone will be able to tell he's a complete hack. Simple. Ugly. True.
That spin *ahem* point of view is strongly clung to because the truth is uglier: he's a greedy lazy egomaniac whom just as soon screw fans as put effort into doing things right. And even if he could be bothered, he doesn't want anything to be the same quality as his current "version" because then everyone will be able to tell he's a complete hack. Simple. Ugly. True.
Do you often post on message boards related to the work of a "complete hack"?
-George Lucas
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Originally posted by: WaragainsttheCouncil
That spin *ahem* point of view is strongly clung to because the truth is uglier: he's a greedy lazy egomaniac whom just as soon screw fans as put effort into doing things right. And even if he could be bothered, he doesn't want anything to be the same quality as his current "version" because then everyone will be able to tell he's a complete hack. Simple. Ugly. True.
That spin *ahem* point of view is strongly clung to because the truth is uglier: he's a greedy lazy egomaniac whom just as soon screw fans as put effort into doing things right. And even if he could be bothered, he doesn't want anything to be the same quality as his current "version" because then everyone will be able to tell he's a complete hack. Simple. Ugly. True.
I agree with this sentiment except I don't think Lucas is a complete hack....just a partial one. Don't know about the lazy part either. I think he just doesn't want to originals on a level playing field with the SEs. He doesn't want a balanced choice cuz he KNOWS people will pick the OOT over his SEs. That's proof of some kind of egomania.
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Scruffy, I have been meaning to post something similar to what you said about existing hi-res digital files of the OUT being available. Unfortunately, however, I do not agree entirely with your post (I wish I did!).
Agreed: the '04 original, untimed HD scans are likely to still exist, and represent a useable resource for OUT digital restoration. However, the SE changes represent considerably more than 10% of that version, when you take into account all the digital recompositing and remaking of all the wipes and dissolves. Anyway, let's say there's something more than 50% and less than 90% of the OUT available from this source (depending on your POV on recompositing - I'd be happy to accept that aspect of the SE to get these scans).
Now, to fill in the gaps, you suggest using material digitized in '97 for the making of the SE. However, as zombie pointed out, all those recomps were made from the original elements and there would be no reason to scan & restore the material that was being jettisoned (the cut negative of the optical composites). It's possible that some of this stuff was scanned for reference for the digital compositors, but in any case it wouldn't have received the restoration that was done for the stuff that was going to survive into the SE.
So, you're still looking for a hi-res scan of quality elements of anything not in the '97 SE. Would the parts of the original cut negative that were removed have been kept? Again, probably. Do they represent quality elements for new scans? Well, if zombie's description of the '97 restoration is accurate (which I think it is), then probably not - you'd have to go the IP for some of that stuff. Again, those parts of the same IP that were (not) used in the '97 restoration are probably in optimal storage and could be scanned and used, but I don't think the entire OUT is in hi resolution on LFL hard drives right now.
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That's part of the reason I came here, seeking out an adult forum that isn't run by kids.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
Yeah thanks Zombie, that was a concise informative read. I tried to get involved as much as I could over at TFN but between that one thread becomeing white noise after a while and the mods arbitrarily banning anyone who said anything that someone might not want to hear (on both sides of the debate) made it rather difficult to follow.
That's part of the reason I came here, seeking out an adult forum that isn't run by kids.
Yeah thanks Zombie, that was a concise informative read. I tried to get involved as much as I could over at TFN but between that one thread becomeing white noise after a while and the mods arbitrarily banning anyone who said anything that someone might not want to hear (on both sides of the debate) made it rather difficult to follow.
That's part of the reason I came here, seeking out an adult forum that isn't run by kids.
Yeah the modding there can be pretty aggrevating sometimes. OMG U guyz R off topik!!1! Delete Post, Ban, Delete Post, Ban, Delete Post Ban
Anyway, regarding what needs to be scanned for a complete OOT O-neg DI--yeah, its not that difficult. There are a number of ways a high quality OOT scan could be accomplished:
1) Raw scan of a reference print. Lucasfilm has 'em, and although a bit rough because of their age, they are maintained in relatively good condition. Just a normal 35mm release print. A bit of tweaking would bring out the colours and contrast and the most basic off-the-shelf filters would easily eliminate much of the scratches and dirt. From this we could even do our own frame-by-frame restoration if we do desired.
2) Raw scan of an IP. Even better than a release print, Lucasfilm has at least one IP, the best culprit probably being the 1985 IP made for the home video releases, though by now this would be getting a bit banged up. Again, some tweaking and modern software would spruce this thing up in a few hours. I know the SE had a few segments taken from an IP, so at least one of them--and undoubtedly the one in best condition--would have frames and probably whole shots missing from it. This would require some filling in.
3) Raw scan of Lucas' Technicolour print. IMO this would represent a better source than an IP--it would be less grainey, practically free of any scratches and marks since it hasn't been used much (if at all) and have all the colour information intact. A quick scan of this and we would have the best version of the OOT that anyone has ever seen, frankly.
4) A 4K DI of the Technicolour seperation masters. These I am not sure if they are Lucas' personal collection or in the LFL Archives--perhaps they are the same thing. Scanning each of the seperation masters and then making a Digital Intermediate of them would IMO represent the best possible version of the OOT, practically at IP resolution since they are struck directly from the IP (or IN?), with pretty much perfect colour fidelity and practically no dupe grain. They would undoubtedly be free of any kind of scratches since as far as i know they have never even been used.
5) Scan taken from the O-neg. This presents quite a few problems.
The first method of doing this would be to re-construct the original negative. This would be done by finding the original pieces from the archives and re-inserting them into the reel, removing the SE pieces. This would require a bit of effort and care however, and I'm not sure how comfortable Lucas would be with "destroying", as he put it, the SE. In any case after the scan the SE could be re-assembled.
The second method would be to use the scans already done for 2004. This would mean that the original pieces from storage would be scanned in HD and then edited into the 2004 HD telecine of the 1997 SE O-neg. This would require a bit of effort to match frames and ensure that the shots transition correctly. It also would be debateable if the SFX shots that were re-comped for the SE should be re-scanned, in which case there is probably over a half hour of original footage to be scanned. Another problem would result from this--because we would be working from the initial 2004 scan of the 1997 SE O-neg, Lowry's clean-up would be lost. No big deal. The 1997 SE looked fantastic in terms of clarity. A bigger issue is this--because it is from the O-neg, the colour-timing again would be lost. I'm sure that the original printer light setting records don't exist, otherwise YCM would not need to rely so heavily on the Technicolour print to match colour, although this is debatable. In any event, the film is now scanned into a DI enviornment, so everything would have to be re-done by eye anyway. To me, this is a huge issue, as the proper image settings of the 1977 original are very distinct and almost never have been gotten right. I'm sure a colour-timer could get the film to look pretty close but there undoubtedly would be nit picky things that would be inaccurate that would just drive some of us mad, especially since this would be the last OOT-scan for many, many years (possibly until 2K resolution home theater is around). Using the Technicolour print that YCM worked off would be needed to ensure accuracy. By now however, this process is getting quite complicated, which normally would be par for the course in a classic film restoration but with Lucasfilm's attitude its unlikely that they would put so much effort into this.
I also don't think that LFL scanned all the original pieces for the 1997 SE--some of them they did, ie all the shots that had CGI enhancements, but a lot of it was simply the scanning of the on-set plates and the raw bluescreen model shots, so the actual original composite O-neg's were simply put away.
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BTW, we're way off topic here - we should probably edit some of these last few posts into a new thread over in Preservation and Fan Edits.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
Yeah thanks Zombie, that was a concise informative read. I tried to get involved as much as I could over at TFN but between that one thread becomeing white noise after a while and the mods arbitrarily banning anyone who said anything that someone might not want to hear (on both sides of the debate) made it rather difficult to follow.
That's part of the reason I came here, seeking out an adult forum that isn't run by kids.
Yeah thanks Zombie, that was a concise informative read. I tried to get involved as much as I could over at TFN but between that one thread becomeing white noise after a while and the mods arbitrarily banning anyone who said anything that someone might not want to hear (on both sides of the debate) made it rather difficult to follow.
That's part of the reason I came here, seeking out an adult forum that isn't run by kids.
I'm really starting to like you Gomer
. It's nice to see someone who actually looks and information and sees that the other side might actually have a point instead of just insulting them, even if they do disagree. “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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I'm similarly impressed by just about everyone here for not just attacking me outright due to my particular point of view.
I am getting this warm and fuzzy feeling that depending on how things go within this next year, the fanbase "rift" can be brought closer together if not closed entirely. We won't all ever agree about everything, but perhaps there will be more tolerance all the way around.