Originally posted by: Scruffy
Zombie --
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?
Zombie --
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?