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Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas? — Page 4

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Originally posted by: zombie84


And while we're on Superman, I have to reinforce my love and preference for the 2000 cut. The expanded smallville scenes add so much and there is a totally kick-ass action moment where Superman breaks into Lex's lair that is classic Superman;

The 'gauntlet' scene. Glad you like it too. ;-) I really miss that scene now when I see the '78 version of the film - the edit feels abrupt.

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Originally posted by: zombie84


And while we're on Superman, I have to reinforce my love and preference for the 2000 cut. The expanded smallville scenes add so much and there is a totally kick-ass action moment where Superman breaks into Lex's lair that is classic Superman; they don't slow down the film, they enrich characters and kick up the pace IMO. The biggest drawback is that the soundtrack is remixed in 5.1 and has a lot of new sound effects--to people who have the film memorized the new sounds seem jarring but actually considered objectively they are excellent additions to the sometimes-dated sound mix. Terminator had a similar remix in 5.1 wherein a few sound effects were replaced--people who know the film might be thrown off, but a lot of the times they add an appropriate punch.


I agree with ya there Zombie, as this is actually a directors cut that HELPS the movie, as with the OT movies, it is a bogus directors cut, or special edition. None of the changes in the OT add anything to the overall movie, such as the jabba scene in ANH which already repeats what Greedo said to Han before getting killed, or Vader going to his shuttle in ESB like any moron couldn't figure it out! I enjoy director cuts where the footage was originally shot and it was cut for time reasons by the studio, that is why the Biggs/Luke scene before the Battle of Yavin is the only worthy addition to an OT movie. The rest are pure crap.

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Originally posted by: CO
I enjoy director cuts where the footage was originally shot and it was cut for time reasons by the studio, that is why the Biggs/Luke scene before the Battle of Yavin is the only worthy addition to an OT movie. The rest are pure crap.

I agree 100% with you there. If I were to do my own edit combining the '04 SE DVD and GOUT DVD, I'd leave that scene in.

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Of course this begs the question of just what LFL did with the actual physical o-neg once it was scanned into the computer for the lowry restoration. Since it was only mastered at 1080x1920 and the theoretical limit for a 35mm movie is, what, 4k? Then again, AOTC and ROTS are stuck at 1080, so maybe it's all a part of the revisionism keeping the OT in line with the PT.

In a related story, the o-neg of The Godfather has apparently been given a multi-million dollar restoration at the behest of Coppola and Spielberg:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/08/godfather_resto.php
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Originally posted by: Fang Zei
Of course this begs the question of just what LFL did with the actual physical o-neg once it was scanned into the computer for the lowry restoration. Since it was only mastered at 1080x1920 and the theoretical limit for a 35mm movie is, what, 4k?

I think it's actually higher than that since hi-def video is only supposed to have about 1/4 the resolution of 35mm film. (still a lot better than standard DVD, though).

Was the actual o-neg scanned for Lowry? I thought they just had prints scanned in. The SE o-neg would be different, anyhow, since none of the digital changes for the SE would exist on the 1970's negatives.

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The O-neg is no longer the 1977 or 1981 version of the film, it would be configured as it was for the 1997 SE since those altered pieces were put into the O-neg. Thats what Lucas means when he says the "original film no longer exists"--it doesn't in a sense, you would have to take apart the O-neg and re-edit it back to the way it was before the 1997 SE. The pieces that were trimmed or removed I am assuming are back in storage somewhere. Personally I'm not quite sure I'd want the OOT from the O-neg anyway, since I'm sure they would mess up the color timing, though the IP's have probably faded to the point where color correction is necessary anyway--personally I'd love to have that dye-transfer technicolor print that they used for color reference for the 1997 SE.
And yeah, Lowry got the O-neg scanned, thats why it looks so pin-sharp; were it not for the low resolution of the scan it could have looked better than it did in theaters.

As for resolution, 35mm is generally considered to be transferred more or less accurately at 4K, though I believe there are now 8k scanners that would ensure a truely lossless transfer. The 1997 SE changes were only done at 2k because thats all that technology had back then. Its a shame that the prequels were in HD; and not only HD but 2000/2002 HD. Right now I am working on a film that is using the same cameras and lenses that were used in AOTC and the HD tech we have has done nothing but complain about how crappy they look--in our case, we are just doing a TV movie so it is acceptable, but its really sad that the prequels were made with these things. IMO the only camera that I would ever consider using for theatrical release is the Genesis, or perhaps the Arri D20, its the only thing that will hold up on the big screen (but even then it still has that HD look).
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Its a shame that the prequels were in HD; and not only HD but 2000/2002 HD. Right now I am working on a film that is using the same cameras and lenses that were used in AOTC and the HD tech we have has done nothing but complain about how crappy they look--in our case, we are just doing a TV movie so it is acceptable, but its really sad that the prequels were made with these things.


If you haven't seen it already, this is a really great documentary about film preservation. It deals with the issue of digital as an "archival" medium a bit:

Keepers of the Frame

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Originally posted by: Mielr
Originally posted by: Tiptup

Laserdisc was not capable of this and that's why non-remastered DVDs have black bars encoded into the actual movie images.

Actually - anamorphic laserdiscs did exist. Only a few titles were produced and I think they were only sold in Japan, but they were made .


Ahh, thanks for correcting me. I wasn't sure about that when I posted it, but it seemed logical to me since so many Laserdisc transfers are non-anamorphic.


Originally posted by: zombie84
Regarding the previous discussion of anamorphic 16x9--that just refers to stretching an image to fit a certain aspect ratio. Although it is true that there is no stretching in a 16x9 image on a 16x9 screen, because it fills it exactly it would not be considered letterboxed since there is no letterboxing--in that sense its not really anamorphic either since there is no re-sizing but its a better way to describe filling a screen of the same size without any loss. As I said, letterboxing is always necessary since tvs are fixed size and films come in all sorts of shapes--in theaters, the projectionist has to letterbox films too, even though 35mm prints are anamorphic; thats how the same size screen fits a 1.85 film and a 2.35 film without changing the screen, there are drawn curtains that mask the shape of the screen to fit the images, even though the silver screen is "widescreen" and "anamorphic."


Hmm, if I were going to describe non-letterboxed, non-anamorphic images without loss, I'd simply call them full-screen+original-aspect-ratio since the term anamorphic has a very precise physical meaning and should only be applied to an image that is stretched at some point along the line.

"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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Well, thats how the industry uses the term; a 1.78 (16x9) image is called anamorphic for the simple reason that not calling it such implies a letterboxed image. The anamorphicness comes from the dual encoding for 4x3 TV's i believe, since the image will be squished to fill-by-letterbox or stretch to fill-by-fullframe depending on your TV. I think. Its a bit confusing.

Regarding the previous post I made about the poor resolution of HD and the prequels--it should be noted that the prequel films arent actually HD res. They are in fact, less than HD resolution--because HD resolution is in a 1.78 native ratio. The 2:35 aspect ratio is achieved by cropping. So, in fact, its a blow-up of a smaller portion of the image.
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Originally posted by: Tiptup


Hmm, if I were going to describe non-letterboxed, non-anamorphic images without loss, I'd simply call them full-screen+original-aspect-ratio since the term anamorphic has a very precise physical meaning and should only be applied to an image that is stretched at some point along the line.
Yeah, I'd call that '4:3' .

The term "anamorphic" IS confusing to many people, and the term will probably become antiquated when all TVs are 16:9 and all video sources are 16:9 (or close to it). I guess you could consider any video that is 4:3, like The Wizard of Oz, 'anamorphic' if viewed on a 4:3 screen!

Originally posted by: zombie84

Regarding the previous post I made about the poor resolution of HD and the prequels--it should be noted that the prequel films arent actually HD res. They are in fact, less than HD resolution--because HD resolution is in a 1.78 native ratio. The 2:35 aspect ratio is achieved by cropping. So, in fact, its a blow-up of a smaller portion of the image.
TPM was the only one of the prequels shot on 35mm, wasn't it?