This one is probably the most obvious early start of a wipe, its almost completely done before the original begins!zombie84 said:
005: Excellent job on getting those wipes. I hadn't realized they basically just covered over the pre-existing wipes. On some it seems like they went back to the original pieces and did new ones, but the timing is never the same.
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doubleofive said:
Once I get started, I just can't stop.
http://picasaweb.google.com/doubleofive/StarWarsSpecialEditionChangesHD
These are the highest res I've got, and I need to add the descriptions that I have already have written. Let me know if you think I missed anything.
Those are great! Thanks for doing these. Good descriptions too.
Thanks, but most of the descriptions are taken directly from the comparison at starwars.com. I'm thinking about changing them so they are less upbeat.avoidz said:
Those are great! Thanks for doing these. Good descriptions too.
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Most of them read matter-of-factly, but you are right; photos such as #60 trash-talk the 1977 a bit too much.
Mentioning "this is yet another scene ruined with more distracting CGI" on many of them would be good.
skyjedi2005 said:
The 70mm of empire and jedi had different takes in the dialog for some scenes.
doubleofive said:
This one is probably the most obvious early start of a wipe, its almost completely done before the original begins!zombie84 said:
005: Excellent job on getting those wipes. I hadn't realized they basically just covered over the pre-existing wipes. On some it seems like they went back to the original pieces and did new ones, but the timing is never the same.
This confuses me. I don't understand why it was necessary for the new wipes to start at a different time if they were using the original negative. Did they just say "eh, close enough"?
I think it has to do with the fuzzy wipes being on the o-neg. They'd have to start the new wipes before the originals to cover them up. It would save them from having to go find a copy before they made the original wipes to make them match perfectly. The opposite is true of the rare fades, which have to start late now because they couldn't digitally fade into a shot that was already faded. This also explains why the crossfade from Garindan to the gang seeing the Falcon is gone, as they just cut to a point after the crossfade is done and starting the crossfade after that point would destroy the timing on the scene.
Zombie, back me up on this. I'm on the right track, right?
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That's what I was thinking. There is a consistency there that speaks to this being the case.
This does conflict with reports that Pacific Titles redid all the opticals using the original negative pieces. It also conflicts with the quality you can see yourself, as the 1997 SE wipes do not look as grainy as 20-year-old optical composites. In the Anatomy of the Dewback video feature, they even show the sandcrawler shot and how they totally re-did the wipe from scratch using new optical printers. They even showed it being done.
So, this doesn't make sense. It could be as Baronlando said that they didn't care or want to match the old wipe 100%. If it started a frame early, who cares. But the consistency with which this happens to "cover up" the old wipe is bafflingly coincidental if that is the case. Are there any exceptions to this that you have found?
All of the wipes I found are on there. The only ones that aren't frame accurate are the sandcrawler to SE Stormtroopers and the wipes to and from the Jabba scene.
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But in 97 wouldn't that just add another generation? Seems like it's just doing an optical over another optical. Maybe they just never did find the negative for those shots.
It wouldn't add another digital generation though. It doesn't make any sense because the frames around the optical fade would be generation-lost. They had to go back to the originals, so they had to have deliberately decided to start EVERY fade and wipe early...
It doesn't make any sense. Especially the fades. The screen is solid black for a lot longer.
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Are the 2004 wipes exactly the same as the 1997 wipes? Maybe they redid them again?
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Maybe they re-did them digitally to get a more consistent "look" with the prequels. I mean, they redid the opening titles in 2004 too...why? No real reason. They look cleaner or smoother I suppose. So, the wipes were re-done optically from scratch in 1997 using the original pieces, but then in 2004 digital fades were used to cover up the original 97 opticals, so all you see is the 2004 digitals. Thats my best answer right now.
I don't know much about that sort of thing, but it sounds to me like an exact reassembly of the original film from the negative could be rather difficult given these sort of differences, both from the visual perspective and for synching the sound mixes if the frame counts differ. Using a cleaned up interpositive might actually be a better bet in order to get the best possible representation of the films as they were back then . . .
005, just took a look at your comparison page - the "STAR WARS" logo recedes at the same pace in the 1977, 1981, and 1997 crawls. It's sped up in the 2004 crawl for some reason that I can't quite fathom.
Good job doubleofive with all the comparison caps.
It is the '97 SE opening crawl that introduced the faster receding logo not the '81 crawl, the '97 and '04 is exactly the same opening crawl as far as I can see. I don't see any tweaking done between them.
doubleofive, you haven't listed the '81 opening starfield difference, remember that the whole opening is unique to that version. Also the different '97 A long time ago... text is different from the '04 version.
The clouds were added to the binary sunset in '04 not '97 and the landscape in the close-up of the suns were removed in '04.
EDIT: you could maybe list the '97 binary sunset as altered also, but I think that is just a colortiming difference, so if you include that, the list will grow considerable. You have a pic of the '97 sunset if you follow the link or should I say moonset. ;)
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-Colortiming-Cinematography-was-What-changes-was-done-to-STAR-WARS-in-93/topic/9805/
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
Changed this to 1997, and edited the text to show that we don't know why since it worked in 1981.msycamore said:
Good job doubleofive with all the comparison caps.
It is the '97 SE opening crawl that introduced the faster receding logo not the '81 crawl, the '97 and '04 is exactly the same opening crawl as far as I can see. I don't see any tweaking done between them.
doubleofive, you haven't listed the '81 opening starfield difference, remember that the whole opening is unique to that version. Also the different '97 A long time ago... text is different from the '04 version.I was going to mention the 1981 starfield difference, but decided against it since I'm trying to limit this to a "Special Edition Changes". I'll add the "Long Time".
The clouds were added to the binary sunset in '04 not '97 and the landscape in the close-up of the suns were removed in '04.Fixed the text from the official changes. Yeah, I'm going to avoid the color-timing problems as I don't want to have every frame on the list! LOL
EDIT: you could maybe list the '97 binary sunset as altered also, but I think that is just a colortiming difference, so if you include that, the list will grow considerable. You have a pic of the '97 sunset if you follow the link or should I say moonset. ;)
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I'm pretty sure this isn't a change, it is only the overly dark '04 transfer vs. the slightly washed out '93 transfer that makes it look like the blue-screen stick have been reduced.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
I debated that. I think I'll drop it.
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I made a new thread just for the comparisons so we don't dominate Zombie's thread here.
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I just noticed this at the end of the 2004 SE ROTJ (I'm asuming it's at the end of all THX certified releases but I'm too lazy to check). Made me laugh, it did...
Maybe we should start bombarding THX with phone calls that our 2004 DVDs "detract from the theatrical presentation of the film" and demand replacement discs :-D
I think that is at the very end of the sixth reel of a film like star wars special edition at the theater in 1997. They had a number you could call and tattle on the theater owners is they gave a bad presentation Lucas could then deny them prints.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
But it's still there on the DVD which detracts enormously from the theatrical presentation ;-)
Baronlando said:
This confuses me. I don't understand why it was necessary for the new wipes to start at a different time if they were using the original negative. Did they just say "eh, close enough"?
I think the reason they re-did them was the same reason they redid the titles in 2004 and had the title logo sped up. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but they just wanted to do it. Pacific Titles definitely is independently reported on at least two non-Lucasfilm published sources to have made new opticals, so I don't think this is BS. If you might argue that the only did SOME of the opticals again, why are the new fades covering up the older ones on EVERY shot? So, by this logic either they did none of them or they did all of them. My answer is that the re-did all the optics in 1997, which then had digital matches covered over top of them for 2004. Maybe they did this to hide splices better, I don't know.
