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Theory on the 1997 "restoration".

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In my opinion the O-neg has not been altered.

Anyway---at least a 3rd of the so called O-neg of SW was not really "original negative" in the truest sense---- due to the amount of footage that was optically composited.

But for simplicity I will call it O-neg to distinguish it from the original negative pieces that did not make it into this very same O-neg!

The O-neg was disassembled in 1995 so it's differing constituent stocks could be cleaned.

Once that was done Robert Hart re-assembled it.

All of it.

Period.

Once it was re-assembled the O-neg was then colour timed using  Lucas's technicolor print as a reference.

A new 1st generation IP was then struck directly from this negative.

It was this IP that was then disassembled to remove most(if not  all) the shots that involved the optical dissolves/wipes and effects(lightsabers/laserblasts/pilots in cockpits with starfields behind ect ect).


For the original optical shots that involved effects:

The original negative pieces that themselves were NEVER part of the so called o-neg but were used to create optical composites in 1977(that subsequently became part of the O-neg) were  scanned at 2k/HD.

They were composited and colour timed in a computer and then scanned back out as negative onto film.

For the other shots that involved wipes but were not effect shots(e.g Vader saying "I must face him alone" and turning his back to the camera---wiping to Obiwan hiding in a corridor)-----the original camera negative pieces were given to pacific titles to generate new optical dupe negatives that were higher in quality than what was possible in 1977.

Meanwhile parts of the new 1st generation  IP that exhibited damage because of the poor condition of the O-neg(sprocket tears/scratches ect) that were live shots(e.g a close up of Han's face on the falcon) were also excised and replaced by corresponding shots that were sourced from 35mm theatrical IP's .They were  scanned at 2k/HD into computers before being degrained/enhanced .They were then scanned back out to film in negative form.

*These theatrical IP's were culled from various prints found in eastern europe(and were still in good shape having been created a few years before)---this is what Lucas indicated in his interview with Nolan.*

This frankenstein IP(made up of 1st generation live action IP's direct from the OCN + these scanned and restored 35mm IP's) was then converted into an internegative.

The new negatives involving digital composites were also inserted into this master internegative.

The other new dupe negatives(involving new optical wipes/dissolves) were also attached in their designated places in this new master IN.

And voila'.....this internegative was then used to generate theatrical IP's .

The same process was repeated to generate more internegatives and thearical IP's for the January 1997 re- release.

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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You're trying to find proof that the original cuts really do still exist somewhere in LFL's basement.  The proof has been there since 2004.

Empire of Dreams.

All the shots of ANH in the sequence where they're talking about the initial release are of the original 1977 print.  How do I know?  Simple.

It doesn't say "Episode IV A New Hope" on top of the crawl.

That's the first and most obvious.  I think they even have a shot of Han shooting first in there and I'm pretty sure it ends with the DS blowing up with NO shockwave ring.

We don't need to figure out IF the original cuts still exist.  THEY DO.  What we need to focus on is getting Lucas to admit it.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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Ziz said:

You're trying to find proof that the original cuts really do still exist somewhere in LFL's basement.  The proof has been there since 2004.

Empire of Dreams.

All the shots of ANH in the sequence where they're talking about the initial release are of the original 1977 print.  How do I know?  Simple.

It doesn't say "Episode IV A New Hope" on top of the crawl.

That's the first and most obvious.  I think they even have a shot of Han shooting first in there and I'm pretty sure it ends with the DS blowing up with NO shockwave ring.

We don't need to figure out IF the original cuts still exist.  THEY DO.  What we need to focus on is getting Lucas to admit it.

 

Indeed---good point.

The 2004 videography article also makes a clear distinction between the 1977 O-neg and the 1997 Special edition neg that was scanned to create the 2004 DVD(and 2011 Blu ray):

Interestingly, the negatives that were scanned were not those of the original releases but of the 1997 Special Edition reissues, because of their additional effects sequences (more of which are said to have been added in the DVD releases). Defects such as dirt and scratches from the original negative, then, had made their way through to the 1997 negative

Restoring the Star Wars Trilogy.

Article from: Videography | September 1, 2004 | Hurwitz, Matt

A special edition negative can only be an internegative.


 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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the Original negative of Star wars could have been disassembled(and re-assembled) without losing any "exposed" frames.

 

Star Wars was an A-B neg cut, which meant that they could actually lift and slug original negative and send it back to ILM whenever we were enhancing a live-action shot.

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/starwars/articles/sped/ssws/pg1.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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I have used screengrabs to illustrate the procedures used to convert the original negative into a brand new internegative without effecting the configuration of the original negative.

 

Here is the original O-neg, untouched and unaltered since 1977.

It is composed of Original camera negative(OCN Live) pieces and optical composites(Optical Neg).

*note some of the OCN pieces are in great shape-----others not so good---hence the use of the term "deteriorated".

 

 

 

It is disassembled into the differing film stocks and washed.

 

 

Once washed it is re-assembled and graded(using Lucas's personal technicolor print)

The grading allows a brand new 1st generation Interpositive print(IP) to be struck from this cleaned O-Neg:

 

This IP is then disassembled:

 

 

The shots which featured optical composites are removed from the IP:

 

 

Now the original camera negatives that were used to create the opticals in 1977 are retrieved from the archives---for our example:

The original camera negative of Luke holding an as yet unpictured saber:

And the Original negative which featured an animated glow:

Both of these 2 pieces are scanned at 2048 x 1080 into a computer where they are converted into effective positives.They are then  superimposed(rotoscoped) to create a new digital composite that does not exhibit the degradation that is associated with traditional photochemichal opticals(such as the one just removed from our freshly struck IP):

 

 

 

This digital composite is then converted back to negative and scanned out to film(it will be inserted into the new master internegative):

 

Parts of the new Interpositive print which contain deteriorated  footage:

...... are also excised.

An equivalent frame is extracted from(most likely) an eastern european theatrical IP print(made in the late 1980's).

It is scanned at 2048 x 1080 into a computer.It is degrained and digitally cleaned up:

 

It is then converted to negative and scanned back out to film:

 

All the good material that is left on the interpositive:

Is now converted to a new master internegative:

 

The new negative digital composites and cleaned up 35mm negatives(that were sourced from those eastern european theatrical IP's)  are inserted Into this new master internegative:

 

 

This new internegative will then be used to create theatrical IP's for the january 1997 re-release.

 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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Unfortunately, the original optical shot negatives have faded away, so yes, George was right in saying that the original Star Wars doesn't exist.

Mverta was probably right in saying that the Technicolor IB prints are the highest quality prints available to us.

Also, your article pointed out something interesting. It mentioned that Empire and Jedi only used scanned IPs for the SE....

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Mavimao said:

Unfortunately, the original optical shot negatives have faded away, so yes, George was right in saying that the original Star Wars doesn't exist.

Mverta was probably right in saying that the Technicolor IB prints are the highest quality prints available to us.

Also, your article pointed out something interesting. It mentioned that Empire and Jedi only used scanned IPs for the SE....

 

Hmm.

I am not so sure if they faded away.

It is more likely that the quality was never good to begin with(by modern standards).

It sufficed for 1977 because that was the best they could do at the time.And audiences were still blown away because nobody sat in a theater in 1977 and analyzed the increase in grain very time an optical shot came up.

 

 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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According to the article:

"Sadly, after 17 years, the CRI material had lost so much dye that every shot realized on that reversal stock had to be removed and recomposited from scratch in order to bring Star Wars back to its original glory. Soon, Kennedy had Star Wars Special Edition film editor Tom Christopher (at Skywalker Ranch) and visual effects editor Dave Tanaka (at ILM) searching to come up with the original effects elements so that these shots, as well as other less-than-perfect opticals, could be recomposited digitally."

CRI was a then new reversal film adopted by special effects crews. Unfortunately, the film was extremely unstable and it fades extremely fast compared to other film.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Mavimao said:

According to the article:

"Sadly, after 17 years, the CRI material had lost so much dye that every shot realized on that reversal stock had to be removed and recomposited from scratch in order to bring Star Wars back to its original glory. Soon, Kennedy had Star Wars Special Edition film editor Tom Christopher (at Skywalker Ranch) and visual effects editor Dave Tanaka (at ILM) searching to come up with the original effects elements so that these shots, as well as other less-than-perfect opticals, could be recomposited digitally."

CRI was a then new reversal film adopted by special effects crews. Unfortunately, the film was extremely unstable and it fades extremely fast compared to other film.

 

Ahh---indeed--good catch from that article.

It seems kind of ironic---according to this rare  LA Times article from 1995--CRI stock was introduced to stop fading!

 

The main problem, says Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum, who is hard at work on the restoration, is that the duplication stock developed in the '70s by the major film houses was supposed to last a lifetime. The specially treated stock, called CRI, was created because films from the 1960s were already losing their color.

But when Fox pulled "Star Wars" from the vaults, it was discovered that "the duplicate, from which the release prints were made, as well as the negative that its stored on, were corrupted," McCallum says. The main defects in "Star Wars" were found in special-effects optical sequences, which sometimes contain eight to 10 layers of film.

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-07-09/entertainment/ca-22054_1_star-wars


 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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Wow.  You guys are technical film gurus of the highest order.  Some of this stuff makes my head hurt, but it's very rigorous & impressive reading material.  (Even though I don't really understand a lot of the technical jargon & whatnot.  I suppose I could try to learn more about that aspect of film-making...)

My Star Wars Book is coming out in December!
Visit & "Like" the Facebook to receive all announcements:

In A Galaxy Not So Far Away...  The Star Wars Shooting Locations of the United States

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 (Edited)

I've often doubted the "SE footage cut into the O-neg" theory. Why would they cut clean, modern film stock together with 1970s stock?

Whatever the state of the O-neg, if Lucasfilm wanted to, they could most likely restore and reconstruct the original versions from the materials they have. I've said it before, I'll say it again: It's not that they *can't* do it, it's that they *won't*. It's not about money, because a Blu-ray release of a restored OOT would make back every penny of the costs of restoration.

The fact that they turned down an offer from Robert A. Harris to restore the original versions speaks volumes. I've even heard versions of the story that say that he offered to do it *for free*, and they still turned him down. I'm not sure if that part is true, but if it is, then it really *isn't* about money, it's literally because Lucas doesn't want the original versions to be restored.

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The 70's must have been some sort of golden age for bantha poodoo film stocks. Even my family photos from that era are losing their color.

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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Yeah, it was a dark time for color film stock. When I saw Star Trek II in 70mm in L.A. last year, the host warned that it was a print from Metrocolor, and that prints from that lab were notoriously fade-prone. This print was faded enough that they put a blue filter on the projector to "correct" it.

Last year, I also saw Ghostbusters at the American Cinematheque. Also 70mm, also printed at Metrocolor, except it was on LPP. No fading. The age difference between the two prints was only two years, but the difference in the color was like night and day.

Back to the subject at hand, other effects-heavy films from the same time period as SW, which used the same kinds of negative stock, have been restored and presented in their original form. Close Encounters had similar issues with its O-neg, and was also full of optical composite shots on CRI, yet the restoration that's on Blu-ray looks darn good (and it has three different cuts of the film.) Superman had similar issues, and it also looks very good (though there was some digital color correction and recompositing done on that film). Both of them have a couple color flaws and noticeable grain (though I'm sure a lot of that was due to the cinematography), but they look very very good nonetheless.

The point is, I believe that the same *can* be done for the OOT, and that the fact that it hasn't been done is due to unwillingness, not inability.

Also, remember that all the hubbub about the restoration centered around the first film; I'm willing to bet that the original elements of ESB and ROTJ are in better condition.

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^Jealous!  I go to the Aero all the time but I haven't visited the Egyptian yet.  I remember I tried to get a group to go see Ghostbusters but it didn't work out.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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It was great. The print had several bad splices, there were whole lines missing (especially at reel changes), but otherwise it looked pretty good and the experience was awesome.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any future screenings of this print. This month, there are official screenings of the movie at various theaters, but they're digital-cinema, not film. :(

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TServo2049 said:

Close Encounters

This is the one that really makes me nuts. Same age, basically all the same problems (and not a snowball's chance of selling as many copies as Star Wars '77). And yet they just frickin' handle it. No fanfare, no sob stories. 

 

 

 

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IMO, if Star Wars were to be restored and re released, they would have to use a combination of different elements. The original negative might be able to provide shots that don't have effects, and then you could splice in SFX footage culled from other sources. Of course, you would notice a more than usual drop in quality between the shots.

In this case, it might be wiser, cheaper and more efficient to just scan technicolor prints, or recombine the seperation masters of the whole film, do a simple cleanup and release it like that. This way, the quality stays more or less consistant and we would also have a very purist form of the film as it was seen in 77.

As far as ESB and ROTJ are concerned, I can't say for sure, but I would be willing to bet that better care was taken in pre-production and that dupe negatives exist, as well as high quality IP prints. If the article that Danny Boy pointed to is correct, they did not even touch the O neg for the SEs of episodes 5 and 6.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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TServo2049 said:

Yeah, it was a dark time for color film stock. When I saw Star Trek II in 70mm in L.A. last year, the host warned that it was a print from Metrocolor, and that prints from that lab were notoriously fade-prone. This print was faded enough that they put a blue filter on the projector to "correct" it.

Last year, I also saw Ghostbusters at the American Cinematheque. Also 70mm, also printed at Metrocolor, except it was on LPP. No fading. The age difference between the two prints was only two years, but the difference in the color was like night and day.

Back to the subject at hand, other effects-heavy films from the same time period as SW, which used the same kinds of negative stock, have been restored and presented in their original form. Close Encounters had similar issues with its O-neg, and was also full of optical composite shots on CRI, yet the restoration that's on Blu-ray looks darn good (and it has three different cuts of the film.) Superman had similar issues, and it also looks very good (though there was some digital color correction and recompositing done on that film). Both of them have a couple color flaws and noticeable grain (though I'm sure a lot of that was due to the cinematography), but they look very very good nonetheless.

The point is, I believe that the same *can* be done for the OOT, and that the fact that it hasn't been done is due to unwillingness, not inability.

Also, remember that all the hubbub about the restoration centered around the first film; I'm willing to bet that the original elements of ESB and ROTJ are in better condition.

 

Yes.

Superman and Close Encounters are good comparisons.

Interestingly a section of Superman's O-neg was lost/destroyed many years ago.

To compensate for this lost/destroyed section a new dupe negative was created using the separation masters(also made many years ago) .

But the difference in quality is apparent:

There was a big chunk that was a dupe negative section, when
Lex Luthor pulls the Kryptonite out of the case all the way until he pushes
Superman into the pool. The original cut negative had been damaged by some lab, and somewhere someone combined YCM separations to make the dupe section. The colors were slightly out of registration. We never did find the negative for that. There was a dupe section for all of that and then there was
damage in other places, torn frames, stuff like that which had been backed by
mylar They would put clear mylar on the back of the negative so that the tear
wouldn't pull any farther and it would hold the film together. "

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/mohenryfanclub/message/298?l=1

The discrepancy in quality during this  section of the film was not apparent in the VHS/Standard def DVD video transfers.

But if you watch the blu ray you can see an increase in grain and contrast as well as a slightly altered color gamut just after Supes opens the lead container with the kryptonite----and it lasts all the way until Luthor throws Supes into the pool.

And this is at 2K resolution----a 4K transfer would be even more brutal in exposing these differences.

 

 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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 (Edited)

Mavimao said:

IMO, if Star Wars were to be restored and re released, they would have to use a combination of different elements. The original negative might be able to provide shots that don't have effects, and then you could splice in SFX footage culled from other sources. Of course, you would notice a more than usual drop in quality between the shots.

In this case, it might be wiser, cheaper and more efficient to just scan technicolor prints, or recombine the seperation masters of the whole film, do a simple cleanup and release it like that. This way, the quality stays more or less consistant and we would also have a very purist form of the film as it was seen in 77.

As far as ESB and ROTJ are concerned, I can't say for sure, but I would be willing to bet that better care was taken in pre-production and that dupe negatives exist, as well as high quality IP prints. If the article that Danny Boy pointed to is correct, they did not even touch the O neg for the SEs of episodes 5 and 6.

Correct.

A scan of a 1977 SW technicolor print at 2K would hypothetically yield more satisfactory results in terms of filmic continuity------than a 4K scan of the O-neg where there would be noticable  jumps in quality from scenes without effects to shots with optical VFX.

 

"The problem is that film optical effects are a minimum of two extra generations away from the original negative, so there's more dirt, more contrast and more grain, and they're not as sharp," says Lowry. "Every time they went to a light saber shot-boom-there goes the sharpness, the grain came up and the contrast came up a little." As Rick Dean notes, "The problem is that nobody was ever expected to watch it directly off of negative. Projection prints are the result of four optical processes and photochemical processes, which naturally even things out."

http://business.highbeam.com/3770/article-1G1-122874997/restoring-star-wars-trilogy


 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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Time
 (Edited)

TServo2049 said:

I've often doubted the "SE footage cut into the O-neg" theory. Why would they cut clean, modern film stock together with 1970s stock?

Whatever the state of the O-neg, if Lucasfilm wanted to, they could most likely restore and reconstruct the original versions from the materials they have. I've said it before, I'll say it again: It's not that they *can't* do it, it's that they *won't*. It's not about money, because a Blu-ray release of a restored OOT would make back every penny of the costs of restoration.

The fact that they turned down an offer from Robert A. Harris to restore the original versions speaks volumes. I've even heard versions of the story that say that he offered to do it *for free*, and they still turned him down. I'm not sure if that part is true, but if it is, then it really *isn't* about money, it's literally because Lucas doesn't want the original versions to be restored.

Yes, and he owns them lock, stock, and barrel. Even if it is possible, Lucas won't do it and there's no one and nothing that can make him. Even if they were sure it'd make money, why would they when there's a massive cash flow coming in from the most successful genre TV series of all time and 3D rerelease coming?

“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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You know, it's interesting that not much thought has been given to the separation masters. If they were made correctly back in '77, there are three B&W fine-grain masters, one for each of the YCM color records. I know Warner Bros. has a system called Ultra-Resolution for realigning 3-strip Technicolor masters - in a restoration/reconstruction of the original version of SW, couldn't some scenes come from separation masters and be similarly realigned?

This was brought up with Robert Harris on Home Theater Forum back in '06, he said that the same techniques used to recombine 3-strip Tech can be used to recombine separation masters. Sure, they'll be one generation removed from the negative, but they'll have no fading problems because they're B&W.

Jumps in quality during effects shots would be unavoidable in a 4K of Star Wars. But Baronlando is right, Sony was able to give us the 100% original version of Close Encounters, with no digitally recomposited effects shots, and it looked great. (However, in CE3K's case, the CRI elements may have been in better condition than SW, and thus able to be salvaged. I know that the CRI was still usable in 1991, because it was one of the source elements for the Criterion LD transfer.)

Where there's a will, there's a way. Lucas just doesn't have the will.

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The cyan strip being out of synch came up just recently at that DGA thing and GL, in his way, made it sound like that problem from 1995 means the originals are gone forever/impossible, etc. He often reminds me of that line in Mean Streets-"You got a way of talking about one thing and sliding into something else like no one's supposed to notice."

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I continue to maintain that a restoration of the original version of SW is not impossible, despite any of GL's many excuses.

As someone else pointed out, if there are no usable materials for the original, how do you explain Empire of Dreams? And some of the FX shots that were replaced were still in usable condition, because the original SE trailer shows the original version of Wedge blowing up the TIE Fighter.

And I'm also sick of this whole verbal sleight of hand of citing various issues with the elements of the *first film* to say that it's impossible to restore *any* of the OOT. I am certain that ESB and ROTJ do not suffer from the same problems, or at least not to the same degree as the original.

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 (Edited)

 

According to this study  an  internegative(described as IN 3rd Generation in diagram) holds roughly 1.5-2k of information.

 

http://www.efilm.com/publish/2008/05/19/4K%20plus.pdf

 

This is  the reason why Star Wars was subjected to a 1080 x1920 transfer because this was the maximum amount of info that the internegative has.

Hence this explanation from THX engineer Rick Dean(who was in charge of the transfer):

"A technical scan like this allows you to capture the entire body of the image,You're not losing anything, and you're not clipping out whites or losing detail in the blacks, which you'll otherwise never retrieve."

http://business.highbeam.com/3770/article-1G1-122874997/restoring-star-wars-trilogy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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OK---here is the definitive proof that the O-neg is in good condition----enough to generate a 1st generation interpositive print that Rick McCallum himself described as perfect to a foreign magazine way back in 1997:

Question: The scenes which were not digitally remastered, but only chemically restored are still looking faded or have a color tinge. You see the shift between the the new scenes and the original material.

Rick McCallum: Here is what we were talking about this earlier. One of the most frustrating things is, if you could see the print that stuck of the original negative that we have done - it's perfect. It's not perfect in terms of the colorrestauration, because we still have a long way to go. We will need to scan the movie. In propably five years, when scanning technology drops at a cost that isn't so prohibitive anymore. Now it would cost 10-12 millions Dollars only to scan the whole movie. We just can't do it. Possible we take 2-3 years to be able to restore the color back to its original. We did the best that we could within the technology we have today. This is one of the big challenges for us in the future. The problem is, film is a chemical process and it's like alchemy. It's magic. If you do a print and the developer bath isn't as clean or whatever it is - it's very hard to stain, because it's a photo-chemical process. It lives, it breath, it changes on every print. We are hoping to drive the technology to a level to distribute movies electronically. So we can incode in digital data the color, the contrast and the level that the soundtrack has to do. No theater owner can screw us up again. It's not just the theater owner, it's this bizarre process called filmmaking that is still so fragile. It's hard to believe that we actually had to restore a film that's only 20 years old. Film is an inherently instable medium. It's there and it's changing every day. It feeds on itself,  it destroys itself. But it's not only Star Wars. The whole films of the 70s are at risk. With the success of Star Wars all the studios are rushing back trying to protect their films. They are inherently what gives them value. But I apologize for the shift. It's something that goes beyond us. That is the thing what is most frustrating.

 

http://www.maikeldas.com/SWrick1eng.html

 


I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8