Oops, sorry, I posted this in the wrong thread by accident, could this (and DE's response) please be moved to this thread:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/General-Star-Wars-Random-Thoughts-Thread/topic/12545/page/33/
And this post deleted of course :-)
I'm glad to hear progress for the release of this Omen I've been looking forward to this for awhile now, Hope you get your speedy connection soon ;]
Also a quick Q Omen you say you've been working on Lord of the Rings excuse my ignorance but apart from rebalancing colours/brightness whats there (or not!) that needs a drastic change for editing this trilogy 0_o ?!
Hey Darf, it's great to hear that you're still looking forward to these. I really hope that these releases live up to your expectations! I've been having technical problems getting my new connection up and running but it should be good to go very soon, fingers crossed.
As for the three Lord of the Rings films, while all three have been regraded (both The Two Towers and The Return of the King have green tints as well, but to a far lesser extent that Fellowship of the Ring), only Return of the King has been edited, and that's only slightly. I made three small changes.
Firstly I removed the scene at the start of the second disc with the corsairs and Peter Jackson being hit and killed my Legolas's arrow for two reasons: 1) It's very silly in a geeky sort of way, killing PJ and Gimli's 'oops' reaction (all the pirates on the deck are actually important crew members getting cameos like PJ so it draws you out of the film as well IMO) and adds nothing to the film and 2) It steals most of the thunder away from the climax of the Minas Tirith battle when Aragorn arrives at the last moment with his army of undead on the ships if we've already seen Aragorn and the undead army getting on the ships beforehand.
Secondly I edited the confrontation between the Witch King and Gandalf so that Gandalf doesn't get his staff broken and knocked off his horse, the Witch King is about to swing his sword at Gandalf when he gets interrupted by the Rohirrim horns and flies off. The reason I changed this was because I always felt it was too over the top to have Gandalf's staff broken and falling over in a heap in the movie. It makes Gandalf seem much weaker than the Witch King when in the books Gandalf and the Witch King seem evenly matched and it ends in a stalemate.
Lastly I edited the scene with the Mouth of Sauron to remove the bit where Aragorn beheads him because it totally goes against the nobility of Aragorn's character in the films. The Aragorn from the books would never kill an enemy ambassador that has come to parley with him, however evil he may be, it is simply not done. If I remember correctly, the Mouth of Sauron is allowed to leave unharmed in the book. The same thing should have happened in the film, so I edited it so it seems that he's been allowed to leave unharmed.
So where are your new versions going to be uploaded too or how?
I'm also very much looking forward too all of these movies of yours.
I have all of these movies on blu-ray i just don't have the computer power right now to do my own edits. I hope to build one at some point here.
Hey DoomBot, thanks for the interest!
Where or how they will be uploaded I don't know yet to be honest. The whole business with megaupload has changed the internet landscape a fair bit so i'll have to carefully consider that exact question.
Here are some comparisons between the official blu-ray and the regraded version from the second half of star wars:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/106291
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/106297
The new screens look really good, OMEN. Nice and subtle, as is the goal of your project, good work :-)
Thanks Harmy! You're right, it is very subtle in certain shots. The filters seems to have a more noticable effect on the higher contrast shots. Overall it does give the film a noticably warmer/more vintage feel that kind of works for this film, making it more appealing to watch, like you always said it would. You were right on the money there.
What I find really annoying though is how I can tell that the Star Wars blu-ray has lost so much shadow detail from the baked in black crush in the 2004 lowry masters. I'm absolutely certain that there should be much more shadow detail there in the original film, so the blu-ray lacks that 'film' feel to it, it feels very digital and artificial.
By comparison, working on the Fellowship of the Ring EE blu-ray transfer based off a totally new 2k master has been such a pleasure in certain ways because its so rich in shadow detail, it really feels like 'film', unlike the Star Wars blu-ray with its baked in black crush, so one has so much more options when regrading it with regards to contrast and brightness IMHO.
OMEN!-_-! said:
Hey DoomBot, thanks for the interest!
Where or how they will be uploaded I don't know yet to be honest. The whole business with megaupload has changed the internet landscape a fair bit so i'll have to carefully consider that exact question.
Here are some comparisons between the official blu-ray and the regraded version from the second half of star wars:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/106291
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/106297
Wow those look much better than the blu-ray awesome job.
Actually, the blacks on the BD are far better than on the DVD. I recently had a chance to see screens from a professionally scanned 77 print of STAR WARS and the contrast was surprisingly high, especially in darker shots.
Harmy said:
I recently had a chance to see screens from a professionally scanned 77 print of STAR WARS and the contrast was surprisingly high, especially in darker shots.
I think that depends on how the exposure is set when scanning.
Some of the 70mm scans on jedi1.net are scanned in a way that crushes whites but reveals more shadow detail for example.
Harmy said:
Actually, the blacks on the BD are far better than on the DVD. I recently had a chance to see screens from a professionally scanned 77 print of STAR WARS and the contrast was surprisingly high, especially in darker shots.
So Harmy, you're saying that Star Wars has always had this high contrast/low shadow detail look in many of its shots, especially the darker ones? Very interesting.
Here are some comparisons of Empire Strikes Back, the original image being the official blu-ray, the mouse over changing it to the regraded version:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/106422
Damit Omen... Those comparisons look sooo good it's like you've pulled off the cheap blue sweet wrappers from the camera lens and gave it an natural ol'worldy 80's film look again.
Well done :D
Omen, looking great - really looking forward to seeing this. Couple questions:
1. What exactly are you doing to the Mos Eisley scene? are you going for a full theatrical or just taking out some of the really bad cg crap?
2. What format are you planning on releasing these in?
Thanks.
“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas
Hey guys, i'm glad that you're liking what you're seeing!
@Darf Muffy: Yeah, its great to be able to see these films without that awful blue filter. I'm still surprised at how much of a difference it makes!
@Cobra: Mos Eisley is staying exactly the same as on the blu-ray release apart from four changes: 1) Removing the robot knocking the floating droid to the ground when they enter Mos Eisley 2) Removing the Jawas being knocked off their seats and swinging from side to side. These are both silly CG prequel slapstick moments that have no place in the original trilogy IMHO. 3) Han shoots first and ONLY Han 4) Removing awful Jabba scene making him into a clown.
As for format, I am planning to release these at the highest bitrate possible to maintain the highest image quality (in the case of at least one of the six star wars films, even improving considerably IMHO on the image quality of the official blu-ray:D ). The plan is to write each film onto a single bd-50.
If there is any interest though, I suppose I could create avchd versions of these films that could fit on a dual layer dvd and play off dvd players for those that don't have blu-ray writers.
Here are some comparisons from Return of the Jedi, the original screencap being from the official blu-ray, the mouse over changing it to the regraded version:
:D very glad to hear your opting for BD-50 there mate this needs to be on the highest grade you can get and total agreement on those changes.
Did you get my PM I sent over Omen ?
Darf Muffy said:
:D very glad to hear your opting for BD-50 there mate this needs to be on the highest grade you can get and total agreement on those changes.
Did you get my PM I sent over Omen ?
Hey Darf,
Couldn't agree more about maintaining the highest quality. Have you checked out the Return of the Jedi comparisons? Like what you see?
Looking at those ESB comparisons I may have been playing it a bit safe with Empire Strikes Back so as not to blow out the highlights too much. I'll try regrading it tonight to closer match the levels of SW and ROTJ and see how it looks.
Sent you a PM just now.
ROTJ's comparisons look very nice indeed there Omen, hope to see those stills in motion some day, lolz.
Going with your own feelings on the colouring tones for your work is defiantly best you can't break your efforts here with colour balancing its but the icing on a very sweet cake that I'd like a bit of :D
Darf Muffy said:
ROTJ's comparisons look very nice indeed there Omen, hope to see those stills in motion some day, lolz.
Patience, grasshopper. ;)
Interest in this SW project based of the amount of feedback has been very limited to say the least so when I am able to get these up, I'll be honest with you guys, the LOTR films will be at the top of the list, firstly because its the first project I worked on and FOTR EE is the real reason why I started this colour correcting business in the first place. Secondly and most importantly, Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition is the only film out of the ones in question that REALLY NEEDED its transfer modified IMHO, all the others are colour changes or edits that the majority of people will not even notice/won't care about.
OMEN!-_-! said:
Darf Muffy said:
ROTJ's comparisons look very nice indeed there Omen, hope to see those stills in motion some day, lolz.
Patience, grasshopper. ;)
Interest in this SW project based of the amount of feedback has been very limited to say the least so when I am able to get these up, I'll be honest with you guys, the LOTR films will be at the top of the list, firstly because its the first project I worked on and FOTR EE is the real reason why I started this colour correcting business in the first place. Secondly and most importantly, Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition is the only film out of the ones in question that REALLY NEEDED its transfer modified IMHO, all the others are colour changes or edits that the majority of people will not even notice/won't care about.
Don't mistake a lack of feedback for a lack of interest. Many people will lurk and keep tabs on threads and projects they are very interested in without ever posting that they are. :) Trust me if you one day share this then it would get plenty of downloads.
I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.
I agree with vbangle
There's going to be many downloads on these versions of Star Wars because of what you have done to them. I check this thread everyday hoping to see some good news on the release. I have friends that watch this thread waiting to get there hands on these versions even though i know they have not posted one thing here.
Thank you vbangle and DoomBot for your kind words. I just wish more people interested in this would provide feedback! Its gives me new ideas and keeps me motivated as well. I don't know how many lurkers there are following this project so if you guys could chime in with your thoughts, that would really help me out and motivate me to finish these and get them up asap.
No need to worry on the commitment front with regard to this project as well, so no more 'ifs' please with regards to these releases being released. These WILL be released because I haven't put the hours in that I have to not share what i've done. If I can't get a fast enough connection where I am to make it plausible, I WILL find another way, so have some faith people! :)
In terms of films, FOTR, TTT, ROTK, AOTC and ROTS are completely finished (at least until I change my mind about something again... Fingers crossed that won't happen, for the sake of my sanity).
The others have little bits here and there, mostly to do with lightsaber colour continuety (making Vader's lightsaber red again in all his scenes for example), that have to be finished. Unfortunately RL commitments keep me from pouring as much time as I would like into these projects. Also keep in mind that I have been working on 9 films concurrently, it takes a lot out of you. I can't imagine how Peter Jackson was able to shoot all three LOTR films in one go and keep everything straight in his head, absolutely amazing.
How's the audio part going on this project? Are you still making a different soundtrack than the blu-ray?
So you worked on Attack of the clones and revenge of the sith i had no idea?
What kinds of changes are you making or is it only regrading? If there's a forum just direct me there if you want.
DoomBot said:
How's the audio part going on this project? Are you still making a different soundtrack than the blu-ray?
So you worked on Attack of the clones and revenge of the sith i had no idea?
What kinds of changes are you making or is it only regrading? If there's a forum just direct me there if you want.
The SW prequels will have the same dts-hd soundtrack as the blu-rays. The LOTR films again will have the same dts-hd tracks as the blu-rays. With the original trilogy however I'm definately not using the dts-hd of the blu-rays (too much emphasis on sound effects to the detriment of the music IMO) I'm planning to use either Hairy_Hen's mixes or the GOUT audio tracks themselves, most likely the later because they are the original audio tracks.
As for what changes to AOTC, it has be edited to be the same as the theatrical release (the order of certain scenes were changed in the blu-ray to its detriment IMO). The transfer in general, the detail and colours, are much better than the blu-ray as well, due to using the hdtv streams as a source.
ROTS has had slight colour grading to get rid of the teal tint but apart from that, its pretty much the same as the blu-ray, which I felt was a very good transfer.