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Harmy's RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized Edition HD - V3.1 — Page 25

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Just a reminder: Only 3 more days to sign up to receive the all-new Harmy's DeSpecialized Newsletter Edition for the August updates.

All stories & updates are Harmy-approved and are basically just re-caps and highlights of what's happening in the forum threads, including new release announcements such as the new TESB:DE v2.0 Reel 1 Workprint that was just posted on Harmy's birthday.

Once again, this is a *monthly* newsletter and is aimed at people who would rather not continuously follow all 3 threads for updates.  So keep in mind that even though you may be a couple of weeks behind on announcements when they happen, you *will* be notified in the next edition of the newsletter.

Here is the link!  Send it to your friends and post it on Facebook.

Harmy's DeSpecialized Newsletter Edition

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Harmy's DeSpecialized Newsletter Edition for August 2013 has been sent!

Please be sure to check your spam/junk/promotion folders and let your email client know that it's acceptable!  That way you won't miss next month's edition as well. 

For those that didn't feel the need or want to sign up yet, no problem.  Here is a link to view what was sent out to the masses (and we had quite a lot of subscribers!) Decide if you want to sign up for next month's and be sure not to miss out on any news that may have slipped by you.

http://eepurl.com/D1aq1

If there is something you'd like to see in next month's newsletter, let me know and I'll try to make it happen for you.

Thanks everyone!

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Enjoy.

Zer0

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“Evacuate ...in our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.”

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Harmy said:

...this time around I will not stop until some of the shots I was unable to despecialize in v1.0 are despecialized. Like the Rancor compositing in ROTJ or the snow battle compositing in ESB.

I suppose I view things a little differently, philosophically, in terms of restoration. To me, the crime of the special editions wasn't cleaning up matte lines or technical gaffs or outright mistakes. To me the crime of the special editions was in outright changing elements or adding new scenes.

I consider the removal of the matte lines on the rancor a good thing. It makes that effect look as good as it possibly can, which to my mind should have been the goal of the special editions all along. Likewise, fixing the snow battle composting so that you can't see through the canopy struts, or see ships passing through walkers, is also a good thing.

I can understand and appreciate the view that all of those technical blemishes were a part of the original theatrical experience and should therefore be preserved. I don't share that view, but I get it. In a perfect world it would be nice to have both, a perfect time capsule of the original theatrical experience, and a perfect version of each film, where the picture fidelity and special effects have been restored and repaired to make them look as good as they possibly can. I might even watch that time capsule version out of historical interest, but my definitive version would be the restored and remastered version, the one that brings those effects as close to what they wanted them to be as possible.

It's an old dilemma. It's like the people who prefer LPs to CDs. For the LP lovers, the hisses, the scratches, the minor imperfections all add to the experience for them. While conversely, those things detract from the experience for the CD lovers. 

I've loved Star Wars all my life, but I'll never forget the first time I noticed the matte lines in ESB. I was about 12 years old, it was the asteroid chase, my favourite sequence. And suddenly there they were. Matte lines constantly in motion around the tie fighters. Empire Strikes back, and the whole trilogy, lost some of its magic for me that day. That was the day when I got a glimpse behind the curtain from in front of the stage. I'm a huge behind the scenes buff. I love knowing how things are made, and how movie magic is done. However, when I'm watching the movie I don't want my attention to be drawn to it.

To go in and restore matte lines and the like seems less like despecializing to me, and more to be a theatrical restoration. To my mind, despecializing would be the removal of the additional special edition material that was added to the films: extra scenes, new special effects, new dialogue, etc. I guess it's an arbitrary line to draw as to what one considers a special edition addition, and what one considers to be remastering and restoration.

Regardless, the impressive amount of work and dedication Harmy has committed to the project is nothing short of awe inspiring. I may not be on the same page in terms of what I would see removed and what I would see restored, but I am none the less blown away by the results. It's great stuff and I can't wait for more.

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 (Edited)

It's Harmy's project, and he gets to define “Despecialized” the way he sees fit. What the term might or might not mean to you is immaterial.

The stated purpose of the Despecialized Editions is to restore the theatrical versions of these films to a high definition format. Restoring effects shots to their original form is part of that. You're welcome to make your own project with your own parameters.

“That’s impossible, even for a computer!”

“You don't do ‘Star Wars’ in Dobly.”

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 (Edited)

This has been argued time and time again and removing matte lines in my opinion isn't restoration, it's revision (and it seems you say matte lines, when you mean matte boxes when you talk about the asteroid chase - and those would not have been visible in theaters, so I will not be restoring them).

The term restoration in terms of art, comes from painting restoration and it means to try an return the piece of art to some previous state, not to improve it. Removing matte lines and digital recompositing in general is like if an art restorer was restoring an old portrait where the proportions of one of the arms were slightly wrong and the restorer fixed the proportions. It could make the painting look better, but it sure as hell wouldn't be a restoration.

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 (Edited)

I'm on Harmy's side on this, I personally feel like a movie should be a testament to where you were at the time as a film maker. If he didn't like the matte lines in the effects he should just worked harder in his next effort to cover them up better. At the very least he could present the film as it was originally shot alongside with the special edition versions. Just my two cents on the matter though.

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I agree; I have no quibs with "special edition" treatments, but Star Wars is the only one I can think of that intentionally tries to obscure the original version. 

I'd like to do a fan edit of a "tasteful" special edition, but I doubt that Harmy's DEed would match up very well with any other transfer in terms of color and grain and things. 

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Well, so long as the matte BOXES aren't there, I couldn't care less about the matte lines. The matte boxes bother me.

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

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Moving right along.

Does anyone else have a problem with audio sync on RotJ Despecialized? Every time I watch it I find that by the time the gang reaches Endor, the dialogue is all just slightly off sync. Watching it in the background right now, the scene where Luke reveals to Leia that she is his sister, and it's fairly noticeable. I'm currently watching the AVCHD version, but have had the same issue with the DVD9 version as well on multiple players. I'm not keen on digging through 25 pages to see if this is a known issue or if it's just my copies. 

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It's a known issue that stems from the fact that most GOUT-based projects use the PAL version of ROTJ because it is a native PAL master unlike the other two films which are converted from NTSC. But these projects use the NTSC sound files to avoid additional processing on the sound. Because it's a different master, the frames aren't exactly accurate and in this case there is an extra frame or so when the fleet reassembles to discuss their attack on the Death Star 2 and there is a frame missing later on.... So in between these two points, the sound is out of sync. 

I think it was catbus who made a corrected version and I have this muxed with my personal file. 

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

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 (Edited)

I wonder if Harmy could use the new Team Negative 1 source for some of the cloud city shots to cover up Special Edition changes.

Edit: wrong thread

What’s worse George Lucas changing the OT or selling the rights to Disney

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Anyone who knows where I could get the corrected audio file, and would be so kind as to give me instructions on how to incorporate it into my copy please pm me, I'd very much appreciate it.

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Mavimao said:

I think it was catbus who made a corrected version and I have this muxed with my personal file. 

 

Color me interested. Is this version still available? What is it called? I noticed this problem myself, and as I was using MPC-HC at the time, I was able to manually resync the audio during those scenes.

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

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Hey Harmy, seeing as you'll likely be getting a lot of the despecialized footage from Team Negative1's 35mm scan next time around, how do you think you'll handle things like Anakin's eyebrows or, in the case of ESB, Lando's lips? Will you transpose those elements from the newer sources or will you replace the entire face or frame instead?

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I'm 99 percent sure I have it as a Flac file somewhere. I can put it up somewhere if people want to download it. 

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

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DavidMerrick said:

Hey Harmy, seeing as you'll likely be getting a lot of the despecialized footage from Team Negative1's 35mm scan next time around, how do you think you'll handle things like Anakin's eyebrows or, in the case of ESB, Lando's lips? Will you transpose those elements from the newer sources or will you replace the entire face or frame instead?

I'm not sure how likely that is but if I do get it, I'll approach it the same way as I did in SW - replace just the necessary elements wherever possible and replace the whole frame, where it was too altered to do otherwise.

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I'll be introducing a friend of mine to the Trilogy this coming Tuesday. Obviously we'll be watching the despecialized editions. If I could get the corrected RotJ audio in time for that marathon it would be awesome. Anyone who can help me out, please message me :)

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Hate to be a noob, but I didn't get the chance to download this one before tehparadox went down. So how do I download now?

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DominicCobb said:

Hate to be a noob, but I didn't get the chance to download this one before tehparadox went down. So how do I download now?

spleen or tpb

 

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DominicCobb said:

Yeah but what if I don't know how to torrent?

You've got to start somewhere, just like the rest of us.  But really it's simple after you've downloaded Utorrent and chosen your preferences you're basically off and running.

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 (Edited)

Alright, alright. Before I do though, I just want to make sure, is that really the only option? Wasn't the tehparadox just a link to the files that were hosted at uloz? Shouldn't I still be able to download that? Is there anyway to get those links? Sorrysorrysorry and thanks.

JEDIT: Nevermind, don't need to worry about that, and still don't have to torrent.

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Something that occurred to me while reading 005's comparison slideshow: will you be restoring Anakin's skin to its original colour during the unmasking scene? He's definitely more ashen in the DVD SE onward.

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You might try hairy_hen's alternate ROTJ audio that you can find a link to in his thread. There's an alternate musical cue during the Kenobi exposition scene, but perhaps the audio is synced perfectly. 

You could even just do a quick edit and splice the two together, circumventing the alternate music in that scene. 

Y'know, for lack of anything better before your marathon. 

My stance on revising fan edits.