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Using the '04 SE DVD version to restore the Original (with lots of info) — Page 2

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Originally posted by: The Bizzle Now THIS is something to follow

Mike-- you might also want to contemplate keeping the new "A Long Time Ago.." as it matches up to every other "A Long Time Ago" in the series.

Got your site bookmarked, even if it's not up yet


It's coming...

The FOX logo thing I'm still uncertain on... though I don't really feel it's a part of the film itself. That may be my anti-studio bias. (You get that after working with the studios for any length of time).

However, the "A long time ago..." that appears in the PT is just wrong. It's wrong, so I redid it. They used this new one at the top of the DVD trilogy, and I'm not cool with that. It's as iconic as anything else in the movie, and that's why I took the time to re-do it properly. I know Dan Perri carefully considered every last aspect of that title card - the setup, the letter forms and the color - he said so - and I want to honor that.

Also -

The temporary pages got more hits in the last 2 days than I expected, so I decided to bring the hosting inside and set up a server locally - it'll take a couple more days, but in the meantime, here's page 3:

Legacy_3

_Mike

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oh, Mike--I've read some posts from costumers--and the Rebel's shirts are SUPPOSED to be blue, not Gray. The actual costumes themselves were blue shirts.

Also--I thought the Prequel "A Long Time Ago's" were timed and printed to look like ESB and ROTJ's? even before the SE's, I'd had the impression that only "Star Wars" logo looked different.

Either way--your work on this is VERY VERY impressive, and thanks for showing the step by steps.
The Best Show You've Never Heard
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Originally posted by: The Bizzle
oh, Mike--I've read some posts from costumers--and the Rebel's shirts are SUPPOSED to be blue, not Gray. The actual costumes themselves were blue shirts.

Also--I thought the Prequel "A Long Time Ago's" were timed and printed to look like ESB and ROTJ's? even before the SE's, I'd had the impression that only "Star Wars" logo looked different.

Either way--your work on this is VERY VERY impressive, and thanks for showing the step by steps.


Wow.. I'll check on the blue shirts thing. That would be really odd, because you'd have to do some super specific color timing to get the shirts blue while keeping the rest of the frame's colors intact, but it was a very "typical" adjustment to make them gray while keeping the fleshtones balanced.

As for the color timing on the other movies, I'll check. I haven't been considering "trilogy consistency" in any of this - I've only been focusing on the one, the only, the original.

_Mike

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I've only been focusing on the one, the only, the original.


Word

And we appreciate the focus. Thanks again. And as far as the shirts go--I doubt anyone would notice if you kept the fix the way it was. Consistency is the key--and if it's easier to achieve consistency by changing a couple blue shirts to gray than by having to change a bunch of gray shirts to blue, then the choice is pretty clear, regardless of whatever they actually wore on set.
The Best Show You've Never Heard
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mverta

simply fascinating - I had no idea they'd changed so much. Looking forward to learning a lot more.

Keep up the good work. Nice looking site too.

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
‘How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

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Definitely some nice work here. It's sad that a fan can do better work than the company behind it. Keep up the good work, and thanks for the step-by-step.


Made for IE Forum's Episode III theme month - May 2005.

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mverta, it'd be great if we could get some full resolution shots of your updates, so we can see them in all their glory. Great job so far. It's amazing how inconsistent some of the color timing is on the DVD and it's nice to see how these scenes really should look.
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Lots of people requesting those high resolution shots.. I agree it's a good idea. I'm doing this all by myself, including learning webpage design as I go (this is day 3 with Adobe GoLive, I can't believe the page actually works!), so I have to split my time between posting the updates and actually doing the work!

I've been stopped for the last day and a half trying to get to the bottom of the Rebel Fleet Trooper gray/blue shirt issue... nearly resolved.. updates coming. And a cool surprise, too!

_Mike

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Originally posted by: mverta
... I'm doing this all by myself, including learning webpage design as I go (this is day 3 with Adobe GoLive, I can't believe the page actually works!), so I have to split my time between posting the updates and actually doing the work!...

Ewwwww, I hate GoLive. I'm a professional web designer and there's no subsitute for Macromedia Dreamweaver. Much easier and produces the code much cleaner. Glad your getting it going however. If you need any help, I'd be glad to offer assistance.
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My perfect version of the movies would be the 2004 edition except

Original Krayt Dragon call would be restored
Han would shoot first
Camera would pull away instead of showing Han stepping on Jabbas tail
Uncensor blaster hits
"Lucky you don't taste good" line restored
Boba would have old voice
Jedi rocks would be gone
Anakins ghost would be played by Shaw

Things I would leave.

Why would you want the wolfman back. George Lucas never liked it. Neither did Rick Backer. He said he intended it to be used in the background only and was embarressed to see it in such a prominate place. Though it is strange that Clone Wars put a wolfman Jedi.

The line "Bring me my Shuttle" made no sense. His shuttle was already there.

Why would you want to have the old Emperor scene back. Ian Mcdarmid is the Emperor not an old women and a chimp.

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Originally posted by: jimbo

Why would you want the wolfman back. George Lucas never liked it. Neither did Rick Backer. He said he intended it to be used in the background only and was embarressed to see it in such a prominate place. Though it is strange that Clone Wars put a wolfman Jedi.

The line "Bring me my Shuttle" made no sense. His shuttle was already there.

Why would you want to have the old Emperor scene back. Ian Mcdarmid is the Emperor not an old women and a chimp.


Wolfman was awesome. Just because Lucas and Baker didn't like him doesn't mean we also have to.

Bring my shuttle was fine and much better than what's in there now (sounds nothing frickin like him no matter what you claim it to be). It could've been interpreted as sort of a valet (i.e. they bring the shuttle to the nearby pad to pick him up).

The old Emperor kicks so much ass. Creepy...mysterious. It was perfect. And he/she/it shall remain in my sig forever.

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Yeh..the old emperor rules, he/she makes a comeback in my edit courtesy of the 97 LDs.

Bring my shuttle is cool much better than the waffle "Alert my star destroyer and prepare my pipe and slippers or whatever"

Thats the beauty of this project everyone can have his or her own custom edit with 0-100% of SE content left in or taken out, taken out in IMHO


Egon "Don't Cross the streams it would be very bad"

Peter "i'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing"

Egon "lmagine the 97 Star Wars Special Editions"
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Mike,

I'm curious - are the shot-by-shot white-balance differences you're pointing out a new feature of the 2004 transfer, or just something that was always there, and the enhanced contrast and colours have brought them out further ? The reason I ask is there is a shot of the jawas at 16'29" ( for example ) on the DVDs where they suddenly look almost orange - but there seems to be a similar effect on my TR47 copy of the DE LDs.

And, my pet hate ( other than R2 glowing in the dark ) is Grebo - regardless of when he shoots, in the 2004 DVDs he's positively luminous ! But again, looking at the originals, he was pretty colourful even then, and I'm wondering if the new microscopically acurate transfers are just revealing these quirks in a particularly unflattering way...?

( None of which means you shouldn't carry on with the work you're doing, of course. )
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Originally posted by: Darth Justin
Originally posted by: jimbo

Why would you want the wolfman back. George Lucas never liked it. Neither did Rick Backer. He said he intended it to be used in the background only and was embarressed to see it in such a prominate place. Though it is strange that Clone Wars put a wolfman Jedi.

The line "Bring me my Shuttle" made no sense. His shuttle was already there.

Why would you want to have the old Emperor scene back. Ian Mcdarmid is the Emperor not an old women and a chimp.


Wolfman was awesome. Just because Lucas and Baker didn't like him doesn't mean we also have to.

Bring my shuttle was fine and much better than what's in there now (sounds nothing frickin like him no matter what you claim it to be). It could've been interpreted as sort of a valet (i.e. they bring the shuttle to the nearby pad to pick him up).

The old Emperor kicks so much ass. Creepy...mysterious. It was perfect. And he/she/it shall remain in my sig forever.


Wolfman did seem out of place there. It just looked fake. I do wish he had replaced him with something that looks better. The replacement alien did not look much better.

Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival was recorded by James Earl Jones. How can it not sound like him. It is him.

The new Emperor scene is much better. Ian McDarmid has a much better voice then Clive Revell. The chimp eyed women doesn't look anything like the Emperor from Return of the Jedi and the prequals. The new dialog is also much better. Its more revealing and enhances the scenes purpose. It also helps show Vaders plan to destroy the Emperor.
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Mverta, could you please have it on your website so that when you click on a picture it opens the full size shot. Great job so far. Are you doing this just for A New Hope or the whole trilogy?
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I just answered my own question, up to a point - try this:

Using TR47, ( or the laser-discs, if you have them ) adjust a key scene to match the 2004 DVDs as best you can - I used the shots of R2 alone in the wilderness - you'll need a little extra contrast and lots of extra colour. Then carry on watching - many of the "flaws" people are complaining about on the new DVDs already exist on the originals - it's just that the heightened contrast & colour is revealing the limitations of the original 1977 film.

So I think the problem isn't that the scene-by-scene adjustments are wrong in the new version, but rather that they weren't done at all - for the most part, it's global tweaks, with the ocasional correction... someone should have gone through with the care and attention that Mike is, but didn't...

...none of which helps with the lame CG & plot changes of course
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Originally posted by: mistertones
Mike,

I'm curious - are the shot-by-shot white-balance differences you're pointing out a new feature of the 2004 transfer,


Yes and no. The original film was color timed in a lab via traditional methods, which tend to be far subtler than today's digital methods, where you can pretty much do anything. 2004 features inconsistency in color timing and audio issues that I can only describe as "inexperienced." They are the kind of mistakes my interns make.

Anyway... we'll get 'em sorted out!

_Mike

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Mike,

Once again, awesome work.

What did you find out about the blue/grey shirts?

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I must say very impressive!!!
Do, or do not. There is no try.
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Mike it's looking good. Are you going to directly use the soundtracks from the LD's? That would be best. Just leave the PCM track. Good luck with it mate. I hope you will take out every single change the special editions made, right down to the uniform flips and updated sabre effects.
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I'm not even sure it was the b-team. I imagine that even if Mike and his squad were going at this as fast as they could, it'd still take about twice as long with roughly the same amount of people as what ILM was given when this got assigned to them.

The production schedule was VERY rushed, unfortunately. The individual corrections that NEEDED to be made were noted, but time dictated they only tackle the bigger ones, along with the new changes and additions added.

I'm betting Mike ends up with a much more luxurious time frame in which to tweak these things to look right.

and as far as the sound goes--can't argue. I think burtt's pretty much lost it as far as the sound goes. He's completely subscribed to the idea that his sound effects are the REAL star of the show, (check out his commentary on ESB..he pretty much admits his intentions with the sound mix) and now that he's got more authority behind the scenes, he can implement that. these sound mixes are very similar to the prequel sound mixes, and those are also too muddy and hot in the low end, and quiet in the dialog and music.
The Best Show You've Never Heard
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I saw some of ANH at Good Guys. The music at the begining of the battle changes the entire feel. It's worse than the CGI. I have to agree that Burtt seems to have lost his touch.


Made for IE Forum's Episode III theme month - May 2005.