4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 14

I'm just saying...  I just don't want to get my hopes up. 

While it's true there's no real way to know, didn't this all start with someone's resume who said a restoration was completed during his tenure? If that's true, the footage in the demo reel should be "finished" at least to the point that someone could say they were completed.

Remember the escape pod door... it's blue on the demo reels... grey on bd. Methinks this dcp is unrelated

DarthShackleford said:

Does this mean there's now a better chance that the RMW scan could be OOT? Weren't we assuming '97 because we thought it tied into the Plaza? Or did the screenshot comparison rule out OOT?

It was only a hunch that the Plaza was showing the RMW work, a hunch that was clearly wrong if the colors were the same as the 2011 release.

Here's another comparison between releases:

Top Blu-ray, Bottom RMW.

Top corrected GOUT, bottom corrected 97 SE:

It seems like the lightsaber compositing of the RMW matches the Blu-ray, but that could simply be because the original lightsaber elements are faded, accounting for similar results in both shots. If they simply scanned the '97 version, it would seem to me that the compositing would match the bottom shot. So I'm still thinking that the RMW is a new 4K scan of the original elements which have been assembled in a way which is similar to the 2011 version.

gizzy2000 said:

I think the RMW looks more like the '97 SE than the blu ray

 In terms of overall color balance, absolutely.

However, I don't think that color would be much of a factor when determining the origin of a particular element, as any scan of the original negative would require new colortiming, which could look like whatever they wanted it to look like. The area of interest to me would be the lightsaber effects, as these are the only parts of the shot which would need to be scanned from separate low quality (and thus probably more degraded) originals. If you look at the progression of Vader's saber from the GOUT to the RMW version, it gets progressively wider and blurrier. If the RMW shot was simply scanned from the SE interpositive made in '97, there would be no need to re-composite the lightsabers and Vader's saber would be as sharp as it is in the '97 screenshot. As it appears even more degraded than in the Blu-ray, the logical answer is that it couldn't possibly be a simple scan of the '97 SE.

Short answer: A '97 SE scan would have identical lightsabers to the '97 screenshot. They don't, so it's not a scan of the '97 print.

gizzy2000 said:

yes I think you might be right. Now the question is, what is the purpose of the scan then?

 That's the million dollar question, now isn't it ;)

gizzy2000 said:

I also went back to page 2 of this thread and looked at the lightsaber flash comparisons and you can tell that (other than color) the flashes are identical to the blu ray and not the GOUT. The only possibility is that they color corrected the blu ray and edited out SE changes and re-added the real scenes, which honestly, I could live with, if they do it right

 I think this is a more a result of the highly flawed transfer of the GOUT... the contrast and colors were all mucked up iirc

gizzy2000 said:

I also went back to page 2 of this thread and looked at the lightsaber flash comparisons and you can tell that (other than color) the flashes are identical to the blu ray and not the GOUT. The only possibility is that they color corrected the blu ray and edited out SE changes and re-added the real scenes, which honestly, I could live with, if they do it right

I am sure that this is a different scan than the Blu-ray, because if you look at my comparisons the new version has a different warping pattern than the Blu-ray:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/83700/picture:1

My conclusions:

This is a new 4K scan of the original negatives and elements, with an improved dirt and scratches detection and elimination algorithm (they boast on their website that manual cleanup is not done on the films they process). It has new colortiming, similar but not always identical to the '97 version of the film (see the running stormtroopers and the green C-3PO). There is no evidence for or against '97 SE changes, but as this is not a simple scan of the '97 interpositive, such changes seem unlikely to be included. The evidence leans in favor of an OUT release which has yet to be announced by Disney.

Not really - like Neverar pointed out, based on the pictures he posted, this is indeed a completely different scan.

I'm starting to think this is just the 2011 BR scan but before they passed it back to Lucas to muck about with. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing.

Edit: Yes Harmy, NeverarGreat's screenshot is convincing though. It's hard to argue that that isn't a scan of a different film cell. I just tried to make it line up exactly myself and it's impossible.

Now I'm back to confused again LOL

NeverarGreat said:

I am sure that this is a different scan than the Blu-ray, because if you look at my comparisons the new version has a different warping pattern than the Blu-ray:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/83700/picture:1

My conclusions:

This is a new 4K scan of the original negatives and elements, with an improved dirt and scratches detection and elimination algorithm (they boast on their website that manual cleanup is not done on the films they process). It has new colortiming, similar but not always identical to the '97 version of the film (see the running stormtroopers and the green C-3PO). There is no evidence for or against '97 SE changes, but as this is not a simple scan of the '97 interpositive, such changes seem unlikely to be included. The evidence leans in favor of an OUT release which has yet to be announced by Disney.

Sounds like a possible scenario, and very much a Disney like approach - release the classic original films but with new digital compositing.

It should be noted that the before and after sample with the droids in the desert seems to be the old 2004 Lowry fiasco. It's old.

But the short segments in the other demo reel looks fantastic in terms of color and appears to be from a different transfer, still the ugly digital lightsaber compositing introduced in 2004 is present.

darklordoftech said:

msycamore said:

It should be noted that the before and after sample with the droids in the desert seems to be the old 2004 Lowry fiasco. It's old.

What before and after sample? I didn't see anything that shows the droids in the desert.

 Posted earlier in the thread: http://vimeo.com/86986263