StarWarsLegacy.com - The Official Thread — Page 37

lucasdroid said:

How is this going to be better than the version Reliance is doing?

 It's not the Special Edition, for one.

The answer is I don't know that mine will be better than Reliance's and I hope that there is an official restoration being done which blows mine out of the water.  Nothing would make me happier.  Knowing what I have to put into every frame in order to get the most out of it, if there was such an official release it would be legendary for multiple reasons.  I care only that the film is preserved to the best degree it can be, and if and when somebody else releases a 4K, perfect restoration, I will happily lay down my mouse. :)

_Mike

YAY, who doesn't love videos?

End Credits Restoration

awesome.

Mike! Nice to know you're still alive and kicking! Thanks for that great little preview and awesome news about your progress.  Hopefully Disney will knock on your door and make an offer. 

Mavimao said:

Hopefully Disney will knock on your door and make an offer. 

...otherwise, hopefully they don't come knocking at all ;-)

I hope you're keeping track of your man hours, so you can bill Disney later, Mike.  Thanks for doing this, even if I never see it!

Mike, I've been wondering when we'd hear from you again.  It's always great to see updates from Legacy.  Thanks!

Mavimao said:

Hopefully Disney will knock on your door and make an offer. 

They'd have to bring a handful of Fox's lawyers and a mountain of paperwork with them =| And one of those cutesy Tinkerbell castle videos to splice into the beginning of the film.

Regarding the above still from Reliance, although the saber colors are not original (Vader's did not have a white core in this shot, and Ben's saber is more cyan throughout the film), the rest of the shot is obviously a vast improvement from what we've seen, with many sublime elements to it.  Let's hope this is the original, and 4K.  It's what we've always wanted.

_Mike

I don't really think those sabers look like the originals - they have the look (if not the color) of the 2004 re-composites - the thickness of the cores actually seems to be quite correct in the 2004 master and we're only used to thicker cores, because most of the home video releases of the original had their whites blown out but it's more about the edges of the glows being too well defined, where from what I've seen they were much more feathered in the original.

mverta said:

YAY, who doesn't love videos?

End Credits Restoration

Thanks for posting. So it wasn't a color channel misalignment after all, interesting. Is that how they treated the A long time ago - card as well?

You say the blue shadow is consistent across every frame in the entire sequence, does that include the credits before the dissolve with the star background? I'm only asking because of the separate elements and the early revision done during '77.

Yes this blue drop shadow is in the first credits over the starfield as well.

The shadow alignment is similar to Greedo's, except that it's blue not black and the letters are a lot thinner. I wonder why they changed the credit's font though for Empire Strikes Back?

You're looking at an anamorphic frame, which appears 50% squeezed/thinner in the horizontal (or 200% stretched in the vertical, technically).

I think your avatar needs a drop shadow, now.

No I mean the Greedo font is bold.

It would be nice if Disney bought M Verta's restoration for release, could work perfectly alongside their commissioned 4k restoration of (what we're all assuming is) the 1997 SE. It would also get a lot more disgruntled fans back on-side by showing the SW-fan community they are listening and willing to engage.

Thanks for the sentiments, guys - much appreciated.  You know, garbage in/garbage out.  I am amazed with what, given enough time and love and effort, we can pull out of prints.  But every single day I work on Legacy I think, "Damn, if only I had the negative."  I know it's severely damaged; I know the color separation masters are incomplete, but if you're willing to put enough work into it AND have those original sources, I can only dream of the results one could achieve.  

I've said many times that I know what goes into each frame of Legacy is not sustainable or reasonable for a commercial restoration, but what I HOPE is that a "reasonable" restoration PLUS original materials will yield something better than I could do.  I see serious potential in those Reliance clips.  I'm so rooting for that.

There have been many restoration efforts over the years; I am on record many times for having said that we never knew what the future could be, and should hope for the best but prepare for the worst, but I don't think ANY of us could've imagined Lucas suddenly cashing out of Star Wars altogether and selling to Disney.  There is money to be made in a commercial 4K release of the original Star Wars; we all know it.  There was almost zero chance before now; there is a chance now.  But again, until we all have that perfect, pristine 4K original in our grubby little hands, we gotta keep at it.  

Personally, viewing this entire movie frame by frame at 800% has given me more respect for the film, for the medium, and for the amazing tools we have at our disposal.  I've learned or discovered dozens of image processing techniques which I now use daily in my other work, and it continues to be a lot of fun.  I just can't imagine regretting a second of it!

_Mike

mverta said:

...I don't think ANY of us could've imagined Lucas suddenly cashing out of Star Wars altogether and selling to Disney.

A black shadow of sadness crept over me the other day, when it occurred to me that I will be bitter about this for the rest of my life, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Just went through this thread and watched all the videos I could find.
This project looks amazing! I just registered at the Legacy website!