mverta said:
...But again, until we all have that perfect, pristine 4K original in our grubby little hands, we gotta keep at it.
_Mike
You know what? If the fact that it was in 1080 as opposed to 4K was the only thing wrong with it, I think my quest would be over.
-G
I take that back. I'll take the 4K please. :)
-G
Having worked in 4K for a long time now - 10 years+ - I think I would be a hard sell on a 1/4 of the resolution 2K, personally. There really is a large difference in detail. But honestly, there's almost no way if a restoration is being done that it's not being done at 4K. No matter how they release it, that would just be silly at this point.
_Mike
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Yes, but in the past, like when the OT was originally scanned for the 2004 DVD (which I believe was in 2002), the standards were different. Did they even do 4k restorations in 2002?
[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]
Not restorations, per se, but we regularly scanned film at 4k then. The scanners weren't what they are today, though.
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No matter what, we are more likely to get something better under Disney than what we would have gotten under Lucas. I bet whatever comes out this year is not exactly what we want, but it will be closer, even if just better color!
-G
I'm pretty much counting on the very day I finally finish Legacy, they announce a 4K restoration of the original. That would be just about the way shit goes.
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But even so Mike, your version may look better - not all 4k restorations are the same. If they made it look as good as Robocop remastered looks, then no problem I'd love to see that. However, I still think they're only scanning the 1997 o-neg, after which all the 2004 effects will be re-added.
[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]
Well consider this: About 95% of the Special Edition is the original film. We've all spent seasons "patching" restorations with varying materials. It's a helluva lot easier to patch 5% than to do the whole thing end-to-end, take it from me. The issue with patching the Lowry restoration is that its such a disaster it's like having to do the whole thing anyway. So if they get the look right, if they get the tone right, if they get all the little details right, we'd be a long way towards Nirvana. The only thing I know is that even with the negative, the film needs a giant heaping fuckload of work.
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In despecialized v2.5, I still didn't remove all of the changes (I left in the new wipes and some of the less obvious re-composites) and the run-time of the shots I did despecialize still mounts to almost 20 minutes not counting the credits (which would add a few more minutes of the runtime still), so that's much more than 5%.
Oh, okay, then 85% of the way there. That's not bad, and I don't necessarily think the wipes are absolutely essential keepers, personally. I am, but that's my source.
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mverta said:
Well consider this: About 95% of the Special Edition is the original film. We've all spent seasons "patching" restorations with varying materials. It's a helluva lot easier to patch 5% than to do the whole thing end-to-end, take it from me. The issue with patching the Lowry restoration is that its such a disaster it's like having to do the whole thing anyway. So if they get the look right, if they get the tone right, if they get all the little details right, we'd be a long way towards Nirvana. The only thing I know is that even with the negative, the film needs a giant heaping fuckload of work.
Yes, if their restoration looks good. As you mentioned the Lowry restoration isn't great, it all depends on how the restoration looks.
On another note, I'd like it if they'd start putting 4k releases on "disc 2" of BD releases, that would actually encourage me to add more BDs to my library (which already has quite a few). Of course they won't, but it's not a bad idea to give your customers the best product you can!
[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]
Is there truth to the rumour that Lucasfilm had "restored" the whole film before adding the SE additions? Meaning, they recomposited all of the original effects and outputted to film, but cut them out and put them aside?
If so, I can imagine Disney releasing that. Not ideal, but your average Joe wouldn't care.
What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.
iirc they photochemically restored the film. So at the least the parts that were faded and didnt need recompositing got put back onto film. (since thats part of the color correction process. Afaik you cant actually "unfade" a print.) So any scenes with cgi additions but no composited elements are probably safe at the very least.
jero32 said:
So any scenes with cgi additions but no composited elements are probably safe at the very least.
Minus the shots that were destroyed during the clean up process:
Tanaka: I remember when we were working on the Star Wars restoration, that was a different process. I think we optically recreated interpositives. But in order to do this, it went through some kind of warm chemical bath cleansing. The weird thing about Star Wars was that it was made up of different film stocks, so it went through this bath and they didn’t know what would come out on the other end...
Parker: You mean if it would survive or not? ‘George we might destroy your entire film, but it’s... we think it’s going to be OK.’
Tanaka: There’s a space battle shot and a close-up on Hans Solo, and the original negative is coming out of this cleaning solution and it’s just acetate.
Parker: It’s all clear. Oh no, did the bath dissolve it?
Tanaka: Yeah, it dissolved it, depending on the film stock.
Oh. eh fuck.Although i hope that only happened once or twice before realising this was not the way to go?
The irony of all this is that complete versions of the original 1977 film presumably still exist in Lucasfilm's possession. Maybe not ones in good enough quality to intercut with the original negative, but this claim that NO elements exist is BS.
It may be dirty and damaged from years of use, but the early interpositive that was used for the Japanese Special Collection laserdisc and other 80s home video transfers (the one with the big film cement blobs at almost every shot change) must still exist. From what I can tell, it still existed, with virtually intact color, in 1995. I am positing this because the collectible 70mm film cells seem to have come from that source. I finally found one on eBay that is the last frame of a shot, and the seller put in an enlarged scan of it. There is clearly a cement blob there - can someone check it against the JSC?
And there was another one that was on eBay which was a frame that had the edge code:
Plus sign, square, triangle denotes the film stock comes from 1995. I looked up "386", and it identifies the print as being on one of the Kodak EXR x386 safety stocks (some were acetate, some were ESTAR). This confirmed my suspicion (originally due to the lack of sound striping) that the 70mm film cells for the first film (unlike the sound-striped Empire/Jedi cells, which respectively have 1979 and 1982 date codes) were cut from a new blowup created expressly to chop up into cells.
Point is, a circa-1977 IP existed in Lucasfilm or Fox's holdings, with intact color, 20 years ago. If it was stored well enough to retain its color from 1977 to 1995, I'd presume it was put back into storage and probably retained its color as well from 1995 to today...?
Again, no idea if it'd be in good enough condition for an official release (probably not?)
Edit: made a mistake in what cement blobs we were talking about
What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.
That frame is mirrored but anyway, in the GOUT source there sure is glue marks at the bottom because I remember fixing that frame because it had been "cleaned up" by their DVNR in 1993 leaving some extra aliasing where the glue marks were.
By the way, after some more analyzing of some frames from the Reliance clip, I'm starting to believe it's a new scan or something we haven't seen before. Not only is it less cropped on all sides, (especially left, right and bottom) but it's also less "eaten up" by DVNR which can even be seen through vimeo's compression. Look at Obi-Wan's lightsaber core here: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/109157
I'm starting to think Disney is working from new scans or something, but making their own special edition. The new lightsaber glow looks very photoshop-ish to me.
OK, so the source IP may not have been the "early" one then. Point is, an early-generation element with intact color existed in '95, even if it was unusable for the SE, and would probably be unsuitable for the kind of super-clean restorations we get nowadays.
TServo2049 said:
The irony of all this is that complete versions of the original 1977 film presumably still exist in Lucasfilm's possession. Maybe not ones in good enough quality to intercut with the original negative, but this claim that NO elements exist is BS.
It may be dirty and damaged from years of use, but the early interpositive that was used for the Japanese Special Collection laserdisc and other 80s home video transfers (the one with the big film cement blobs at almost every shot change) must still exist. From what I can tell, it still existed, with virtually intact color, in 1995. I am positing this because the collectible 70mm film cells seem to have come from that source. I finally found one on eBay that is the last frame of a shot, and the seller put in an enlarged scan of it. There is clearly a cement blob there - can someone check it against the JSC?
Splice glue match Technidisc/THX LD's source.
JSC:
Technidisc SWE:
Even the 1997 Special Edition "restoration" used an interpositive in order to restore certain scenes back then.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
The JSC is so much sharper than the Technidisc SWE, as expected. It's crazy.
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You_Too said:
That frame is mirrored but anyway, in the GOUT source there sure is glue marks at the bottom because I remember fixing that frame because it had been "cleaned up" by their DVNR in 1993 leaving some extra aliasing where the glue marks were.
By the way, after some more analyzing of some frames from the Reliance clip, I'm starting to believe it's a new scan or something we haven't seen before. Not only is it less cropped on all sides, (especially left, right and bottom) but it's also less "eaten up" by DVNR which can even be seen through vimeo's compression. Look at Obi-Wan's lightsaber core here: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/109157
I'm starting to think Disney is working from new scans or something, but making their own special edition. The new lightsaber glow looks very photoshop-ish to me.
That's my conclusion as well:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/4K-restoration-on-Star-Wars/topic/16857/page/14/
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OK, so does this mean the Technidisc/GOUT IP retained its color into the 90s? How does that explain the somewhat desaturated and neutral look of the GOUT?
My original assumption was that either the source element wasn't fully timed, or that it was done in telecine to compensate for fade. The 1983 Spanish-dubbed LPP print and the 1989 French widescreen laserdisc seem to come from a source that had the same variations as the GOUT, and both have certain scenes with pinkish or bluish casts (the French LD is worse, I had assumed it had been due to another 6 years of fading on the source element).
The 70mm cells show the gold cast on Tatooine, the green-blue tinge to the Death Star interiors, and so forth - quite close to the IB Technicolor (including another IB print which made its way into the hands of a British film-cutter, who has been selling it piece by piece on eBay UK). And as I said, the blowup that was chopped up to make the cells was printed on 1995 stock.
So was the GOUT neutralized in telecine even though it came from a fully timed IP? The Technidisc does seem to have more of the original color timing in evidence, but even that isn't perfect. I don't know what to believe anymore...
AntcuFaalb said:
The JSC is so much sharper than the Technidisc SWE, as expected. It's crazy.
My SWE capture is quite a poor one though, but yes, the difference is night and day.
Anyway, if an official restoration is under way or planned and they are going back to the negative, new digital recompositing are to be expected, so what you're doing Mike is very important for the film no matter what.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com