Yeah, I was really surprised too - from that one picture, I thought it was print damage but then I took a look at it in the GOUT in motion and it's there throughout the whole shot.
I believe that in SW Tarkin's little metal silver things in his pockets next to his badge used to move position in each shot. I think they "fixed" this in the SE, sorry but I don't have access to the blu ray, or even the DVD for that matter, so I can't check, and I'm not about to dig out my SE VHS tapes :) Seriously though I'm positive that this happened in one or more of the Tarkin scenes. I'm really sorry to be so vague but I really do think it's there.
The Person in Question
I'd love a pre-DC vs. DC/Faces/GOUT comparison. I'm curious about what the pre-DC versions looked like.
Wow they really changed alot but i prefer the orignial versions and fan edits im still looking for the 1997 Special Edition Set which i would prefer over the 2004 set but nice comparison.
*holds tongue*
Literally or metaphorically?
Figuratively. I can't type with one hand....
*holds tongue again*
Comment on the Blu-ray fixes pointed out there's an extra lightsaber glow above Luke in the GOUT. This is a 1997 change.
Star Wars Revisited Wordpress
Star Wars Visual Comparisons WordPress
doubleofive said:
Comment on the Blu-ray fixes pointed out there's an extra lightsaber glow above Luke in the GOUT. This is a 1997 change.
Similar lightsaber FX-artifacting can be seen in TESB at the end of reel 5. (In the shot where Vader is forced off the ledge in the carbon freeze chamber.)
One close-up shot of Vader in the first film during the duel contains a repeated frame when we cut to him in the original film. When they went back to the negative to replace the original lightsaber effects for the dreaded 2004 DVD version they also took the opportunity to restore the missing footage. As this is one single frame we're talking about, I guess there is a possibility that the frame could have been "restored" by digital manipulation if the footage was gone for some reason.
2006 Bonus Feature (#127754 & 127755)
The corresponding frames in the DVD version... Top: Not in the original film Below: Used twice
Not necessarily related but a black line at the top of both frames can be seen in the JSC LD transfer which is much more open in its framing compared to the bonus feature.
I noticed that your comparison lack the tweaked ignition of Ben's lighsaber (they tried to make it a bit more smooth by making him ignite it a few frames prior to the original films jump cut).
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 shot where Luke sees Ben on the Death Star when they're about to escape was altered in that it added a previously unseen frame and deleted another in the process. So same lenght, just begins and ends on different frames.
Frame is not present in the original film:
2006 Bonus Feature #129257, not present in the DVD version:
A 2004 alteration btw.
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
I've encountered this sort of phenomenon in other works. The foreign negative of The Mysterians (1957) has the same type of added/deleted/retained frame count stuff around a number of special effects composites (which are noticeably more transparent compared to the domestic negative).
So, a new book came out and we learned so much, and it is called, “Anguilosaurus, Killer of the Living”.
msycamore said:
The shot where Luke sees Ben on the Death Star when they're about to escape was altered in that it added a previously unseen frame and deleted another in the process. So same lenght, just begins and ends on different frames.
This is further evidence for my idea that the film is or was stored separately by shot.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.
I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!
—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3
DP, delete
It's weird, there were accounts that during the SE restoration, some parts had to be separated by film stock, presumably they had to un-cement the splices, and so forth. There was that anecdote about a space battle scene with a shot of Han where the chemical bath completely dissolved the emulsion.
Maybe only the effects scenes (and shots before/after wipes) were in the o-neg fully edited? I know separate o-neg exists for every individual shot that had effects added (which is why the first shot of R2 and 3PO shakes much less violently, why the remaining original-shoot components of the infamous landspeeder shot are nowhere near as grainy, how they were able to recreate the wipes, and so on).
BTW, the black line in the Vader shot looks like a tape splice (as opposed to a cement splice). Interesting that it's black and not white. Presumably that means the splice was done at a positive generation, not on the negative? This also could lend credence to my theory, related to AntcuFaalb's about the negative not being fully spliced together, that the JSC and GOUT elements were each edited, from scratch, at the interpositive stage.
Judging by the lack of the Tantive orange items and Greedo subtitles, I still think the JSC source could have been one of the earliest fully assembled positives of the film, predating the element used to make the '77 release prints.
EDIT: I just remembered that the JSC source also had printed-in *negative* splice marks (white lines, mentioned in another thread). Meaning it wasn't COMPLETELY spliced together at the positive level...
Gout
SE Shot Has black rounded corners.. iris effect added? or just transfer problem?
I think it's just the higher contrast - you can see the corners being a bit darker in the exact same places in the GOUT too, only it's just brighter and less contrasty over-all.
Okay But I think there is more of the frame visible in the SE also. unless it is my scaling is way out. I trust your judgement though. I thought it was worth flagging up. Not exactly the same frame either the images.
Check that pipe on the left....
Zoomed out?
I think we decided if we take framing into account, we would be overwhelmed as each transfer has slightly different framing.
As for the added frames thing, I'm also not sure on those...
Star Wars Revisited Wordpress
Star Wars Visual Comparisons WordPress
All Flak Bursts Color Changed from Blue/ green to Yellow/orange when this shot was was recomposited. Slight position change also. There is a few more like this but this one is actually really noticeable. The underbelly of the speeder on the left takes a hit in the Gout this is different effect in the Blu ray version.
Ronster said:
Okay But I think there is more of the frame visible in the SE also. unless it is my scaling is way out. I trust your judgement though. I thought it was worth flagging up. Not exactly the same frame either the images.
Check that pipe on the left....
Zoomed out?
The cropping just happens to be poor in the GOUT on that particular reel, cropped way too much. There are of course a lot of reframed shots in the Special Editions but this is not one of them. That LD-master cannot really be used if you're going to measure the "correct" framing in ESB as it have its own variable cropping.
There are a lot of instances of not so obvious reframings in the Special Editions that often happened when they went back to the original negative - Ben and Luke watching Mos Eisley in the distance recieved a tighter framing. Other such examples are where the detention block corridor was altered, the framing was once again made a little tighter, and in other instances it was opened up a bit - Docking Bay 94 shootout. But most differences in framings are so subtle that you can only really spot the differences if you compare with original prints.
When reading Rinzler's Making of ESB again I'm once again reminded of that 99% of the final frames in that book was taken from the 2004/11 video master when it only happened occasionally in his first Making of. :( The alterations are of a more subtle nature in ESB which might explain it but still a disturbing consequence of Lucas tinkering which not even the making of the films can escape. Anyway, this little segment caught my attention regarding the reframed cockpit shots in 1997 and 2004:
While Cokliss did what he could in the hangar, the actors’ back-to-back scenes in the cockpit, over several days, slowly but surely wore them down. “It is detailed, effects-related, and time-consuming work in cramped conditions and, to the observer, is unspectacular,” Arnold writes. This was true despite the fact that Kurtz had asked the art and construction departments to build the cockpit larger than the one used in Star Wars (when Lucas found out, he was less than thrilled—the cramped set of the first film had been designed to simulate the reality of jet fighter and rocketship cockpits, which are just barely big enough for their pilots).
“That cockpit was probably the single worst set we had as far as the actors were concerned,” Kurtz says. “It was very close quarters to start with and a lot had to go on in there. And some of the action as written was very difficult to actually perform in the confines of the cockpit. It’s also very difficult for the actors to work in a situation where they can’t see what’s going on. You have 25 people out there looking at them, but they’re supposed to be looking at asteroids or ships. On the bluescreen stage, I think all the actors felt more like robots.”
When compared, I personally find the cockpit reframings in ESB aesthetically pleasing for the most part and I can see why Lucas did it but it's not the way Kershner and Suschitzky composed the shots. Anyway, let's take a look at this shot in ESB which appear just after Vader have cut Luke's hand:
Original (GOUT)
2004 DVD
One of the small differences is that the light in the left corner of the shot is lit right from the first frame of the shot in the DVD version whereas it doesn't get lit up until the fifth frame (I think) in the original film. Don't ask me how that happened and how I found out, but it's a testament to how fundamentally screwed up the photography is in those abominations. Check it out for yourself.
Was recently performing IVTC on the ROTJ JSC LD for a friend and stumbled upon this:
I'm posting the adjacent frame so you guys can see it's not anything unusual with how the LD-transfer is framed. The GOUT print is quite severely cropped here and the SE seems to be specifically reframed because of this issue. I'm not so familiar with Jedi as with the other two films so I guess those with release prints and in the know how when it comes to this movie needs to verify.
A similar case appear in this shot...
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
Greetings, Exalted Ones. This is my first post in here. First of all, you must know that English is not my native language, so please excuse me if I'll be occasionally or constantly murdering English, I'm not perfect at using it. I have decided to post, because I feel that I need to share my irritation with others, as to how devastating all this digital tinkering that has been over the years is. It's not that bad when it comes to colour, then it is reversible, at least theoretically, however many editors handle that. The worst could happen to a picture, is such a big increase of contrast, that results both in crushing the blacks and the effect of overexposure, which means irreversible loss of details in shades and lights. Green lightsaber in ANH is thousands times better than this, because you can fix and restore that very easily by using appropriate editing tools, whereas once lost details will sadly never be retrieved.
Here are some examples of shots I tweaked in Photoshop, in order to make crushed blacks come out (Image->Adjustments->Shadows/Highlights)
GOUT and 04SE
The same after Photoshop
Look at Han's and Leia's hair, C3PO's head and back, the seats, the left side of the bridge (by the way, are these stars visible through it in 04SE?)
Again GOUT and 04SE
The same after Photoshop
This one really freaks me out. The whole bottom of the star destroyer is nothing but the deepest blackness (ignore JPEG artefacts)
97SE and overexposure in 04SE
^ That's what happens when you hire Lousy Digital to do your restoration work for you :)
Although with that said I would probably advocate that process be done on the crest of Vaders Helmet in the shots mysycamore posted to stop Vader looking super imposed and sort out the lighting issues.
Shame they could not darken where it was actually needed but also overblow shots way beyond what they were originally intended to be. It's actually quite a basic thing brightness and contrast and they failed miserably on probably one of the most basic processes to getting film to look the same throughout.
The Brightness and contrast leaps around willy nilly as does color saturation levels between stock transfer of GOUT and SE.
It's all over the place. And what makes it worse is you have multiple layers in the Star wars which possibly never conformed to one another in the first place. Each need there own separate handling for instance foreground and background then for any additional overlays like Lightsabers or Flashes or what not need to be re-done as cherry's on top as they don't conform to any reality of film in so much as these go on last and are not lumped in with the footage. It's not that complicated but it is much more work than a standard restoration.
Here's that Lighting Fix... I would not be opposed to some revisionism there...
Same fix done to Gout... Gout looks superior. The Special edition manages to make him look more super imposed even with the lighting fix to his helmet just in general his whole body looks like he has been stuck on there.
Both the Brightness and the contrast on the special edition version have been drastically reduced giving him this super imposed look. That is the main problem. Here is the special edition matched to the gouts brightness and contrast with a bit of color correction this is what I think it should look like or something like this. THere is also the problem of the cyan light which is a bad choice considering he is not surrounded by cyan lights. and the color light does not match the background.
Basically I think he has been recomposited on this shot because you cannot get him to settle in to the background without altering him separately. There is also the circular hole under his chin where we can see through his head out the other side to a piece of the background
Quick question. I recently watched the Blu-ray for first time and only briefly dabbled in the 97 SE and 2004 DVDs. In ANH, when 3PO and R2 land on tatooine and are wandering around in the desert, it always seemed as though the sky was partly cloudy to overcast in most shots. Now the sky is blue. My question is, is the blue sky how it was originally shot, even if it was digitally enhanced? Is the blurry sky a result of fading filmstock/vhs/laserdisc/ect? Basically what I want to know is that, hypothetically, if old versions of the films were scanned/cleaned/adjusted and whatnot, would the sky be blue or more grey and/or overcast?
The sky was redone for the 97SE. It was probably filmed somewhere in California just for the SE.
Don't know if this could be considered a change, or just a color regrade... 2004 (top) Vs 1997 (bottom):
Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com