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Post #767663

Author
CatBus
Parent topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/767663/action/topic#767663
Date created
3-May-2015, 4:43 PM

There's lots of things that complicate any color correction evaluations.

First off, nobody's color memory is perfect.  And I say this with the utmost respect for people who do this professionally, and who clearly have a better memory for such things than I do, but the memories of humans are faulty, period.  Nothing matches a good objective reference, and, well, to borrow from Monty Python: We've already got one.  It's very nice.

Secondly, objective references aren't identical.  Harmy used a high-quality scan of a Technicolor print.  The person in question, even when they were using a reference all those decades ago, was, at best, using fast-fading 35mm filmstock, already several years old and nowhere near its original colors.  Even before fading, the Technicolor and other 35mm prints may have had different color characteristics, and may have looked a little different when projected--but the Technicolor print retained its color, while the other 35mm prints lost it very, very quickly.

Thirdly, the source for most of the DeEd's is the Blu-rays.  They have already been heavily manipulated, and not all of that manipulation is reversible.  Sometimes Harmy needs to choose a least bad approximation of the Technicolor prints, because an exact match is either not possible or not desirable for other reasons.

I'm not saying it can't be improved--I'm sure it can.  But Harmy is sitting on a copy of pretty much the definitive color reference for this film.  That is much, much better than the best-retained memories and gut feelings of even the best color experts around.

Now, for Empire?  Gut feelings have a lot more value there, as no objective reference exists, AFAIK, although I believe some of the Empire prints faded significantly slower than others, so they may be useful.  Jedi was filmed on color-stable filmstock, so more-or-less objective references likely abound.