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Harmy's RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized Edition HD - V3.1 — Page 52

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Harmy said:

It's gonna happen - there are just some things moving in the background that I can't really talk about (or affect for that matter) that I'm waiting for so as not to do redundant work.

 I suppose this news is what he was talking about?

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Just rewatched Harmy's ROTJ version 1.0 and there were some issues that should be fixed in a later release.

- The composition off Luke and the Rancor is the 2004 version: the matte lines at the Rancor's legs are missing, and the colors are matching. The original version had prominent matte lines and mismatched colors.

- The hand-painted black blobs at the sides of Palpatine's face also are missing (they were removed in the 2004 version, IIRC).

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Harmy has implied that he's not going to continue working on this because of the impending official release, so I wouldn't bother at this point.

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TheHutt:
Yes to the Rancor - I've always wanted to fix that but never had good enough source material.

As to Palapatine, v1.0 of ROTJ is based on HDTV, which had this, so it definitelly hasn't been removed in Despecialized.

Dr. Nick:
Where have I ever implied that? Until there's an actual official announcement, I'm not stopping this project (though it has been on pause for a while now, because I'm super busy in real life, plus I'm waiting for some behind the scenes stuff) and then if there is an announcement, we'd still have to wait and see what the quality is like before abandoning these fan projects - remember the GOUT?

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Doctor Nick said:

Harmy has implied that he's not going to continue working on this because of the impending official release, so I wouldn't bother at this point.

There is no impending official release, there's just the latest in a twenty-year train of hundreds of rumors that hasn't even once panned out.  But hey, maybe this time is totally different than the other hundred and seventy gazillion identical rumors we've seen over the years.  It only has to be right once, right?  Well, unless it never is.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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This might be off topic a bit, but I have a real question in here somewhere.

First off, many, many thanks to harmy. My kids are old enough to see Star Wars now and I've refused to show them the SE versions. I have the old VHS THX remastered letterbox trilogy from 1995, but haven't had a VHS player in over a decade. I ended up letting them watch the 2006 GOUT, but I'm elated that there is a better option out there.

I want to double check that I have the most up-to-date versions. I've gotten the Star Wars v2.5 MKV and the ESB v2.0 MKV. I'm guessing that the RotJ v1.0 is the latest? Hopefully 2.0 will be available by the time the kids are old enough to watch it.

Again, thanks so much for all your hard work.

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Yes, you've got the version numbers correct.

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Harmy said:


As to Palapatine, v1.0 of ROTJ is based on HDTV, which had this, so it definitelly hasn't been removed in Despecialized.

 Concerning those weird black blobs, what reason did they serve added to the sides of Mr. Mcdiarmid's face in Jedi? Personally I would like those unsubtle distractions diminished in 2.0. 

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rmm2 said:

Harmy said:


As to Palapatine, v1.0 of ROTJ is based on HDTV, which had this, so it definitelly hasn't been removed in Despecialized.

 Concerning those weird black blobs, what reason did they serve added to the sides of Mr. Mcdiarmid's face in Jedi? Personally I would like those unsubtle distractions diminished in 2.0. 

 While it's certainly one of the better decisions of the SE (and perhaps the sole good decision of the 2011?), that's really not in line with the goal of the project as I understand it. Maybe the distractions can be minimized with the right luma curve, but I imagine they'll still be visible.

As for their original purpose, I believe there was makeup that smeared onto the hood. They just blacked it out in post.

Technical question: Does this mean that they did not go back to the original elements for the SE in this shot? I'm not too knowledgeable on how most of the SE shots were created. But by the looks of things, the light sabers were all recomposited in ANH and through Dagobah in ESB. The end ESB battle and all of RoTJ have clearly had their colors screwed with, but the elements themselves look the same. 

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I seem to recall that tiny lightbulbs where used inside Palpatines hood to make his eyes glow. The lightsbulbs themselves would be visible by accident as he was moving his head and was therefore covered by a black traveling matte.  

Probably they were much less apparent in theaters compared to home-video formats.

Can't remember if I ever saw a screengrab of it in Team -1's thread though..

Keep up the good work Harmy!

“Stargazing wizards, stare into the night,
Hurricanes and blizzards, here comes the final fight”

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towne32 said:

rmm2 said:

Harmy said:


As to Palapatine, v1.0 of ROTJ is based on HDTV, which had this, so it definitelly hasn't been removed in Despecialized.

 Concerning those weird black blobs, what reason did they serve added to the sides of Mr. Mcdiarmid's face in Jedi? Personally I would like those unsubtle distractions diminished in 2.0. 

 While it's certainly one of the better decisions of the SE (and perhaps the sole good decision of the 2011?), that's really not in line with the goal of the project as I understand it. Maybe the distractions can be minimized with the right luma curve, but I imagine they'll still be visible.

As for their original purpose, I believe there was makeup that smeared onto the hood. They just blacked it out in post.

Technical question: Does this mean that they did not go back to the original elements for the SE in this shot? I'm not too knowledgeable on how most of the SE shots were created. But by the looks of things, the light sabers were all recomposited in ANH and through Dagobah in ESB. The end ESB battle and all of RoTJ have clearly had their colors screwed with, but the elements themselves look the same. 

 Maybe hopefully Harmy will blend them in, which is still in line with the spirit of the original creators purpose of masking whatever it was they were intended to cover, mini lightbulbs glow or errant makeup and such. 

While I am immensely grateful to Harmy for all his work, it is difficult to watch that throne scene and not have your eyes reflexively veer to the "slug blobs". Same could've been said with the outline blocks, or whatever you'd technically call them, that had surrounded the spaceships and star destroyers in the original purist cuts but that have thankfully been erased in Harmy's IV and V despecialized releases.

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rmm2 said:

Maybe hopefully Harmy will blend them in

I hate to speak in absolutes, but that ain't happening.  IIRC Harmy's actually put a hair back onto the film in one scene.  The stated goal of this project is whatever it looked like in theatres, blobs and all.  If someone wants to make a modified partly-specialized version from that, Harmy's fine with that.

Same could've been said with the outline blocks, or whatever you'd technically call them, that had surrounded the spaceships and star destroyers in the original purist cuts but that have thankfully been erased in Harmy's IV and V despecialized releases.

They are still there in both SW Despecialized and ESB Despecialized, but look more like they did in theatres than they did on home video.  Home video releases were overly bright, making the effect stand out worse, much like the blobs.  It's more subtle now (just like in the theatre, you could easily miss it), but it's still very much there, in line with the goals of the project.

EDIT: Found the hair.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Yes, the matte boxes are very much there but I fiddled with the contrast to make sure they were visible as little as possible without loosing too much detail - and I did the same for the Emperor's blobs in ROTJ v1.0 and I will probably use HDTV and do the same for v2.0 as well.

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Harmy said:

Yes, the matte boxes are very much there but I fiddled with the contrast to make sure they were visible as little as possible without loosing too much detail - and I did the same for the Emperor's blobs in ROTJ v1.0 and I will probably use HDTV and do the same for v2.0 as well.

 That's exactly what I was hoping for!

Keeping them there because they're part of the process used to make the film,  but fixing the brightness and contrast so they aren't in your face like in the GOUT :)

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Am I the only one who never noticed the slugs until it was pointed out that they were removed from the Blu Ray?

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Harmy said:

Yes, the matte boxes are very much there but I fiddled with the contrast to make sure they were visible as little as possible without loosing too much detail - and I did the same for the Emperor's blobs in ROTJ v1.0 and I will probably use HDTV and do the same for v2.0 as well.

 Excellent. Thanks. :)

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Harmy,

Love your 2.5 ANH and 2.0 ESB. Any chance of the 2.0 of Jedi getting completed before Ep VII comes out?

Also, has anyone taken your 2.0 version of Empire and subbed out the monkey face for Ian McDiarmid's (edited) SE clips like Darth Editous did to his version of Empire? (Might have been ADigitalMan's version...)

I'm thankful for the restored version(s) as is, of course. I know we all appreciate the hard work and time you've put in to these that you have already done. You can definitely tell the difference between the official blurays, which are just a money-grab, and yours, which are clearly a labor of love.

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lacrowbat said:

Harmy,

Love your 2.5 ANH and 2.0 ESB. Any chance of the 2.0 of Jedi getting completed before Ep VII comes out?

Also, has anyone taken your 2.0 version of Empire and subbed out the monkey face for Ian McDiarmid's (edited) SE clips like Darth Editous did to his version of Empire?

 You could look at Adywan's upcoming ESB: Revisited which makes a brand new Ian Mcdiarmid face, fingers crossed that it'll be out soon. There are also several Harmy-Based projects like kk650's Semi-Specialized Editions amongst other similar projects.

Prequel Fan-Edit thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Yet-another-series-of-prequel-edits/id/17329

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Thanks for the link.

Looks like the kk650 version also uses the monkey face though:

"The original emperor from the theatrical release has been returned (my thanks goes to Adywan for the original emperor footage taken from his Empire Strikes Back colour corrected 'purist' edition)"

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Actually, I think that the original ESB emperor looks much closer to the ROTJ one than the bloated ROTS Darth Shittious they used in the ESB SE, even though it's the same actor. Plus of course, the new dialog is awful. But Adywan was able to create something that has the best of both worlds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0q0CF5Y1cI&ab_channel=Adywanrevisited

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Harmy said:

Actually, I think that the original ESB emperor looks much closer to the ROTJ one than the bloated ROTS Darth Shittious they used in the ESB SE, even though it's the same actor. Plus of course, the new dialog is awful. But Adywan was able to create something that has the best of both worlds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0q0CF5Y1cI&ab_channel=Adywanrevisited

 A vast improvement. 

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Re: blobs and matte boxes--Harmy, I thought you said that the contrast in the original theatres should have been properly adjusted so that they wouldn't have been visible to the audience, and consequently, having them appear would not fit to the actual intent of the project.

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

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Wazzles said:

Am I the only one who never noticed the slugs until it was pointed out that they were removed from the Blu Ray?

 Nope.

Ol’ George has the GOUT, I see.

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chyron8472 said:

Re: blobs and matte boxes--Harmy, I thought you said that the contrast in the original theatres should have been properly adjusted so that they wouldn't have been visible to the audience, and consequently, having them appear would not fit to the actual intent of the project.

Some matte boxes are more visible than others, depending on the brightness of the background (there's one against a Star Destroyer in ESB that's pretty front-and-center).  It's a matter of degree--most of the matte boxes may have been barely visible in the theatres if you looked for them, rather than jumping out at you like they do on the home video releases.  Having them be as obvious as the home video releases would certainly not fit the intent of the project, but so would erasing them altogether.  But there's a few pretty obvious ones that were likely always pretty obvious.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)