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Sources on the Special Edition — Page 3

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Knightmessenger said:

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask but why was there all this talk of Lowry restoring the films in 2004? It’s like people forgot there was a restoration done in 1997, why did the films need to be restored again 7 years later?

It may have been that 2004 was a digitization/restoration project more than a flat restoration project.

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Knightmessenger said:

none said:

skyjedi2005 wrote:

I think there was a work in progress cgi x-wing on the John Knoll books cdrom meant for when they started discussion early in the nineties the special edition.

I think it was called 365 days or something, just a lol quality animated computer model i think.  Not sure if its the same as the one none suggested but probably it is.

Not what I was suggesting good remembering.  Have the book, will dig it out.

3 pages here’s the text:

pg.115

The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition

I had just finished the final “final” on The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition.  It was a Friday (in January 1997) and I was at ILM’s wrap party for A New Hope Special Edition.  There were tents in the courtyard, everyone was having a good time, and I ran into George, who said - and this was exactly six days before we were supposed to ship the last CG film out for Empire - “I have one more shot I want to do for Empire.  But we can talk abut it Monday.”

And I said, “No, no - we have to talk about this now!  What is it?”

“After Han’s Falcon is parked on the Star Destroyer,” he said, “it’s not clear that Boba Fett is in the junk, and that’s he’s following Han.  I think we need one more shot in there to explain what’s going on.”

So that night I went home and got out my Art of The Empire Strikes Back book and used it as reference for a really quick CG model of Boba Fett’s ship, Slave 1.  I paired that with an already constructed CG Millennium Falcon model.

Over the weekend I cobbled together an animatic (a three-dimensional digital storyboard) of Slave 1 clandestinely following the Falcon, and showed it to George on Monday (top right, a wire-frame of BG1 - the “Boba Fett one” shot).  He had a couple of comments on the timing, so we started a revision.  Meanwhile, Rod Woodall had been working, as a prersonal projct, on building a detailed CG model of Slave 1, so I got him to ive me a copy with the textures.  The rest of that Monday we worked on the shot revision, also completing the CG version of Slave 1.  On Tuesday morning, I showed George the revision of the animatic, and he approved it.  The afternoon was spent lighting the shot, and by the end of the evening I was pretty much satisfied.  I spent Wednesday continuing to light and render elements.  Thursday, I put the comp together, and filmed it Thursday night.  We screened the completed version Friday morning , and George gave it the final thumbs-up (bottom right, final frame).  If anything had gone wrong during that weekmk we wouldn’t missed the deadline.  (Other sequences were also enhanced in The Empire Strikes Back Special  Edition.  Opposite, Howie Weed in the wampa suit.)

doubleofive wrote: I have scans of all of those magazines

If someone’s got the Cinefex 69, would love to read them.

Interesting that that added shot of Boba Fett following the falcon was the last addition made to the 97 version. Typical of Lucas to think we need to be shown everything as if we can’t figure it out Boba followed the falcon in the original version. But it’s not a terrible alteration, it just makes the surprise by Lando slightly less shocking.
But the stock footage of Jedi added is worse.

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask but why was there all this talk of Lowry restoring the films in 2004? It’s like people forgot there was a restoration done in 1997, why did the films need to be restored again 7 years later?

It was a different type of restoration. The 97 was a standard photo-chemical restoration, which can only do so much. Lowry’s was digital, and they were able to extensively clean the films and remove any hint of damage- damage that couldn’t be removed for the 97.

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Wazzles said:

Knightmessenger said:

none said:

skyjedi2005 wrote:

I think there was a work in progress cgi x-wing on the John Knoll books cdrom meant for when they started discussion early in the nineties the special edition.

I think it was called 365 days or something, just a lol quality animated computer model i think.  Not sure if its the same as the one none suggested but probably it is.

Not what I was suggesting good remembering.  Have the book, will dig it out.

3 pages here’s the text:

pg.115

The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition

I had just finished the final “final” on The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition.  It was a Friday (in January 1997) and I was at ILM’s wrap party for A New Hope Special Edition.  There were tents in the courtyard, everyone was having a good time, and I ran into George, who said - and this was exactly six days before we were supposed to ship the last CG film out for Empire - “I have one more shot I want to do for Empire.  But we can talk abut it Monday.”

And I said, “No, no - we have to talk about this now!  What is it?”

“After Han’s Falcon is parked on the Star Destroyer,” he said, “it’s not clear that Boba Fett is in the junk, and that’s he’s following Han.  I think we need one more shot in there to explain what’s going on.”

So that night I went home and got out my Art of The Empire Strikes Back book and used it as reference for a really quick CG model of Boba Fett’s ship, Slave 1.  I paired that with an already constructed CG Millennium Falcon model.

Over the weekend I cobbled together an animatic (a three-dimensional digital storyboard) of Slave 1 clandestinely following the Falcon, and showed it to George on Monday (top right, a wire-frame of BG1 - the “Boba Fett one” shot).  He had a couple of comments on the timing, so we started a revision.  Meanwhile, Rod Woodall had been working, as a prersonal projct, on building a detailed CG model of Slave 1, so I got him to ive me a copy with the textures.  The rest of that Monday we worked on the shot revision, also completing the CG version of Slave 1.  On Tuesday morning, I showed George the revision of the animatic, and he approved it.  The afternoon was spent lighting the shot, and by the end of the evening I was pretty much satisfied.  I spent Wednesday continuing to light and render elements.  Thursday, I put the comp together, and filmed it Thursday night.  We screened the completed version Friday morning , and George gave it the final thumbs-up (bottom right, final frame).  If anything had gone wrong during that weekmk we wouldn’t missed the deadline.  (Other sequences were also enhanced in The Empire Strikes Back Special  Edition.  Opposite, Howie Weed in the wampa suit.)

doubleofive wrote: I have scans of all of those magazines

If someone’s got the Cinefex 69, would love to read them.

Interesting that that added shot of Boba Fett following the falcon was the last addition made to the 97 version. Typical of Lucas to think we need to be shown everything as if we can’t figure it out Boba followed the falcon in the original version. But it’s not a terrible alteration, it just makes the surprise by Lando slightly less shocking.
But the stock footage of Jedi added is worse.

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask but why was there all this talk of Lowry restoring the films in 2004? It’s like people forgot there was a restoration done in 1997, why did the films need to be restored again 7 years later?

It was a different type of restoration. The 97 was a standard photo-chemical restoration, which can only do so much. Lowry’s was digital, and they were able to extensively clean the films and remove any hint of damage- damage that couldn’t be removed for the 97.

It still looked pretty darn good already (see Empire of Dreams) and didn’t need to have the colors f’d up. I don’t remember seeing any damage or flaws with the 97 film print. But maybe that’s just because I don’t have a better version of the 97 than widescreen vhs.

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Knightmessenger said:

Wazzles said:

Knightmessenger said:

none said:

skyjedi2005 wrote:

I think there was a work in progress cgi x-wing on the John Knoll books cdrom meant for when they started discussion early in the nineties the special edition.

I think it was called 365 days or something, just a lol quality animated computer model i think.  Not sure if its the same as the one none suggested but probably it is.

Not what I was suggesting good remembering.  Have the book, will dig it out.

3 pages here’s the text:

pg.115

The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition

I had just finished the final “final” on The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition.  It was a Friday (in January 1997) and I was at ILM’s wrap party for A New Hope Special Edition.  There were tents in the courtyard, everyone was having a good time, and I ran into George, who said - and this was exactly six days before we were supposed to ship the last CG film out for Empire - “I have one more shot I want to do for Empire.  But we can talk abut it Monday.”

And I said, “No, no - we have to talk about this now!  What is it?”

“After Han’s Falcon is parked on the Star Destroyer,” he said, “it’s not clear that Boba Fett is in the junk, and that’s he’s following Han.  I think we need one more shot in there to explain what’s going on.”

So that night I went home and got out my Art of The Empire Strikes Back book and used it as reference for a really quick CG model of Boba Fett’s ship, Slave 1.  I paired that with an already constructed CG Millennium Falcon model.

Over the weekend I cobbled together an animatic (a three-dimensional digital storyboard) of Slave 1 clandestinely following the Falcon, and showed it to George on Monday (top right, a wire-frame of BG1 - the “Boba Fett one” shot).  He had a couple of comments on the timing, so we started a revision.  Meanwhile, Rod Woodall had been working, as a prersonal projct, on building a detailed CG model of Slave 1, so I got him to ive me a copy with the textures.  The rest of that Monday we worked on the shot revision, also completing the CG version of Slave 1.  On Tuesday morning, I showed George the revision of the animatic, and he approved it.  The afternoon was spent lighting the shot, and by the end of the evening I was pretty much satisfied.  I spent Wednesday continuing to light and render elements.  Thursday, I put the comp together, and filmed it Thursday night.  We screened the completed version Friday morning , and George gave it the final thumbs-up (bottom right, final frame).  If anything had gone wrong during that weekmk we wouldn’t missed the deadline.  (Other sequences were also enhanced in The Empire Strikes Back Special  Edition.  Opposite, Howie Weed in the wampa suit.)

doubleofive wrote: I have scans of all of those magazines

If someone’s got the Cinefex 69, would love to read them.

Interesting that that added shot of Boba Fett following the falcon was the last addition made to the 97 version. Typical of Lucas to think we need to be shown everything as if we can’t figure it out Boba followed the falcon in the original version. But it’s not a terrible alteration, it just makes the surprise by Lando slightly less shocking.
But the stock footage of Jedi added is worse.

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask but why was there all this talk of Lowry restoring the films in 2004? It’s like people forgot there was a restoration done in 1997, why did the films need to be restored again 7 years later?

It was a different type of restoration. The 97 was a standard photo-chemical restoration, which can only do so much. Lowry’s was digital, and they were able to extensively clean the films and remove any hint of damage- damage that couldn’t be removed for the 97.

It still looked pretty darn good already (see Empire of Dreams) and didn’t need to have the colors f’d up. I don’t remember seeing any damage or flaws with the 97 film print. But maybe that’s just because I don’t have a better version of the 97 than widescreen vhs.

That master is definitely a little dirty. Look at some of the cockpit shots during the Death Star battle. I’m not sure if it’s visible on the VHS, but on the Laserdisc there is a good little bit of dirt there.

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There was definitely some evidence of dirt in the '97 SE’s. The lightsaber duel on Dagobah is a good example. One thing I also noticed was a big speck of dirt at the beginning of the shot of Luke igniting his lightsaber at the star of the carbon freezing chamber duel that was present on the pre-1995 VHS releases had returned in the SE.