Empire Of Dreams: Something I noticed about the 2004/2006 DVDs...

Author: compyislife
Date: 19-Mar-2012, 3:14 AM

Author: compyislife
Time: 19-Mar-2012 3:14 AM (Edited)
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In the documentary “Empire of Dreams” that came on the 2004 set’s bonus disk, there is some unaltered Star Wars footage in the part where they talk about the opening day. This must have come from GOUT, since they didn’t have any other sources of it that hadn’t been changed. This documentary is at a widescreen ratio, and shockingly, so is the footage I’m talking about. So, since it was shown clearly to be widescreen, why was it letterboxed on the 2006 bonus disk? I know it was from the Laserdisc master, but if it had already been corrected to be anamorphic, then why would Lucasfilm release the square one?

Here’s a DVD screenshot that I took in VLC:

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk231/compyislife/Pre-ANHCrawl_Documentary.png

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Author: Moth3r
Time: 19-Mar-2012 4:48 AM
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The footage in Empire of Dreams didn't come from the same source as the Def Coll LD/GOUT DVD.

I don't think it was ever resolved exactly where it came from, prev. thread was here:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/What-is-the-source-of-Empire-of-Dreams/topic/13538/

Although the footage is anamorphic 16:9, it appears to be an upscale from a native 4:3 source, and I recall Harmy saying that there are no complete shots present so it was no use in his De-specialized Edition.

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Author: TServo2049
Time: 19-Mar-2012 11:16 AM (Edited)
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I'll sum up what I wrote in that thread:

Most clips are from the 97 SEs (and not the official released transfers either). The scenes that were CGI'ed for the SE were replaced with very crummy-looking, low-res transfers of LFL archival prints. They seem to have even less vertical image detail than the GOUT.

The dailies, outtakes, and raw effects footage have similar quality issues - in fact, I noticed the same jaggies in some of the clips in "ILM: Creating the Impossible", so maybe LFL transferred all this stuff at the same time?

Author: doubleofive
Time: 19-Mar-2012 11:24 AM
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And the whole thing is interlaced to heck.

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Author: Mike O
Time: 19-Mar-2012 12:06 PM
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So the hope for that was dashed too, huh? Lucas probably really has destroyed every print and there really isn't any way to restore the OOT...

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