I want my kids to see the unaltered Original Trilogy in a real theater — Page 2

The GOUT *is* a transfer of a 35mm print.  It's just an extremely poor DVD encoding of that transfer.

Yeah I've often thought that an OT.com conference would be awesome.  The problem is we're spread out all over the world.  And many of us don't have a lot of money.  Hmm, maybe we can get George to sponsor it....

I'm telling you, next time there's a Star Wars Celebration in Indianapolis, we all have to go, at least to picket outside and have our own convention somewhere else. ;-)

I'd like to see a debate between kenkraly and generalfrievous.

Alright, we should take this to off-topic.

NEW THREAD: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/OTCon-The-originaltrilogycom-Convention/topic/13500/

hairy_hen said:

The SE mix, better than the 70mm?  Don't make me laugh.  The '97 mix is very dynamically shrunken compared to the 70mm version, and often sounds tinny and weak in general.  It's not nearly as bad as the 2004 version, of course, because it's still recognisable, but it's really not that good a lot of the time.

Steve Hoffman, who got to see a good condition 70mm print a few years ago, agrees with me.  http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-141011.html

Who to believe----Rick McCallum or Steve Hoffman:

Rick McCallum: This is one of the tools we use.e You remember what explosions were like 20 years ago? You couldn't have low frequency bass, like you can now and in a good theater you can feel that explosion and millions of people on Alderaan crying out for help. It goes  straight to your body. It's all low frequency. But you need a theater owner who cares about his audience, who's willing to invest money and time to knock you right off your seat.

http://www.maikeldas.com/SWrick1eng.html

And Ben Burtt is not far behind:

"We created the surrounds all over again, so that we could take advantage of the split surrounds that we now have. We were able to extend the high- and low-frequency material, as it can be played back in theatres now, so we could add more subwoofer to the rumbling spaceships or explosions, and attain a higher fidelity in the music and so on."

"In looking at Star Wars, we were amazed at how articulate the final space battle was, years later. We didn't do a lot to change that, except adding subwoofer material to the explosions. Where we had spaceships flying past the camera, we added the sound of them continuing into the surround speakers; we brought the sound off the screen and into the room more than the original movie. There was an attempt to spatially envelop the audience, but there is a limit to what you can hear and what will work."

http://lavender.fortunecity.com/hawkslane/575/starwars-advanced.htm

danny_boy said:

Who to believe----Rick McCallum or Steve Hoffman

That's a tough one.  In order to figure it out, I'd have to listen to it.

Thanks to HH, it turns out that's easy to do!  But I'm sure Rick might be right about other things.

danny_boy said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Tighe said:

Thanks!  I don't even care if it is restored, a direct transfer would be fine with me.  Dirt, scratches, and dots are all fine!  That is what it was like in the theater! ;-)

That is what it was like in the theater AFTER the films had been played hundreds of times and got worn.  The best prints in the best theaters on opening day would have looked sharper than blu ray, and sounded better too.

I would suggest spending some time reading the various threads in the preservation section.  There are many different versions depending on what you're looking for.

 

Not according to George Lucas:

The audience will get a brand new print(1997 special edition) that’s very clean and actually better than the original release(1977 print) in terms of technical quality. It’s less grainy, it’s less dirty, and it’s just a better print.(than the 1977 print)

Regarding the sound:

Now we’re able to deliver  even better than the seventy-millimeter quality with the new digital release in a range of sound that was not possible before.”

http://starwarssuperfans.wordpress.com/

 It's called marketing.

hairy_hen said:

Who to believe, let me see: Steve Hoffman, one of the most respected names in the audio world . . . or Rick McCallum, Lucasfilm sycophant extraordinaire?

This is even a question?

 

Let's clear up some facts here.  Contrary to what some seem to believe, Star Wars actually had an incredibly powerful sound in its original form.  Whenever anyone disparages it in that way, their comments only apply to the 35mm versions of the soundtrack.  Due to technological limitations, the frequency response and dynamic range of the stereo and mono mixes was indeed quite limited, and since the vast majority of theatres had prints featuring these tracks, it's not surprising that the SE mix would be received positively in comparison.  But that's not what I'm talking about: I refer specifically to the six-channel mix that was designed for use on 70mm prints.  Only a few of these were ever produced, played in high-end theatres in major cities, but it was by far the best-sounding version of the film ever made.

I shall air a comment from Mike Minkler, who worked on the audio:

" . . . it was the birth of baby boom. The 6-track was devised by Steve Katz, who was the Dolby consultant on the show. When we were predubbing reel 1 spaceships, we couldn't get this big thunderous low end that we wanted on the pass-by. We were going to do what we called a “Todd spread” back then, which was to record a left, center and right, and a surround — then fill in channels 2 and 4, the left extra and right extra, with information from these adjacent channels. But Steve said, “What if we used 2 and 4 for boom only, the low-frequency information, and we'll use full-range speakers.” Well, we didn't have them; we had the Altec A4 speakers, and we put low-frequency material in there as much as we could to enhance the spaceships. And every time there was an explosion, there was a sweetener that was cut for those two channels."

http://www.mixonline.com/recording/interviews/audio_mike_minkler/index.html

 

The entire concept of including separate tracks for bass content in fact originated with the 70mm version of Star Wars.  It was the first movie that ever had such a mix, and people fortunate enough to have seen it this way speak fondly of the Star Destroyer's opening flyby in particular.  Sure, there were still limitations involved, since most theatres wouldn't have installed dedicated subwoofers until later that year, and the rear channel was monaural since stereo surrounds were not yet included in the 70mm format.  We're not talking about the kind of enormous, ubiquitous bass found in recent films like The Dark Knight, obviously—but it was definitely there, and it was definitely strong.  To say otherwise is to just demonstrably false.

Unfortunately, none of this played any part in the creation of the SE, because most of that mix was taken from a 4-track master and then dynamically limited, robbing it of much of its power.  The bass content was created over again from scratch (the 4-track master didn't have it), often to a decidedly lesser effect.  The beginning in particular suffers, as the Star Destroyer's bass is only barely audible and could not be called "thunderous" (to use Minkler's term) by any stretch of the imagination.  Other parts of the SE do have more punch, but most of these correspond to places where the movie was changed and new elements added.

One need only listen to the 1993 laserdisc track, which was sourced from the 70mm printmaster, to hear the enormously powerful dynamic range of the original.  Compared to that, the SE is a tinny, shrunken, and overly-hissy shadow of what the film's real sound is supposed to be.  Why they didn't base it on the 70mm version is something I can't for the life of me understand, but I can only surmise that everyone at Lucasfilm somehow forgot that it even existed.  But then, seeing how allergic to quality they've become, perhaps it's not surprising that they would think something so obviously inferior was really an improvement.

To be fair, some parts of the 1997 mix do sound pretty good.  Certainly it's a million times better than the garbage remix we got in 2004.  But on the whole, the 70mm version is so far ahead of it that there's really no comparison.

 

Thanks to HH, it turns out that's easy to do!  But I'm sure Rick might be right about other things.

Keep in mind, of course, that my version is only a recreation, not the real thing.  But I do think most of it is very close to what it was.  ;)

 Hoffman did not have access to the original audio print masters like Lucas ,Burrt (and ultimately ---I am guessing---McCallum).

Every time this subject comes up the people who actually worked ,manipulated and handled the very source elements which created those 3 mythic 1977 soundmixes------- insist they needed revamping for 'modern presentations".

McCallum spoke by phone from Industrial Light and Magic in Marin County, the special-effects studio Lucas created after the success of "Star Wars." "The sound was so imaginative, so electric, but there was no way you could really hear it," McCallum said. The original was released in 70-millimeter in just a few locations. Those prints had magnetic tracks that allowed John Williams' score to be heard in what approximated today's digital sound. This new version has been digitally re-mixed so that the sound quality exceeds even those 70mm engagements. 

THE RETURN OF STAR WARS RE-RELEASE OFFERS A SHOT AT PERFECTION

@Hairy_hen

I hear you mate----I guess marketing has a big part to play.

Star Wars Episode I: Production Notes

Music and Sound

With the Star Wars films, George Lucas has always been intent on using state-of- the-art sound. "I'm very much into sound and soundtracks," he comments, noting that the two work together in telling his stories.

The first Star Wars was instrumental in popularizing the Dolby noise-reduction stereo sound system, as did the two subsequent Episodes in the original trilogy. Motion picture audio technology has since made significant improvements with the introduction of digital sound and Lucasfilm's THX program. So, for The Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, Lucas created a digitally-remixed soundtrack, which surpassed even the original's showcase 70mm prints that used magnetic tracks.

http://starwars.com/episode-i/bts/production/f19990501/index.html?page=8" target="_blank" title="web.archive.org/web/20101220155850/http://starwars.com/episode-i/bts/production/f19990501/index.html?page=8">http://web.archive.org/web/20101220155850/http://starwars.com/episode-i/bts/production/f19990501/index.html?page=8

I agree with everything you say although I would add context as another factor(along with subjectivity).

When people went to watch SW in 70mm back in 77'----all they had in their homes were crude mono sounding TV's(and stereo gramaphones for their vinyl's)

So they were always going to be blown away by a 6 track magnetic audio presentation in a cinema!!

danny_boy said:

When people went to watch SW in 70mm back in 77'----all they had in their homes were crude mono sounding TV's(and stereo gramaphones for their vinyl's)   So they were always going to be blown away by a 6 track magnetic audio presentation in a cinema!!

Nonsense.  I wouldn't be surprised if the stereos in people's homes sounded better in 1977 - on average - than they do today.  Back then people typically listened to music in high fidelity, whereas today people are accustomed to listening to music that has suffered from the "loudness wars", and/or been squashed into mp3 and listened through earbuds.  So one could argue that on average a person visiting a theater in the late 70s is more likely to be able to discern a lack of dynamic range than today's average listener.

"Gramaphones"?  The Gramophone company went out of business in the 1930s.  My memory of the late 1970s was Macintosh, Thorens, Pioneer, M&K, Klipsch, etc.  Quadraphonic surround had been around for nearly 10 years.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

danny_boy said:

When people went to watch SW in 70mm back in 77'----all they had in their homes were crude mono sounding TV's(and stereo gramaphones for their vinyl's)   So they were always going to be blown away by a 6 track magnetic audio presentation in a cinema!!

Nonsense.  I wouldn't be surprised if the stereos in people's homes sounded better in 1977 - on average - than they do today.  Back then people typically listened to music in high fidelity, whereas today people are accustomed to listening to music that has suffered from the "loudness wars", and/or been squashed into mp3 and listened through earbuds.  So one could argue that on average a person visiting a theater in the late 70s is more likely to be able to discern a lack of dynamic range than today's average listener.

"Gramaphones"?  The Gramophone company went out of business in the 1930s.  My memory of the late 1970s was Macintosh, Thorens, Pioneer, M&K, Klipsch, etc.  Quadraphonic surround had been around for nearly 10 years.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XuxVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zEANAAAAIBAJ&pg=6767,2774626&dq=70mm+6+track+star+wars&hl=en