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Info: 16mm ESB and ROTJ films on ebay

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I just saw that a guy is selling 16mm film prints of both ESB and ROTJ. They are both original releases, not the special editions.

Would anybody consider pooling together with me to buy these up?

JD

Creator of Star Wars Begins, Building Empire and Returning to Jedi
Follow me on twitter @jamieSWB. Please support me at - http://www.patreon.com/jamiebenning/

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About 1700 dollars for the both of them.

Sounds interresting, but i'm not a wealthy guy though.
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Do you have the equipment to scan it properly?
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I would consider contributing, but go in with eyes open: it would be risky to do anything publically with them, plus you need expensive equipment to use them, plus they might be in poor condition.
I see the auctions you mean and the color at least looks pretty decent, but as he says the photos don't do it justice.
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It's a very pie in the sky idea I know. And I think I just got carried away. I could really only afford the Jedi one. And as that's the only scope one of the two, it's probably the best one to go for.

I do know people in the film industry and one owner of a professional telecine machine, though they wouldn't do it for free.

So, there are no VERY wealthy members of the board then?

JD

Creator of Star Wars Begins, Building Empire and Returning to Jedi
Follow me on twitter @jamieSWB. Please support me at - http://www.patreon.com/jamiebenning/

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Originally posted by: Karyudo
... Film like this has been around a while (at least 1987), yet I'll bet you've never seen a transfer from film. Why not? Because it is extremely hard to manage. No professional places will touch copyrighted film, and there is no viable solution for making your own transfer that doesn't look like you made your own transfer.

It is an amazing, tantalizing proposition, but if you were sane, you'd avoid too many thoughts of improving on the LD caps with 16mm film. The potential is great; the execution is almost impossible.
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No fair... if only I could find one at a decent price, and I had a projector...

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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The print of Empire is "flat" which is essentially full frame, pan and scan.

Why a flat print of ANH fetched over $1500 from the same seller boggles the mind!

Somebody on this board has to win the lottery, buy a high-end telecine, and put it in their basement.

Where were you in '77?

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Originally posted by: SilverWook
The print of Empire is "flat" which is essentially full frame, pan and scan.

Why a flat print of ANH fetched over $1500 from the same seller boggles the mind!

I think $1500 is good, even for a P&S print (you could spend a whole lot more on a HDTV).

I wonder why he's asking less for the ROTJ 'scope print (due to the huge popularity of ESB, I guess). To me, the ROTJ print is the real gem out of the two.

The prints look very good- good color. I have some strips of 70mm from SW '77 and they're totally red/pink (before the low-fade stock was available).



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I have a full length super 8mm scope print of ANH (anamorphic, you need a special lens). I think I got it from ebay or somewhere many years ago. It was good to watch on a big screen back then, but the DVDs or the HDTV versions of the films deliver a much better quality, colors, detail, etc.
A 16mm copy may be much better. A 70mm copy still better. But the HDTV versions, in my opinion, is the best, fastest accessible version I can think of today.

BTW, does someone have the article numbers of the 16mm ebay auctions? I can't find them anymore.

Rok

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Two problems:

1) 16mm dupe's that have been sitting around for 25 years would barely yield detail any greater than the sources we have now

2) the condition of the film would be so scratched, marked and damaged that it would effectively render them near uselessness.

The amount of work needed to clean up and restore the print to something that would actually benefit us would be pretty irrational to take up. Add to that the cost of a proper scan--not just a cheap telecine done with a camera, but an actual film scan that would properly translate the detail so needed to be wrung from this sort of source--and you have thousands of dollars of expenses on top of thousanads of man-hours of work. And at the end of the day it would be far less than say, what an X0 version of the film could yield (hypothetical that such a thing exists--but my point is that if you bought an X0 player, used the best LD, and obtained the mastering software this would be a far better--and still-cheaper--way of going about it).

This is purely a quality thing I am talking about, mind you. In terms of personal home viewing--a film print, even a scratchy 16mm one, of a Star Wars film is such a joy to watch. If you have the equipment to play it I would recommend getting them just for your own personal enjoyment, but chances are you don't have a 16mm projector and proper sound recievers.
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The ROTJ scope sold for $1,775.00 and the ESB flat went unsold, and has been relisted (again, for $899.00).



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Originally posted by: Puggo - Jar Jar's "Yoda"
In case any of you folks forgot, I have a 16mm telecine Moviestuff Workprinter, in addition to the 8mm unit I used for the Puggo Edition.


Thats actually tempting but i fear that anything less than a laser film scanner will not give us anything better than the Laserdisks already available.

Just out of curiosity how much did you pay for that and what reason did you originally buy it for?
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Originally posted by: Puggo - Jar Jar's "Yoda"
In case any of you folks forgot, I have a 16mm telecine Moviestuff Workprinter, in addition to the 8mm unit I used for the Puggo Edition.

Thats actually tempting but i fear that anything less than a laser film scanner will not give us anything better than the Laserdisks already available.
Just out of curiosity how much did you pay for that and what reason did you originally buy it for?

Certainly, I would expect my transfer of a 16mm film to be worse than the GOUT. However, it is likely to be better than the transfer a typical transfer house would do. But the only reason to do it would be in case there were any little differences (as there were in the 8mm films).

I don't remember exactly what I paid for the WorkPrinters, since it was a few years ago... something like 1200 each. I've been using them to transfer historic films owned by the US Table Tennis association, and the magazine Drum Corps World. Of course, along the way I did the SW/ESB 8mm films (Puggo), an old SW 16mm trailer, and my grandparents' old home movies, among other things.

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