Time to showcase the screencaps! 😃
Now, when I discussed the color grading on my TFA edit, I stated that I didn’t plan on doing too much to the movie, because the blu-ray was pretty good (Although I guess I did a lot more to it than I expected in order to give it a more cinematic look). TLJ, however, is a different story. One of the biggest issues I have with the blu-ray for Episode VIII is how shockingly dark the whole thing looks. Here’s an example of what bothers me:
I’m looking at this shot with the scopes that are installed on DaVinci Resolve. This shot in particular occurs in broad daylight. The sky is blue, as you can see in the background. The sun is shining (and if you look closely at the bottom left side, you can see Luke’s shadow). But even with all of that, the image is so dim that it looks cloudy. In fact, it might actually be darker. I know this because the brightest parts of the image are somewhere between the halfway mark to the 2/3rds mark on the parade scope.
I understand that this is Star Wars and it’s possible that the planet itself was intended to be darkly lit, but it looks so wrong. Like someone put a 25-50% opacity filter on the whole thing. And it’s not just Luke’s planet that suffers from this. The whole movie happens to be this dim. I feel like I have to turn off all the lights in the room in order to watch it appropriately (Although I’ll be fair when I say that I do watch most movies in the dark in real life. Still, for the general public, this is ridiculous). So a big alteration I’ve done with the color grading is brighten up the image. A lot. I raised the brightest levels of the image up to the top (and maybe a little over the top, but not by too much) in order to get something like this:
In addition to the brightness adjustment, I also wanted to make this one look more cinematic too, just like my Episode VII edit. Now, back on that thread, I mentioned that I was able to make three particular film looks. The orange look, the blue look, and the faded purple look. Episode VII ended up with the orange look, but I mentioned that my favorite was the blue look, and I’m happy to say that I think TLJ looks great with the blue look. I was worried that I might have to go with the orange look again because a lot of us associate TLJ with the color red. But I think the blue look really adds something to the film (I especially think the blue lighting on Snoke’s throne is a nice touch). But hey, I’m cuddling with the blue look, and I think it’s best to let everyone else decide for themselves. Click on the spoiler tag below to see the rest: