I wish LFL would just stop trying to make the OT look like the crappy PT. But it's pointless now that the digital door has been opened on the movies.
Someone should contact Wood about this. He's a fan friendly person, signs his mail etc. so maybe he could even listen to some criticism?
And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.
I doubt he has any real say in the matter, especially given how the mix was defended as a "creative decision."
They should just put the originals on blu ray with the respective 70mm mixes. Star Wars would then sound phenomenal.
This is the same guy who claimed the 2004 mix was a labor of love.
Such a great effort that fans had to source the 1997 audio,lol.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
skyjedi2005 said:
They should just put the originals on blu ray with the respective 70mm mixes. Star Wars would then sound phenomenal.
Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. They're not original so I won't even watch them, it doesn't really matter. LOL
And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.
I listen to the Matt Wood interview and I think this time around the sound mix for A New Hope will be fixed but lets keep our fingers crossed it is fixed. that audio on the 2004 dvd was awfull with a captial A. I like Matt Woods and Ben Burtt's sound design work their not bad sound designers. It just that the Audio on A New Hope was rushed.
I don't know, I listened to the 2004 mix and it wasn't that bad. And of course the sound will be fixed for the Blu-Ray (7.1 sound, anyone?).
The main points of contention about ANH's 2004 5.1 mix:
1) Dialogue audio levels and dialogue sound quality are all over the place; this was never an issue on previous mixes.
2) The music in the surround channels are flipped (i.e., what's supposed to be in the left surround channel is in the right surround channel and vice versa); the front left and right channels are fine. I'm fairly certain this wasn't an issue in the 1997 5.1 mix. It's also almost impossible to fix, since the sound effects in each channel are fine, so flipping them would result in the sound effects being backwards.
3) At the very beginning of the Death Star battle, the Force Theme is dialed down to almost inaudible levels (it had been heard clearly in all previous mixes).
It sounds to me, based on the interview, that the sound mix is likely to stay the same.
The best way to tell is if, when the Blu-Ray technical specs are announced, the audio is going to be 5.1 or 7.1. If it's 5.1, it's likely to be the same, and if it's 7.1, I'll be even more scared because that means all the movies will have to be remixed.
I thought someone already said that Ben Burtt's successor was already working on a new mix... I know I heard at least there's another scream for Obi-Wan when he frightens the sand people. Don't know if they touched the audio anywhere else.
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
So how many more releases before the films become totally unrecognizable?
I challenge anyone, even the most aurally uneducated of folks, to listen to the opening scene of the film back to back with the dvd mix and any other version, and not be able to tell that it is completely screwed up. This is easily done with the GOUT dvd release, since both the 2004 and 1993 mixes are available together in one case. Switch between them a few times and you'll hear how the '04 is muffled and distorted while the '93 is crystal clear. If you pay even a little bit of attention you'll be able to tell that several laser blast sounds in the '04 are out of synch, background noises frequently overpower everything else, and the general rhythm and flow of the sound design is severely compromised. And that's just the opening scene!
If you can't hear that while making a direct comparison between a correct version and a hideously garbled one, then you should get your ears checked. ;)
Flipped music in the surrounds was definitely not a problem in the 1997 mix, because the rear channels only contained music in certain key scenes, such as the opening flyby, the sunset, and the Falcon approaching the Death Star. The rest of the time they contained sound effects only, and the music came solely from the front. The music error in the 2004 mix can only be heard with a 5.1 system--downmixing to stereo masks the problem--but with the right setup it is very easily noticed and highly distracting, particularly with high notes from the violins, which occur frequently. Hearing them emerge simultaneously from the front left and the back right is disorienting and just plain wrong.
Yep, I was going to post about the 2004 mix being terrible but I knew others would be able to do it better.
The more they mess with the soundtrack, the worse it gets. Which is a real shame since the movie has Academy Awards for music and sound mixing.
ThiefCobbler4ever said:
I don't know, I listened to the 2004 mix and it wasn't that bad. And of course the sound will be fixed for the Blu-Ray (7.1 sound, anyone?).
I wouldn't bet on the sound being fixed. And the mix wasn't that bad? Seriously? Not only did the mix have the music flipped in the surround channels, as has already been mentioned along with all the other things, but just take a listen to the detention cell shoot-out scene and then tell me it isn't that bad. Just listen to it in surround sound and keep your ears on the front left and right channels. Now watch where the laser blasts hit and when Han is shooting. Han is on the right side of the screen yet the laser sound comes from out of the left channel. Then when blasts that hit the left or right side of the screen the sound effect comes out of the opposite channel. It never happened in any of the other previous mixes including the 5.1 track on the SE laserdiscs. The mix is a piece of garbage.
Wasn't Burtt still on LFL's payroll when ANH 2004 was mixed? I would've assumed he'd be responsible, at least partly. As for the sound effects overpowering other elements of the soundtrack, yeah, that also sounds like something Burtt would do.
All I really want is each film as it was originally seen and heard in theaters; no fixes, corrections, "improvements" or modifications necessary.
Behaps the audio soundtrack for the blu-rays will get fix for episodes 4 we just don't know yet. It's not doom and gloom yet.
They have said that they are doing a new mix for the Blu Ray. It'll probably be a 7.1 from scratch. But for sure they said they are working on a new mix.
Good point zombie84 and I don't think it will be the same mix that it was in 2004. Sound technolgy has improved a lot since 2004 because now their is lossless audio formats like dolby ture hd and dts hd master audio which was'nt around in 2004.
kenkraly2007 said:
Good point zombie84 and I don't think it will be the same mix that it was in 2004. Sound technolgy has improved a lot since 2004 because now their is lossless audio formats like dolby ture hd and dts hd master audio which was'nt around in 2004.
The problems with sound have nothing to do with the technologies available at the time. The sound released in 1977 was considerably better than the sound released in 2004.
Switching audio in the surround channels is an amateurish mistake that I myself rescued a project from once before... it was during an audio mix which I was assisting. I watched them place the wrong sounds into the rear L and R channels, and I kept telling them over and over they had it reversed, but they wouldn't listen. Luckily the producer had pretty good ears, and he kept saying something didn't sound right. He was asking them to fiddle with this, and fiddle with that... finally, I overstepped protocol and jumped in, insisting that they "humor me for one minute" and try reversing the rear channels. They rolled their eyes and tried it (to humor me). Bingo, the producer acknowledged that it fixed it. Amazingly, I had to explain to them afterwards, that if you have mics labeled L and R when you face one direction, then turn around 180 degrees, that L becomes R and R becomes L.
What's really hard to believe, though, is that such a thing can happen all the way through to a DVD release of friggin' Star Wars - it just goes to show how fundamentally screwed up the LFL/SW franchise has become. I can hardly imagine what sort of skewed QC processes must be in place for such a rudimentary mistake to happen in the presence of millions of dollars of the world's best technology and technical support. Having been to Skywalker Sound myself on numerous occasions, it's just unfathomable.
"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars
Were still not getting the originals, so why bother about the BD release?
generalfrevious said:
Were still not getting the originals, so why bother about the BD release?
Harvesting for donor parts.
Here is a news link actual proof that LFL is working on a new sound mix for episode 4 for the blu-ray release : http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/07/04/skywalkers-sound-engineers-confirm-theyve-remixed-star-wars-again-for-blu-ray-3d-theatrical/
So they have changed Obi-Wan's roar again. I'm dreading to think what it sounds like this time especially when they said it will sound more human and that it will sound like someone. OH god. It's probably going to be a sample of Anakin shouting "I Hate You!!". Or maybe the human bit is to lead us off the scent when it is in fact jar Jar. That would actually explain why the Sand people ran off like that.
The old (original)sound effect was perfect. some things just don't need changing
avoidz said:
Mielr said:
Also, GL adopted 3 children, and MJ adopted 3 children.
(And no, I don't buy the story that MJ's 3 kids were his biologically).
Well at least one of MJ's children has vitiligo, so it's not entirely impossible.
adywan said:
So they have changed Obi-Wan's roar again. I'm dreading to think what it sounds like this time especially when they said it will sound more human and that it will sound like someone. OH god. It's probably going to be a sample of Anakin shouting "I Hate You!!". Or maybe the human bit is to lead us off the scent when it is in fact jar Jar. That would actually explain why the Sand people ran off like that.
The old (original)sound effect was perfect. some things just don't need changing
Here is my guess: they changed it in 2004 to sound as if Obi Wan was imitating the call of the Boga lizard from Revenge of the Sith. But ROTS was still in early post production at that time, and they ended up altering what the final Boga sounded like, so that once ROTS was out the ANH call didn't sound like anything recognizable anymore.
So maybe they will be updating it to sound more like the way the Boga lizard actually sounded like in ROTS, rather than the bizarre and random creature effect in the 2004 version.
This would be stupid in the first place though, since Tusken Raider's shouldn't know the wildlife calls of a species that lives on a completely different planet.
