StarWarsLegacy.com - The Official Thread — Page 82

@Mavimao

Well, as Maestro said, Mike’s page has a lot of information about what this project used to be (like 10 years ago?) when he was working with Laserdisc sources and so on. The evolution of the project and the rocky start of this thread are why a lot of members, even ones who have been here for years, sometimes find out about what Legacy is much later on. I know I shrugged off this thread for a long time, not really sure of what it was about. Once you read about it and see some of the work, though, holy shit… there’s no going back.

Mike isn’t trying to create a faithful duplicate of the original. He is trying to restore the best picture that he can from the sources he has. He is basically doing what Lucas should have done in 97. He is trying to achieve a 4k quality image and doing so from a 70’s print that wasn’t intended for such high definition viewing requires that he address things most of us can’t even see because they would show up as noticeable flaws at 4k. He has processed several sections known for their graininess to enhance the detail that lay hidden behind the effects layers. He removed a lot of the dirt in the Tatooine scenes (he basically noticed the same artificial dirt - not grain - that the Lowry people did when they helped clean up that scan). What Mike has been going for is Star Wars at its best in 4k. Most of what he did was simple restoration of the film at hand, but in many cases he has improved the film to a state that makes it presentable at 4k - notably some of the effects shots. Most people would not be able to see that he has done anything other than the movie looks so good.

Now, originally he was trying to restore LD or GOUT to a presentable state and did things like completely recreating the starfield for the opening crawl, but this current project is based mostly on a scan of a high quality technicolor print.

yotsuya said:

Mike isn’t trying to create a faithful duplicate of the original. He is trying to restore the best picture that he can from the sources he has. He is basically doing what Lucas should have done in 97.

Right. And he’s doing so without a single frame or pixel coming from the SE. All of the pixels used to repair are coming from other original 35mm prints. I don’t think there is any question that it’s a restoration. I see how “preservation” could be more debatable and vague. But he’s definitely restoring Star Wars.

Discostu said:

I could use just pixels from Star Wars and make a giant animated penis out of it… still restoration? ok, I’m starting to troll but I seem to have a much stricter interpretation of the term than most people here.

Okay, so instead of your trolling comment, what do you think about registering the prints so that they’re correctly aligned and using pixels from one print that repair damage that is specific to another print? I don’t see how that is not restoration. It’s better than most restorations, even professional ones, that use pixels from adjacent frames to patch the damage.

I’m not sure how strict you’re talking about (scan it and leave it 100% alone?). That would be a preservation of a specific print the way it was seen after x amount of viewings and the damage that came along with all those viewings. If that’s what you consider a restoration, it’s pretty good that Mike isn’t doing it, because it’s a terrible idea for a restoration.

To use Mikes own words, “It is a restoration with the heart of a preservation.”

Discostu said:

@towne32: No, that is not what I meant. The general vibe I was getting from the last comments was that it is OK to change special effects as long as only the 35mm sources are used to do it. Seems like I misunderstood your comment.

https://vimeo.com/117582796

This is what he was referring to.

No special effects are being changed in any way. He’s not doing what, say, Adywan did in the cantina and manipulating the pixels in the image to make them do things they didn’t originally. He’s simply using multiple 35mm scans to repair damage to the print and occasionally using rotoscoping to isolate elements so he can fix image registration issues.

We can call it whatever we want. I call it an empty spot on my movie shelf that needs to be filled asap.

Darth Lucas said:

We can call it whatever we want. I call it an empty spot on my movie shelf that needs to be filled asap.

I’ll go with this.

darthrush said:

Wazzles said:

Darth Lucas said:

We can call it whatever we want. I call it an empty spot on my movie shelf that needs to be filled asap.

I’ll go with this.

+1 But I compeletly respect what Mikes plan is and understand why the distribution of this won’t be like Depseiclaized.

And I still have no idea why anyone cares about it. If no one will ever see it then who cares what he does? #movealong

digitalfreaknyc said:

darthrush said:

Wazzles said:

Darth Lucas said:

We can call it whatever we want. I call it an empty spot on my movie shelf that needs to be filled asap.

I’ll go with this.

+1 But I compeletly respect what Mikes plan is and understand why the distribution of this won’t be like Depseiclaized.

And I still have no idea why anyone cares about it. If no one will ever see it then who cares what he does? #movealong

Well I’m interested in it because he will be pitching it to Disney/Fox. And if that goes well, we might see it get officially released.

digitalfreaknyc said:

darthrush said:

Wazzles said:

Darth Lucas said:

We can call it whatever we want. I call it an empty spot on my movie shelf that needs to be filled asap.

I’ll go with this.

+1 But I compeletly respect what Mikes plan is and understand why the distribution of this won’t be like Depseiclaized.

And I still have no idea why anyone cares about it. If no one will ever see it then who cares what he does? #movealong

Because it’s interesting? Because it’s the best restoration of a film we all love that will likely ever exist? Because maybe someday we can hopefully get it in an official aspect?

digitalfreaknyc said:

darthrush said:

Wazzles said:

Darth Lucas said:

We can call it whatever we want. I call it an empty spot on my movie shelf that needs to be filled asap.

I’ll go with this.

+1 But I compeletly respect what Mikes plan is and understand why the distribution of this won’t be like Depseiclaized.

And I still have no idea why anyone cares about it. If no one will ever see it then who cares what he does? #movealong

Because now it has been restored and a new negative has been struck. We don’t have to worry as much about the state of the original negative and decaying elements.

digitalfreaknyc said:

darthrush said:

Wazzles said:

Darth Lucas said:

We can call it whatever we want. I call it an empty spot on my movie shelf that needs to be filled asap.

I’ll go with this.

+1 But I compeletly respect what Mikes plan is and understand why the distribution of this won’t be like Depseiclaized.

And I still have no idea why anyone cares about it. If no one will ever see it then who cares what he does? #movealong

I myself love watching Mike’s videos. As a technical guy (sort of) I am the kind of person who watches behind the scenes / remastering documentaries more often then the main movies.