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State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression — Page 5

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Thats very interesting. Reading the thread though, it seems like its mostly one or two people saying its new, and then an equal amount saying its not, thats its just cleaner.

" just did a side by side comparison with Raiders playing on my tivo, and my dvd of raiders playing on my pc :P. I can't really tell if it is CG or not....I can tell it definately looks better on the USA version. I don't know if it is CG, or if they just cleared it up real well, but it looks more real, like the truck is really in the scene in the USA version, rather than added in later."

One explanation is that it was just re-comped. I don't believe the DVD version had any special enhancement done, and that shot is always been one of the dodgier composites. If they went back to the original elements and digitally recomposited it, the truck would blend in and look seamless, and the whole shot would be much cleaner as it has some grain in the original version. This might give it a "CG" look when it just goes by and you are not expecting it. But then some people are saying its a whole new shot. I just saw Raiders on TV last week, not on USA, but it was a 16x9 letterbox in HD--which may very well be the same transfer USA got. I didn't watch up to the truck shot, but what I did notice is that this new 16x9 aspect ration version had custom panning and scanning, so shots looked different often, even though they weren't. Either one of these, or a combination of both, could possibly explain it. To me it just seems out of place to do one single CG shot.
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I can't imagine at least Indy IV not hitting blu-ray. It would be conspicuously absent to say the least. The original movies are a different story, but then again the transfers have just been sitting there for a while now all ready to go (with the possible exception of this cliff shot dealy).
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hmm, i saw the usa hd version & it was the proper 2.35x1, not 16x9. I didn't notice the shot being different or looking cg, but i was on the phone only half paying attention at the time.

Also, instead of comparing it to the just released dvd, wouldn't it be better to compare it to the 2003 set, or a laserdisc? (i.e., something we KNOW isn't altered?)
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Also, can we be sure that this isn't the result of watching it in HD as opposed to NTSC? Or perhaps something with the compression during that particular shot that made it look weird?

ETA: is there a screenshot comparison between the broadcast version of the shot and some other version?
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I realize I'm a day late and a buck short on this discussion, but here goes.

But the OT is so powerful, the majority of people will 'put up' with the SE just to have them on DVD

Some people might but I think the majority of people (ie, Joe Sixpack) would not care which version they get.

Even so, given George's comments on the matter, I wouldn't by any means rule out an eventual real release of the trilogy. When? Your guess is as good as anybody's. If it were coming this year (a stupid choice with the 30th being last year and Indy 4 this year), we would've heard by now, I'd imagine.

As for HD, I can only see a Blu-Ray SE release happening in the next two years if the OOT is included. Lucas, rather obviously, doesn't have faith in the format so I'd imagine he'd want to package in the OOT as "extras" again to make the Blu-Ray thing a killer-app.

If the release happens beyond that window, when Blu-Ray's more established (and until Joe Sixpack has one, it's just a niche), which I estimate to be about two years away, then there'd be no incentive to include the OOT to spike up sales since the format would then be the growing market standard. Sales are assured anyway, right, so why bother?

Incidentally, George's remark about "it'll all come out in the end" was about learning whether people prefer the SE vs. the OOT. Ergo what I think he meant was "the truth will come out". I'd love to be wrong though.
My preference is simple. I want remastered versions of precisely what we saw and heard for each Star Wars film on opening day.
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the u.s.a. broadcast or whatever channel it was on had the audio clipped and censored when indy says in last crusade" two selfless martyrs, jesus christ" they kept the jesus in but blurted out christ. ruining the entire context of the scene henry sr still slaps him and says "thats for blasphemy".

i wonder if raiders had the i'm your new damn partner replacement dialogue instead of i'm your goddamn partner.

oh and they used the same color corrected transfers lowry did, the same overly bright and overly blue as they always do.

they used to show the untouched theatrical versions on tv with some dialogue and scene cuts. like the heart ripping out scene in temple of doom being trimmed or cut out altogether.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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I caught Raiders on USA last weekend and Marion did say "goddamn partner". I was surprised they restored it rather than use the edited version that's been around for so long.

Sci-Fi is going to run them all this weekend, either Sat or Sun, so you'll have another chance to check it out.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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skyjedi2005 said:

oh and they used the same color corrected transfers lowry did, the same overly bright and overly blue as they always do.

they used to show the untouched theatrical versions on tv with some dialogue and scene cuts. like the heart ripping out scene in temple of doom being trimmed or cut out altogether.


perhaps we should start a new thread on indy, but i was under the impression that unlike STAR WARS, most people felt the Indy discs were pretty well done. I know they cleaned up some of the effects (matte lines, the glass snake reflection, etc.) but aside from that i thought they were relatively untouched. It doesn't surprise me to hear they screwed the color & whatnot, given the plethora of problems with the Star Wars set. i've just never heard anyone mention it, & it's been so long since i've seen any other version i didn't notice. Would anyone happen to have some comparison shots? I'd also be interested in seeing shots of the uncut heart rip out...
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The color was fine. I mean every telecine has its flaws--sometimes the skin tones are a bit off, or sometimes theres too much contrast, or its too dark or too light. Aside from nit-picking details, the coloring of the Indy set was great. It wasn't that dark, because the VHS versions were much too light if thats what you are comparing it to, and I didn't think there was any color-shifting. The skin-tones I felt were occassionally a bit on the red side, but not alarmingly so, and it could very well be the way it was photographed. I thought the set was extremely faithful to the original photography (barring those one or two touch ups).
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thecolorsblend2 said:

I realize I'm a day late and a buck short on this discussion, but here goes.

But the OT is so powerful, the majority of people will 'put up' with the SE just to have them on DVD

Some people might but I think the majority of people (ie, Joe Sixpack) would not care which version they get.

Even so, given George's comments on the matter, I wouldn't by any means rule out an eventual real release of the trilogy. When? Your guess is as good as anybody's. If it were coming this year (a stupid choice with the 30th being last year and Indy 4 this year), we would've heard by now, I'd imagine.

As for HD, I can only see a Blu-Ray SE release happening in the next two years if the OOT is included. Lucas, rather obviously, doesn't have faith in the format so I'd imagine he'd want to package in the OOT as "extras" again to make the Blu-Ray thing a killer-app.

If the release happens beyond that window, when Blu-Ray's more established (and until Joe Sixpack has one, it's just a niche), which I estimate to be about two years away, then there'd be no incentive to include the OOT to spike up sales since the format would then be the growing market standard. Sales are assured anyway, right, so why bother?

Incidentally, George's remark about "it'll all come out in the end" was about learning whether people prefer the SE vs. the OOT. Ergo what I think he meant was "the truth will come out". I'd love to be wrong though.


I can't imagine it's more than a couple years away. The 3D re-releases will probably be 2010 because they've been working on them for a while now and how much longer are they just going to sit on them? There isn't really much of an anniversary to tie it in to, so I'd think they would use the 3D release to promote the upcoming live action show in some way. Then, in the fall, the blu-ray hits.

But as for this argument that a 1080p SE will be good enough for most people, well, it won't be good enough for me. I don't care how much detail there is, it's not the version I want. I'm also continuing to disagree with you guys that it'll sell like hotcakes. I'm starting to wonder if that would be true even if he did throw in the OOT. He'll need to do that just so he can get as many people as possible to buy it, 'cause I don't think he's going to wait another five years like he did with dvd. None of what I'm saying really matters at the end of the day because, guess what, they haven't commented on a damn thing regarding the OOT since '06. We don't have the slightest clue what they're up to.

All I'm really trying to say is that I don't think Lucas' ego is that big. Can we all agree that the GOUT resulted from a lack of willingness to spend money, not some incredible issue of pride? Maybe he's just waiting until the blu-ray to remaster it.

Look at it this way:

People, a good number of them anyway, are going to want the OOT in hi-def. For that reason, it would be worth Lucas' while to do some sort of rudimentary restoring/remastering of the OOT and include it in the packaging. The fact that he's lowering it to being "bonus material" doesn't necessarily preclude him from giving it to us in 1080p, even if it doesn't get a meticulous frame by frame job like Lowry did with the SE.
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One glimmer of hope, I believe the potential cost of digitally restoring the original version is going down, so what was deemed too expensive in 2006 might fit the bottom line better in 2009 or 10. (hell, it's about 6 minutes of actual frickin' film that needs it!)
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Thing is, it was never expensive to begin with. In fact, restoring it from the original negative might actually be cheaper since 95% of that has already been digitized in 2004. Just scan the missing pieces--what, maybe 300, 400 feet of film? So thats under $1000 dollars. A little bit of digital cleanup to get rid of a few of the scratches, and then the standard telecine color correction--the labor charges for these things are a few grand, I would suppose. So really, we could have a digitally remastered, restored version of the OOT made from the original negative for a few thousand dollars. If everyone in this forum chipped in five bucks we could pay for it ourselves. Cost has never really been a factor.
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zombie84 said:

Thing is, it was never expensive to begin with. In fact, restoring it from the original negative might actually be cheaper since 95% of that has already been digitized in 2004. Just scan the missing pieces--what, maybe 300, 400 feet of film? So thats under $1000 dollars. A little bit of digital cleanup to get rid of a few of the scratches, and then the standard telecine color correction--the labor charges for these things are a few grand, I would suppose. So really, we could have a digitally remastered, restored version of the OOT made from the original negative for a few thousand dollars. If everyone in this forum chipped in five bucks we could pay for it ourselves. Cost has never really been a factor.


I'd prefer a well-preserved print from the 80's. Failing that, I'd prefer the Robert A Harris route. Meticulously de-SEing the movies, while a noble effort, will never really be 100% true to the original conformation.
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Fang Zei said:

zombie84 said:

Thing is, it was never expensive to begin with. In fact, restoring it from the original negative might actually be cheaper since 95% of that has already been digitized in 2004. Just scan the missing pieces--what, maybe 300, 400 feet of film? So thats under $1000 dollars. A little bit of digital cleanup to get rid of a few of the scratches, and then the standard telecine color correction--the labor charges for these things are a few grand, I would suppose. So really, we could have a digitally remastered, restored version of the OOT made from the original negative for a few thousand dollars. If everyone in this forum chipped in five bucks we could pay for it ourselves. Cost has never really been a factor.


I'd prefer a well-preserved print from the 80's. Failing that, I'd prefer the Robert A Harris route. Meticulously de-SEing the movies, while a noble effort, will never really be 100% true to the original conformation.


It wouldn't be "de-SE'ing" an SE print it WOULD BE the actual original version! Why would you want a second-generation (at best) reconstruction when LFL already has the actual negative, already restored and digitized? All that remains is a few hundred feet of the original FX shots, so to dig those up and scan them--through a proper transfer house--would be less than a thousand dollars; ILM actually probably has its own laser scanner, so potentially it could be as cheap as the hundred bucks it would take to pay an employee to run the machine.
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Sorry, but trying to restore the film to what it used to be before 1997 is our only choice now. The GOUT is our only absolute link to preserving toe OOT
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What about all those OOT prints that supposedly still exist?
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I'm certain that they don't exist.
Anyways, the only thing that is now destroying the OOT (besides Lucas) is Laser rot- I believe those DVDs were poorly made.
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generalfrevious said:

I'm certain that they don't exist.


OK, probably not at Lucasfilm, but what about all those private collections people keep referring to?
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The OOT prints exist! Of course they do! LFL did not destroy them. All Lucas said was that the original negative no longers exists. Because it doesn't--it wasn't physically destroyed, as in chucked in a furnace, it was just re-edited, so the negative now is in the edit configuration of the 1997 SE, thus technically you cannot go and make a new print without doing some work to put the O-neg back together the way it was. In any case, they have multiple Interpositives and Internegatives, plus reference prints, and Lucas himself owns a dye-transfer Technicolor print, which he lent to YCM labs as a reference for color since dye-transfer does not fade.

Anyway, my point was that its not necessary to re-edit the O-neg back to its 1977 form because everything is done digitally now anyway. The O-neg was already scanned in 2004, so 95% of the OOT is already in the computer from the original negatives, all you would need to do is get the missing pieces from storage and scan them and edit them into the DI. Which is my point that this is about two days of work with a pricetag of under ten thousand dollars to produce a DI of 1977 Star Wars taken from the original negatives, so cost is not the reason why it is being held back.
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The only thing I could still see preventing George from releasing the OOT on blu-ray is the fear that too many people, if given the option, would only play the OOT and not the SE.

We've accepted the fact that the new version will be what plays on tv and in the theaters during the eventual re-releases. Why can't he at least do with Star Wars what happened with the new Blade Runner set? I mean, I'm convinced that if they ever do a re-issue of that blu-ray, it'll only have the final cut and not the archival versions. That's all George would have to do. Just GET IT OUT OF THE WAY IF IT'S BOTHERING YOU THAT MUCH. It's not like he's turned a blind eye to it anyway, see: the GOUT.

Nah, we'll get it eventually.
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I grabbed pictures of the new Raiders cliff shot, now I just have to figure out how the fudge to post pictures. hang on..

shit. stupid watery 8 dollar beer...damn computers, unabomber was right....before/after:

http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=indzl6.jpg

http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ind2ro3.jpg
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Just use imageshack or something. I wannna see this!
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I was about to say,

just give us the link and we'll do it ourselves. We're not that lazy.

edit: ummmmm, huh......

that's definitely not the same shot arright. This whole time I thought people were just talking about how the damn car looks. The entire shot looks different!

It's been a long time since I've watched Raiders all the way through, so I don't remember what this shot actually looks like in motion. When people started talking about it, I couldn't even remember there being any effects shots during that scene.