AntcuFaalb

I finally finished all of TNG last night, including all four movies.

Now I'm depressed. :-(

ww12345: I sent you an e-mail.

Zip Doodah said:

There's just a handful of people who have it currently. Would it be a good idea to open it up for some of the forum folks?

Yes, definitely.

I'd like to get my hands on the raws, if possible. I'm getting quite good at dirt cleaning in PFClean and would be willing to dedicate my time to that end.

Asteroid-Man: I'm certain that adywan would accept the donation of a 35mm Panavision camera as well as all of the equipment needed to digitize 35mm film at a >2K resolution.

Get crackin'!

je7ome said:

So I forget where I learned this, and you guys may know this better than I do, but apparently, despite the changes being more subtle, the Empire Strikes Back Special Edition actually has the most changed scenes of the trilogy.  Just a funny little thing that I wasn't expecting.

For the 1997 Special Edition

Star Wars Number of Significant Video Changes: 11.30%

The Empire Strikes Back Number of Significant Video Changes: 18.24%

Return of the Jedi Number of Significant Video Changes: 8.33%

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtjXdIjRQo5NdDJORXlfTDBIN0NaQXlWMk51Q2tOR0E

FWIW: I agree with msycamore.

ww12345 said:

Aha! (rimshot)

In all seriousness, what do people think of the scans so far? They seem less crisp than what I think all of us are used to (because they aren't taken from the o-neg, but from a print), but for me, I think the saving grace will be the fact that they don't have the stupid blended fields and the inherent motion blur that comes with that.

I think they look incredible (besides the red-shift, of course)!

ww12345 said:

As far as number two, is that a question directed at me? If so, what do you mean? :) 

I'm sorry! It was meant for poita.

poita said:

Images from Reel1:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7taojpt745e7t6l/fUe-ItbBgF

Nice. Thanks for sharing!

We'll probably have to do three passes to correct the colors:

1. Custom curves for each reel. That is, a single setting to separately bring each entire reel to an acceptable state; e.g., reel01.GiCoCu(...)

2. A shot-by-shot color-match against ww12345's restored BBC broadcast using the N-Dimensional PDF Transfer MATLAB function. Question: How fast does this work on your machine?

3. Shot-by-shot manual tweaks by an experienced colorist with some good references.

#1 seems simple enough and despite being long and tedious, #2 seems simple enough as well. Who can we find to tackle #3?

Ryan McAvoy said:

Don't know why I've taken the time to type this but it's annoying when somebody throws words like "Bullshit" around, when they are demonstrably wrong.

Did you even take the time to look at Cinderella?

I admit that I shouldn't have chosen to speak in absolutes, but it seems like you are as well.

I'll revise my statement:

AntcuFaalb said:

Too many of Disney's Blu-ray releases of their theatrical animated titles are terrible, where "too many" is defined as "greater than a few".

Take a look at the Cinderella comparisons at least and, if you have time, take a look at some of the others.

Also, pro-tip: long diatribes filled with a lot of "!!!!" and "????" don't carry more weight around here than a concise, calmly-written rebuttal. My pithy use of the word "bullshit" made me seem like a dick, but your entire post made you seem like an unreasonable loon.

Hey, it's me. said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

 

generalfrevious said:

Alright. I'm still mad at him for not letting us see the originals, and I doubt disney will do anything to rectify that situation.

I'm a borderline nihilist, yet even I think you're being too pessimistic in this regard.

 

Yes Disneyhaving the franchise makes me very hopeful restoration wise. Disney always spend time, money and love on meticulous restorations. Some of their restorations of the Disney classics on Blu-Ray are so beautiful yu wanna cry. Finger prints and brushstrokes of the artists can be seen in the detail.  Plus releasing more boxsets is free money for Disney!

For arguments sake, COULD Disney undo anything Lucas has done to the OT? Could they say, release a fully restored OT in original form with only the extra bits from all the other versions that made any sense? (I mean come on. Some of the added stuff was good)  These would be few and far between obviously and were mainly aesthetical. A Revised Definitive Original Trilogy if you will? And have a true, restored, unaltered Classic version on there aswell. Everyone's happy!

Why would they have to undo anything?

All they need to do is scan and restore the '77, '80, and '83 interpositive prints.

It would be ridiculously-stupid to go back to the original negatives and try pro-Harmy it or something.

If Disney's restoration team can't tackle restoring the films from the IPs, then they aren't worth one red cent.

Ryan McAvoy said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

 

generalfrevious said:

Alright. I'm still mad at him for not letting us see the originals, and I doubt disney will do anything to rectify that situation.

I'm a borderline nihilist, yet even I think you're being too pessimistic in this regard.

 

Yes Disneyhaving the franchise makes me very hopeful restoration wise. Disney always spend time, money and love on meticulous restorations. Some of their restorations of the Disney classics on Blu-Ray are so beautiful yu wanna cry. Finger prints and brushstrokes of the artists can be seen in the detail.  Plus releasing more boxsets is free money for Disney!

Bullshit. Disney's Blu-ray releases of their theatrical animated titles are terrible, at best.

Most suffer from issues related to revisionist "modern" colortiming and all have been degrained to hell.

The Blu-ray release of Cinderella was degrained so much that the 1997 NTSC VHS release shows more fine detail than it.

Don't believe me? See for yourself: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=6402859&postcount=2 

poita said:

Just make sure you have lots of HDD space, at 1080P, 16bit per channel colour, 1 minute of footage weighs in at about 3 gigabytes, you can do the math from there :)

Is this before or after lossless-compression?

generalfrevious said:

SilverWook said:

If he had, what the heck would would we have done with our free time and disposable income the past 36 years?

A world without Star Wars is not a pleasant concept. 

I am of the opinion that Lucas had nothing to do with SW; he might have been nothing more than just a hired hand for the first film and later revised history to make it look like he was the mastermind of the whole franchise. It's like saying Star Trek would not have existed without Rick Berman.

I don't like prying into the personal lives of other people and judging them on that basis, but I believe that there were, at least, two different versions of George Lucas: Pre-Marcia/Married-to-Marcia and Post-Marcia.

It's hard to see how Post-Divorce-George-Lucas could have had anything to do with Star Wars, but what about the Pre-Divorce-George-Lucas?

I just remembered: My second-favorite Star Trek TNG episode is "The Inner Light".

MUSE: http://ura.caldc.com/stannum/hivision.html

chyron8472 said:

And yet, he was stupid enough to arrogantly claim that video games could never be art; having never before actually played any video games whatsoever.

And when he was called out on it, he didn't change his mind nor become open to opposing evidence. Instead, he merely admitted that he ought to have just kept his trap shut about it in the first place.

Well, he was certainly entitled to his opinion.

I only brought him up to serve as a counterexample to imperialscum's description of "all" film critics.

I love this film.

dvdmike: Where'd you get source #2? Usenet? Found it.

Count me interested!

adywan said:

Hmmm... :-D

imperialscum said:

They consider themselves as an "experts" of film and are presenting their subjective opinions as something objective.

I know it's anecdotal, but Roger Ebert -- as a film critic -- doesn't match this description at all.

He was famously modest and managed to evaluate every movie he viewed in the context of what its director was trying to achieve; e.g., http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-delta-force-1986.

Lord Haseo said:

Calling the SW saga anything but art is insulting.

Insulting to whom?

I've spent 4-5+ hours of each day for the past year doing something StarWars-related; mostly preservation stuff.

So I certainly love StarWars, but come on... it's not the Mona Lisa.

imperialscum said:

AntcuFaalb said:

Star Wars =/= Citizen Kane

I think that Star Wars (OT) is way better than Citizen Kane.

I just don't see what is so great about Citizen Kane. I mean yes it is a good film and has some amazing cinematography but I don't enjoy the story and the characters. A few useless film critics labelled it as "the best film of all time" and now people are blindly following that crap.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-citizen-kane-1941

I don't think it's the best film of all time, but from a purely literary POV, it's up there.

Hey, it's me. said:

AntcuFaalb said:

I guess my opinion is unpopular here, but I'll repeat it again because the meat of what I'm trying to say is hidden in that big comment block in my previous post.

I love Star Wars, I really do, but I fail to see its value as anything more than a three-part morality tale with great characters, creatures, and Jim Henson Muppet-monsters.

I just don't see the point in bickering about the ROTJ plot. It fits in with the others because they're collectively just three silly little movies. That is, they're three very successful and entertaining movies, but silly little ones nonetheless. Enjoy them!

Star Wars =/= Citizen Kane

Well on that basis theres nothing subjective or contentious about them so lets just all give up and get on with our lives. (?)

We shouldn't give up. Preserving the OOT is about preserving film history. I can think of many sillier films that deserve preservation as well.

I just have trouble understanding why someone would enjoy ROTJ less. It's a popcorn-flick just like TESB.

The three films are not literary masterpieces and they were never intended to be. Evaluating them on that basis doesn't do justice to what George Lucas was trying to achieve.

They're supposed to be entertaining like the Flash Gordon serials of yesteryear, nothing more.

I guess my opinion is unpopular here, but I'll repeat it again because the meat of what I'm trying to say is hidden in that big comment block in my previous post.

I love Star Wars, I really do, but I fail to see its value as anything more than a three-part morality tale with great characters, creatures, and Jim Henson Muppet-monsters.

I just don't see the point in bickering about the ROTJ plot. It fits in with the others because they're collectively just three silly little movies. That is, they're three very successful and entertaining movies, but silly little ones nonetheless. Enjoy them!

Star Wars =/= Citizen Kane

ROTJ is my favorite Star Wars film, but it's not because of nostalgia.

Here's my post from the Revisited Ideas thread...

AntcuFaalb said:

muddyknees2000 said:

AntcuFaalb said:

How do you feel about Yub Nub?

I think that in a film full of soaring, fantastical and moving pieces of music, that tell as much of a story as the action on the screen does.....Yub Flub is a substantial failure. Again, instead of telling of a slightly tragic victory, where Luke met, and ultimately killed his own father....instead of strains of hopeful dreams for the new galaxy and the growing relationship between Han & Leia.......instead of new beginnings for a once shady, but now much celebrated hero, Lando Calrissian.....we get teddy bears singing a nonsensical little party song.

The song isn't the only thing to blame......I think the ending could have been more bittersweet, and more interesting than the group photo pose that we did get......but the music definitely doesn't help what is already a rather silly film.

This is why we view the films differently...

While I admit that Star Wars fits the literary archetype of the epic journey (a.k.a., the hero's journey), I fail to see its value as anything more than a three-part morality tale with great characters, creatures, and Jim Henson Muppet-monsters. What I'm trying to say is that I, personally, take more away from the Jabba the Hutt scenes at the beginning of ROTJ -- filled with the laughter of Salacious B. Crumb -- than I do from watching Darth Vader's internal struggle when deciding whether or not to save his son from the hands of the emperor.

Don't get me wrong: I certainly enjoy the more serious aspects of the films, but what I most look forward to is Lapti Nek in ROTJ, not the Battle of Hoth in TESB.

I understand how you view the films and see why Yub Nub doesn't meet your expectations. Considering my POV, do you see why it exceeds mine?