Burdokva

I knew I would be too late... either way, I can't help but comment on it - even if you've chosen a definitive cover - great stuff here, ABC!

But honestly, for the main cover, I think the very first picture you posted is (was?) the best. The plain black background keeps it clean, with the Executor "hovering" just above the title logo - very imposing. It's clean, dark, gray and colorless, almost sterile - exactly what the Empire represents. And since the Empire steals the show in TESB, maybe it's best fitting thematically...

Plus, I have to admit, it makes the Audophile Edition more like a CE/SE than a regular OST release. Every special/collector's edition soundtrack or game I have seem to use a clean, stylized cover with as few decorations as possible. IMHO, this is again the best fit.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Whatever you release, someone amongst my friends with knowledge about three-folding disk cases and laser printer is about to get very bothered... mwa-ha-ha-ha! >:D

The logo is essential to "set you up" for the movie. For me, every Star Wars movie is special from the moment it starts... actually, before it starts. The logos really pull you in and heighten the anticipation.

That's why I really like the Cloud City background. Not only does the logo look like the classic Fox one, and it gives credit to Ady for his hard work, but it's also thematically fitting with the movie. Just seeing it in the first second makes my brain go "oh, I'm about to watch TESB, yeah!"... 

Count me in on the waiting list. Every one of restorations so far has been top-notch, I can't wait to hear this!

Oh, and thanks for planning for a B&W simplified cover and booklet. :)

Ah, sorry - misunderstanding! :)

That logo looks great, very moody. I hope it can make it into the final cut. For some reason, seeing a logo makes the waiting different... almost like the anticipation when waiting for the theatrical premier. :)

EyeShotFirst said:

"He's like some retarded person who just want's to see cool stuff done on this computer." Mr. Plinkett

I'm retarded because I like some things about the 97'SE? That's fair...

EDIT: Hey, Abe's Exodus was great - certainly miles better than anything related with JJ-Binks.

Wasn't Hayden added for the 2004 VD release, and not vor the 97'SE? Yeah, I also detest than one...

Some of the things about the SE I really like. Maybe it's a generational difference, but as much as I enjoy models (I'm a scale modeler, and I also find them far more realistic than CGI), the SE had some nice CGI touches - like the improved lighting on the engines in some scenes; very few scenes, sadly.

If the SE was purely "cosmetic" and didn't introduce (or to be blunt, force) some changes, I'm sure people would have loved it. I still like it a lot. I've seen the original OT only on VHS as a kid, the SE was my full cinematic experience.

It's stunning how people can make fantastic edits with their own PCs and visually improve the OT, without adding any stupidity, yet Lucas with his near infinite budget can't. Meh...

I'm a bit like captainsolo -

went to a TPM screening in early October 1999, just when it was starting to run in our local cinemas, as part of my 11th birthday present. I couldn't remember the day when I first watched Star Wars, but it's one of my oldest childhood memories and I was hyped about the movie. My parents were also fans of the OT. I loved the movie... they didn't. When I asked why, they politely explained I would understand when I grow up and let it rest - as did I.

I know it's a bad movie, but I somehow like it. It has a childish charm to it and it's visually/aesthetically closer to the OT, for some strange reason.

Can't remember much about how I felt for AotC, as I had an eye exam scheduled after the movie and I was psyched - I knew that I was shortsighted, but my friends and family didn't -I was supposed to go with my father after the movie (turned out wearing glasses ain't so bad after all ;) ). What I do remember was that my father was becoming increasingly sad and angry during the screening; oh, yes. and the Yoda laughter. I think he was going to cry at the moment.

After I got home in the evening and decided to play my brand new "Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast" (crystal clear with glasses, even) I had the terrible realization that the game was a far superior Star Wars story than the movie I had just watched.

 By the time RotS rolled out in May 2005 I had begun hating the prequels. While I grew up in the '90s most of the neighborhood kids and my schoolmates not only hadn't watched Star Wars, but they bashed it constantly. I felt awful being a fan of the incredible and much-hated Saga. After the prequels came out, almost everyone became a raging nerd. Not only that, at every pace through my high-school years I was listening how awful the OT was and how amazingly "cool, visually stunning" the prequels were - of course, no one ever spoke about characterization, drama or plot. Just fancy CGI.

 So, back to the premier of RotS - many of my friends, my father and uncle (who barely agreed to come after the first two prequels) preparing for the midnight screening. It began OK, space battle... and after the first two minutes, when instead of dazzling dogfights and story/choreography behind the battle, it turned into a CGI fest of stupid droids and a pointless melee of ships (one that didn't end properly even) I knew would be the same trash!

 After the credits rolled, one my best friends - and huge prequel fan - turned and said '"they killed Star Wars. I'm going home to sleep, forget this .... and never watch it again".

nterestingly, my mother saw the movie later in 2007 and loved it - although she couldn't stand AotC.

I had pretty much given up on anything Star Wars until I found some great fan edit and this website.  And realy, really wanted the prequels to be great. Looking back, I'm more sad about ho much time wasted anticipated them than for the fact they turned out to be awful.

Gah, the Prequels already looks so irritatingly clean and fake - DNR will only make things worse. I can't say about the OT in BluRay, maybe it will help, maybe not. But the last thing the pristine, plastic-like image of the prequels needs is DNR.

I actually hope someone (in a fan edit, of course) will add grain, speckles and maybe dirt to some of the backgrounds and sets. It would make them far easier on the eye, and more realistic. The Prequels, IMHO, really haven't aged that well as far as CGI goes. :/

If there's one single change about the upcoming BluRay that I'd like, it would be more ships in the background at Endor. Maybe rotoscoped lasers and lightsabers, too. I guess it would help Ady's version.

I know that there won't be an HD version of ANH:R, but if the BluRays are still in that horrible blue shade (heh), would you be willing to make a color restoration? No edit whatsoever, just tweaking the colors?

By the way, I showed TESB:R trailer, plus various other Revisited WIP vids, to my father yesterday. I wasn't hoping for much, but to my amazement he was genuinely excited and asked if we could watch the edit right away, and was rather bummed it isn't available yet.

So, thanks Ady! I really mean it, my father (as well as my uncle and mother) used to be Star Wars fans, who were uterly disappointed by the prequels, to the point they didn't want to watch anything Star Wars again. Seeing my father excited about the movie was great. Thanks, again. :)

Yes, 2020! I knew it would come out sooner than I expected! :P

Hope everything goes well with your apartment and you can go back to Revisited. :)

The reviewer did have a point that it suited Anakin more to do something rash, like jump out the window to catch the droid. One point amongst many, actually.

I felt really bad after watching the reviews. Honestly, there were some faults of the prequels I hadn't noticed and other I refused to. I didn't like them much to begin with, even though I fall into the demographic they seem to be aimed at (I watched TPM on my 11th birthday as a gift, 16 when ROTS rolled out), but I'm on the verge of hating them now.

Just watched RedLetterMedia's review of AOTC... I almost feel depressed! It's fun (even if kinda creepy and overly long), but the guy makes some valid points and you can't help but love the OT even more, compared to its successors.

TESB:R can't come soon enough.

Just finished listening to the 15-minute preview, and I can't wipe the smile off my face! I can't wait to listen to the finished project... bravo!

Lord Grievous said:

Too many movies get dubbed, countries like France and Germany dub every foreign language movie automatically.

Here in Belgium we only dub some children's cartoons and movies, I watched Star Wars when I couldn't yet read and understand everything they said in the movie but I still liked it.

Every time I switch channels and accidentally hear the Simpsons or Star Wars in French I crinch.

If you don't want to watch the film as it was intended, don't watch it at all. You might as well watch it with your eyes closed or with the sound muted.

 I hear you! Until recently, this was the common practice here (Bulgaria) - dub children cartoon and family/comedy/soap-opera TV series - everything else, esp. movies was strictly subtitled. Given the awful quality of every TV channel over here (something like 480p, 4:3, 2 channel stereo) it was at least bearable to listen to the original audio track... since a few months, there seems to be a national regulated policy to dub everything, besides the late-evening movies (not porn, the more violent ones)... agh, it's unbearable! :(

Ady, have you tried tweaking the pitch of Luke's voice in that scene, where he mixes up te Rogues' numbers? It has bothered me before, and while I appreciate the fix, his voice sounds... off?

One last question (isn't in the first post, I checked) - do you plan to release a Matroska .mkv encoded version besides the Blu-Ray one - or maybe let someone else encode it? I don't have a player, neither a PS3 for the BluRay.

Thanks!

Well, final or not, I'll be sure to give it a listen - so far your work on the soundtracks has been outstanding. At the very least I have (another) excuse to put my neighbors through another round of TESB's music! 

The only thing I do not like at all is that I don't have a color printer... there goes the slick cover art and booklet for me! :'(

Looking forward to this one!

I must admit, ABC has got me confused... is this the final restoration, or the 2010 Optimum edition? I have two versions of the last, plus Optimum 2009, and I still don't dare burn anything down on an audio CD, waiting for the last and completed version.

I don't think I need to ask anything about the quality, given the previous two edits, I'm sure it will be be fantastic!

A tip of the hat to you for the hard work! You shame most of the OSTs I have, when it comes to sound quality, ABC...

Thanks! 

I would like that! RotJ is the worst sounding of the three, especially the Endor battle tracks - even with your previous restoration, which upped the quality, it sounded different and more compressed than the rest.

And with the ESB Optimum edit, the quality gap is just big... I wouldn't mind even if you released a few of the worst sounding tracks with a better, restored quality.

doubleofive said:

Are you going to be there the whole time they're working?  Because electricians rewiring an apartment is the PERFECT cover for ILM goons to steal all of your stuff! ;-)

 That alone would make a great fan movie... "Stealing Revisited", lol!

I hope everything goes smooth, can't wait to see more. :)

I hope you wouldn't mind if I chip in on the PT discussion - for me it went downhill ever since the first few minutes of Ep.I passed by. Had that movie started with the Clone Wars beginning (or already in motion) it would have been great.

Second, to this day I can't forgive the missed opportunity to make Anakin Skywalker simply a young pilot from Naboo, better yet, a freighter pilot stuck there due to the blockade (for continuity's sake) that should have been instrumental in the plot by helping the Jedi and the Queen escape. The rest being a good old-fashioned space "chase" through a war-torn Galaxy, much like ANH or TESB.

The other thing that bothered me greatly with the PT was the abundance, nay, the omnipresence of Jedi. I am not from the USA, so I may not share the fascination with comic book characters some (most?) of you may share, but the prequels downsized the Jedi from rare, exceptional mythological warrior-philosophers to the everyday action hero, capable of extreme feats of disbelievability... something that turned even worse in the EU. I point to TFU as an obvious example. That's a problem of the movies in general though, always trying to find the visual "muscle" and raw action rather than the subtlety of the originals. For me the ominous gray shapes of the Star Destroyers, quietly sitting in orbit will always hold a certain sense of dread that the visually (and overly colorful) spectacular battles of the prequels can't.

I loved TPM when I watched it for the first time, as a gift for my eleventh* birthday back in '99 (yes, I'm not that old, but I still love the OT). I remember my parents, who were great fans, being stunned by the movie and I couldn't understand why. Ten years later, I can.... it just lacks spirit.

As much as I'd like it, I can't see an edit fixing the prequels. Not that it should stop anyone from making it, at the least I'm greatly enjoying reading some of the ideas here and looking through the mock-up pictures. :)

* Bah, maybe I am getting old, I can't remember my birthdays even! Shame on me...

Haven't posted here in quite a while, but I've been trying to keep up with Ady's progress...

That clip with the Falcon is stunning! It can only imagine how much better it would be with music and sound effects added, watching it on the big screen... er, ok, a 40' LCD TV.

Can't wait to see TESB:R finished. Pardon me for asking, but the thread is quite large, are there any parts of the restoration (or, to be precise, enhancement) project that are completely finished and don't require any additional work?

I wanted to write in more detail, but life kind of swept me, so here's my short impressions from a comparison between the 2009 and 2010 version of the Optimum edit:

Overall, I think the 2010 sounds just slightly better - more "relaxed", not so noisy and bombastic. There's more depth to the sound, which makes it more clear, even if some sections are slightly fainter than the previous. 2009 has louder overall feel, as if all of the instruments are up front. The livelier tracks sound great, but it's a bit too much for me.

I still like them both. There's seem to be new version, however.. maybe I should wait until the actual final, definitive one? :p

Haven't posted in quite a while (though I followed the progress of the thread), but after hearing some samples I must say - those binaural recordings sound amazing! I would attempt to make such a recording (my father is an audio nut), but even his best 5.1 system is pretty mediocre compared to the professional stuff available in the West.

Still, I hope someone can make it, it really sounds great and immersive.

Ady's new clip (from December) was great, the colors are far better than either the original or 2004 DVD releases. Maybe somewhat darker night scenes could help, but I like it so far.

Two thumbs up for the blizzard outside the hangar, when the doors close - that would be a great addition!

I'm downloading v3 as I write this - for me, downloading anything as large as a CD from Megaupload can be very hard - the download speed is sometimes very slow and I regularly get "file is unaccessible at the moment" messages. So, don't take long pauses between new review and feedback as a lack of interest.

And honestly, subtle changes are hard to notice unless you have a trained year and a good audio set. I'm going to compare v2 and v3 in the coming days, but on the other hand, I'm not exactly familiar with audio - I can give feedback on what sounds "right" to me, rather than comment in detail what should (or shouldn't be fixed).

Besides, if you don't share your work, then even fewer people would be able to hear and enjoy it. I understand how bad it is to work on something and to wait for feedback, and there to be little (or non). But at least some of us here on the board have heard the restoration efforts and we love 'em, so the work counts.

Sorry for the late reply - my PC's PSU failed...

I'm listening through the score again, and it's marvelous. I was thinking about writing a detailed feedback, but considering I'm not very knowledgeable in music and audio (and my English suffers when it comes to music terminology), that would be rather pointless.  All I can say this is the best version of TESB's score I've heard, and I'm disappointed my PC probably doesn't have good enough stereo for me to fully enjoy it.

I've listened to some of these tracks in a live performance of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra as part of a "Star Wars Suite" concert; your edit is the closest thing to capturing the feeling and detail of that concert. Thank you, I'll be looking forward to the 2010 version you mentioned.

PS. Dare I hope RotJ gets a similar treatment? Your previous effort was great, but the source scores (eh, the Anthology...) were less than spectacular and could benefit from a total overhaul. :)