CatBus

I don’t know what to make of it. Some of it seems really good, some of it seems pretty bad. The choice of 60fps seems off to me – I guess they needed to IVTC to enhance it, but 24fps or 30fps, or even re-telecining it might feel less weird. Also, I feel I’d have to check to see if they’re using the best sources to begin with, and not overprocessing the image. And 4K is just plain silly for the final output resolution – a complete waste, even if it’s useful for Topaz to upscale to it as an intermediate resolution.

I dunno, I’d say it’s a promising technology showcase, but I’m not rushing to throw out my current copy. TL;DR wait and see.

That’s a very cool catch. Yes, they likely changed the compositing for Luke to improve the shot’s overall composition when the radar dish was added. That’s an ESB 70mm visual change not on anybody else’s list, as far as I know!

Begun, the skin tone wars have.

Project files have been updated to version 12.3 (codename: “Mind the Gap”), and the first post has been updated. Please PM me for temporary download links until the files are available at some more permanent locations.

Rough summary of changes from 12.2 to 12.3:

• Added/changed titles-only subtitles to accompany new Mandarin, Indonesian, Malaysian, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, and Ukrainian dubs
• Improved American Spanish subtitles (thanks to CAL0901)
• Fixed a problem where generating EPIV or 1985 subtitles would add an “Episode IV/A NEW HOPE” subtitle to titles-only subtitles even when the crawl was dubbed
• Thai font switched to Noto Looped Thai
• Improved support for hypothetical 24.000fps preservations
• Included Java binaries updated to OpenJDK 17
• Most scripts now process images faster if Python’s Pillow module (or compatible) is installed (the render-subs script is the notable exception)
• Windows utilities are built including the Pillow-SIMD module for improved performance, and also use a custom-compiled PyInstaller bootloader to further reduce antivirus false positives

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Yeah, I think the only problem I saw, aside from the rough audio edits at the end, was the possibly superfluous radar dish.

No worries. This thread is usually pretty quiet except for link requests. I don’t mind a little technical talk.

Same here. But Star Wars is the film I was most looking forward to seeing as a version 3.0 release anyway, so I’m not complaining!

I’ve replaced the Russian dubs in my collection with despecialized dubs from the 2011 Blu-rays, which sound much better than what I had before, and are available in the usual places. Subtitles to accompany these new dubs will be included in the next Project Threepio.

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There’s a whole discussion thread with links and other info here:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/4K77-Released/id/60815

Ah, thank you very much Adywan, I was considering shots 2 & 3 from your link to be the same shot. Good source info though, it looks like you chose the right ones based on that. But now I’m doubly confused about why they thought it wasn’t clear where our heroes were with respect to one another. Nevertheless, I’m glad they did it, because I prefer the 35mm ending.

The 8mm digest is unique audio, not found on the 70mm mix (morgands1’s in-theater recording confirms this). However, it may have some of the alternate video present on the 70mm prints. I think Puggo Edition actually has the missing radar dish on the Falcon that people report on the 70mm prints, and maybe others? Not sure, but I didn’t see this on your vimeo link. I also don’t know which ending it would have, although I suspect it’d have to be the 70mm ending, similar to what you have in your vimeo clip. You could use the morgands1 audio here to maybe get something that flows better, but the quality would drop, so maybe not.

Yes, I love that alternate Leia line because her lips actually match the dialogue for a change!

EDIT: I’m also not sure you’re clipping the right bits for the 70mm ending. What you’re clipping matches what adywan did, but I’m not sure adywan got it right either (but I could be wrong too). There’s three shots:

1. Rear of fleet, not showing Falcon
2. Front of fleet, showing docked Falcon
3. Closeup showing Falcon and medical bay

Two of the three were added for the 35mm cut, but which two? Adywan removed 1 & 3, but the audio lines up just as well removing 2 & 3. Considering that the stated reason for the additional shots was “to allow the viewer to see where Lando and Chewie were with respect to Luke and Leia”, it seems like 2 & 3 are the shots that do that. Just having shot #1 gives you no idea, and then I can see why they added those other two scenes for the 35mm cut. Shot #2 gives you a decent idea on its own, so I’m not sure why someone would feel the need to add the other two shots, especially because #1 doesn’t provide any additional context at all.

Well, I’m assuming you know about 4K77 and 4K83? These are film scans of the originals, not edits of home video releases. Don’t let the “4K” fool you though, the 720p projects you’ve already mentioned have a lot more fine image detail. Nevertheless, they’re truly the original versions, and there are lots of versions to choose from – the initial scan is the same, but different color grades and levels of DNR are applied in various iterations. IMO 4K83 is definitely worth a look, but 4K77 is more of an acquired taste.

There are discussion threads for these project here, with instructions on how to get them.

Lithuanian voiceovers are now synced and despecialized.

People confuse schizophrenia with dissociative identity disorder all the time. I’m not gonna judge.

Maybe he’s thinking jaundice.

Anyway, without having to rehash a huge discussion thread too much, SW DeEd 2.x was graded based on a Technicolor reference print. Why? The theory was sound – everyone’s got their own idea of what looks good, but Harmy wasn’t interested in what looked good, he wanted what looked accurate. Since most Star Wars prints had long ago faded to pink vinegar, we had no good color references… except Technicolor prints, which didn’t fade much at all under the right circumstances.

The result? DeEd 2.7 looks very much like a Technicolor print you might have seen in a theater in 1977.

The bad news? Technicolor prints were often very unlike other 35mm prints in terms of colors. Especially around this time, they often had a heavy yellow cast. So DeEd 2.7 looks very unlike what you might have seen in a theater in 1977, if it wasn’t showing a Technicolor print (which was most of them).

Going forward, Harmy’s indicated that he plans for a more neutral grade, or even multiple grades, when he redoes Star Wars for the 3.x series.

EDIT: The 1993 versions of the films have their own issues. They are heavily magenta-tinted, so everyone has red faces instead of yellow faces. In terms of color accuracy to non-Technicolor source, the 1997 Special Editions are actually pretty good for commercial releases, although I think the home video versions still got messed up somehow. I’d say DrDre has the best sense of Star Wars colors, if you want to check some of his threads. Nobody should use the 1993 releases as a color reference.

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Korean dubs are now synced and despecialized for the trilogy. The lip sync is a little inherently scattershot, but they turned out really nicely.

Uzbek voiceovers are now synced and despecialized for the trilogy – all films are incomplete, as they’re from censored TV broadcasts, or had other issues.

jjn26: PM sent.

weyb: This project just does subtitles for the main feature, sorry. Commentary subtitles are likely available only in English if you can find them at all.

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Georgian voiceovers are now synced and despecialized for the trilogy, available in the usual places. Return of the Jedi is incomplete.

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