CatBus

Just to add for SK's benefit, the reason you don't see much difference between 720p and 1080p in the pics Harmy posted is because the Blu-ray was based on a crap scan, and further because it was a crap scan of a negative that had already been Lowry-ized and lost some detail.  A 4K scan of the original unaltered negative should be beautiful.

Bingowings said:

He who controls the Spice Worms controls the Universe Girls.

That is what I want.

What I really, really want.

Space Kaijuu said:

is the color correct? The first version seems more accurate to what I remember when I first saw the movie in the theater. I say this because I clearly remember wondering why the Jawas seemed to have red eyes in the theater but the toys and even home video release they had yellow eyes. The change in tint would explain this. Also, R2 looks a little greenish in the remaster during that scene. Also was the Biggs scene that was added to the SE version originally deleted before or after the initial theatrical release? I've heard both ways citing that it was removed from the home video release due to early limitations of the VHS format. Finally, you mentioned a blu-ray release of the despecialized edition. Will this be in 1080p or 720p?

Doing my best here... others may chime in with more accurate info.  Star Wars was shown on various filmstocks, all with slightly different color profiles.  Harmy's color choices are based on Technicolor IB prints, which are as close to a gold standard as we can get outside the studio.  Other prints, such as Eastman filmstock, were known to go pink with age, so certainly that could explain a reddish shift if you saw a very old print, but that would be over the whole image and not just one detail like the Jawa eyes.  Frankly, though, I think it's more likely than not your memory is just playing tricks--lots of people claim to remember entire scenes that simply weren't there (such as the Biggs scene), and red eyes may just be another one of those.  People read novelizations, etc, based on the film and the two merged in memory for lots of people, causing lots of false memories.  The Blu-ray will be 720p.

EDIT: Ah, screw it.  Everyone here is too fast.

I'm hoping we're able to give the credits the same treatment they got in SW 2.0.

That's how Lucas plans to fix Star Wars in the 40th Anniversary Set and make everyone happy forever.  Three Greedos corner Han in the cantina.  One of them shoots at Han, Han does a backflip to dodge it, and then, while still midway through the backflip and actually still upside-down and facing the opposite direction, he shoots all three Greedos.  With regard to two of the Greedos, Han still shoots first.

And if people still don't like it after that, Lucas can just say that just proves Star Wars fans are impossible to please.

AntcuFaalb said:

Tyrphanax said:

I hope now that Harmy is insanely famous that he doesn't forget all us little people.

I feel like the fame is already changing him...

In what way(s)?

He's grown a beak, and has these scales all over his arms.

Actually some drives do allow you to do bitsetting permanently, not that it matters a great deal.  I do it just because you never know...

C'mon, that original 10-15 minutes of Luke throwing and missing with the grappling hook over & over again WAS pretty tedious...

It's an expectations thing.  A lot of people were upset by the removal of the snake reflection back in the day, heard that Spielberg made some mea culpa statements that altering his films was a mistake, saw that E.T. got changed back to the way it was for its Blu-ray, and assumed Raiders would get changed back to the way it was on its Blu-ray too.  These people will be disappointed--and the other changes, albeit minor, are just salt in the wound that Spielberg did not, in fact, learn from his E.T. fiasco what they thought he should learn.

However, I'd say most people including me think that while theatrical fidelity is always best, there is such thing as good enough--and this Blu-ray is more than good enough, it's very good.  Just, you know, not exactly what you saw or heard in the theatres ;)

I agree, if the OT got this kind of treatment, there would be dancing in the streets.  But I don't think the complainers are unreasonable, they just had different expectations going in.

Mike O said:

Wait, wait, wait, what's wrong with the Raiders BR? What've I missed?

Not much, but there was fiddling.  The whole opening sequence was brightened and it did indeed "blow out" some bits here and there (the sky, for example).  Not exactly terrible, except for the knowledge that it was a totally unnecessary change.  Also the snake reflection (for Indy) is still removed, but other snake reflections (for Marion) are still there, so it's not the theatrical version a lot of people had hoped for.

Also there's some contention that the whole film now has a slight "golden" cast (and I agree with this).  However, this golden cast is preferable to the weird bluish casts of previous home video releases, so it's still an improvement.  Also, the sound is a surround upmix rather than the original, but I think it's a good surround upmix.

"Wrong" depends greatly on your point of view ;)  It's been unnecessarily tinkered with, certainly, but it still looks and sounds good IMO, and taken as a whole it's better than all previous releases including HDTV (although HDTV may have a better opening sequence).

SE screencaps make me sad :(

I've just discovered that Project Threepio 5.1 appears to have been posted to the newsgroups (a.b.sw) and to MySpleen.  It appears to be the real thing, so people can get it from there.  Which is just as well, really, since I'm going to be unreachable for many months, starting any day now (KittenBus is coming).  I'll update the first post so people don't try to PM me for this anymore.

Another vote for Verbatim.  FWIW, layer breaks need to be over halfway through a movie (i.e. layer 1 must have more data than layer 2).  For maximum compatibility, don't use seamless layer changes, burn at no more than half the rated speed of the media, and look into bitsetting optons for your burner (some very old hardware players don't recognize certain media types, but you can make your DVD's appear to be DVD-ROMs).  None of that is gospel, it's just a laundry list and if you hit most of them you should be good.

Okay, I've incorporated Harmywood in my sig.  Our "flag" planted right in Hollywood's backyard seemed to go well next to a world domination map...

We give the man a dedicated superhero thread and he doesn't want to seem vain ;)

I haven't seen such humility since... wait a sec...

HARMY IS ELVIS!

Motion carried.  Sorry folks, I know you wanted to see more Despecialized Editions, but this is important.

Okay, the motion before us is to change Harmy's mission.  He needs to stop trying to save Star Wars, and instead focus on reconciling Johnny Marr, Morrissey, and the gang.

All in favor?  Aye.

Tyrphanax said:

He should join The Smiths.

Ah, Matt, Will and Anna.  Shame they broke up.  Matt's solo career didn't quite match the greatness of the original group.  But he did have that amazing hair.

Or the new Will Smith.  Or maybe the new Anna Nicole Smith.  No, wait...

Project files have been updated to version 5.1 (original post has been updated as well).  The new download links are NOT the same as before, so please PM me for the links.

Rough summary of changes:

Added Thai (scaled only), and re-rendered Arabic using a more legible font.  Instructions for changing subtitles into different formats are greatly simplified.  The packages are also a little different: one package includes everything, and then two smaller packages just have DVD subs and sources.

Actually, you know what?  That picture zoomed in and shrunk down to 100x100 would be a great avatar for Harmy when he gets tired of the Yoda/Joker avatar.  I'm tempted to use if for something myself if he doesn't want it...

It's so beautiful...

lpd said:

Wondering, is that normal/standard for the player to do that?

No.  And 24fps is the less-frequently-encountered framerate, so if a player was just buggy, I'd figure that would be the framerate that would screw it up.  It's possible there's some sort of problem at an intermediate layer, such as if you route your HDMI cable through a receiver.  But it's a bug.

I'd check for firmware updates if you already haven't.  Also I know of at least one player that will only output 60fps if the source is 720p, but can do 24p correctly for any 1080p source, something to do with a bug in the scaling.

bilditup1 said:

There's been a minute but detectable uptick in interest even at the spleen since Simon Pegg's tweet

And I'm also seeing an uptick in subtitle requests, all strangely specifying that they want them for Empire and Jedi, as if they already have them for Star Wars...

So I think it's safe to say that whatever surge in interest we're seeing is global, and that people are following up watching Star Wars DeEd 2.0 with watching Empire and Jedi 1.0.

georgec said:

Am I the only one that sees a front-facing Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing two giant oven mitts?

Riding on top of the moon lander which is strangely suspended over a little white star destroyer?  No.