CatBus

Midnight_Trooper said:

I watched it and everything despecialized looks great!

I personally strongly dislike the color timing. In certain shots things are so washed out and/or green that it is jarring. I thought your DeEd 1st Workprint was far superior. Someone with the skills should throw up some comparisons.

Certainly this was markedly different than I'd seen Star Wars look recently, and I was also taken by the washed out appearance of Tatooine, which I think reaches its peak as the sand crawler crests the dune after the "Look Sir, droids" scene.  That scene practically looks as blown out as a Hoth scene it's so bright.  But then I watched it again thinking that this was the desert with the sun glaring down all the time.  Suddenly Uncle Owen's squinty eyes fit a lot better, a lot of stuff did.  It's just blindingly bright out there!

Anyway, that was how I came to love the new color timing.  But it is very very different.  And as far as I'm able to tell I guess I did see it looking like this a long time ago.

Current status as of November 13th, 2023: Project files updated to version 15.0

Supported Languages: English, English SDH, Mandarin (Simplified & Traditional), Cantonese, Hindi*, Urdu*, Spanish (American & Castilian), Arabic, Metropolitan French, Canadian French*, Indonesian, Malaysian, Russian, Bengali, Portuguese (Brazilian & European), German, Japanese, Iranian Persian, Afghan Persian (Dari)*, Tajik (Cyrillic)*, Swahili*, Turkish, Korean, Vietnamese, Italian, Thai, Polish, Ukrainian, Uzbek (Latin)*, Burmese, Romanian, Dutch, Azerbaijani (Latin)*, Serbian (Latin & Cyrillic), Croatian, Bosnian*, Greek, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Albanian*, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovak, Catalan, Georgian*, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Latvian, Basque, Estonian, and Icelandic.

Subtitles for languages marked with an asterisk (*) are partially or completely based on machine translation

If you want to get the subtitles, check for downloads on MySpleen, thestarwarstrilogy.com, find the secret decoder ring with my name on it, or PM me for a download link. This will be the complete set of project files, so it is a big download. If you need help, send me a PM or post your questions in this thread and hopefully someone will be able to help you.

PROJECT THREEPIO SUBTITLES

The goal of Project Threepio is to provide high-quality subtitle options for preservations of the Star Wars “Original Original Trilogy” – Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in their unaltered forms – and to provide a framework with which anyone can add or change subtitles as needed for any other purpose. I hope that this will broaden the appeal of our preservation efforts beyond the English-speaking world.

Project Threepio’s subtitles work best with audio and video that have the following characteristics:

• All films synced to the full theatrical releases of the trilogy, or within a few frames of that
• For all films, English opening crawl text, English audio, and burnt-in theatrical English subtitles for alien dialogue
• Video format: 2160p(4K)@23.976fps, 1080p@23.976fps, or 720p@23.976fps
• Aspect ratio: approximately 2.37:1 (35mm) or 2.2:1 (70mm), letterboxed in a 1.78:1 frame

Examples: Harmy’s Despecialized Editions, 4K77–4K83 35mm Preservations, D+77–OTD83 Theatrical Reconstructions, SW Silver Screen Edition v1.6, ESB 16mm Duplication Print, Harmy’s ROTJ Grindhouse 35mm LPP

Utilities and detailed instructions are included for modifying the subtitles to work better with audio and video sources that have different characteristics, such as non-theatrically-synced film scans, international versions, cropped video, DVD video, etc.

SUBTITLE IMAGE GALLERY

All images below are based on Harmy’s Despecialized Editions using Project Threepio’s PGS subtitles. The appearance of subtitles when using SRT subtitles can vary a great deal.

Subtitles are moved to the top of the frame for titles and crawls, to prevent overlapping onscreen text as much as possible.

Subtitles for multiple speakers are formatted to align along one side.

Translations for burnt-in alien subtitles are also moved to the top of the frame. In rapid back-and-forth dialogue, the entire exchange is shifted to the top to prevent the viewer from having to repeatedly switch from reading the top to the bottom of the screen. If your video doesn’t have burnt-in alien subtitles, Project Threepio contains utilities that allow you to shift these subtitles back down to the bottom of the frame.

SDH subtitles use a dark background for increased readability.

Included utilities can resize subtitles, while retaining all formatting and layout (i.e. for large projection screens).

You can even use subtitles in two different languages simultaneously.

Specially-designed “matching” subtitles mimic the appearance of theatrical subtitles (first screenshot has theatrical alien subtitles, second has Project Threepio’s matching subtitles).

FUTURE PLANS

English-only preservations don’t do much to help many of the people out there who want to be able to see Star Wars, but are instead afflicted with the Special Editions. I would love for every new Star Wars preservation to include these subtitles by default, to increase the international accessibility of these historic films.

At just shy of five dozen languages, Project Threepio still lags quite a bit behind its namesake. I am always accepting contributions of good-quality subtitles for additional languages, and improvements to existing subtitles.

THANK YOU

I’d like to thank the following Star Wars fans for their contributions to Project Threepio:

Feallan, Sadako, schorman13, pittrek, ArdaYlcn, Laserman, a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous, none, morgands1, williarob, Teesel, You_Too, laozi, RashadShehadeh, bttfbrasilfan, LexX, Kaz47, Rina, roback214, Leoj, Hostmaster, Rondan, kylefan, spaceghost, lexsanor, msycamore, IronMagus, Harmy, daboka, Laserschwert, csd79, ZIPC, B2D2, thxita, hot noodles, pmc3, Leonardo, Anuj, stormpack, aserdaryakut, sf999, carlosmon, frater, lucaslslopes, coolman756, Kloky, jl8, wayphat, carlosmon, DevilWing, Faithwyn, ChainsawAsh, CAL0901, alexp120, negative1, Doctor M, dahmage, marvins, bilditup1, Chewtobacca, Darth Mallwalker, towne32, Diego, TheHutt, Mavimao, TV’s Frink, Possessed, and Collipso.

LOGOS FOR PRESERVATION PROJECTS

Also included in the Project Threepio resources folder are some high-resolution logos for various preservation projects, suitable for T-shirts or whatever you like. Preview images shown with a solid black background are provided with a transparent background for more printing flexibility.

Official Project Threepio Images (album art mashups: The Clash and Operation Ivy)

May the Force Be With You in multiple languages (white, black, or yellow text)

Unofficial Images For Other Preservation Projects (album art mashups: The Police, Negativland, and Pink Floyd)

walking_carpet said:

TPM is the worst movie ive ever seen.

This is not necessarily hyperbole.  I know there are a lot worse movies out there than TPM in my book, tons of them--heck, I can barely even remember what happened in TPM except me playing with the light on my watch during the racing scene, and I know it gets way worse than that.  Tedious is easy, it takes some measure of talent to make something truly grindingly awful, and none of the PT has that.

But most people have some sort of mental filter that says "that sounds terrible! why would i even want to see that?" and that prevents them from seeing truly bad films.  Which means the worst ones they have ever seen are not the worst in existence, they are just ones that managed to fool the mental filter into seeing it anyway.

I thought it would be fun to drink a lot of beer and watch Battlefield Earth.  I failed to take into account that there is not enough beer in the world.  TPM just makes you wish you were doing something else.  Battlefield Earth makes you wish you were dead.

You_Too said:

And finally, in the "look sir, droids" scene, the hatch in the background is grey.

Can't believe I missed this.  I'm handing in my card right now.

DominicCobb said:

Finally someone defending TPM: http://movies.ign.com/articles/121/1218394p1.html

I actually agree with most of the article. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't love TPM, and I still think it's the worst of the saga. But I feel like it get's a lot more hate than it should, especially from this website.

Also, truth be told, I was a kid when I first saw TPM so... 

The article's mostly okay except leaning a little hard on a few strawmen for counterarguments.  Our favorite hyperbolic child-crime claim makes a showing, of course, and  then there's this disingenuous bit: "I don't understand the rationale that something existing separately tarnishes the impact or greatness of the original."  They must not have had enough room to include the text "except for when the original is taken away and hidden in a dusty vault for eternity, never to be seen again."

That said, it's better than most editorials along these lines.

Mielr said:

On a side note, I know of someone who has all 3 SW films on 35mm (he collects 35mm films).

If he has a copy of non-SE Jedi, ask him if he'd sell/loan his print to someone else to make the transfer.  If he would, I bet we can find one hell of an interested party right here.

Well I can't help thinking that with all the rights to the franchise still in certain hands, any reboot would be tragic.  So here is my list of "tragic" casting choices.

Luke Skywalker: Daniel Radcliffe
Princess Leia: Lindsay Lohan
Han Solo: Seth Rogen
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Ewan McGregor
Darth Vader: George Lucas (because the trilogy is all about him)

C-3PO, R2-D2, Yoda, and Jabba would be CGI, of course.

ray_afraid said:

THIS. People laugh with Rocky Horror. People laugh at Phantom Menace. BIG difference.

So TPM is exactly like Showgirls, then.

vbangle said:

Catbus, if you have been reading this thread at all DarkJedi has said over and over again he doesn't do that. You'll have to wait like the rest of us.

Sorry, I see now that the previous screencap teasers were from You_Too, not DJ.  Does this mean there will be no more previews before the final product is released?

kilik64 said:

But what if we make fun of it and have a good time doing that? Make it ok then?

It just makes it equivalent to Showgirls or Rocky Horror, that's all.  The only thing wrong with that is that there are probably still a handful more people with genuine non-ironic interest in seeing TPM than Showgirls, and you might bug them.  But really if you choose your venue right or wait a little longer, you won't have to worry about that either.

I do feel kinda bad for people who genuinely like Showgirls though.  There simply aren't any non-ironic showings anymore.

Harmy said:

The colourtiming process was much more difficult then than it is today with digital technology and that's why it couldn't be as perfect as today.

If, by "perfect", you mean "cyan and orange"...

Part of the appeal of pre-digital movies for me is that colors vary almost entirely because of the lighting, just like the real world.  Sure some weird lighting can occasionally make skin tones look greenish or grayish, but that's just like the real world too.  I actually enjoy that.  It's much preferable to having consistent skin tones inside, outside, under flourescent lights, standing next to a big red banner, etc.

Darth Bizarro said:

Almost as bad as the transfer were the fans in attendance.  I'm not sure who was more annoying, the group of hecklers in front of us who spent the whole film running their mouths and cracking jokes and before the movie started, got up in front of the theaters and asked people if they actually liked this movie they were about to see then started asking questions straight out of the RedLetterMedia reviews.

I think what you're seeing is that TPM is finally becoming Showgirls.  There are certain films that are simply EXPECTED to be terrible, and they are shown at midnight so that people can pay money to make fun of them and be rowdy when nobody else is awake.

I'm sure people also complained that they wanted to quietly enjoy the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  But it was a midnight screening of a terrible movie.  This sort of audience is what it's made for.  I'm afraid you'll probably be seeing more of this.

dark_jedi said:

...

Star Wars is rendering right now, it will be done in a couple hours, then we(You_Too & I) will fix some of the bad frames, then I will go to work on the audio, then we are going on to Jedi, it has less bad frames, Empire is by far the worst so we will do Empire last.

 

Are we approaching the time when we could see some screencaps?  I'm excited to see the new colors (and the burnt-in subs, but that's just me).

If I had a penny for every time this workprint made me crap myself, I'd be able to buy a new pair of pants.

That's my way of saying don't you dare change a thing.  Or maybe I ate some bad shrimp.

That boy was our last hope...

Harmy said:

WILL YOU FUCKING SHUT UP ABOUT THE FUCKING COLOURS!!! JUST HEARING THE WORD SKINTONE MAKES MY OWN FUCKING SKIN CRAWL!!!

I knew this would happen someday.  We broke Harmy.

We are so screwed now.

I am now solidly pro-shake, but still moderately anti-burn-mark.

Harmy, you could leave the shake as-is and I'd be perfectly happy, depends on how much more tweaking you can stand.  TServo's suggestions sound reasonable.

dlvh said:

Did someone mention here, that there was "outtake video" of this instance? Or was it just talk that they decided NOT to put it in, do to time restraints, or what-not? My theater had it in, but perhaps My theater had a very early copy that later version s left it out...?

No, they decided not to film the missed throw, as the idea had not yet come to the writers of the novelization to make its way back to the scriptwriters.

I think your theatre ran a Sweded version.  That's the only possible explanation that does not involve mixing up the film and the novelization.

dlvh said:

Does this mean that you are going to find this "missed throw" clip somewhere and insert it to where it should be in the movie also...for the people who saw it in the theaters when it was introduced in May-July (or later) of 1977?

That would be great for all the fans that originally saw it, and know it was in there, in the summer of '77

As soon as some hard evidence of the missed throw materializes, he'll be right on it.  However, it's not on any of the original 35mm reels anyone's ever gotten their hands on (badly faded, but usable enough to in/validate this claim), nor on any in-theatre video recordings, or anything else.

Top Men.

digitalfreaknyc said:

I dunno. I just feel like stretching anything will introduce artifacts. I know it does with sound.

The frames are identical.  They are just played back faster.  Like a flip-book.  You can slow down the framerate if you really want, (visually) losslessly.  But it's just a workprint, so why bother?

dark_jedi said:

CatBus said:

digitalfreaknyc said:

I'm confused. Why would you do it in PAL to slow it down to NTSC??

PAL timecodes are unambiguous when reporting problems.

WOW, I did not know you can't use timecodes with 23.976 FPS, learn something new every day.

Smartass ;)  That's the reason given, I'm just repeating it.  I'm assuming not all playback software does fractional seconds very accurately, in which case you wouldn't know which exact frame you were dealing with.

bkev said:

I am curious as to why the decision was made to add it at all.

It was shakier in the theatre, but we don't have much in the way of usable references for that.  It's a best effort.  I'm not sure it's good enough either but I trust Harmy to make the call.

digitalfreaknyc said:

I'm confused. Why would you do it in PAL to slow it down to NTSC??

PAL timecodes are unambiguous when reporting problems.

Harmy said:

Yeah, it's kind of funny that we're having this heated debate about something that covers about 2% of two frames :-)

The nitpicking is just going to get worse the closer this thing gets to perfection.  It is inevitable.  It is your destiny.

How's this for framing the burn mark choice?

I think everyone agrees that if Star Wars were ever subjected to a proper studio restoration, the burn marks would not be in it.  I think the LACK of a proper studio restoration of these films is a burning issue for everyone here, and the primary reason this project exists in the first place.  And some of us want Harmy's project to be a substitute for that nonexistent proper studio restoration.  But the simple fact is it isn't a studio restoration--it's its own project with its own priorities.

Damn it, I just argued against my preference.  I gotta stop doing that.