Charles Threepio

If someone can accomplish it, I’d be most interested in getting my hands on the end result!

I may do similar restorations for other Pixar films progressively (i.e. in order of release); they shall have their own threads, when they’re underway, and they shall be accompanied by their respective initial theatrical shorts.

After I finish with this restoration, I was thinking of doing Tiny Toy Stories next; course, I gotta do some research on the original resolutions of each short from Red’s Dream onward, plus I gotta recreate the titles for both the US and international versions.

OK, in honor of the release of Toy Story 4, I’m working on a logo restoration of the original movie, in 3D and its original 1.5K resolution. Preliminary planned languages are English, French Canadian, Mexican Spanish, Castilian Spanish, German, and Italian.

Sources I plan to use include:

• Toy Story 3D Blu-ray (for the bulk of the restoration)
• Toy Story UK R2 DVD (for the logo restoration and the Dolby Stereo Digital English track)
• Histoire de jouets Canadian pan-and-scan VHS (for reference when framing to the theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, as it appears to be sourced from a 35mm release print which was apparently pre-cropped to the aspect ratio from the original 1.66:1)
• Recreated rating slides, including MPAA G card

I may have to recreate some stuff from and/or use lower-quality sources for the finished product, so bear with me. I’ve already created a preliminary version of the zooming-out Disney logo at the start, and it looks a little rough with the stereo separation I applied for the zoomout/transition to the opening scene. PM me for a WeTransfer link to the stereo 3D opening logo recreation, which should be ready as early as the next day for those who request it.

That’s kind of what I was talking about there.

Due to overriding commitments elsewhere that I’ve only just wrapped up today, I might not be able to get the transcripts out when I said I would. However, I’m still working on this project, just in case you were wondering.

I don’t expect perfection with CGI people, mind. I just hope to make it look as good as the CGI Leia in Rogue One did, and many, including myself, believe she was handled better than Tarkin was (it helped her case that she only appeared in one brief scene at the end).

The final version will not only have the deleted scenes look a lot cleaner, I’m also considering animating new scenes featuring Captain Raymus Antilles, R5-D4 (the red astromech with the bad motivator), the Disaster from the perspective of the Alderaanians, Red Seven, Red Eight, Red Twelve, Gold Three, Gold Four, Gold Six, Gold Seven, Gold Eight, and the abandoned Rebel base on Dantooine, among others, as resources allow. Performers I plan to model the characters after in the proposed new scenes include Tim Beckmann (Captain Raymus Antilles), Zarene Dallas (Red Eight), Ingvlid Deila with the face of the great Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia Organa), Scott Eastwood (Red Twelve), John Forgeham (Gunnery Captain Bolvan), the great Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Benjamin Hartley (Red Seven), Don Henderson (General Cassio Tagge), Liam Neeson (Qui-Gon Jinn), Bill Nighy (Officer Arvira), Adrianna Palecki (Gold Six), Adrian Pasdar (Gold Eight), Ryan Reynolds (Gold Four), Rene Russo (Queen Breha Organa), Jimmy Smits (Bail Organa), and Emma Watson (Gold Three and Dr. Chelli Lona Aphra), though I don’t know who should be the model for Gold Seven as there isn’t any artwork of him as of writing. At any rate, the new scenes, if they’re included, will come mainly from From a Certain Point of View.

Proposed new scenes, in chronological order, are as follows:

• After Darth Vader enters the Tantive IV, Captain Antilles attempts to convince Princess Leia to escape and is eventually accosted by Stormtroopers. Taken from the story “Raymus” by Gary Whitta.
• Between Biggs informing Luke about his plan to join the Rebellion and the Jawas capturing R2, Bolvan asks a certain favor of Arvira. Taken from the story “The Sith of Datawork” by Ken Liu.
• Captain Mod Terrik has the Jawas slaughtered, and R5 plays dead and escapes the carnage with his life. Taken from the story “The Red One” by Rae Carson.
• After Luke finds his aunt Beru and uncle Owen dead, Qui-Gon appears to Obi-Wan as he organizes a small funeral for the slaughtered Jawas. Taken from the story “Master and Apprentice” by Claudia Gray.
• The Disaster from the POV of Alderaan. Taken from the story “Eclipse” by Madeleine Roux.
• General Tagge leads an expedition to Dantooine and discovers a cardboard box array reading “REBUL BAZE”. Taken from the story “Far Too Remote” by Jeffrey Brown.
• Dr. Aphra is questioned by Stormtroopers on Dantooine and narrowly escapes execution by talking down to her would-be executioner and faking it. Taken from the story “The Trigger” by Kieron Gillen.
• Assorted shots of Red Seven, Red Eight, Red Twelve, Gold Three, Gold Four, Gold Six, Gold Seven, and Gold Eight during the Battle of Yavin.

UPDATE: The rough cut, which won’t have all the footage I’ll eventually include (including the Dolby logo at the start), is taking longer than I had anticipated, and may not be ready by any of the deadlines I’d set for myself, for much the same reasons why my restoration of A Fistful of Dollars has stalled, but I’m working on it nonetheless. I still intend to have the English and Italian assembly transcripts (with subtitled dialogue in square brackets), including logo and credit placements and the opening crawl, ready by May 25.

May I suggest PAL-NTSC and NTSC-PAL conversion, and also speeding up Giger’s Alien on PAL discs?

I can at least supply the foreign tracks from the 2013 Blu-ray. I’ll have to dig it up first, though…

I don’t know… for “video-game quality” visuals, that shot certainly looked amazing for its time and probably still holds up today.

BTW I’ll be doing some work on English and Italian transcripts for this Ultimate Edition, to give an idea of how I plan to order and reorder scenes (nothing in that regard that official adaptations didn’t do, anyway).

Would you recommend I rip the cinematics from the PC version, the PS4 version, or the Xbone version?

4throck said:

Check the Battlefront II cinematics and concept art. I think you can find usable establishing shots there.
Also give Rogue One a look for the Rebel Base and space shots.

These might allow you to integrate the deleted scenes a bit better, because you need something to cut to and from, specially when you have music 😃

Where do I look, as far as top quality is concerned?

benduwan said:

Charles Threepio said:

Interesting… could you point me to the specific post(s) where you talk about it?

talk about what?

Your project, I believe.

Interesting… could you point me to the specific post(s) where you talk about it?

Other SE changes I will not be adding include the digital rocks in front of R2-D2 when Obi-Wan first appears, the giant dinosaur right before Obi-Wan does the Jedi Mind Trick thing on some Stormtroopers, and the Wolfman replacements in the cantina. Changes I do intend to include, apart from the Jabba and Biggs scenes, include the digital sunset between Luke’s chat with Biggs near the start of the film and R2’s capture by the Jawas, the bigger Sandcrawler as George Lucas intended it, the enhanced escape pod search in the Tatooine desert, the redone Landspeeder effects, the Praxis explosions of Alderaan and the Death Star, the visually-improved X-Wings and TIE Fighters, and the Aurebesh text on the tractor beam’s control panel. Changes I’m on the fence about include Obi-Wan’s Krayt call to scare off the Tusken Raiders, most of the Mos Eisley enhancements, and the digital Stormtroopers added to the Death Star hangar.

UPDATE: I might consider inserting Princess Leia’s line “And you call yourselves humans…!” into the rough cut, and I’ll definitely be “restoring” the original dialogue of the Greedo scene. Most of Greedo’s screentime will come from the Blu-ray, so as to not show any intrusive burnt-in subtitles from the 4K print I’ll be using for this. The 4K print will cut back in between the line “Get up, I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time!” and the line “Yes, I’ll bet you have”. Additionally, music will be added to the deleted scenes as has already been inserted by other individuals. (BTW I hear someone’s trying to restore the Tosche station scene; whoever it is, if he’s here, I’d like to have it in its present state, so I can insert it instead of the worn-out version into the rough cut if at all possible.)

Assembly of the rough cut will take place in Blender.

Would it be possible to reconstruct the 3D version with the sources we already know about?

The smoldering bodies bit was. The Antilles thing, however, got it the PG rating completely by accident, 'twould seem.

There was also that shot of the smoldering remains of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. It still got a G. What convinced the MPAA to bump it up to PG on appeal was a screening for children where one of them freaked out upon seeing Captain Antilles getting asphyxiated onscreen by Darth Vader.

This is my first Star Wars project. I’ll include at least a couple of Special Edition-exclusive scenes; added/updated subtitles for Chewbacca, R2-D2, Greedo, and Jabba the Hutt; and several deleted scenes (including at least a few from the Lost Cut); but the base will be the 4K version of the 1977 release. Certain scenes will, additionally, be rearranged to match the novelization more closely. I hope to have a rough cut, without any audiovisual alterations (save for the updated Greedo and Jabba subtitles and a few for Chewbacca and R2-D2, and also a rough version of an altered closing credits sequence to acknowledge certain alterations made to this cut; also, some shots sourced from the Special Edition may be regraded to more closely match the 4K version of the 1977 release, mainly for quality improvement purposes or visual enhancements that would feel appropriate, but they won’t be regrained at first, as this rough cut is mainly for assembly purposes), ready as a preview of sorts by May the 4th Be With You (International Star Wars Day), Revenge of the Fifth (or is it Sixth?), Galactic Empire Day (20 May), or May 25.

Final details, including a more complete, polished, and formal release, will be announced later.

ETA: And yes, Han WILL shoot first this time around; that’s one Special Edition alteration that isn’t making it into this cut.

Some things I’ll suggest:

• Add a shortened Disney logo at the start and end, the former with the first half of the Williams arrangement of the Fox fanfare playing over it (the second half will play over the Lucasfilm logo as usual).
• Keep the profanity, in the franchise it’s never enough to bump any of the films up to M.
• Maybe subtitle the dialogue of Chewbacca, R2-D2, and BB-8?
• Definitely cap things off with an MPAA “white stripe” PG bumper.

What is the best setup for capturing LaserDisc audio for projects (e.g. the 1990 reissue audio track for Fantasia and the Sensurround* track for Alien)?

*True story: 20th Century-Fox experimented with Universal’s Sensurround format for Alien, but due to the advent of Dolby Stereo it was only released that way in 70mm theatres and only popped up once more, on a 1995 LaserDisc issue.

Roxas776 said:

Wouldn’t it be easier just to track down each of the edited VHS releases? I would love to contribute to this since I have a few tapes from the edited broadcast.

Your help would be much appreciated there. Thanks!

The 2000 DVD, I suppose.