Chewtobacca

That is very generous of you, Dark Jedi.  As long as these have the stereo mix, I will be happy. 

Moth3r said:

Unfortunately the technical details are... well, confusing. 720p is not anamorphic, a DVD cannot be 720p, etc.

I agree.  While I appreciate Zombie84's efforts, I am a little dubious about this. 

Judge said:

Unfortunately I have a problem; I live in the UK, and as such I require the PAL versions of the films if I want to watch them on my DVD player.

No; your DVD player will play NTSC perfectly, even if it is not multiregional.  The PAL versions are still a good idea, as zeppelinrox said, because the quality is higher. 

I would too.  Unfortunately, guys, I think Adywan is only going to do Jedi just before he does ROTJ: Revisited. 

At first, I didn't dislike the prequels as much as many people did, finding them average films with some good moments: I think the excitement of seeing Star Wars in the theaters after so many years painted over many cracks.  Nonetheless, I found TPM plot really confusing in the cinema, but I just supposed I had missed something lol. 

I hated the excessive use of CGI and lightsabers from the start, and said at the time that I wished that the prequels had used models and tried to recreate the look of the OT.  If the style had been deliberately retro I would have been overjoyed.  

I am ashamed to say it took repeat vewings for me to realize how bad the prequels were, and I didn't notice some plotholes till I saw RLM's reviews, which have really been the nail in the coffin for me.  Until then, I was still hoping for fanedits to solve certain problems, but now I must join the ranks of those who reject the PT, and will have to leave what happened before the OT to my imagination, which might ultimately be for the best.

Bingowings said:

ROTS is just as screwed up as the rest of them so I imagine his review will be just as long.

I don't think the length is necessarily proportional to the degree to which each film is "screwed up":  he could have covered all his points in far less time than 90 minutes, as he did with the 70 minute TPM review.  I hope for something closer to 70 minutes next time.  

TheBoost said:

there's  a flick called "The Last Broadcast" that's a horror mockumentary that predated Blair Witch, and it has a creepy narrator with a horrible voice that this dude reminds me of.

Now I come to think of it, his voice reminds me a little of Belker from Hill Street Blues. 

I liked the AOTC review.  It was side-splittingly funny in parts, but went on too long.  I hope the next one is a little shorter. 

SilverWook said:

The LDDB says the theatrical cut was out on LD in 1981. I'm pretty sure I saw  VHS and Beta copies around before the SLV replaced it after '83.

That seems to fit with what I remember too. 

SilverWook said:

If there's a single disc DVD of the TMP theatrical cut out there, I'd like to see a photo of it. Maybe you're thinking of TWOK?

I was actually thinking more of the early boxsets.  I thought at least one had the theatrical cut.  The theatrical cut was definitely on the first laserdisc, before the extended version, and I'm fairly sure it was on the first VHS release, so it was definitely available.  Maybe I was wrong about DVD, if so I'm sorry: I just could have sworn I saw a DVD of theatrical years ago.

Edited - okay, the original boxsets (before the current one) had the director's cut on them too.  Sorry, doubleofive.  My bad!  It was on VHS and laserdisc though.  

doubleofive said:

I'm 26, the only way I would have seen the theatrical cut is with the new Blu-ray

Where are you getting that idea?  The theatrical version was released on DVD many times before the blu-ray and on other formats. The only original ST film not to be released in its theatrical form before the blu-rays came out was STVI.

I know what you mean about making do during childhood though.  I read novelisations of most of the OS series episodes before I saw them, as we never had much money to buy films.  I even read the novelisation of the Wrath of Khan before I saw the film. 

PM sent.

I hope you enjoy them!  :-)

Bear in mind that Building Empire is compiled from a wide variety of sources, so the quality inevitably varies.  Personally my requirements for picture quality are far less stringent for featurettes and documentaries than for full-blown feature films, so both sets of releases are more than adequate.

Rowman's definitely use the laserdiscs.  The quality of both is absolutely fine. As a fan, you'll want both anyway and you won't be disappointed with the quality of any of those releases. 

Bingowings has given you good advice. 

If it is only AOTC clones footage and the rest of it plays fine, one solution might be to use Womble to remove the Canadian AOTC footage and replace it with American AOTC footage frame by frame and smart render the result.  As Womble can smart render, there wouldn't be any real quality loss.  It might save your skin. 

Darth Editous said:

 

 I've decided I may as well wait for the inevitable Blu-Ray cash-in, sorry, release. Who knows, it may even be coloured better.

 

Now, that's optimism!  :-D  On the hand, it might have DNR and EE all over it like the LOTR blu-rays. 

I'm sad we won't see a new DVD of this, but I understand your reasons.

I think he meant 70 mm blow-up rather than upscale.

Lord Grievous said:

I noticed that the ESB AC3 track is 640kbps, I thought that the LD AC3 track was only 384kbps how is this possible?

I believe you will find your answer here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/97-Special-Edition-Trilogy-DD-5-1-audio/topic/10611/page/2/

With those shots, the differences are much clearer.  I was wrong: the PAL is better. 

@ jfett?  Which is which in your screenshot comparisons?  Is the NTSC on top, like the comparison Adywan posted?

FinnurE said:

• The Workprint to fill in anything still missing on the sides of the frame

I have a certain sympathy for Stotaro's point of view, but understand why you might wish an OAR preservation.  Unfortunately, I think taking a blu-ray source for most of the image and filling in the sides from another transfer would be a bad idea.  The transfers would probably look very different in color and detail, and I don't think the result would make for pleasant viewing. 

You'd be better off transferring that 2.35:1 VHS to DVD, cut or not.  It might not look great, but at least the image quality would be consistent and it would be worth watching for fans as a genuine preservation, like the Puggo Grande. 

LoadPlugin("X:\My Files\AV Tools\dgmpgdec158\DGDecode.dll")
MPEG2Source("D:\TEMP\PROJECT\test.d2v")

Do you really have an X:\ drive?  If so, should we be hearing about it lol! 

Mielr said:

The PAL version seems brighter- maybe that's why there's a perception of added detail? Seems counterintuitive that they'd use the NTSC for the first two, but bothered to dig up the PAL for the third.

I agree.  The brightness makes the PAL seem better at first, but I actually think the NTSC has slightly better detail - though there's not much in it. 

They're very close, but the transfers definitely have slightly different cropping.  The PAL seems to have more at the top and the NTSC more at the bottom.  

Maybe because ROTJ was a compaatively recent film they still had a separate PAL master available.  Did the NTSC and PAL laserdiscs have the same masters?

I have never heard of a 4.1 mix, only 5.1 or 4.0; nonetheless, you might try eac3to.  It has a PCM conversion option that enables you to specify the number of channels, but as I have no experience with 4.1 files, I have no idea if it will work.  It is worth some experimentation though.  I recommend using the yr_eac3to_more_gui  to start off. 

TMBTM said:

Poor boon... another SW edit! ;)

Poor TV's Frink... another cutlist!  :D

TheBoost said: Gandalf and the Cavalry saving the day in "The Two Towers" is not a Deus Ex Machina because Gandalf left in act two to go find the characters they met in act one, to come back and save the day.

You are correct in your definition of deus ex machina.  An example in LOTR would be the Eagles coming to the rescue unlooked for at the end, as they did in The Hobbit.