Density

Does anyone know how to sync up the lossless 35mm stereo mix track of ESB from Despecialized with TN1’s Grindhouse? The Blu-ray ISO only has a lossy Dolby track and simply muxing the Despecialized audio in, or even syncing them so they start at the same time, doesn’t work so it’s clearly not GOUT sync and probably has some frames missing. Someone on Myspleen had synced up the 35mm SW 77 audio from Despecialized with TN1’s SSE, so I’m hoping someone might know of a way to do that with ESB too. It would be nice to have 35mm scans of all three films with original lossless audio tracks.

If you really want the original originals from a totally pure source, you’ll have to go with TN1’s Silver Screen edition for the original and the Grindhouse editions of the sequels. Those are all 100% sourced from 35mm film print scans. The problem is the “grindhouse” releases haven’t been cleaned up yet, so they’re pretty grainy and scratchy and have some color issues. But they’re 1080p and the only versions that can rightfully be called “theatrical.”

Still, if you want something that approximates the Blu-Rays in terms of crisp clean image, Despecialized will definitely satisfy you. You won’t notice anything that might not have been restored unless you’re the most hardcore of the hardcore nitpickers who know each and every frame by heart. If you haven’t even seen them in a long time, then I can assure you nothing will be different from your memory at all.

http://www.starwars.com/news/its-true-all-of-it-star-wars-the-force-awakens-is-coming-home

For me? No. No matter how good future Star Wars films are, they’ll all share the fatal flaw of not making an impression on me as a child. The originals will always have that magical nostalgia value that it’s literally impossible to overcome. I may well recognize that they may make technically superior films to the OT, and frankly you could already make a case for TFA, but they’ll never top it in my eyes. I’m just glad future generations will be able to have a Star Wars of their own just as I did at their age, despite Lucas’s insistence that would never happen and there were only 6, and I feel sorry for kids for whom that was the prequels and the special editions.

Ronster said:

Ok when he confirmed Han Shot First I thought - Original Star Wars
and when he mentioned 40 years I thought - Original Star Wars

But some of the other stuff he has been talking about like the Biggs Stuff and him not getting a medal just seem to be not about a release of the Original Film but I think as perhaps would hint as the sort of thing you would find in say the special features of a DVD / Blu Ray.

I am going to wait with baited breath but I am not going to get too excited just yet It could literally be something else. Never assume anything

It’s still related to the original film. And maybe that stuff will be included in the Blu-Ray special features.

joefavs said:

DominicCobb said:

I’ve been thinking for awhile that an OOT release in 2017 is inevitable, and I still think that’s the case, but I don’t think the way they’d announce it is through Peter Mayhew’s twitter feed.

It’s possible that it won’t actually be Mayhew’s announcement. It might be he just knows when Disney plans to announce it and is doing his own goofy thing on Twitter to coincide with it. My bet (assuming it actually is an OUT release) is that Disney does its own press release and Mayhew tweets a link to it when he gets to the end of the script.

That’s my theory too.

A limited edition theatrical release would not clash with anything, it would just add to the marketing hype for VIII and tie in perfectly to Rogue One.

pat man said:

Peter Mayhew just confirmed that Han Shot First. https://mobile.twitter.com/TheWookieeRoars/status/705043238382604288

OK, that’s it, I’m now 110% confident that the OUT is what he was talking about and I will be forced to re-evaluate my judgment, intelligence, and entire life’s meaning if I turn out to be wrong on this.

And I don’t think it’s too early to announce a 40th anniversary edition, especially if it’s going theatrical. They want to drum up hype, and it’s only a year away now. Plus, with Rogue One coming out in December and VIII being pushed back to next December, they need a stopgap in summer 2017 to keep Star Wars fresh in people’s minds. May 2017 would be the perfect time for a theatrical re-release, especially given Rogue One’s plot connection to the original.

hairy_hen said:

I agree, using the video from the AVCHD and putting it in a different container will give far better results than re-encoding.

Also, I saw reference earlier to transcode settings that would downmix the 5.1 audio into stereo with Prologic II matrixing, which made my head hurt. The surrounds in the 5.1 are already phase-shifted as it is, which makes for less-than-ideal sound quality when downmixed again, owing to the way it was made. I tried to minimize this as much as possible, but putting additional phase-shifting on top of what is already there will most likely sound even more weird. I strongly recommend using the actual stereo mixes instead, and leaving the 5.1 for listening on an actual 5.1 system. The results will be much better.

I don’t know if I would say “far” better. If you re-encode properly with a good program like Handbrake the differences really won’t be that noticeable, if at all. Especially if you’re encoding for a smaller screen such as a portable device. And if you want to make a smaller file than 7GB or so regardless, you’re better off just encoding from the MKV. Considering how high a bitrate it is (overkill for most practical purposes), it really isn’t a big deal.

Though I agree that it makes no sense to down mix the 5.1 to Pro Logic when perfectly good stereo tracks are available and you may as well just apply the Pro Logic option on your receiver to the stereo track if you have a 5.1 system and for some reason aren’t using the actual 5.1 track anyway.

Lord Haseo said:
Fraid that’s not possible due to there already being an in universe explanation

That seems to be more of an out-of-universe explanation. I don’t see how it rules out that in-universe explanation. I still think Luke instructed R2 to only show the map when his daughter was there.

I don’t think you should end with the prequels if you’re a first time watcher. If you’re a first time watcher and you’re gonna do the prequels, machete order works best. You have to end with ROTJ.

MalàStrana said:

Density said:

ray_afraid said:

I really can’t understand why anyone would want to squeeze two (or three!) terrible films into the middle of a trilogy of good films. They add nothing to the original story and have nothing good going for them in any edit (other than Frinks!). All they could possibly add to the marathon is several boring ours and lots of eye rolling and groans.
So what’s you guys reason for including them?

I don’t entirely agree that they add nothing. The best thing they did was give Vader’s actions in ROTJ a bit more power and clear up some of the hanging threads at the end of ESB, which is why the Machete Order places them right between them. (I also think the Leia reveal actually has a bit more punch when seen at the end of ROTS, before Luke finds out, rather than at the beginning of ROTJ.) It’s just a shame that it could have been done so much better and really added a lot to it, instead of ruining so many other things at the same time.

And even then, you only have to watch ROTS to get that. The other two add nothing at all and are total wastes of (digital) celluloid. The story of ROTS should have been spread out over the entire trilogy. That’s why I don’t think the Machete Order even needs to include AOTC. You don’t really even need to see Anakin and Padme “fall in love.” You just gotta know they were married and had kids on the way. Despite some cringey romance dialogue in ROTS, there’s not nearly as much as in AOTC so the love story isn’t nearly as awful actually when you cut out AOTC and can fill in the blanks yourself. Also, skipping AOTC gives you a bit less crazy emo Anakin and you can fill in the blanks about his relationship with Obi-Wan too, so they may actually be seen as the “good friends” he described in ANH. I think watching it this way actually improves both ROTS and, to a lesser degree, ROTJ. But AOTC is beyond redemption and pointless to watch.

EpI is not digital. And EpII contains the death of Anakin’s mother (I guess it’s important to see Anakin falling to the dark side ?). EpII gets really better in a proper fan edit. I’m even beginning to think it is slightly better than EpIII, because in EpII Anakin still can embrace the dark side by choice, and not by being tricked to. But anyway the thread is about a SW marathon, so it means all 7 films. If you skip 1-2-3 it’s a semi-marathon.

Yeah I know Episode I was shot on 35mm but it still feels like a sterile digital film. And the fact that Episode II contains the whole sand people thing with his mother is one of the main reasons why I think it should be skipped. I would prefer to see him as an actual good Jedi who was actually friends with Obi-Wan and an actual hero in the Clone Wars who tragically turned to the dark side in a desperate attempt to save his family rather than as an unstable emo who was always one push away from going psycho. That seems to be a lot more consistent with the backstory Obi-Wan tells in ANH.

Also, Anakin both turning to the dark side in ROTS in an attempt to save his child and then turning back in ROTJ for the same exact reason is the thing I like best about the entire prequels that I think adds the most to the originals. Even though I think the “dying in child birth” thing is stupid, the overall idea is great and it’s the “rhyme” I like most. The idea that the power of paternal love is the only thing that can change him is so much better than the idea that “Anakin’s just bipolar and he can go from extreme light to extreme dark with the breeze.”

ray_afraid said:

I really can’t understand why anyone would want to squeeze two (or three!) terrible films into the middle of a trilogy of good films. They add nothing to the original story and have nothing good going for them in any edit (other than Frinks!). All they could possibly add to the marathon is several boring ours and lots of eye rolling and groans.
So what’s you guys reason for including them?

I don’t entirely agree that they add nothing. The best thing they did was give Vader’s actions in ROTJ a bit more power and clear up some of the hanging threads at the end of ESB, which is why the Machete Order places them right between them. (I also think the Leia reveal actually has a bit more punch when seen at the end of ROTS, before Luke finds out, rather than at the beginning of ROTJ.) It’s just a shame that it could have been done so much better and really added a lot to it, instead of ruining so many other things at the same time.

And even then, you only have to watch ROTS to get that. The other two add nothing at all and are total wastes of (digital) celluloid. The story of ROTS should have been spread out over the entire trilogy. That’s why I don’t think the Machete Order even needs to include AOTC. You don’t really even need to see Anakin and Padme “fall in love.” You just gotta know they were married and had kids on the way. Despite some cringey romance dialogue in ROTS, there’s not nearly as much as in AOTC so the love story isn’t nearly as awful actually when you cut out AOTC and can fill in the blanks yourself. Also, skipping AOTC gives you a bit less crazy emo Anakin and you can fill in the blanks about his relationship with Obi-Wan too, so they may actually be seen as the “good friends” he described in ANH. You can also see Anakin as an actual good Jedi who tragically turned to the dark side out of desperation, rather than someone who was always right on the edge of going psycho, but that’s impossible if you don’t ignore AOTC and so get the whole sand people mess. I think watching it this way actually improves both ROTS and, to a lesser degree, ROTJ. But AOTC is beyond redemption and pointless to watch.

Best order?

4
5
6
Plinkett reviews of the prequels so you can understand the story they told and why they sucked at the same time. I’ve tried various fan edits and everything in a desperate attempt to make the prequels watchable, but I just can’t recommend any of them in good conscience. No matter how hard you try to give these things life support, nothing can fix the plain bad dialogue and acting and the outdated CGI visual effects. Watch at your own peril. Only 3 is even slightly close to a half-decent film and is the only one that adds any relevant backstory to the originals at all.
7

My predictions:

• Rey is Luke’s daughter.
• Snoke is Darth Plagueis.
• Luke trains Rey and there will be parallels to his own training from Yoda.
• We will find out a lot more about Kylo Ren’s turn to the dark side and the fall of the New Jedi Order and why exactly Luke felt the need to go into hiding and abandon Rey. (I think clearly Snoke/Kylo were looking for her given his interest in her in TFA “What girl?!” etc.)
• Kylo will continue to struggle with an inner conflict between the light and dark, his killing of his father having backfired to have the opposite effect of what he wanted, which was to put an end to the conflict.
• I think part of the reason Luke isolated himself was that he feared falling to the dark side himself. My personal theory is that Kylo killed Rey’s mother/Luke’s wife and Luke felt it would be too dangerous to try to take revenge, as that could lead him to the dark side like his father which would ultimately only be more harmful to the fate of the galaxy than the First Order. So he had to wait until Rey was old enough to find him so he could train her and make a play then. That’s why R2 did not light up and reveal the map until Rey was there. Luke told him to only show the map to her.
• It’s possible that ghost Hayden makes an appearance. It’s also possible that we have an extended flashback sequence for the first time in Star Wars to help clear some of these events up. Hopefully, such a scene would allow for us to see Luke and Han on screen together again.
• There might be more of these mysterious “Knights of Ren.” It’s possible that many of the Jedi Luke was training fell to the dark side, not just Kylo, and so these are like the new Sith except not bound by stupid concepts like the “Rule of Two.”

Double post

• Rey is Luke’s daughter.
• Snoke is Darth Plagueis.
• Luke trains Rey and there will be parallels to his own training from Yoda.
• We will find out a lot more about Kylo Ren’s turn to the dark side and the fall of the New Jedi Order and why exactly Luke felt the need to go into hiding and abandon Rey. (I think clearly Snoke/Kylo were looking for her given his interest in her in TFA “What girl?!” etc.)
• Kylo will continue to struggle with an inner conflict between the light and dark, his killing of his father having backfired to have the opposite effect of what he wanted, which was to put an end to the conflict.
• I think part of the reason Luke isolated himself was that he feared falling to the dark side himself. My personal theory is that Kylo killed Rey’s mother/Luke’s wife and Luke felt it would be too dangerous to try to take revenge, as that could lead him to the dark side like his father which would ultimately only be more harmful to the fate of the galaxy than the First Order. So he had to wait until Rey was old enough to find him so he could train her and make a play then. That’s why R2 did not light up and reveal the map until Rey was there. Luke told him to only show the map to her.
• It’s possible that ghost Hayden makes an appearance. It’s also possible that we have an extended flashback sequence for the first time in Star Wars to help clear some of these events up. Hopefully, such a scene would allow for us to see Luke and Han on screen together again.
• There might be more of these mysterious “Knights of Ren.” It’s possible that many of the Jedi Luke was training fell to the dark side, not just Kylo, and so these are like the new Sith except not bound by stupid concepts like the “Rule of Two.”

Memorex said:

Density said:

You should be able to mux the lossless audio from Harmy’s into this. That’s what I intend to do.

Yeah I could do that but wouldn’t the lossless tracks muxed to the BD video-stream result in a mkv to big to fit on a bd25?

Maybe. If you don’t want them all you may be able to squeeze just one or two on there or maybe all of them. I only muxed in the stereo track (I’m not set up for 5.1 currently) and I was under 25 GB. But I don’t bother burning things anyway, I’ve gone full file/streaming.

Alright so I finally finished downloading. With MakeMKV you can choose two titles to mux from the ISO to MKV. The first one has the New Hope title, second one doesn’t.

Memorex said:

towne32 said:

Edit: It’s tempting, mostly to sharpen up the boundary between Luke and the background, but I think I’m going to pass on this one. Great suggestion, though.

Yeah sure, well thanks for considering 😃

And congrats on the release of 2.6! I am eager to check out your work, but I think I’ll hold out for the MKV for the sake of the lossless audio though 😉

You should be able to mux the lossless audio from Harmy’s into this. That’s what I intend to do.

towne32 said:

Density said:

You can easily mux an MKV out of a BD ISO with MakeMKV:

http://www.makemkv.com

Or mkvmerge. But does either work with branching titles?

I’m honestly not sure. I haven’t downloaded your release yet and I don’t think I’ve ever used it on any other branching titles. Would’t hurt for someone to try it out though.

You can easily mux an MKV out of a BD ISO with MakeMKV:

http://www.makemkv.com

towne32 said:

They’re not going to go for Ingruber, because they’re going to want to hire an actor to play the lead role in their multi million dollar blockbuster.

He has acted and he did a pretty good job playing a young Harrison Ford already.

Besides, the original Star Wars used unknowns. That’s how Ford became a star in the first place. This tradition was continued for TFA and I don’t see why they wouldn’t here.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

I find it interesting that Vader is referred to as Tarkin’s “henchman.”

You certainly sense in the movie that Tarkin has some authority to restrain Vader, but hardly that he is in charge.

“I should have expected to find you here holding Vader’s leash,” Leia says. I mean I think it’s pretty clear that Tarkin was the man in charge and Vader was just sort of the muscle.

That’s another thing retconned in the prequels, making Vader into some kind of god figure (complete with virgin birth) and centering the entire saga on him. He wasn’t even originally supposed to be second in command, at least not officially. Even in Empire, we see him storming Hoth on foot at the front lines. He’s the muscle, not the brass.

I mean 2.0 looks pretty great. I get the OCD thing about not having them all the same number, but frankly SW even though it’s 2.5 probably needs an upgrade more.

Though what I’d really like is for Harmy to just put all his efforts into creating a 1080p 3.0 to get it out sooner. The current versions look more than acceptable and I don’t think there’s going to be a whole lot of room left for improvement to be done at 720p.