Density

HAN
It’s true. All of it.

Pretty sure if he said “And now we have another Skywalker,” he was referring to Rey.

Is it true that the 70mm mix didn’t have the “You’re lucky you didn’t taste very good?” line? Strange then that Lucas would have put it in then taken it back out again for the SE. But then again, we’re talking about George Lucas so I guess it’s not that strange.

I don’t find any of that hard to believe at all.

Now that is one hell of a gargantuan task, trying to outdo John Williams’s score…

True Lies and The Abyss both have HD transfers because you can see them on TV all the time. I really don’t get why they haven’t been released on Blu-Ray and the only way to own them is illegal downloading.

Darth Lucas said:

TV’s Frink said:

Density said:

Well that’s the worst possible then… Ouch. Seriously, just listen to it in mono, fake stereo is cancer.

Are you sure it’s not an abortion?

When used in an ambiguous sense, cancer can be used to describe anything which spreads within something else and is damaging. But that still isn’t really applicable to mono-stereo conversions, so I’m not really sure what the intent was.

Jesus Christ there are positives and negatives to this site’s obsessive nitpicking at everything, that’s for sure.

doubleofive said:

Sigmoid said:

So ultimately the DVD release is inferior to the laserdisc, due to the generational losses from the conversion?

Can anyone give me a hint about the actual useful vertical resolution of a widescreen LD?

They transferred the Laserdisc master poorly, yes. IIRC, Laserdisc is SD, so 480i, minus the black bars of a 4:3 matted release…

Laserdisc is actually less than 480i. Its actual (NTSC) resolution is 425 TVL. DVD resolution is roughly equivalent to 500 TVL.

Well that’s the worst possible then… Ouch. Seriously, just listen to it in mono, fake stereo is cancer.

GOUT is technically “highest resolution” but that’s not saying much. You might prefer the pre-THX laserdiscs sourced from a different master than the GOUT because it has different (some argue better) colors and less digital noise reduction (which of course also means they are grainier). As far as I know there only ever were two home video transfers, so you’ll have to pick your poison from those. I personally prefer the pre-THX master simply because it’s the one I grew up with (albeit on full screen VHS) so the colors and everything looks “right” to me.

Wicket the Ewok

SilverWook said:

The whole point of stealing the DS plans is to destroy the thing. Why chase your enemy, when it can come to your front door?

Um, because if they break down the door they will kill you all. Trust me, when it comes to war it’s not like a football game. You most definitely don’t want to fight on your home turf. There is a reason the US emerged as the superpower after WW2.

Honestly, it’s quite possible (and incredible, when you think about it) that the entirety of the first Star Wars takes place over the course of just three days.

Day 1: Vader captures Leia and her ship, 3PO and R2 land on Tatooine with the plans, get captured by the Jawas that evening.

Day 2: Owen buys 3PO and R2, we’re introduced to Luke, watch him clean the droids, see the Leia hologram, Binary Sunset, etc. Ends with R2 running away.

Day 3: Luke searches for R2 first thing in the morning with 3PO, gets attacked by sand people and meets Obi-Wan. Goes to Obi-Wan’s hut, learns about the force, gets lied to about his father. Owen and Beru get killed, Luke finds out, goes to Mos Eisley with Obi-Wan. They meet Han and Chewie, set course for Alderaan.

We know for certain THAT much took place over three days at least. The question is how long it takes them to get to the Death Star by hyperspace. It certainly feels to the viewer–or at least it always did to me–like they arrive at the Death Star on the same day Alderaan gets blown up which was the same day they took off. And the state the place is in when they get there seems to support that. Obi-Wan “feels” the disturbance in the force at the time it happens too.

Anyway, they get to the Death Star, rescue Leia and Ben dies - that clearly all happens on the same day, and then you would think since the Death Star is about to destroy the rebel base and there is no time to evacuate apparently that time is of the essence. So it seems like the whole battle takes place later that same day, or it always felt that way to me. Though again, because they get to Yavin via hyperspace we aren’t 100% sure how long it took them to get there.

At any rate, it does make it seem a bit strange that Luke got such an emotional attachment to Obi-Wan after only truly knowing him for a few days and only thinking of him as a bizarre old hermit before then.

Yes, but most DVDs at the start of that format’s life were just laserdisc transfers. I don’t expect it to remain that way for very long.

I don’t understand this at all. You mean you just converted the mono directly to stereo, which is… pointless? Considering receivers can do it with the push of a button and it doesn’t really do much of anything anyway since you can’t magically make two channels out of one? I can only see this as being worthwhile if you just used the mono as a guide, extracted the unique elements and inserted them into one of the stereo mixes and/or made a mix from scratch. Now that would be an interesting project. Forgive me if that is indeed what you did, but the way you are wording it is a bit confusing.

Good point about the 4K. If they’re going to do that transfer anyway, and they’ll have to if enough films start coming out at that resolution, then they might as well go ahead and do the OUT while they’re at it. In fact that might well be what they’re waiting for.

I do think Original Trilogy-Prequels-Special Editions-TFA is probably the best way to go for a completist these days if you don’t want to skip a film or two and you don’t want to interrupt a trilogy, but also don’t want to jump straight from 3 to 7 or start with the prequels. It gives you the most complete overview of Star Wars possible, the good the bad and the ugly. If you’re new to it all you won’t “miss out” on getting the references to things like Jar Jar and “Han shot first” and you’ll understand the movies in more or less the same context the rest of us did. You’ll be able to easily form your own opinion on George’s “vision” and the direction Disney is taking it from there.

But for me I’d just go 4-5-3-6-7 if I was going to watch them now as I like the flashback effect of the 5-3-6 order and don’t believe either of the first two prequels is necessary for that, at least not when you’ve already seen them all before. Might not work as well for a first time viewer, not sure. But it’s the most satisfying dramatic experience for me from a storytelling perspective.

You do make a good point, Maestro. If Lucas was really that crazily, fundamentally against anyone ever seeing the originals period in any form, if he really wanted to go full 1984 and pretend they never existed, we wouldn’t have even gotten the GOUT. It was an extremely lazy release, yes, but a release all the same. He was probably just far too lazy to bother doing a full HD restoration of the originals and he also kind of wanted to stick it to the fans who didn’t like his new “vision.” Then again he even went so far as to restore the 77 title crawl on the GOUT DVD, so I guess he wasn’t totally against history at that point. And since then, he literally sold everything Star Wars, conceded defeat and said he was done with it, and though he whined about Disney not using his ideas for the sequels, he did nothing to stop it from happening. And as I’ve said before, if he didn’t insert some kind of clause forcing Disney to use his ideas, he certainly wouldn’t have inserted one forbidding them from releasing the OUT, especially since he did it himself a few years earlier. I don’t think he cares anymore if the originals come out with a proper restoration, so long as he doesn’t have to do the work himself.

So that leaves only a few possible reasons we haven’t seen it yet:

1. There are some kind of technical hurdles (i.e. George really did destroy the original negatives), but that’s not much of an excuse since if even Harmy can make a great looking version from far more limited sources, Disney and Lucasfilm certainly can.
2. There are some kind of legal disputes between Disney and 20th Century Fox, though they seemed to have resolved this enough to re-issue the Blu-rays and put out a digital download release.
3. They are working on it, but have not finished it yet or are holding off for an anniversary release or some other time after hype has been built to maximize profits.
4. Disney is really stupid and does not see the money to be made from this release and/or they actually agree with George’s “vision” and think the SEs should remain the only available versions. Highly unlikely, since they have clearly de-emphasized the prequel era and emphasized the original era since taking over, going so far as to even re-issue the original soundtracks complete with “Lapti Nek” and “Yub Nub.” They also have said they’re out to satisfy the fans, and they’re certainly not ignorant of the fan demand considering people like those on this site have made their desires loud and clear repeatedly.

joefavs said:

I’ve stayed away from prequel edits for two reasons:

1. I don’t feel strongly enough about them as stories to sift through the many different options to find the ones that work best for me. I decided to experiment four or five months ago and watched HAL’s TPM, but I haven’t cared enough yet to watch the other two, partly because I know once I’ve seen all of those there’s four or five other versions I need to see to make an informed decision and I just find that daunting.

2. Most of the entertainment value I get from the prequels comes from their very badness. The only times they’re ever any fun to watch is when you’re with a room full of people making fun of them, and any edit that aims to salvage them as sincerely good films that isn’t a complete failure necessarily sacrifices much of that so-bad-it’s-good value.

I don’t think the prequels really are “so bad it’s good” quality though. I think they’re just mediocre, boring films. And that’s the greatest sin you can commit as a Star Wars film: Put you to sleep. They simply don’t have much camp value beyond a few moments here and there. Most of the rest of the time it’s just wooden acting and bullshit dialogue about things like “midichlorians.” That’s not funny, not even unintentionally funny, it’s just boring and stupid. Like what the fuck, I’m trying to watch Star Wars, not a shitty episode of a latter-day Star Trek series. Somewhere between 1977 and 1999, Lucas changed drastically from a guy who wanted to create fun space adventure movies he was perfectly suited for to a guy who wanted to tell some kind of Shakespearean sci-fi opus who didn’t have anywhere near the skill needed to pull it off. The fact that he added clumsy childish shit like Jar Jar on top of it once he realized how fucking boring the movies were just made it an even bigger mess because of the wildly inconsistent tone. If you want to have a fun movie for kids, make one. If you want to have some kind of serious political drama, make one. Neither is my preference for Star Wars, but it is at least possible to make decent films of those genres if you stick to the right tone. Lucas didn’t do that though. He tried to appeal to everyone and in the process ended up appealing to almost no one.

joefavs said:

Never understood the disdain for “Sheev”. It’s no dumber or better than 80% of other Star Wars names. Certainly not as bad as the last couple decades of ridiculous Darth names.

I didn’t say it was worse than “Dooku” or “Grievous” but “there was dumber stuff in the prequels” isn’t exactly the best defense. Point is Palpatine is a character who doesn’t even need a name other than “Palpatine.” “Sheev” just takes away from his badassness.

I still can’t believe they threw out the EU and all its stupid cringey bullshit, only to immediately turn around and dub one of the most important and badass characters of the series with the name “Sheev.” Epic fail.

I really hate the new Battlefront from what I’ve played of it. It felt like a generic shooter that just incidentally happened to be in a Star Wars skin, whereas the older Battlefront games felt like I was dropped right into the movies.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Yeah, well, I actually prefer Revill’s Palpatine over McDiarmid’s, so …

Dude has like 3 lines and the delivery sounds like some kind of Japanese saturday morning cartoon overdub. Come on. Ian McDiarmid is a world class actor of the stage and his performance carried the best parts of both ROTJ and the prequels. Now granted, McDiarmid in this scene kind of phoned his lines in, so if you’re only talking about that in particular, well, OK, I guess. Still think he’s far better, but whatever. But better than his entire performance? Give me a break. Your nostalgia goggles are so enormous I can see them from here.

I mean can you honestly imagine if McDiarmid had been there from the beginning and then for the Special Edition Lucas replaced him with an old woman in a chimpanzee mask voiced by a completely different guy? It would top Greedo shooting, CGI Jabba, Jedi Rocks, and Hayden ghost as the most ridiculous, bizarre, widely mocked and hated change of all. Let’s not kid ourselves here.

Jeebus said:

There are certain times where objectivity does apply to art. If I said that the Mona Lisa depicted a rat being eaten by a living piece of pasta, that would be objectively wrong.

Once again, you mix up the difference between making a value judgment about how good a work an art is, and a factual claim that is objectively right or wrong. Really not that difficult a concept to understand.

TV’s Frink said:

Density said:

it is literally impossible to claim some art is objectively “better” than others.

I don’t think you understand how the word “literally” works.

I think you’re taking my usage of the word “literally” too literally.

Would you prefer I say it is literally impossible to accurately claim that some art is objectively “better” than others? Cause that’s obviously what I meant to all who are not nitpicking douchebags and/or dumbasses.