DrDre

It’s been a while due to a very busy work schedule, but here’s another scene:

Here’s another short set of scenes:

It’s been a while, but here’s the first pass fot two scenes:

idir_hh said:

Boohoo I was a nobody until I won the jackpot and got the chance to be in Star Wars, making me a world star and multimillionaire. Poor me😥- John Boyega /GQ magazine

I think there’s a little more to it than that. I admire John Boyega for speaking out knowing full well this may jeapordize future carreer opportunities. Some things are more important than fame, and money. I can’t disagree with him either. Finn was transformed into a big joke. I also don’t agree with the whole “you won the jackpot, so you should shut up” schtick. He earned the role with his talent and hard work.

Dave Filoni here is the director of a series, that might suit us.

John Favreau, producer of the Mandalorian. Dave here is telling me you’re looking for high quality Star Wars.

If it’s a good show.

Good show? You never heard of the Mandalorian?

Should I have?

This is the show that created baby Yoda. It’s good enough for you old man.

OutboundFlight said:

NeverarGreat said:

Of course, this leaves open the possibility that some new cultists could just clone him again, which rather ruins the finality of the whole exercise even if they say ‘no really, he’s defeated forever this time!’

This. I know this isn’t at all what they were going for, but if there is anything the ST taught me it’s that the galaxy will just be in a never-ending loop of war. The “Star War” will never end, and Palpatine’s resurrection is just symbolism for the cycle of war. But I’m assuming this kind of intellectual and artful theme is just a dumb coincidence. It’s actually just they needed another villain because RJ killing Snoke broke Abrams and Terrio’s minds.

Honestly, even a single small scene about Palpatine’s spirit being “weakened” from the cloning process and how this time once you kill him he’s gone for good would have been fine. But they don’t bother explaining it so I guess Palpatine will be showing up ever 30 years now to destroy all but one Jedi…

I don’t buy the cycle of war concept in Star Wars. It’s often used to defend the choices made in the ST by either pointing to Lucas’ rhyming concept, or to real history. However, in Lucas’ six episodes, while there were obvious similarities, the outcome was very different, and ultimately the son made very different choices from the father. Worse yet, the cyclical nature of war with the never ending return of stormtroopers, rebellions, and Palpatine clones turns the saga into a very cynical exercise, which to me is the anti-thesis of what Star Wars used to be about.

Rodney-2187 said:

In my opinion, the idea of Palpatine returning is something that had to be addressed if they want to move on from these characters. Clones and cloning have been a part of Star Wars from the beginning. Obi-Wan mentions the Clone Wars when we first meet him. In a universe with cloning, whenever an evil mastermind is destroyed, it isn’t gong to take long for the idea of a clone to be mentioned. Especially if that mastermind has previously mentioned extending life and is strong with the Dark Side. Even the old expanded universe novels had clones of Palpatine.

The Rise of Skywalker isn’t perfect. No movie is. But if you look past the flaws and focus on the good time, I think it’s a lot of fun. It’s probably the last time we’ll see Luke, Leia, Han, and Lando. At least portrayed by the original actors. It was really great to see them again.

I disagree. That would be equivalent to arguing, if we clone Hitler, there would be another Nazi Germany, which is ludicrous. The clone would have Palpatine’s DNA, and Force potential, but he would not have lived Palpatine’s life, or have his experiences, which involves being trained by a powerful Sith Lord. He would just be a guy, that looks like Palpatine. In either case TROS completely glosses over the nature of Palpatine’s return, so I don’t really see how it really addresses cloning, or how it adds a sense of finality to his death. He returns somehow, and then dies again in a rather lame fasion. As with everything in TROS it’s pretty half baked (imo). I will agree it can be entertaining if you shut down your brain, but to me that sadly puts it in Michael Bay territory for me. In that context seeing the old gang just isn’t worth it to me.

NFBisms said:

i am both thoroughly impressed and absolutely hating the progression of this technology

Yeah me too! Just had a big discussion on facebook who wrote:

"For Walt Disney, and companies like it, that own so much intellectual property that is built around the likenesses of human actors, in addition to animated characters, this kind of digital mask has the potential of extending the ability to keep much of this property alive even as the actors age or die.

“Solo” and “Mary Poppins Returns” both underperformed commercially, and I think one of the main reasons the two films did so is because the look of the characters is not consistent with the original visualizations.

Not every character can be a James Bond."

I can’t tell you how abhorrent this concept is to me, the idea that the artistry of great actors is reduced to someone doing their best impression of a much more talented person with some digital makeup.

I definitely prefer the prequels. The sequels for me add very little to the mythos narratively, visually, and in terms of lore. It looks great, and the acting is miles ahead of the prequels in many cases, but it lacks substance and depth. It reminds me of those fake Western towns, where it’s all facade, but nothing behind it.

No, I’ve just had a holiday, and Star Wars Despecialized 3.0 has priority right now.

JadedSkywalker said:

Can we say once and for all that what Reliance did was not a restoration but rather destruction by digital video noise reduction. I would not classify what they did as a restoration. They removed more than scratches or grain added in the process of print duplication. They went well beyond grain management and even further than Lowry. The rumor is the process was automated, the dnr pass. It was not reel by reel.

With Disney seeing these as archival i doubt they will ever do restorations worth a damn.

You can say that, but speak for yourself. While it is far from perfect, the new 4K master is miles ahead of the 2004/2011 master. I’m kind of fed up with the negativity, and the hyperboles. It would be great, if we can get a proper restoration of the OOT, but given the OT’s history, I will take what I can get.

adywan said:

A lot of the CG done for the 1997 SE wasn’t even rendered in HD. Many of the elements were rendered in 480p due to budget and time. Nothing was rendered higher than 1080p. The negative was restored along with many of the original separate elements. The problem is that every re-composited shot in all 3 films were only done in 1080p. The elements were scanned @1080p, digitally re-composited into the computer, sharpening filters applied and then laser printed back onto film. The resolution of those shots is stuck @1080p.

DrDre said:

Sure, but the resolution wasn’t there in the first place, because the optical compositing severely degrades the image quality. In any case for the 4K release the effects shots were rendered at 4K resolution.

Only the added stuff done for the 2004/11 versions were redone (most but not all) for the 2019/20 Disney+/UHD releases . All of the original 1997 additions remain the same. There is a reason why ROTJ looks much better than the other two films. That’s the one that was the least tampered with digitally. 4K Star Wars looks like crap in many addition or digitally re-composited shots when compared to shots that haven’t been tampered with.

With the effects shot using the vistavision camera, even after optical compositing, the resolution doesn’t suffer too badly. It was the constrant handling and dupe grain that caused most of the degredation. And, if these same restored elements were digitally scanned and re-composited today, they would look amazing. better than any shot redone for the SE

Sure, and if the tons of films that were mastered at 2K resolution over the past decades were redone at 4K, they would look amazing too. Many movies are stuck at 2K resolution or below, or in the case of effects driven films contain elements at different resolutions. Star Wars is not exceptional in that sense.

Z6PO said:

But weren’t the compositing of SFX shots redone digitally? That is every original SFX shots made of multiple layers would have each of these layers scanned (at which resolution?) before being assembled in a computer. To the effect of a better image quality (no generational degradation) and no matte lines.

So even when there’s no CGI, the digitally recomposited shots would be stuck at whichever resolution they were scanned.

Sure, but the resolution wasn’t there in the first place, because the optical compositing severely degrades the image quality. In any case for the 4K release the effects shots were rendered at 4K resolution.

Cthulhunicron said:

Was it possible to do 4K scans in 97?

For the 1997 SE the negative was physically restored, so no scan was made. Here’s an extensive description of the restoration process:

http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryofstarwarscom/secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html

Brodnation said:

DrDre said:

Here’s an update of the color grading including a new scene:

Looking very good. Just a little note:

Frame 2 seems oversaturated and pushed too far-red and the highlights on the last shot are drifting a little purple IMO. Other than that it looks great Dre!

In a scene by scene color grading you cannot tweak individual shots. That would be a shot by shot color grading. I also don’t agree it is oversaturated, or that it is too red. For a shot by shot I might add a bit more yellow, but not much. This is how it appears on the 1997 SE print as well. It is supposed to look sun burned. It’s more yellow on the tech prints, but those suffer from a green cast, hence the yellow. The last shot is actually supposed to be more magenta, since the scene takes place near sun set.

CatBus said:

Woohoo! A whole reel! Oh, and the colors look good too 😉

Almost a whole reel. 😉 There are two or three scenes left.

Here’s an update of the color grading including a new scene:

Since it is a different LUT for each scene, that’s not really possible, and I think it is up to Harmy to decide, if and when he wants to release some kind of preview. So, I pass on the LUTs to him, and it’s his choice what to do with them. A new update with new scenes will be coming soon…

I’m doing another pass on the color grading. Here’s a work in progress for the above sequence:

Brodnation said:

DrDre said:

I’ve updated the Leia vs Vader sequence to get a better separation between Leia’s creme colored dress and the bluish green walls:

That looks pretty good but a tinge too warm for my taste. I set the gray point corrector in Photoshop using the gray trim on the pipes in the first shot and got something I think is a little closer to how it looked.

Edit: For some reason, that tool also lowered the blacks a bit so keep that in mind. This is just a idea

The lights are supposed to be yellowish, so the slight warmth is to be expected, but I get what you mean. Those pipes are actually creme colored, so they are not a good gray reference. Here’s how the scene roughly looks on the Derann prints:

I’ve updated the Leia vs Vader sequence to get a better separation between Leia’s creme colored dress and the bluish green walls:

Brodnation said:

DrDre said:

J0E said:

Darth Lucas said:

While I think it’s looking pretty darn great so far, I think I ought to throw my two cents into the teal walls debate. I’m sure some of it would have been visible in '77, but it would have been projected with very warm bulbs, which would have counteracted the teal in the walls a bit, not a ton, but a bit. I don’t have much of a preference, as I think either way is going to be “accurate” in one sense or another. However, I do think you’ve gone a bit overboard on that teal look in certain shots. For instance, I’m seeing quite a bit of teal in Leia’s dress in some of those shots, which I don’t think would have been the case. It may have picked up a bit from the walls around the edges of her dress, but it’s not reflective enough of a material, I think, to have the wall color drastically affect our perception of the dress color itself.

Just a little nitpick, but I think it’s worth addressing.

The teal walls may have been painted like that so they’d show up as a cool white on film. Like how the Superman suit was teal so it would look blue on film. IMHO set photos as a color reference isn’t always accurate when it comes to movies shot on film. A lot of things are colored a certain way on set so they appear the way the director wants them to look projected.

That’s why I only use set photos to support what is seen on film, and what is seen on film both on the frames, and projected is a bluish green color for the walls with creme colored panels.

Projected Derann print:

Despecialized 3.0:

That 3.0 Color grading looks absolutely dead on to me! Great job Dre!

Also speaking of projection bulbs, do slide bulbs yellow too? Or just 35mm bulbs?

I think all bulbs have tendency to become less bright and warmer as they age, even the sun. 😉

I’ve updated the colors for the above shots to remove some traces of pink:

CatBus said:

DrDre said:

Projected Derann print:

Any idea what bulb was used for that photo? A lot of old films projected with a newer xenon bulb or some such thing will look much cooler than they would have theatrically with a vintage bulb. Not saying this one was, but it looks pretty cool to me.

I don’t know, but I recently saw one of these prints projected, and it looked very similar. This is also what I see on 1997 SE frames I have. I’m personally more interested in what is seen on the print, because while it’s great to use vintage bulbs, the underlying assumption is, that the bulb burns at the same temperature as it did a few decades ago, whereas I believe lights become warmer with age, and so projecting a film with a vintage bulb may not be the most accurate representation.

Darth Lucas said:

While I think it’s looking pretty darn great so far, I think I ought to throw my two cents into the teal walls debate. I’m sure some of it would have been visible in '77, but it would have been projected with very warm bulbs, which would have counteracted the teal in the walls a bit, not a ton, but a bit. I don’t have much of a preference, as I think either way is going to be “accurate” in one sense or another. However, I do think you’ve gone a bit overboard on that teal look in certain shots. For instance, I’m seeing quite a bit of teal in Leia’s dress in some of those shots, which I don’t think would have been the case. It may have picked up a bit from the walls around the edges of her dress, but it’s not reflective enough of a material, I think, to have the wall color drastically affect our perception of the dress color itself.

Just a little nitpick, but I think it’s worth addressing.

I’m still working on improving those shots, but with some shots being more green, others more blue, and others more pink on the 2019 SE source, it is a bit of a balancing act.

J0E said:

Darth Lucas said:

While I think it’s looking pretty darn great so far, I think I ought to throw my two cents into the teal walls debate. I’m sure some of it would have been visible in '77, but it would have been projected with very warm bulbs, which would have counteracted the teal in the walls a bit, not a ton, but a bit. I don’t have much of a preference, as I think either way is going to be “accurate” in one sense or another. However, I do think you’ve gone a bit overboard on that teal look in certain shots. For instance, I’m seeing quite a bit of teal in Leia’s dress in some of those shots, which I don’t think would have been the case. It may have picked up a bit from the walls around the edges of her dress, but it’s not reflective enough of a material, I think, to have the wall color drastically affect our perception of the dress color itself.

Just a little nitpick, but I think it’s worth addressing.

The teal walls may have been painted like that so they’d show up as a cool white on film. Like how the Superman suit was teal so it would look blue on film. IMHO set photos as a color reference isn’t always accurate when it comes to movies shot on film. A lot of things are colored a certain way on set so they appear the way the director wants them to look projected.

That’s why I only use set photos to support what is seen on film, and what is seen on film both on the frames, and projected is a bluish green color for the walls with creme colored panels.

Projected Derann print:

Despecialized 3.0: