DrDre

The new masters are now also on google play/youtube.

I have to say, that after finally watching the new masters on my 4K TV (rather than my smart phone) the new color grading is growing on me. While a touch desaturated and modern, it’s definitely graded in the spirit of the theatrical releases, which after 15 years of the oversaturated mess, that is the bluray, is probably more than we could hope for.

The detail that should be on a 4K restoration is there:

Mocata said:

DrDre said:

Having just watched the Mandalorean, which was graded by the same colorist as the OT, I can see what they are going for. It’s revisionist, but in a less radical way.The Mandalorean is awesome by the way.

Would you say they are putting everything in line with the grading of Rogue One? Standardising / flattening the colors…

Yes, I think so. The Mandalorean in particular has a very barren look to it. I think the Star Wars movie/tv universe will look more gritty from now on.

DominicCobb said:

Has anyone checked against the stills pulled from the Reliance reel that started this thread so many years ago? I know the obvious assumption is that it’s their work, but it might be worth confirming.

It’s no use comparing it to the Reliance reel, since that reel had not been color graded. The colors that are seen on the reel are an internal color correction by Reliance.

Having just watched the Mandalorean, which was graded by the same colorist as the OT, I can see what they are going for. It’s revisionist, but in a less radical way.The Mandalorean is awesome by the way.

Final scene of the film.

2019 master:

Mike Verta:

Preview of raw scan of 1997 SE print shared by poita a while ago:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Swazzy said:

“Damn near monochrome” I believe is exactly what Verta said about the Reliance media restoration.

https://vimeo.com/122877129

Here’s that shot for the new master:

The bluray while pretty dark is actually closer to the 35mm prints than the 4K master for this sequence:

2004 master:

2019 master:

The walls are blue, and the officer’s uniforms are olive green unlike for the 4K master, which looks completely off to me.

ROTJ Grindhouse:

4k83:

LexX said:

DrDre said:

Take a look at this frame:

Looking at the references I have, and being conservative with saturation I would place this shot about here:

Bottom pic looks like teal mess. Sure, the colors could pop a little more on the screenshots from the last page, but I prefer them and they look pretty filmic to me. Sure, it’s not Technicolor but it’s easily the best how these have looked officially. That 2001 pic looks a little too over-processed color-wise.

There is no overabundance of teal in the bottom shot, a little too much green perhaps. The Death Star walls are a light blue for 35mm prints. Just for comparison here’s Puggo’s preservation of the 16mm print for this shot (which has a bit more green in it than my correction):

Having seen ROTJ recently on the big screen in a private screening, I can confirm the light blue color is accurate for these scenes, even if it’s not as saturated and contrasty as seen on a 16mm copy of a 35mm source. The frame I posted is pretty close in terms of hues, I would say. Correcting the slight greenish tone I get this:

Boosting the saturation of both frames, it’s pretty clear the new 4K master is heavy on the magenta tones for this shot:

Stotchy said:

Much improved.

Do you think that the issues are uniform across shots and scenes? Or are some coloured well other coloured poorly?

The issue is pretty uniform across shots. Some shots look better, but overall the lack of color saturation is quite baffling to be honest.

Take a look at this frame:

Looking at the 35mm references I have, and being conservative with saturation I would place this shot about here:

Stotchy said:

Is this an issue caused by HDR being played on an 8 bit display? When I play any HDR Bluray on a non HDR display then the picture looks grey and dull.

Please note that my country doesn’t have Disney plus yet so I’m just going off the conversations here.

No, I have a 4K HDR display, and none of the other 4K HDR films on Disney+ have these issues. RO and TFA for example both look stunning in 4K HDR. In any case these screenshots are from the 1080p version of the films, but the 4K HDR versions look very similar.

Oke, having reviewed the new 4K masters I see a much more detailed image with less artifacts, and so a much better source to work from for future fan restorations. However, the more I look at the colors the less I like them. The reason for this, is that this new 4K master seems to have the opposite problem of the oversaturated 2004 master, namely that the color grading for all six saga films seem to be almost devoid of color appearing almost monochrome in several scenes.

To be honest I’ve never seen 4K restorations with so little color. Just for comparison here’s a frame from the recent 4K restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey:

Here are several shots from the Blade Runner restoration:

pat man said:

nl0428 said:

If anyone here went to go see the 3D release of The Phantom Menace, please tell me what the master and color grading looked like. Did it look like the 2011 Blu-ray, or this new Disney+ version?

I didn’t see the 3d release. But skimming through the movies the Prequels are just upscaled Blu-ray. I.e. nasty teal shift in Aotc.

No, they are not. The color grading is markedly different, more muted like the for the OT, and obviously HDR. I also don’t see any evidence of a blanket teal shift. There are plenty of blue skies, and white clouds in AOTC.

Broom Kid said:

On both Star Wars AND Empire, correct?

Yes, and ROTJ has its own font, which resembles the modern font, but seems to be the original version, not a recreation.

Another difference between the new 4K master and the 2004/2011 master is, that they went back to the original theatrical font for “a long time ago…”.

Here’s the final version of the opening shots of my 4k83 regrade, where the aim was to improve consistency between shots, while keeping a filmic look. The color reference for this regrade is Return of the Pug:

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:

I think the entire concept of artistic expression as you define it is meaningless, because by that definition any form of expression is art, hence nothing is art. It’s like those schools, where a student can’t fail, and everyone gets a passing grade. Anyone calls themselves an artist these days, effectively putting themselves in the leagues of a Mozart, Beethoven, Leonardo DaVinci, Stanley Kubrick, Oscar Wilde, etc, etc. It’s preposterous in my view. Making a painting doesn’t automatically make you an artist in my book, just like being able to count to ten doesn’t make you a Math Professor.

Don’t know what else to say. The question isn’t Art or Not Art. it’s Good Art or Bad Art.

This is where your argument falls apart in my view, as good or bad has very little to do with it. Good or bad is in the eye of the beholder.

Beethoven and The Prodigy are both musical artists. Daniel Johnston and Mozart. The Chainsmokers and Vivaldi. Skrillex and Johnny Cash. The entire concept of artistic expression as I defined it is how it’s defined. That doesn’t make it meaningless. Art has meaning, even the crappiest art.

The viewpoints on art have changed drastically over time, and even now there are many schools of thought, and so it’s definition isn’t as clear cut as you suggest, which is why we’re having this discussion.

And that’s where your argument about it being like a “crappy school where nobody can fail” falls apart, because being Crappy Art is BAD. Yes, you tried to express yourself via artistic intent, and you did it terribly. That’s not a good thing. You made bad art and it reflects poorly on you. “Being an artist” doesn’t shield you from having made crappy art. It didn’t protect Mapplethorpe. Or John Waters.

Again, what does good, or bad have to do with it? It’s about the definition of art, which in my view relates to a timeless quality, and influence that can only be evaluated over time. In my view a painting is just a painting, and only becomes Art when it is placed in the context of the time it was created.

That’s honestly enough. Trying to levy the charge that The Force Awakens isn’t really art AT ALL just doesn’t make any sense, and is a pretty huge overreaction, as is the decision to try and disqualify its status AS art in response. It’s obviously art. It’s okay if you don’t like it and think that it’s bad. You don’t have to go as far as you do. It’s unneccessary to make the criticisms you’re making.

Why not? I don’t even dislike TFA, but in my view TFA is a product created with the intent to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars. It’s a movie created by committee, where the movie wasn’t based on someone’s creative vision, but deliberately tailored to put bums into seats through the power of nostalgia by emulating someone else’s artistic expression.

Broom Kid said:

I’m simply arguing, that I don’t agree with the idea of the designation art being automatically attached to a movie like a toy in a box of cereal, simply because people put effort into it.

This is what I was trying to get at earlier. It’s more than enough to call something bad art. Loads of bad art exists. But there’s no real point in trying to disqualify bad art AS art simply because you don’t like it. That’s just being unfair and irrational. Manos: The Hands of Fate is a work of art. It’s a work of exceedingly, shockingly POOR art, but it’s an artistic expression. I understand the inclination to hyperbolically try and strip it of its legitimacy if you dislike it, i.e. every person who has ever looked at a Jackson Pollock and said “this isn’t art my 3 year old can do this hahaha” but that’s not how art (or the Force) works.

Art’s very definition isn’t like prizes at the bottom of a crackerjack box at all. And you don’t need to go so far as to attempt re-defining art (and the nature of artistic expression) simply because a movie didn’t work on you the way you’d hoped it would.

Yes, but here you make the mistake of assuming that my like or dislike for a movie has anything to do with it. It doesn’t. There are plenty of movies, that I like, that I don’t consider art, and there are plenty of movies I don’t like, that I would consider art. I just think just designating any form of expression as art, is deflating the term art. It puts some piece of fluff entertainment like a Transformers movie, a product clearly created to make a buck (not that there’s anything wrong with that) in the same league as a painting by Rembrandt.

Further: The notion of “originality” being a key aspect of artistic validity is vastly overrated. Sure, it’s wonderful when it’s present, and I appreciate its presence quite a bit, especially when the execution is realizing the potential of the newness. But the definition of “art” isn’t reserved only for “new” things, and honestly, I’d go so far as to say “originality” as people try to describe it (i.e. “something nobody’s ever seen or tried before”) is not only limiting, but a hugely unrealistic expectation to hold over any work of art as a baseline. The large preponderance of art - not just film, or television, but book, painting, music, etc. is mostly unoriginal by those criteria - and that includes Star Wars, which is mostly pastiche of pre-existing art. You could argue the pastiche is “new” but even then I don’t think that argument holds, and the most strikingly “original” aspect of it was almost entirely technical in nature. The tech was advanced to serve the art - but the art itself wasn’t really “original.”

Nor does it need to be. It’s just another example of retroactively boxing in artistic expression in order to redefine other works in relation to it, and find those other works to be wanting. It’s not very generous, and isn’t doing any favors to art, or to the movies you love.

You don’t have to disqualify something from being art in order to dislike it. You can just dislike it. Intensely even. But it’s still art. Just bad art.

I think the entire concept of artistic expression as you define it is meaningless, because by that definition any form of expression is art, hence nothing is art. It’s like those schools, where a student can’t fail, and everyone gets a passing grade. Anyone calls themselves an artist these days, effectively putting themselves in the leagues of a Mozart, Beethoven, Leonardo DaVinci, Stanley Kubrick, Oscar Wilde, etc, etc. It’s preposterous in my view. Making a painting doesn’t automatically make you an artist in my book, just like being able to count to ten doesn’t make you a Math Professor.

Color palette seems to look far more natural, and closer to the theatrical colors, and none of the horrible blue/magenta color noise in the C-3PO/R2-D2 shot.

Harmy said:

If that’s the case, which honestly, it probably is, then the quality of it seems to be pretty bad. I’ll probably be sticking to the BD for Despecialized because at least there we know what changes were made to it and the quality seems comparable, if not better.

I don’t think the quality can really be assessed from a screenshot of 4K video streaming content. A comparison would have to be made with HD streaming, which in of itself has far less detail then the bluray. The real comparison can only be made with the eventual hard copy versions, but considering the generally poor quality of the bluray, I can’t imagine it won’t be significantly better than the 2004 master, particulary since the new master doesn’t seem to have the excessive sharpening of the 2004 versions. Additionally the 10 bit colors will provide much more dynamic range to work with, compared to the black crush ridden blurays.

ZkinandBonez said:

DrDre said:

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:
I agree they are better made in some respects. However, the main driving force behind these films is not artistry.

Again, I think it’s really unfair and unrealistic of you to say this. Borderline disingenuous, really. Especially considering many of the arguments you’re currently leveraging against this version of Star Wars were leveraged against it in the '80s, '90s, and '00s. I fundamentally disagree with any attempt to somehow strip the legitimate, and easily observable intent to create art from the finished films, or to attempt to redefine their existence AS art based on a romanticized notion of what George Lucas is, was, and would have done had he not decided to sell everything. George Lucas is not an island, and his “vision” is not as all encompassing or unfiltered as you consistently describe it to be. The work stands for itself, and your criticisms of the work are primarily rooted in a somewhat cruel appraisal of its artistic intent first and foremost, one that I don’t think stands up to scrutiny at all.

I apologize for dragging this out as long as I did, and I thank you for being very civil and patient with me. Obviously we’re not going to agree, but hopefully some measure of understanding (not agreement, of course, but the two aren’t synonymous anyway) was reached.

Well, I don’t see why any and all forms of corporately driven expression should be considered art, just because a group of people put a lot of effort, work, and craft into it. A lot of people work hard, and are creative in developing products, doing research, motivating people, etc, etc. Yet, these people are not considered artists. However, if the product you’re working on is a movie, you’re automatically labeled an ARTIST with a capital A. I reject that notion.

So by that logic Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel can’t be considered art because it was comissioned by the church? Some of history’s most famous artwork could be considered “commercial” or “corporate” as they were partially, or completely, dictated and funded by one or more patrons. Even art house films exist to make money. Although I don’t dismiss auteur theory, I do think it’s highly overrated since even the smallest, most independent films are a collaborative and commercial venture.

I never stated art can’t also be commercial. I’m simply arguing, that I don’t agree with the idea of the designation art being automatically attached to a movie like a toy in a box of cereal, simply because people put effort into it. A lot of people put great effort and creativity into their work, or product, and they don’t get some automatic lofty term to describe it, so why should a product from the entertainment industry be any different? In my view there are other factors that come into play, which I’ve stated are a rare, and unique combination of imagination, creativity, originality, perserverance, circumstance, context, and timing. The Sistene Chappel has all of the above. I don’t think the ST qualifies. In my view the films lack imagination, creativity, and originality. They lack a unified creative vision, and seem content to mostly ride Lucas’ coattails. As such, I see the ST thusfar mostly as successful products, that attempt to emulate Lucas’ (and his collaborators’) most successful and beloved works. There are creative elements, but not enough for me personally to consider them works of art in their own right. To me these films thusfar are not much different from the Roman marble copies of famous bronze Greek statues. They are a different material, and it takes craft to make them, but in the end they are mainly a modernized commercial product based on somebody else’s artistry.

Here in the Netherlands the were and are still only available in HD (2011 version), and it’s the 12th over here, with the Mandelorian already available (won’t be watching it until Thursday with my brother though).

CatBus said:

IMO, the OOT has been out of circulation for all but the most devoted fans for over twenty years now. On the home video front, it’s skipped three generations of video tech, not including streaming services, where it’s also unavailable. Even old-time fans, unless they’re holding onto a VCR or a Laserdisc player, probably don’t watch it anymore – it’s only an even smaller subset that have ever viewed our preservations (I suppose there’s also the GOUT, but I don’t think that abomination set the world on fire either). And it’s not just missing, it’s been substituted with another product that some certainly think is close enough – so there’s often little sense of a gap that needs to be filled. If it ever did come back, it would be a niche product. Its clear superiority does not guarantee it will overcome decades of sentimental attachment to the only version of the films most of a generation has ever known.

For this reason, I disagree it would be like printing money for Disney. A proper restoration costs a lot, and they’d be getting stiff market competition from their own products. Furthermore, Lucas still expresses a strong desire that the OOT be suppressed, he’s widely regarded as the creator of the OOT, and studios tend to defer to the creator’s wishes for already-successful properties, even if they’re stupid wishes, and when they’re under no contractual obligation to do so. Lucas not being at the helm doesn’t mean he has no influence on the question of the OOT.

So basically IMO we’re waiting for copyright expiration and a public domain release when it comes to the OOT. A couple screenshots in a book is not a sign of the wall crumbling.

I agree. I think the best we can probably hope for, is a far superior SE release in 4K HDR, that can serve as a basis for future fan preservations.