DrDre

I’ve started work on the colors for Despecialized 3.0, which will be a scene by scene color grading. I’ve finished a first pass on the opening shots on board the Tantive IV, and the confrontation between Vader and Antilles:

Color variations between shots within a scene are inherent to the source. It’s interesting to note,that the 2019 SE is the first official release with enough color fidelity to resolve the different colors of the walls, and panels inside the Tantive IV:

Shouldn’t be a problem, but I would advice setting the smoothing parameter to 0.1 or 0.2, and number of color spaces to 20-50.

Indeed! Well put!

But what is the purpose of keeping agency with the main characters, if the final showdown is so underwhelming, and unconvincing? The entire conflict is extremely contrived, since not even the creators’ believed the possibility of Rey going to the dark side was believable, hence the idea of Palpatine possessing her was introduced. Then they decide, that zombie Palpatine isn’t threatening enough, so he has to drain them and turn into ROTJ Palpatine for the final showdown, despite the fact that his clone looked like a Zombie version of PT Palpatine. Then he has to do something threatening, and so they say, let’s have him shoot lightning into the sky. That looks cool! Finally, they decide to blow him up (again), but let’s have Palpatine declare he is all of the Sith, and Rey all of the Jedi, such that we can pretend this is some kind of epic final showdown between the Jedi and the Sith. None of this is earned through good storytelling. Like with Poe declaring all is lost, and Lando suddenly arriving with a huge fleet, it’s all pay-off without setup. It repeats many of the pay-off moments of ROTJ, but without the buildup, and emotional context of its predecessor. Just make it bigger and louder, maybe then the viewers won’t notice, that it’s all a facade. Maybe they won’t notice, that we made the entire conflict of the last two movies irrelevant, because the FO is completely overshadowed by a contrived new threat, such that we can have our moment of redemption for Ben Solo. Let’s give all the Star Destroyers Death Star rays to artificially raise the stakes, but then put them in a situation, where they can’t actually use them. Rise of Skywalker in a nutshell:

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:

Ben Solo goes after her, and convinces Palpatine to let Rey live, by allowing Palpatine’s spirit to possess him. As this happens what remains of Ben tells Rey, that it will only be a matter of time before he is consumed, and she should kill him. She does, and Palpatine’s spirit tries to get back to the clone body, but Rey destroys it before he can enter the clone. Being without a vessel for his spirit, the Force ghosts of the Jedi appear, and destroy Palpatine’s spirit.

IIRC this was a pretty popular rumor before the movie came out? Something like this. I know at the least a few people thought the redemption/sacrifice Ben was going to make in the movie was along these lines.

I remember so many people also just kind of automatically assuming there were going to be a ton of force ghosts in the climax once Palpatine got announced. It just seemed to follow that if you were bringing back a long dead bad guy you now had the door open to ALSO bring back all the long dead good guys as a counter.

I think the issue wasn’t just bringing back Palpatine, but by extension killing him again. How are you going to convince people he’s really gone this time? I don’t think blocking some lightning, whilst saying “I’m all the Jedi” was very convincing. For all we know he has clones waiting for him all over the galaxy. The entire concept of his return just wasn’t properly thought out beyond some flashy action sequences.

DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

DominicCobb said:

To me, the solution would have been simple.

When Rey goes to Ahch-to, she’s avoiding her fears, but she should have also been having a crisis of faith in the power of the Force (which Luke helps restore by lifting the X-wing).

At the end, to complete her journey, she decides not to avoid her fear, but also not to try to use brute force to overcome it. As Luke should have done in the cave in TESB, she doesn’t use her saber, and puts her trust solely in the force. When Palpatine starts shooting her with lightning, she turns off her saber and lets the lightning strike her - but it doesn’t, her faith is rewarded and it phases through her, Luke on Crait style (but without the need for astral projection). The lightning going through Rey destroys the temple and kills Palpatine.

People would have hated it, but it would’ve been pretty cool and a fitting conclusion.

Eh, feels too much like a deus ex machina for me. I’d prefer for Force powers to have some sense of realism, rather than just being a get-out-of-jail-free card for true believers. Plus, if you can’t get hit by lightning when you trust yourself in the light side, why did Luke get hit by lightning in ROTJ?

Yeah I don’t really care about that, to me it feels like a proper step up from the last film (and would’ve have made her death by exhaustion make a lot more sense). Plus she’s got the thousand generations living inside her or whatever.

Regardless, there are a few ways to accomplish the same idea. Her life-force creates a shield, or the ghosts of the Jedi block the blasts (ROTJ early draft style).

I disagree, I think that the “always make it one step up from what happened before” attitude was what made the movie so unfulfilling in the first place. It doesn’t make narrative or dramatic sense for Rey to just magically not die. The Force ghost idea might be better though, Jonh in the fanedit thread already did something like that.

Did you miss the part where I said she still dies? In my mind it’s the final installment there’s a license to show something we’ve never seen before. And I think I pretty well explained the narrative and dramatic sense for it.

Not that any of this matters of course.

I think it would have been far more interesting, if Rey lost her Force powers, when Kylo Ren became Ben Solo again, since she got the powers to compensate for the rising darkness (she’s not a Palpatine, but still Rey from nowhere, who has no stakes in the story, which is why she was chosen), but she decides to confront Palpatine anyway to divert his attention. Ben Solo goes after her, and convinces Palpatine to let Rey live, by allowing Palpatine’s spirit to possess him. As this happens what remains of Ben tells Rey, that it will only be a matter of time before he is consumed, and she should kill him. She does, and Palpatine’s spirit tries to get back to the clone body, but Rey destroys it before he can enter the clone. Being without a vessel for his spirit, the Force ghosts of the Jedi appear, and destroy Palpatine’s spirit. The Force ghosts tell Rey, that she has brought balance to the Force, and it is time for the Jedi to end. Being the Chosen One was never about lifting rocks, but about courage, compassion, and self-sacrifice. It was never the intention of the Whills for the Force to be so concentrated in an individual in the physical realm, but when the Fallen One, a Whill intent on dominating that realm, possessed the person, that would willingly become the first Sith Lord, and started grooming his next vessel by allowing him access to these powers, the Jedi were created to counter the threat of the Sith. Now that the Fallen One has truly been destroyed as the prophesy predicted, the Jedi are no longer needed. The Force ghosts, which now include Ben Solo ask Rey to pass on what she has learned, thus ending the Skywalker saga.

I think such an ending would give meaning to the films, that preceeded it, and the saga as a whole. Anakin was a false prophet, created by Palpatine as a Troyan horse, but Anakin altered his destiny, by saving his son, and destroying Palpatine’s body, severely weakening him, and forcing him to inhabit a broken degenerating clone body, ending the cycle of the rule of two. It gives more meaning to the rule of two itself, and explains why Palpatine wanted to replace Vader with Luke, because Vader was useless as a vessel after he was barbecued. It gives meaning to Luke’s statements in TLJ, showing that Luke was on the right track, but did not know how the pieces fit, and in a warped way so was Kylo Ren. It gives meaning to the concepts of Force ghosts, who turn out to be the Whills, the next stage of existence. Finally, it gives the saga a true sense of finality.

krausfadr said:

DominicCobb said:

Okay so she still killed him, just not in the specific way Palpatine wanted. So she won on a technicality. Not really a huge victory for her character though is it?

Failure would have been using the dark side or becoming a Sith, etc. Jedi’s are not pacifists. They all make their own personal handheld decapitation machine. So yes, melting Palpatine’s face off, accomplishing something even Yoda could not do, that’s a huge victory for her character. From scavenger to savior of the Jedi Order.

Except for the fact, that he died before, so killing him again doesn’t have much of an impact anymore, and there’s nothing in the film, that suggests he can’t come back again. Also, had Rey not confronted him, and just joined the space battle, his fleet would still have been destroyed, and Ben Solo would be redeemed, and still be alive. Once Palps fleet had been destroyed, they could have just bombed the Sith Temple to kingdom come.

MikeMatt101 said:

Assuming the front of the Falcon’s cockpit is a perfect circle (which it may not be), it seems to be slightly wider than it is taller on the 2020 image which I think suggests it has been stretched. Only a very rough measurement so I could be wrong.

One thing I find a bit odd is that pretty much every other screencap comparison I’ve seen shows the 2020 versions as being darker than the 2011, but with these it’s the other way around…?

I just checked, and the front of the falcon has the same oval shape on the 35mm for that shot.

Having compared the 35mm scans to the 2011 and 2020 SE, I believe it’s the 2011 bluray, that is squished, not the 2020 SE that is stretched. The releases from the pre-DVD era are all unreliable in terms of aspect ratio.

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

Nothing will ever be worse than AOTC.

TROS is worse for me. At least AOTC had some interesting concepts underneath the horrible execution. TROS for me is the answer to the question, what if Michael Bay made a Star Wars film? It’s a quest for the McGuffin, that leads to translating the McGuffin, that leads to another McGuffin, that leads to the big bad, whose only weakness is to cross the streams like in Ghostbusters (only this trick was actually properly set up in Ghostbusters). Who knew two lightsabers would be kryptonite to a Sith Lord? It would be one thing, if the McGuffin quest was actually good, but it’s all so terribly executed, and all those fake deaths? Ugh…

There really aren’t any interesting ideas in AOTC, so it doesn’t even have that going for it. Take off the nostalgia goggles and it’s straight trash.

There is nothing about TROS that is worse than that film.

I disagree. The love story is essentially Dr Zhivago in space poorly executed, and Dr Zhivago is a classic. Add to this the idea of a democratically elected leader instigating a conflict to weaken the opposition, and manipulate his supporters into giving him more power, and you have a recipe for a great film. So, the ideas and concepts are great. They are just mostly very poorly executed. I found this video by wisecrack very informative on this subject:

Attack of the Clones, why it failed?

https://youtu.be/WA073Ddnosw

So, no AOTC isn’t straight trash. It’s just the worst offender in a trilogy that has plenty of ambition and ideas, that don’t translate well to the screen. TROS on the other hand is a zombie of a movie, that is much worse than AOTC, because it has zero ideas or concepts other than to rehash what came before in a bigger, louder, and far less coherent manner. TFA was a competent hommage to ANH, but TROS is just parody. It takes Finn’s heartfelt scream, when he sees Rey being abducted, and turns it into his defining characteristic, to the point of exasperation. Lando is reduced to a dumb chuckle every time he appears on screen as if the creators are saying: Remember this guy? He’s awesome! Fleets are conjured out of thin air by both the good, and the bad guys. Remember how we were all introduced to Yoda as this little weird alien, who teaches us about the Force, and that size matters not, and we should not be fooled by appearance, all culminating in Yoda raising the X-wing from the water, while Yoda’s theme swelled up? Apparently it’s not Yoda’s theme, and all the story themes attached to it. It’s the raise the X-wing from the water theme. It’s all just so bad!

DominicCobb said:

Nothing will ever be worse than AOTC.

TROS is worse for me. At least AOTC had some interesting concepts underneath the horrible execution. TROS for me is the answer to the question, what if Michael Bay made a Star Wars film? It’s a quest for the McGuffin, that leads to translating the McGuffin, that leads to another McGuffin, that leads to the big bad, whose only weakness is to cross the streams like in Ghostbusters (only this trick was actually properly set up in Ghostbusters). Who knew two lightsabers would be kryptonite to a Sith Lord? It would be one thing, if the McGuffin quest was actually good, but it’s all so terribly executed, and all those fake deaths? Ugh…

StarkillerAG said:

NeverarGreat said:

StarkillerAG said:

NeverarGreat said:

StarkillerAG said:

NeverarGreat said:

DominicCobb said:

It’s truly mind boggling to me that someone could have two problems with this movie, and one of them is that a specific kind of TIE fighter doesn’t have hyperdrive. Like, you realize how ridiculous that sounds right?

The Space Shuttle Atlantis uncouples from the ISS at the conclusion of another successful mission. On the other side of the space station, a VW Beetle from Russia fires its retro rockets on approach.

Not the same thing. Star Wars isn’t real life, and you don’t need to read an obscure EU book to know that a VW Beetle can’t fly in space. I’m not bothered by it at all, and I love the imagery of an X-Wing and a TIE fighter parked next to each other. It really helps illustrate Rey and Kylo coming together.

Obi-wan says that this TIE fighter is specifically short range in the original movie, no EU required.

But that implies there are also long range fighters. It was only the EU that established none of the Imperial fighters can jump to lightspeed, so I don’t see the problem. And like I said before, I think the idea of “plot holes” as an objective measure of quality is dumb in general.

We could endlessly argue about whether or not a TIE fighter could make it across the galaxy, but this discussion is only a distraction from the fact that the entire Rey/Kylo dynamic of the film is utter trash.

I heavily disagree. I personally felt the Rey and Kylo dynamic was good, but you do you I guess. And you could do well to be less hyperbolic, instead of calling this movie “utter trash” and “hideous” as if it’s the worst Star Wars movie ever made (which it isn’t).

I think it comes pretty close. It’s my least favourite Star Wars film. There’s essentially no story here, just a big McGuffin chase, cool visuals, a metric ton of nostalgia, callbacks, and more holes than Swiss cheese.

This wisecrack video sums up really well how I feel about this film:

https://youtu.be/QzBohG4mR60

To summarize TROS has many of the story beats of ROTJ, but little of the context and buildup, and it tries to hide this by being bigger, louder, and much more fast paced.

Jay said:

yotsuya said:

Han Solo IRL said:

MikeMatt101 said:

Broom Kid said:

Looking at the cap from above, thought I’d put together a comparison of “Here to Rescue Yous”

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/7DKY7NNX

I think I got those all labeled correctly.

May I ask, is the last of these screenshots the 2019 Blu Ray or the 2019 4K?

It’s the 4K. It’s got a 3840x1610 pixel count.

yotsuya said:

It sounds like we need to rip the new BR’s and 4k discs and apply a lut to make the 4k version match the colors of the BR. From what I’ve seen the 4k versions have crap colors unless you discover what tinkering you need. Virtually all the 4k screen caps I’ve seen look like crap. Utter crap. So washed out and unlike any film I’ve ever seen in a theater. Natalie Kalmus would be appalled.

The 4K discs are orders of magnitude better than the new 1080p discs for colour and contrast on my GZ1000. Tone mapped screencaps on PC monitors don’t give a good or accurate representation of the 4K versions at all.

From what has been shared, I can’t see it. If you can’t even capture an accurate image of it, what good is it? It has the resolution but if this community is going to make use of that, the colors you claim to be seeing need to transfer over or they are useless. So if we can’t transfer them any other way, we copy the BR colors to the 4k image. Should be easy. I don’t care for 4k because of all the problems the format seems to be having. We can’t burn 4k disc, we can’t transfer HDR colors, can’t even get the right colors in screen caps.

Converting HDR to SDR will always be problematic because you have to compromise somewhere and fidelity will be lost. You can’t squeeze 10 gallons of water into a 5 gallon bucket. Troublesome SDR screenshots don’t imply a problem with the format.

Ignore the SDR screen caps. On a capable 4K HDR display, the overall dynamic range and colors of these transfers (based on the D+ versions, haven’t seen the discs yet) are fantastic. Brightness is just fine and they don’t look washed out at all. Maybe not as punchy as some transfers, but this isn’t Thor: Ragnarok (reference HDR image btw). It’s 70s film and they stayed truer to that aesthetic. Just a shame about the DNR and frozen grain.

The challenge with HDR isn’t that it has no guidelines; it does. Its real challenge is that it’s about 5 to 10 years ahead of current display technology. No consumer display can hit 4000 nits, let alone 10,000, and even then, LCDs don’t have anywhere near the contrast to do the format justice. I’ve had two relatively high-end displays recently: the Samsung Q90R and Sony XBR-65A9F. The Samsung is superior in terms of maximum brightness, but the higher contrast of Sony’s OLED gives it a much punchier image, and therefore the appearance of nearly the same brightness, while having superior black levels (obviously) and color volume. Judging HDR transfers on even the best LCDs isn’t fair to the transfer.

(I kept the OLED. It absolutely destroys the Pioneer Kuro it replaced.)

I agree! The HDR color grading is very good, and quite faithful to the original presentation. None of the screenshots posted do justice to how it looks on a proper HDR setup. Despite the frozen grain this is the best these movies have ever looked, and if I’m not in a purist mindset, this is the version I will be watching. I’m also happy they gave the PT a similar cinematic color grading, much more in keeping with how it would look on film, rather than have the OT conform to the hyper saturated imagery of the PT.

Here’s the remastered reel 3:

I did a color correction for ANH in collaboration with Stotchy:

The aim here is to maintain a similar color palette, but with improved color dynamics.

Thanks, but not as impressive as your work on TPM! 😃

Here’s the remastered reel 2:

I’m working on an updated version of the reel by reel color grading, because the current one is a bit too greenish, and a bit too dark and muted. Here’s the newly remastered reel 1:

Yeah me too! I hope Poita is alright…

Harmy said:

I finally had a chance to properly check the new transfers out and I’d say the worst issue is the heavy dvnr. I’m surprised no one is complaining about it.

Actually bluray.com gave Empire and Jedi a pretty bad review. Star Wars gets a 4/5, but Empire, and Jedi get a 3/5 for its heavy use of DNR, and frozen grain.

I think saturation and contrast isn’t really the issue for the 19SE. Overall the color grades are pretty cinematic. It’s the lack of color dynamics in the color grading, which make them look quite flat. Here’s a regraded frame from ANH:

There’s many more shades of red/orange/pink in natural skin tones, or even in the red panel in the back due to lighting effects. I don’t have the original D+ frame on hand right now, but the colors are all flat, and rather monotone, if you understand what I mean.

ChainsawAsh said:

Seems overly waxy to me, honestly. But that very well could be due to the excessive DNR applied to the source you’re working from…

I agree. The sharpening is very impressive in some areas, but the face has lost all its texture. I checked the D+ stream, and it looks to me to be an effect of the AI sharpening/DNR. It might also be, that the increased sharpness makes the inherent DNR of the source stand out more, because there’s little texture in the face to begin with, while other areas are really sharp now, creating a dissonance between different areas of the frame. Either way the 19SE source looks more natural to my eyes.

Here’s an alternative cinematic color grading:

Looking at the 35mm shot, I think the shot can use a bit more saturation, contrast and warmth.

35mm:

Original:

Adjustment: