Erikstormtrooper

Cool, dark_jedi. I'm looking forward to the new versions.

Harmy said:

So it is quite possible that a lot of the original finished composites were just as clean as the live action photography, if not even cleaner due to being handled in lab conditions only.

To play Devil's Advocate here, I've heard many times that the grain doubles or triples every time there is a composite shot.

xhonzi said:

If the 1977-1983 versions were released, but without all of the sound tracks and with digital recomposits...

How many of you would still be signing petitions and crying foul?  I know it's not what you'd prefer.  But would you still fight the good (?) fight?

The soundtracks don't really matter to me as much as the visual. We already have the majority of the soundtracks anyway, albeit in less than ideal quality.

But I think it would be weird for Lucasfilm to release a recomposited version of the originals. That would require effort and would make the OOT much more pleasing to the average viewer, which goes against everything Lucas has been doing since the late 90s.

It's much more likely they'd do a straight transfer from a print and just dump it on the disc. Which is all we would really need to do our own OT.com magic.

I'm pretty torn on this. A simple scan of a cleaned print, with proper color timing, is our goal here. But I admit I'd be disappointed if there were visible matte lines (boxes) around ships. I don't remember ever seeing those in a theater in 1977. They would take me out of the experience.

So I guess I'd like to see both versions: a straight scan as well as a version with recomposited ORIGINAL elements.

Ultimately, I want a version of Star Wars that I can watch without being distracted by crap that's not part of the movie. I want to be transported back to 1977.

CP3S said:

And I fail to see how calling this

image a racial stereotype is "misrepresenting". It is a racial stereotype, plain and simple.

Just for the sake of beating a dead horse, I have no idea what race this guy is supposed to be. Also, I wonder if his armpit skin enables flight.

Sending PM.

I plan on using DVD Shrink myself. You should probably just release it as is, and let everyone else decide.

Harmy said:

I posted a video with several shots somewhere like two or three pages back and that shot was a part of it and I'm afraid I can't do much more about it.

I did see that video. I understand you're pretty much limited to the GOUT for that shot, since it's a moving image. Thanks.

I saw this at The Digital Bits and just had to post:

In announcement news today, Shout! Factory has finally revealed that the Battle Beyond the Stars: 30th Anniversary Special Edition will street on Blu-ray and DVD on 7/12 (SRP $26.97 and $19.93). Both will include new transfers from the original internegative.

Too bad Lucas can't afford to make a new transfer of Star Wars.

The reconstruction of the Falcon in the Death Star hangar is awesome! (I couldn't see it at the time of my last post.) Much better than your first try. Are you able to compensate for the slight camera wobble in that shot?

Also, have you made any further tweaks to the shot of the Falcon flying under Yavin? That's always been one of my favorite shots - I remember being blown away by it as a kid in the theater. I noticed some white "sparklies" on the planet - I don't know if it's possible to do some kind of dirt-removal processing on that.

Thanks!

Harmy, have you gotten to the destruction of Alderaan yet?

I'm not sure if you know, but the original bluescreen footage of the explosion appears in the Empire of Dreams.

You've done a man's job, sir.

Nothing to see here.

Back to work on preserving the OOT, people.

The Blu-Ray set will not have the OOT. Harmy, you're our only hope!

Not to put pressure on you or anything ;)

For the new crawl, it looks like you took each line as it first appeared in the GOUT upscale, and then shrunk it as it receded, to retain the high resolution.

Very nice.

Harmy, what did you do the crawl?

May the Fourth is approaching. I bet that's when they'll officially release the details.

Let's not forget the wonderful announcement we got 5 years ago on May the Fourth.

Bingowings said:

I still think an organised mass send back to Lucas would be a better way of registering your annoyance should the blu-rays be more of the same.

Sticking them in the bin just lays down more plastic mulch in a landfill, sending them to Lucas makes him have to send them to a landfill (well not him personally but you get the general idea).

I have no intention of buying the blurays. It makes no sense to buy them if you don't want them, unless you just want it for the supplemental discs and not the movies themselves.

Zombie, isn't there alternate dialog when Gaff talks to Deckard on the roof, after Batty's death?

Awesome. The shadow is gone.

Harmy, for the fade you added where the Jabba scene used to be, do you think you could have a slower fade, that started sooner? That might hide the partial wipe better.

Would NTSC episodes recorded on VHS be of any help? I have a lot of old B5 stuff laying around on tape, even the original version of The Gathering. They're probably recoded in EP (6 hour mode) though.

Harmy said:

@Rob: Wow, thanks, you make me blush ;-D

Just a fair warning though: While ESB was like 99% the theatrical cut, SW will only be like 95% and Jedi maybe even just like 90% theatrical cuts, because there were some scenes, which will have to be recut slightly to get rid of most of the SE while keeping it HD quality, unless the GOUT upscales prove to be better than I expect. In Jedi for example I'll have to recut the ending celebration and in SW I'll have to cut around the Luke and Biggs scene before the battle of Yavin. I'm going to do both of those scenes similarly to their PDE versions, which you can see here and here, although I'll try to recut the Jedi ending in a way to keep away from creating continuity errors. And there are other smaller things here and there.

Harmy, will these recuts affect the soundtracks?

Great news!

Harmy, the latest clip is awesome! I'm glad you posted it, since I was starting to have withdrawals.

In the scene where the stormtroopers are looking for the droids behind the locked door, will you be tweaking that any more? The background around the corner (where people are walking) seems a bit blurry. I understand it may be as good as it gets though.

I can't wait to watch this on my HDTV.

WhatsMyName said:

Plus, the whole Luke Leia, Bro, Sis deal. That was planned when GL first wrote Star Wars. Does anybody there watch documentries?

Say what?

Regarding hyperspace, I always thought it was a sleazy move, an insult to fans. I can maybe understand paying extra for streaming content or video, but paying to see pictures and read articles is ludicrous.

But realistically, the hyperspace paywall didn't stop anything from getting out to free sites eventually. So in the end it's all good.

Is the old hyperspace stuff still on starwars.com?