This looks like a noble effort, but I don't see how this could be accomplished with moving images. The trick that Adywan's using for the emperor in ESB Revisited is a very brief shot using a hologram (easier to hide imperfections) and a head that isn't moving.
That said, I'd love for someone to prove me wrong though.
Puggo , thanks for posting the clip. It's awesome!
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:skyjedi2005 said:Do you Think this was a Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Print, and they just Spliced on the plain star wars crawl?
I don't THINK an original crawl was spliced onto the front, but now that you mention it, I'll go back and see if there are splices, and if so specifically where. To me, things look pretty consistent throughout. I think films from such vastly different eras (ANH vs original) would look obviously different in terms of their color, contrast, etc. after so much time has passed.
Did anyone else notice that the starfields seem to abruptly "change" during the pan-down to Tatooine. Is this maybe a splice point?
Octorox said:Anyone else find it funny that that Republic Admiral in the 2nd episode looked EXACTLY like an imperial admiral. I half expected to see Anakin force choke him...
I think it's supposed to be the same guy.
Last night's episode was very good.
It's probably the 5 year-old in me, but I LOVE seeing the Y-Wings in action!
According to Shadows of the Empire, Rendar was at the battle of Hoth. So it's not a totally random suggestion.
But Adywan has nixed all EU stuff.
Keela said:But it belongs to him....if he wanted to take every copy off the shelves and piss on them, he can do that...it's HIS to do with what he will.
What he wanted to do was entertain people. That's all. It's HIS vision, with which he can do what he likes. If you don't find it entertaining....STOP WATCHING IT!
What I was trying to get across is do something of YOUR OWN, YOU create a project that YOU hold dear, spend hours, days, months, years creating and perfecting it. Tweaking it so it's just so.... Find out how much fun it is to have to settle for less than what you see in your mind's eye, because of budget, production issues, technology limitations, and see how much fun it is to sweat and worry and bleed over YOUR IDEA...then after all that...Find out how much fun it is to constantly hear how horrible it is, how awful and just so wrong....
And all the while, the people who bemoan the loss of what THEY thought YOUR idea should look like....watch them continue to spend money on it anyway.
Yep...you all are really showing Lucas boy! Excuse him while he balances his bank account again.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that most fans have much more love for George's movies than he has. He was never happy with these movies and has always considered them imperfect. And I think I'd take issue with him knocking down my door to come whizz on my SW movies (which I paid for).
We do not bemoan the loss of what these movies should have been, but the loss of what they were for 20 years.
Star Wars is a huge place. It's not just 6 movies. It's novels, games, music, toys, collectibles, props, tv shows, and cereals. Lighten up. There's a place for everyone.
This thread should probably be moved to the General forum.
I thought the 2 episodes last week were pretty good. Not Original Trilogy good, but decent TV entertainment, and more watchable than Stargate Atlantis. My 5 yo son liked them too (no big surprise there).
The individuality given to the clones is interesting. For now, I can accept the stupidity of the battle droids, but I don't know how much I can take. I thought Yoda was given a much more respectable treatment than what he got in the PT - more focus on his force powers and less on jumping around.
Somewhere in this series, I might even find the Prequel Trilogy I had hoped for.
I'll be watching this.
Keela said:What if something you held near and dear to your heart was constantly dissected, criticized, torn apart, re-done, edited, argued over, and generally ripped a new one?
Personally speaking, that is precisely what has happened.
AxiaEuxine, your post was meant to be a jab at the naysayers, but it shows how Lucas has managed to divide his own fans. Without the SE, this never would have happened.
And remember: We are all here because we love Star Wars.
I've been in touch with Alex Newborn, a big fan of Star Tours who put together a DVD a few years ago. On his DVD he included a TV special on Star Tours hosted by Gil Gerard. Alex might be interested in lending a hand to this project.
Alex also pointed me to a torrent at mousebits.com for the video from the ride, which he says is the best he's seen. It's similar to the timecoded version on OCP's Return of the Ewok DVD, but it's MUCH better in quality. By my eye, it may even be a first or second generation copy. The only issue with the video is that it seems to have a yellow tint, but I imagine that some of you guys here could easily correct that :)
I know there's the C-3PO video for the inflight instructions (fasten seatbelt, no smoking, etc). Here's a low quality version: http://www.shadowfuture.net/bh/misc/safety.mov
Is there a copy of the video you watch while you're waiting to board (with the woman with the 80s weird hair)?
And isn't there a short video of 3PO thanking you after the ride is over?
Moth3r said:To add insult to injury, the Region 2/4 PAL DVDs were upscaled from the NTSC master, intead of using the PAL master that the French/German laserdiscs were made from.
Ha! I had forgotten about that. That was our "last hope" for salvaging something respectable from the GOUT. Yet another reason it was a slap in the face!
Puggo, I couldn't have said it better myself. Bravo!
AxiaEuxine said:I am simply tired of people bashing various aspects of Star Wars AND Lucas who is a genius in my book since 1997.
Odd, I would say that Lucas stopped being a genius in 1997. But to each their own.
Because of the shield and the stealth factor, I think any drop ship would have landed far outside the visual range of the Rebel base.
Concerning the ending of ROTJ, I kind of like the new music. Yub Nub is one of the low points of the OT. However, any respect George gains for replacing Yub Nub is immediatly canceled out by replacing Lapti Nek with jedi Rocks.
Adywan has been great at giving us a little something old and a little something new. I hope he can find a way to work a small section of Yub Nub into the new celebration music. If he can pull that off, it will be the middle ground that everyone can be happy with.
As far as seeing other planets, I think Coruscant is the only planet we need to see. The others don't matter to the story. (Wow, the people of Bespin are free. Now I can sleep at night!)
This definitely sounds interesting.
Let's not forget, when Adywan first showed up here, nobody knew who he was. He was just some "nobody" who wanted to basically redo what Darth Editous had done.
zombie84 said:http://www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/visualdevelopmentofdarthvader.html
This might be of some help. ROTS changes are at bottom. But the costume changed a lot for ESB as well.
Zombie, as always, an excellent article, and the images showing Vader in his various influences and incarnations are great.
At the end of the article, you discuss darthblade's article on Vader's chestbox and its possible Hebrew meaning. Although darthblade's site has disappeared from the net, I used (with his permission) some of the photos from his site in my own analysis of the writing on Vader's chestbox:
http://erikstormtrooper.com/sithprophecy.htm
To sum up, I concluded that the writing was Hebrew gibberish. The writing changes from ESB to ROTJ (and then later it changes 2 more times for the Visual Dictionary and the tour suit seen at the Magic of Myth). The Hebrew letters are often flipped upside down or cropped. And I have yet to get in touch with anyone who can REALLY read Hebrew who's willing to go through the various versions for me.
The chestbox for ROTS, like the ANH version, does not have any writing. Since most aspects of the ROTS suit seem to be based on the later ESB and ROTJ look, I'm guessing the lack of writing was intentional. I doubt it was for visual consistency with the ANH suit.
Not that anyone except me cares about any of this ;)
Anyway, using Hayden in the Vader suit was a bad call on Lucas' part. He's just too small. Even if Lucas has a thing against Prowse, he could have easily found someone of his stature. In the end, it comes down to laziness, like most things in Star Wars these days.
Bobocop said:Maybe we should try sending a letter to LFL to see what kind of response we get. Just asking them why the colors changed from the '97 SE. It would be interesting what their PR department comes up with.
I wonder if there's any way to get an honest answer as to whether it was something to do with Lowry restoration algorithms running rampant, or LFL trying to 'modernise' the look but doing it half-assed.
Don't waste your time. If they can't come clean about the audio issues ("deliberate creative decision"), they won't address the real color issues. Any answer you get will be BS. But I do recall reading somewhere recently that Lowry only handled grain reduction and image cleaning, not coloration.
There is a small part of me that has wondered if the darkening was done to compensate for the overly-bright settings most people use on their TVs. Not that that's acceptable, but at least it's a plausible reason.
I remember a time when I used to have the utmost respect for George Lucas. Sad.
This whole idea was something I toyed around with in the Starkiller Ranch thread.
If you really want to have ONLY ONE death star battle (and compress the movies down), here's a VERY ROUGH outline of what you could do with the OT:
1) Start out with regular ol' ANH.
2) Replace the DSI with DSII. The DS is not finished - it only has superlaser capabilities for now. It is shielded and in orbit over Endor (similar in a small way to Adywan's edit).
3) The DS conference will probably need to avoid any references to the DS being completed.
4) The DS leaves the protection of its shield to make an example of Alderaan.
5) In addition to deactivating the tractor beam, Ben sabotages the superlaser. (Maybe use some of the alternate/cut footage of Ben wondering around the DS, combined with one of the two switches Ben turns while deactivating the tractor beam. Notice how the tractor beam controls make the same sound as the superlaser controls that the DS gunners use.)
6) End ANH after the Falcon escapes into hyperspace and Tarkin and Vader discuss the tracking device.
7) Start ESB with the Imperial attack on Hoth. Hoth is the one and only hidden rebel base. The Imperials have tracked the rebels thanks to the tracking device on the Falcon. (The DS is not used since its superlaser is out of comission. Plus, since the Rebels have the DS plans, the imperials have become paranoid and overprotective.)
8) Show Luke training on Dagobah. The elevating X-Wing should come first. Next up, in the cave, the phantom Vader communicates that he is Luke's father. Then Luke parries and decapitates, seeing his own face. This is the last time we see Luke in ESB. He never leaves to rescue anybody because we...
9) End ESB after the Falcon floats away with the garbage. (In some way, the tracking device needs to be deactivated so that the falcon can get away.)
10) Start ROTJ with the emperor's arrival on the DS. The DS has returned to its shield over Endor for completion.
11) Cut to Luke's conversations with the dying Yoda. Han is never frozen, so we never get into the whole Jabba mess.
12) Next is the Rebel briefing. Luke arrives from Dagobah. (The others haven't seen him since Hoth). Lando is obviously an old friend of Han's.
13) Movie ends as usual.
EDIT: I forgot to add, between 7 and 8, Ben needs to communicate to Luke that he should head to Dagobah. Maybe via voice only, while Luke is in his X-Wing leaving Hoth.
MTHaslett said:Infodroid-- I just had a wild ass idea about how to handle this movie without a flashback. Good timing, huh?
Watching your edit brought out so much of what is great in this movie and made me see an even better movie hidden in the material...
Anyone want to hear ideas for another edit on this pile of rough diamonds?
Lemme guess:
Story from Short Round's view? Nope.
Removing ALL the early exposition and starting when Indy reaches the indian village? Scratch that.
OK. I'm stumped. What's your idea?
Bingowings, some nice ideas there. Seeing the AT-AT in the forest would be awesome if it could be worked in.
I watched the 2nd half of Jedi last weekend, and one thing that struck me during the Ewok battle was the lack of laser blasts. Especially in the scene where the Ewoks first surround the stormtroopers and attack. There are arrows flying everywhere, but the stormtroopers only squeeze off a few rounds. If anything can jazz up the battle a little bit, it's hundreds of laser blasts!
And earlier, when Teebo steals the speeder bike and leads away all but one scout from the bunker, we shouldn't need to see what happens to him. As a virtual nobody in the movie, he really doesn't need his own personalized chase scene. Better yet, you could save his antics for later during the ground battle, where he leads the 2 scout troopers on a wild goose chase - he ditches, and then the scouts get taken out by the ewoks waiting with the throat-rope.
Jedi Rocks should be removed in its entirety. It's AWFUL. The song is awful, and the new CG is the one reason that I flat-out refuse to put the SE in my DVD player (for me it's worse than Greedo shooting first). Lapti Nek is much more fitting, although I'd be perfectly happy if the musical number were cut completely.
(It's strange how the humor added to ROTJ seems to parallel the humor in the Last Crusade, especially in the Harrison Ford department. You know, it's like they're trying TOO HARD to be cute and funny. I guess that's the only kind of trilogy-ender that George can cook up. Man, I almost wish Adywan would skip ESB and get right to ROTJ.)
negative1, I agree that it's best to focus on the positive and what the future will bring us. But there's one thing you said that I have to disagree with:
negative1 said:i had them all on laserdisc, and since those were the best quality at the time, i didn't notice any difference on the dvds, which were the same quality, so what was there to complain about?
By this logic, if the GOUT masters were released as-is onto Blu Ray, there would be no room to complain, since they're the same quality as the GOUT DVDs.
The GOUT is a drop in quality for a DVD release. Not a drop in quality of the actual image itself, but a drop in the quality of effort that LFL put into the release. LFL has long had a reputation (up to the late 90s, at least) for releases that pushed the technological edge. The GOUT definitely did NOT push the edge. It was a stale, 13-year-old crumb.
Speaking of paranoia, I don't think taking extreme precuations is unwarranted in any way. When it comes to the OOT, any version other than the GOUT will not be tolerated. The SEs, in whatever form (HD, corrected DVDs, fanedits), seem to be allowed.
Three projects that were aimed at preserving the OOT have gone strangely silent:
Make of this what you will. For my part, I am extremely suspicious. (And honestly, I am still astounded that Adywan was "allowed" to finish his awesome edit of ANH.)
I will thank George with my wallet when the OOT is given a respectable release. No other thanks are necessary (much less appreciated).
Back in 1997 I was in a drug store in a Louisiana small town. This was when I was at the height of my Star Wars collecting mania. They had 2 vintage ROTJ-style Star Wars toothbrushes (Vader and Luke) for a couple of bucks each. Of course, I bought them.
^ AWESOME
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:However, given the way things are going, I can't help but question whether it is appropriate that the X0 site is still soliciting donations.
In fact, on a separate note, was it ever appropriate for X0 to solicit donations? The rest of us adhere to a strict code of accepting no financial compensation for our restorations or edits, and people have been kicked off the forum for it. Was the X0 granted an exception? Under the current circumstances, would it be that hard to remove the PayPal link from the site?
VERY good point.
Regarding the "appropriateness" of soliciting donations, I would say the XO team abided by the spirit of this community. The money sent to them was not a payment for a product, it was a donation to a restoration effort. In the end, I don't think making a donation has any bearing on whether you can get the end product.
The lack of any word from any of the team members makes me wonder if a LucasFilm Cease and Desist was delivered. But then, they probably wouldn't be accepting donations through their website if that were the case. Hmm. Something here doesn't feel right.
All this reminds me of the XO timestamp version that was supposedly leaked. The XO members went to great pains to claim that they were not the ones who released it.
Once again, I humbly request that the XO team release the raw XO captures. (We were shown pictures of the discs at one point.) If this project is dead, then the raw captures ensure that it accomplished something. If the project is not dead, the XO team can continue to improve the quality of the captures and release subsequent versions. Either way, the community wins, and the XO team is to thank for it.