Fang Zei

Even if they’re sitting on it until 2020 and it’s just a matter of “when” and not “if” (they would never tell us anyway), I still think some kind of open letter to Lucasfilm is a good idea.

We could explain to them in very straightforward terms that we simply want the same treatment given to the Star Wars saga that films like Close Encounters and Blade Runner have already recieved.

If it’s going to be three more years, they might as well take that time to get it right.

joefavs said:

I always thought Luke’s Dagobah food was a Twix bar when I was a kid.

It always looked like a carrot to me.

Wazzles said:

dahmage said:

Wazzles said:

yotsuya said:

Disco_Lobot said:

I laugh at people buying 4K TVs… your eyes are almost certainly not good enough to tell the difference in the vast majority of viewing scenarios. Total waste of money

http://bgr.com/2015/09/18/720p-vs-1080p-vs-4k-resolution/

If we were just talking about the absolute resolution, you are right. At my normal viewing distance I can’t tell the difference between 720 and 1080. I’m certainly not going to see much improvement from a 4k screen. But it isn’t just the resolution. The more pixels you have to display the image data, the better the image looks. The pixels start to disappear and be truly invisible. I’ve known this about printing for years, but when you apply it to video, it really helps the realism of the image, even if you are watching a 480 DVD. With the proper hardware, everything will look better on a 4k screen, even if you never get a UHD player or media.

My dad has a 43 inch 4K TV and DVDs look horrendous.

Often, if you turn off all that image enhacent crap, lower quality sources like dvd actually look better. I have a 51" 1080p plasma tv, and i think DVD’s look pretty damn good if they were authored at high bitrate. a bit soft, but good.

I have a 40 inch 1080p and DVDs look great unless I’m directly comparing them to Blu Rays. I honestly believe that 4k as a resolution is simply too high for a TV. As far as projecting goes, I’m sure it’s great, but when you’re watching 480i-1080p content from a 40-60 inch TV and sitting about 10-12 feet away, it seems unnecessary.

It definitely makes a difference for projectors. Several years ago My uncle upgraded from a 1080p Domino projector to a 4k Sony SXRD that could also do 3D. The Domino looked perfectly fine, but with the Sony I noticed the pixels were no longer visible more than a few inches from the screen.

The pixel problem is something I’ve also noticed with TVs. It must have something to do with the display tech (ips/tn/va lcd vs plasma vs oled, etc), because I’ve seen 1080p sets in the same size range with noticeably different pixel visibility. 4k eliminates this problem for the most part.

Another funny thing to consider is the screen size / seating distance / screen resolution debate. I’ve also got a 40" 1080p but I sit less than five feet from it. The tv is a sony lcd from almost nine years ago. Right around that time, I remember there was the opinion that 1080p is wasted below 50". In other words, it was hard to see the difference over 720p unless the screen was at least that big. That may have been true at more normal seating distances, but I like to sit close enough to the screen to recreate the movie theater experience and the jump in resolution is definitely noticeable.

I seem to recall that a couple years ago the debate had turned into “4k is wasted below 80”."

towne32 said:

Fang Zei said:

towne32 said:

Wazzles said:

yotsuya said:

Disco_Lobot said:

I laugh at people buying 4K TVs… your eyes are almost certainly not good enough to tell the difference in the vast majority of viewing scenarios. Total waste of money

http://bgr.com/2015/09/18/720p-vs-1080p-vs-4k-resolution/

If we were just talking about the absolute resolution, you are right. At my normal viewing distance I can’t tell the difference between 720 and 1080. I’m certainly not going to see much improvement from a 4k screen. But it isn’t just the resolution. The more pixels you have to display the image data, the better the image looks. The pixels start to disappear and be truly invisible. I’ve known this about printing for years, but when you apply it to video, it really helps the realism of the image, even if you are watching a 480 DVD. With the proper hardware, everything will look better on a 4k screen, even if you never get a UHD player or media.

My dad has a 43 inch 4K TV and DVDs look horrendous.

It definitely varies by TV. Rtings.com has an SD category in their ratings, and some 4K TVs do a fine job, while others are pretty miserable. It also depends on the DVD player, of course. Something with composite output or a PS3 via HDMI? etc.

Even blu-ray can look terrible on the newer TVs if the settings are all cranked up to eleven.

A little over a year ago I was at a Best Buy where they were playing Captain America: The Winter Soldier on a 4k tv (it was an lg lcd iirc) with what must have been the out-of-the-box settings. It looked truly horrendous.

Oh, absolutely. I’ve got friends who are completely ignorant about audio/visual types of matters. And some of them will say that they “hate HD” because the picture looks terrible and unrealistic. I’ll ask them how they feel about the picture quality on their 1080p laptops and in movie theaters, and of course they think it’s great. But they’re familiar with HDTV meaning shitty interpolated motion, oversharpening, and the host of other features that people will turn on (or, often are turned on by default).

This happened with a friend of mine. I was talking about blu-ray and she asked if it was supposed to be better because she was watching one of the Harry Potter movies on blu-ray at her parents’ place and it “looked like home movies.” After thinking about it for a few seconds I was like “ohhh, I know what you’re talking about” and realized she was talking about the motion smoothing on the tv and not the resolution of the format itself.

If tomorrow comes and goes without an announcement, is it time to start drafting an open letter for the 25th?

towne32 said:

Wazzles said:

yotsuya said:

Disco_Lobot said:

I laugh at people buying 4K TVs… your eyes are almost certainly not good enough to tell the difference in the vast majority of viewing scenarios. Total waste of money

http://bgr.com/2015/09/18/720p-vs-1080p-vs-4k-resolution/

If we were just talking about the absolute resolution, you are right. At my normal viewing distance I can’t tell the difference between 720 and 1080. I’m certainly not going to see much improvement from a 4k screen. But it isn’t just the resolution. The more pixels you have to display the image data, the better the image looks. The pixels start to disappear and be truly invisible. I’ve known this about printing for years, but when you apply it to video, it really helps the realism of the image, even if you are watching a 480 DVD. With the proper hardware, everything will look better on a 4k screen, even if you never get a UHD player or media.

My dad has a 43 inch 4K TV and DVDs look horrendous.

It definitely varies by TV. Rtings.com has an SD category in their ratings, and some 4K TVs do a fine job, while others are pretty miserable. It also depends on the DVD player, of course. Something with composite output or a PS3 via HDMI? etc.

Even blu-ray can look terrible on the newer TVs if the settings are all cranked up to eleven.

A little over a year ago I was at a Best Buy where they were playing Captain America: The Winter Soldier on a 4k tv (it was an lg lcd iirc) with what must have been the out-of-the-box settings. It looked truly horrendous.

Cthulhunicron said:

Fang Zei said:

Cthulhunicron said:

Another topic I’m interested is what exactly is meant by negatives. The camera negatives are the first generation, the actual frames taken from the camera. I’m assuming when people talk about the negatives of Star Wars, they’re referring to the frames that actually contain things like lasers and stuff animated onto the film. I know also some shots are composites, so there would have to be multiple negatives for that (one for a background, one for a star destroyer, another for a planet, etc).

In order for the negatives to be conformed to the special edition, wouldn’t some negatives have to start out unaltered, get translated into some kind of digital format, adulterated with CGI additions, and then re-printed back onto film?

That’s exactly what happened. They had to scan certain shots into the digital realm in order to add cgi (think all of those shots in Mos Eisley) and then print it back out to a new piece of negative. The original, unaltered piece of negative was presumably kept in storage.

But even the composite shots from the original version you mention in your first paragraph had to be redone for some reason, either because the existing composite on the finished negative had faded or because George thought that a digital recomp would make those shots look better.

Presumably? So we still don’t know for a fact that they were saved?

Someone from Fox only just recently confirmed that they were saved. I still say “presumably” because it feels weird how we’ve heard about it from someone at Fox but not from anyone at Lucasfilm. There’s a complete lack of details on all of this.

Cthulhunicron said:

Another topic I’m interested is what exactly is meant by negatives. The camera negatives are the first generation, the actual frames taken from the camera. I’m assuming when people talk about the negatives of Star Wars, they’re referring to the frames that actually contain things like lasers and stuff animated onto the film. I know also some shots are composites, so there would have to be multiple negatives for that (one for a background, one for a star destroyer, another for a planet, etc).

In order for the negatives to be conformed to the special edition, wouldn’t some negatives have to start out unaltered, get translated into some kind of digital format, adulterated with CGI additions, and then re-printed back onto film?

That’s exactly what happened. They had to scan certain shots into the digital realm in order to add cgi (think all of those shots in Mos Eisley) and then print it back out to a new piece of negative. The original, unaltered piece of negative was presumably kept in storage.

But even the composite shots from the original version you mention in your first paragraph had to be redone for some reason, either because the existing composite on the finished negative had faded or because George thought that a digital recomp would make those shots look better.

Lets at least wait until 9:41 PM EST 😉

https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-05-03-star-wars_x.htm

Amano said:

What about the difference between the “negatives” (with the optical effects applied to them) and the OCN (the reel that was in the camera back then)?

Even if they conformed the official “negative” into something else, there should remain the OCN frames somewhere for all scenes with optical effects (wipes and optical compositions etc).

With the OCN frames all optical effects would have to be recreated digitally which is probably a lot of work.

The wipes were actually redone optically (using the actual camera negatives for the relevant shots like you mention) as part of the restoration process before they made any changes. I think this resulted in the wipes not beginning and ending at the exact same frames and technically still counts as an alteration from the original version, although maybe someone can clarify if I’m wrong about that.

The vfx shots were re-composited digitally, presumably using the original VistaVision negatives (again, someone can clarify if I’m wrong). This definitely counts as a change, not only because the recomps were done digitally (although recomping of any kind would still be an alteration), but also because it resulted in slightly different positions for all the various elements.

Cthulhunicron said:

So in other words, the Special Edition negatives are all together in a receptacle somewhere, and all the frames specifically from the theatrical cuts are simply stored somewhere else? I mean, maybe it’s a bit more complicated, but is that basically the gist?

Yes

The transfers of I-VI tbs/tnt uses are essentially the 2015 edits that were made for the digital download versions, which only kept the Fox logo and fanfare for ANH. Otherwise they’re identical to the 2011 blu-ray transfer which itself still uses the 2004 Lowry master.

Cthulhunicron said:

I’m aware of the clean up that happened in the 90s, because the film was in bad shape. So as far as I understand things, the original negatives were scanned digitally, cleaned up, and then used as the basis for the special editions as well as the 1993 release.

The 1993 release was simply the final time a fresh video master was made from the 1985 interpositives (it was done for the definitive collection laserdisc release in '93 and reused for the “Faces” aka “One Last Time” aka “THX” release in '95). Since it was still the early 90’s, this last video master was only done as a 4:3 standard def transfer with the 2.35:1 image letterboxed. Hence, in 2006 when George was reminded by the people at Lucasfilm that an unaltered dvd release would make quite a bit of money but he didn’t feel like spending a dime on it, this was the most recent transfer and we got the GOUT.

The restoration for the Special Edition wasn’t even started until 1994 and involved physically cleaning and restoring the original negatives themselves. No digital scanning was done except for the SE additions where cgi was integrated into existing shots. The technology to digitally clean up an entire film at resolutions high enough to be printed back to film for theatrical exhibition wouldn’t exist for another several years AFAIK.

The SE restoration is a fascinating subject in and of itself since they cleaned the entirety of the movies, including the parts that were going to be replaced anyway for the SE. Some frames on the o-neg were damaged beyond repair and were replaced with dupe neg made from the '85 interpositives since that was the next best source. So not only are the altered parts of the negative still in storage somewhere, the '85 interpositive is also a viable source for an OOT restoration should it come to that.

But yeah, what Density said x1,000,000. See: just about any criterion release for good examples of stunning restorations that didn’t use an original negative.

I don’t really have a clear memory of seeing Star Wars for the first time the way a lot of you do.

I got into Trek first. My mom rented Search for Spock when I was 5 (1990/91) and from then on I was hooked (I detailed this recently in the Star Trek thread in off topic).

Star Wars was just something I always kinda knew about, and it was finding out relatively early on that ILM had also worked on several of the Trek films that I think helped me avoid the “Trek vs Wars” thing, though I was definitely the outlier in my class of 30 for liking Trek. All the cool kids were “down with the trilogy” (they didn’t actually say that, I’m just quoting Clerks II).

There was another connection to a separate “franchise” I remember finding out about. Really random memory time here, but back in the early days of Sci-Fi Channel there was this mini-vignette they would always play during commercial breaks. Voiceover guy was talking about so-and-so who won such-and-such awards for his work on Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, and I remember very clearly they played the shot of Artoo and Threepio crossing the Tantive corridor as blaster bolts somehow miss them. It was only in recent years that I realized they must have been interviewing John Dykstra. In any event, I don’t really have an earliest Star Wars memory.

One thing I do remember quite clearly is being in first or second grade (91/92) and looking through one of those children’s story books lying on the shelf in the classroom. It had photos from the movies (possibly it was only from RotJ). At one point, I was on a page with that photo of Jabba with Leia in the metal bikini. A friend of mine goes “you know who that guy is?” as he points to the green-armored person with the helmet standing by Jabba’s side. “That’s Boba Fett,” he tells me.

I must have seen the original movie or at least gotten the gist of it, because I remember staying over at my relatives’ place and popping in their vhs of RotJ they’d recorded off a tv broadcast. They had a whole drawer full of movies they’d taped off tv years earlier before they had ditched cable. Smart thinking, really. Since it had the word “Return” in the title, I incorrectly assumed it was the second movie of the trilogy and not the third. By the scene where Han still frozen in carbonite was revealed, I realized I had no idea what was going on. Must’ve ejected the tape not long after that.

I must have just sorta known Vader was Luke’s father, because I definitely saw RotJ first. It must’ve been when USA network was airing them in the early-to-mid nineties, or possibly when Sci-Fi Channel showed the movies letterboxed. Actually, I remember vividly my first time seeing the “I am your father” scene from ESB and I’m pretty sure it was as a clip in some retrospective vignette they were playing on Sci-Fi channel right around that same time (early to mid 90’s).

So yeah, my first clear memory of watching the OT would probably be as the USA network P&S broadcasts. I still remember it cut to commercial right after the Emperor’s “So be it … Jedi” and my dad echoed the words.

VHS rentals helped fill in the gaps, of course. I’m pretty sure that’s how I actually sat down and watched the first two films properly for the first time. My mom also ended up getting me the Faces VHS of ANH for Christmas of '95.

I saw the SE’s once each in the theater (was eleven, same age as JJ in '77) and got the widescreen vhs SE trilogy “silverbox” for Christmas that year. For seven years, that was my Star Wars. I actually have to credit my mom with getting me fascinated with aspect ratios, whether she meant to or not. Funny how almost every time I saw the SE vhs set sitting on someone’s shelf it was almost always the fullscreen “goldbox” when seven years later it was jarring to see an '04 dvd set that was gold instead of silver.

We got the ‘04 dvd set of course, a month or so after it was released. It was sheer curiosity about the fanmade bootlegs that led me to this place. During the couple hours’ wait before the midnight opening of RotS, I noticed someone in one of the rows closer to the screen watching ESB on their laptop … and it was the original version. Started lurking here later that summer, finally got around to downloading Cowclops v2 in March of '06. That was an experience, and what I would probably call my first time seeing these movies in something halfway resembling how they were originally shown in theaters.

Y’know, if a restored/remastered OOT were to happen within the next couple years, do you think Lucasfilm would just release the original three movies or do you think it would be all six (with the OT movies “just happening to include their original versions”)?

Reason I ask is because the OT hasn’t recieved preferential treatment on home media since forever ago. Yeah, there was the GOUT, but that was also the first time the original three were available individually so it hardly counts.

It’s actually kind of hard for me to imagine LFL re-releasing only the OT movies just for the sake of putting the OOT on the market. Even if the SE was from the newer 4k master, I feel like it would just seem awkward. Sure, we would be thrilled, but I could see prequel/SE fans not liking the preferential treatment the OT was getting. LFL doesn’t want division within the fandom like that. I could see them also reissuing the prequels at the same time. While the changes to TPM have not been nearly as extensive as those to the OT, it’s essentially its own SE now. The theatrical version would be a nice bonus, ditto the Imax cut of AotC.

This is why I don’t think they’ll bother to put out the OOT until the time comes for a 4k UHD release, which won’t be for another several years anyway. I could see them putting it together similarly to how they did the 2011 “complete saga” set. Maybe they could even carry over the dvd extras that weren’t included in the blu-ray (“The Beginning,” anyone?). There’s even a few good ones they’ve never included in any release, like the Fox specials hosted by Howie Long and Samuel L. Jackson that aired in '97 and '99, respectively. There was also The Legacy Revealed from EoD’s Kevin Burns, which aired on the history channel in 2007.

If it really is going to take that long, one upside is it will give us more time to petition Lucasfilm with everything we’d want to see included, like the '97 SE for example.

I just looked up ESB on disney’s site. The release date listed is June 20, 1980 (the day it went into wide release), but the running time is still the SE.

It doesn’t say “theatrical version” there or on RotJ’s page either, though. RotJ also lists the original release date with the SE running time.

So why the hell is this still happening, anyway? First the amazon thing and now disney.

Interesting how this problem of ESB and RotJ being labeled “theatrical version” was at first isolated to amazon and has now (apparently) extended to Disney’s service as well.

Maybe they’re saving the fifth one for when it opens here in the States. I’ve heard they’ve done that in the past. The first GotG in particular kept a tight lid on the post-credits scene at the very end of the movie, even the critics didn’t see it at their screenings.

Then there’s the Schawarma scene at the end of Avengers, which wasn’t even shot until after the world premiere IIRC.

Someone brought up the question of just how much of a percentage Fox gets on ESB, RotJ and the PT.

Maybe it’s not worth it for Disney to wait three years if they only have to share a small percentage of the profits from those movies.

Also, if they can’t keep selling the same SKU’s after May of 2020, an OOT restoration released within the next couple years practically screams to have the words “limited edition” emblazoned across its cover.

SilverWook said:

MalàStrana said:

lovelikewinter said:

James Cameron is a douche

Ouch 😄 ! One of the most important artists of the past decades. Not only an artist, but an engineer and an explorer. The kind of man (along with Lucas by the way, as well as Zemeckis, Spielberg, Jackson and Del Toro) who is a pioneer and a researcher in cinematic ways of telling a story. One of the most talented sci-fi storytellers. So… ok man, “bouh hou hou, Cameron said bad things about Episode 7, he’s a douche, bouh hou hou me sad 😦”… Ok 😄

I don’t think anyone is disputing that. But if he could find time in his busy schedule to sign off on HD transfers of The Abyss and True Lies, so they could finally see a Blu Ray release this century, that would be nice. 😉
Seriously, there was never even an anamorphic DVD of either film.

At least by waiting this long they can take advantage of even newer home video formats … assuming they ever get around to it at all.

To clarify, yes, they announced it several movies in, unlike the MCU.

Sougouk said:

darthrush said:

lovelikewinter said:

James Cameron is a douche who only gets away with it because most of his movies turn out decent. Good luck on people caring about the 5 million Avatar sequels.

I loved Avatar…sue me.

I liked Avatar, it was a fun movie. But, making 4 sequels… sheesh!

In all fairness, Hollywood set a terrible precedent when a Transformers Cinematic Universe was announced.

Disco_Lobot said:

lovelikewinter said:

I was reading up on the Legacy 4K Scan and I’m wondering why Lucasfilm is so afraid of it. They let Despecialized and Silver Screen have free reign. Hundreds of copies sold on ebay. But Verta was told point blank if it gets out, they will go after him.

My understanding is that it has to do with how he got the source material… very different situation supposedly

Right, but … (see: question in my post above)

I mean, Verta’s is a way better end product than TN1 or Harmy. SSE can at best be called a remastering and DE is a reconstruction. Legacy is about as close to a true restoration as you can get.

What I’m curious about is how Disney first warned him about not releasing it. Was it randomly brought to their attention?