I didn’t catch the category, but on Jeopardy! just now, “Who is Hayden Christensen?” was the correct response to an answer about Sebastian Shaw getting “unfortunately” replaced in a new ending of Return of the Jedi.
One of the players got it right away.
double post.
Search for Spock might be the first movie (in general I mean, not just Trek) that I can clearly remember watching. It was 1990 and I would have been five years old, was at West Coast Video with my mom and she must have randomly picked it off the shelf to rent.
Watched it, loved it, was hooked from there on out. Rented the other movies, even rented Encounter at Farpoint and the uncut The Cage that goes black-and-white during certain scenes. TNG became appointment television every week. Saw TUC in the theater and was blown away. Didn’t even get into Star Wars until around '92 or so, but I knew of them as Bart would say.
What I remember finding out very early on was that ILM worked not only on Star Wars but also several of the Trek films. It felt very cool to realize these two franchises shared that connection.
Oh, and thank you for bringing up Oberth class, SwissArmyTin. I was going crazy back in September trying to remember the name of it without looking it up first.
That’s because Anakin “died” when he turned to the dark side.
Also, Shaw does look completely different without the Vader makeup. From a saga POV, I can see why George went with Hayden.
Which would be less painful, Hayden coming back or Sebastian Shaw being resurrected?
Well, if that rumor is even true (and either way, why are we even talking about it outside the spoiler thread?), wouldn’t they pretty much have to go with Hayden? TFA was “version agnostic” in regards to the OT, but something like Ghost Anakin would need to pick a side and I don’t see them going with Shaw.
I think the price was lowered on the BD set because lots of people already own Star Wars on Blu-Ray
Which also makes me wonder, just how many excess copies are sitting piled up at the warehouse?
I can’t imagine it’s that high of a number. It makes sense that they reissued the complete saga in 2015 leading up to TFA. Obviously people were going to be buying it with more frequency because of renewed interest thanks to the Disney movies. But I would think everyone who’s ever going to buy it would’ve bought it by now, for the most part. It’s been five and a half years.
I’m probably reading way too much into this, but I was over at blu-ray.com just now and noticed the “best deals” at the top of the page has the complete saga set listed for $58.49. That’s the lowest I can remember any retailer selling it for in quite a long time, maybe ever.
We’re less than three weeks away from this celebration panel. If an announcement is imminent, maybe they’re trying to clear out inventory before people stop buying it altogether and start saving their money for the new set?
If Best Buy knows about it, you think that information wouldn’t have leaked already? C’mon…
The only reason the price was lowered was to tie in to Rogue One.
It wouldn’t need to have leaked just for the price to be lowered. They could’ve done that without any reason whatsoever (well, other than the fact that putting something on sale tends to sell it faster, but that’s just simple business logic). But I am just theorizing and you are probably right about it having to do with Rogue One. Lucasfilm/Fox/Disney wouldn’t have much - if anything- to do with what price amazon decides to sell it for now that I think about it (unless I’m wrong about that).
I remember these films most fondly with the 2002 sets, when I went to watch the '09 Wrath of Khan Blu-ray, something was seriously off-putting about it, it wasn’t what I remembered enjoying so much. I expect the others would recieve the same reaction.
I remember reading several different people’s comments saying that the '09 color-timing was actually closer to what they remembered seeing on the 35mm prints. The '09 is probably still too blue but the '02 also looks too red. 2016 is the goldilocks edition.
Wait, is the 2016 too gold? I thought it hit the mark perfectly, but then again, I never really noticed anything wrong with the Raiders bluray until this place pointed it out (which I’m still totally fine with…)
What suspiciouscoffee said. I simply meant that it was “just right.”
But what’s weird is that I was literally going to bring up the Raiders blu-ray earlier in the thread! It’s another good example of a movie from the early 80’s we can’t confidently know the original theatrical color-timing of. Some people said it was closer to the ld, others thought the WoWoW broadcast nailed it.
The surprise they keep talking about at the celebration could turn out to be nothing more than the Ep. 8 trailer.
The opening panel of the 2015 celebration was specifically about TFA. They even said ahead of time that they’d be debuting that trailer at that panel IIRC.
If one of these “surprises” at a panel about the 40th anniversary of the original film was the TLJ trailer, we would know it.
ETA: CHEWBAKAspelledwrong beat me to it
Wow, sorry for the triple post.
I accidently hit the post button twice and then when it took too long I panicked and hit it yet again.
double post
I’m probably reading way too much into this, but I was over at blu-ray.com just now and noticed the “best deals” at the top of the page has the complete saga set listed for $58.49. That’s the lowest I can remember any retailer selling it for in quite a long time, maybe ever.
We’re less than three weeks away from this celebration panel. If an announcement is imminent, maybe they’re trying to clear out inventory before people stop buying it altogether and start saving their money for the new set?
I remember these films most fondly with the 2002 sets, when I went to watch the '09 Wrath of Khan Blu-ray, something was seriously off-putting about it, it wasn’t what I remembered enjoying so much. I expect the others would recieve the same reaction.
I remember reading several different people’s comments saying that the '09 color-timing was actually closer to what they remembered seeing on the 35mm prints. The '09 is probably still too blue but the '02 also looks too red. 2016 is the goldilocks edition.
Yeah, re-rendering at a higher res (or for 3D) is a tricky proposition if too much time has passed.
For the 3D conversion of Jurassic Park I don’t even know if they had the finished cg shots from '93 in their purely digital form (before they were filmed back out to celluloid), nevermind the models. I think they might have had to scan shots back in from the o-neg just like the rest of the movie. The same goes for the '97 cg shots in the SE if the Lowry master is any indication. There definitely seemed to be some filmic anomalies even on the '04 dvd. Maybe it’s even more obvious on the blu-ray but I wouldn’t know. The shot that always sticks out in my memory is when the asp swats the floating droid to the ground before luke’s landspeeder zooms into frame. Even at dvd resolution I noticed some slight wobble where there should’ve been utter stillness for those first few seconds of the shot. Unless of course the wobble was intentional on the animator’s part so that it would look like it was actually photographed…
…I’m overthinking it now, aren’t I?
Sorry, got distracted when someone called me and then totally forgot to paste the link. My bad.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews45/star_trek_motion_picture_trilogy_blu-ray.htm
If you click to see the full-sized screencaps you’ll understand what we’re talking about, moviefreakedmind.
It baffled me to see so many review sites giving Voyage Home’s picture quality a passing grade. But when you know you’re reviewing something as popular as Trek and know how many amazon clicks you’re going to get, it must become that must easier to just exaggerate the truth a little.
But I will never understand how a site like avsforum that prides itself on objectivity ranks this as a silver and gives the theatrical Fellowship of the Ring a copper (below bronze).
Of the Shatner movies, I only have 2, 3 and 4 on DVD. I bought them in a set called “Star Trek: The Motion Picture Trilogy”.
https://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Picture-Trilogy-Domestic/dp/B001TH16CY
I don’t know anything about where they were sourced.
That came out same time as the blu-ray debut in '09. Khan’s transfer is likely from the '09 restoration. The Search for More Money and The One With The Whales were probably from the new (ha!) “hd” (ha!) masters, but I have no way of knowing for sure without seeing screenshots.
Here is a comparison between the old two-disc releases of Khan and SFS and their blu-ray counterparts ('09 blu-ray for Khan). Annoyingly, they did not provide dvd screengrabs for Voyage Home. I’d very much like to know what it looked like after seeing it in 35mm. The blu-ray’s colors are way off from what I saw on that print.
ETA: SwissArmyTin beat me to it!
The old Blu-ray was very blue, they corrected it somewhat. Plus, it was the safest option for the 50th, seeing as how it’s the most beloved film of the series.
The old blu-ray also shows some of the same contrast-boosting issues as the other five. I remember seeing a screenshot comparison of the shot where the Reliant and Enterprise first approach each other and the 2016 re-restoration is much more natural looking. The first six were released all at once back in '09, which probably means the same person/people were responsible for the final tweaks on all of them before the discs were pressed. There’s even a bit of dnr on that first WoK bd, it’s just nowhere near as bad as on the others thanks to the restoration.
Sorry for my voice / accent : https://youtu.be/vPfiYtBo0Wk?t=7m19s
Thank you for sharing, I subscribed as well!
Did the 2002 dvd recieve a different color-timing from the original dvd release a couple years earlier? I seem to recall reading a review that mentioned it. It would be interesting to see that initial dvd compared against the 2016 release as well.
Thanks guys 😃 I unfortunately don’t have that DVD (yet). Are you talking about this DVD ? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Star-Trek-2-The-Wrath-Of-Khan-DVD-William-Shatner-Leonard-Nimoy-DeForest-Kel-/381512058926?hash=item58d3e4082e:g:51gAAOSwjVVVkUyN It claims to be from 2000…
Yup, that’s it!
I can still remember seeing it listed under “in stores this Tuesday!” in the best buy circular that came with the weekend Washington Post.
I eventually got a used copy years later at a record store - after I’d collected most if not all of the two-disc releases - just so I could have the theatrical version.
What are the specific points of contention that JJ and Kathleen had?
Maybe someone with more knowledge of this can speak to it, but there were rumors swirling during pre-production that JJ was going to leave the project because he and LFL weren’t seeing eye to eye.
Sometimes they delete the files and it has to be recreated from scratch. I believe that this is Deep Space Nine’s problem right now.
IIRC someone from the effects team stated most if not all the files still existed, even put out a few sample renders which were beautiful.
That’s good to know. The effects work on that show was very well done. I feel like DS9’s vfx were more quality over quantity whereas a show like Babylon 5 had to take the opposite approach.
I think that those effects have been deleted or lost since those samples were made.
I wonder how effectively the existing effects shots could be upscaled, if it would be too jarring intercut with hd re-scans of the live-action footage.
The cgi for Firefly was only 480p IIRC. I wonder how it looks on blu-ray, haven’t rewatched any of that show since my friend let me borrow the dvd more than a decade ago.
I don’t know what this says about me, but I feel like TFA - while a little too fast-paced - consistently entertained me throughout its running time whereas Rogue One didn’t pick up for me at all until they reached Eadu. Like I said back in December the projection truly sucked at the theater I saw it at (first and last time I’ll ever go there) so maybe that had something to do with it. I’ll definitely rewatch it eventually, but not any time soon.
As for the corporation vs auteur debate, Rogue One is pretty much the definition of “art by committee” whereas TFA is a J.J. Abrams film through and through. It probably sounds naive of me to say that, especially when we know there was a tug of war between Abrams and Kennedy over the script and the trajectory of the franchise, but it certainly seems like the director’s vision (such as it is) won out on TFA while Rogue One ended up co-directed by Tony Gilroy.
The collector’s edition DVD of The Undiscovered Country had a few changes from the previous VHS director’s cut, mainly just this very, very cheesy ‘flashback’ effect during Spock’s mind meld interrogation of Valeris, showing clips of the people he listed off.
Still have all the collector’s edition DVDs of the TOS films, and they mostly look great. They all have a warm color palette, which is alright I suppose. I don’t own any of the TNG films from that series, but I do have the first run First Contact DVD, and christ I hope they used a better transfer for the Collector’s Edition DVD. DNR’d to death and back, and there’s something else I can’t put my finger on, but it just looks so, so wrong.
Yeah now I’m thinking it was a new transfer on the '05 dvd. I seem to recall a review mentioning it and I don’t recall seeing the issues you’re describing.
Sometimes they delete the files and it has to be recreated from scratch. I believe that this is Deep Space Nine’s problem right now.
IIRC someone from the effects team stated most if not all the files still existed, even put out a few sample renders which were beautiful.
That’s good to know. The effects work on that show was very well done. I feel like DS9’s vfx were more quality over quantity whereas a show like Babylon 5 had to take the opposite approach.
Slight correction: you’re mixing up the vertical resolution of 2k with the horizontal of hd. Scope is 2048x856 for 2k cinema and 1920:817 for hdtv.
For 35mm film, traditional 2x anamorphic cinemascope is something like 1880x1550 for 2k.
I thought 2k was 2048x1080. 16x9 HDTV is 1920x1080 and a scope film brings that down to 1920x860ish. If BD would come with an anamorphic scope disc (1920x1080), then you project with an anamorphic lense, youd have a 1920x1080 image which is better than the afor mentioned 1920x860ish image. Granted, to the average joe, theyre probably not gonna notice the difference. But for most folks here, the goal is to get as close as possible to the cinema experience in the home. The thing I dont understand is that 2k and 1080p are nearly the same, but considered different.
You’re still mixing up the vertical of 2k with the horizontal of hdtv.
You are correct that 2048x1080 is 2k resolution, which is 1.89:1. HDTV is 1.78:1 (or 16:9), and is 1920x1080.
For movies framed in 2.35:1, the resolution is 2048x856 in 2k and 1920x817 in hdtv. Fitting the full width of the image into a slightly narrow frame (1.78:1 instead of 1.89:1) necessitates lowering the resolution slightly along both axes.
When I finish TOS I plan to dive right into the film series but I made sure to track down all six lds first. I had gotten the bds bundled with TOS and popped some in to see for myself…oh dear…
From my research notes it appears the initial DVDs were ports of the ld masters: some with 5.1 remixes of the 2.0 and the sequels were non anamorphic. The SE reissues cleaned all of these up and some may have 70mm derived 5.1 tracks but this is unconfirmed. Also the contrast may have been tweaked on some but without seeing for myself I can’t say for sure.
Anybody have both DVD runs?
As I remember it, the initial dvd releases of Final Frontier, TUC and Generations weren’t anamorphic but Wrath of Khan (theatrical), SFS and Voyage Home were. Then Paramount released the two-disc collector’s editions one at a time (I collected all of them before eventually selling them off in anticipation of the oh so disappointing blu-rays) starting with the TMP director’s edition. The MPAA actually changed the rating from G to PG simply because of the new sound mix, if you could believe it.
The DE of Khan followed shortly after. For SFS and Voyage Home they simply reused the existing transfers, this time putting them on dual-layered discs with a higher bitrate. Final Frontier, TUC and Generations were obviously remastered. Final Frontier looked very natural from what I remember, there was even some dirt and dust in certain shots but I certainly didn’t mind. TUC looked great, like it was from a brand new hd transfer, nice Super 35 grain and everything. Then there was Generations, which looked “overly crisp” as one review put it, but still much better than before thanks to its new anamorphic transfer.
First Contact had come out in '98 and was anamorphic from the get-go. I’m not sure if the collector’s dvd reused the existing transfer or not. Same goes for Insurrection and Nemesis.
Anyway, a little long-winded but I hope that helps!
The old Blu-ray was very blue, they corrected it somewhat. Plus, it was the safest option for the 50th, seeing as how it’s the most beloved film of the series.
The old blu-ray also shows some of the same contrast-boosting issues as the other five. I remember seeing a screenshot comparison of the shot where the Reliant and Enterprise first approach each other and the 2016 re-restoration is much more natural looking. The first six were released all at once back in '09, which probably means the same person/people were responsible for the final tweaks on all of them before the discs were pressed. There’s even a bit of dnr on that first WoK bd, it’s just nowhere near as bad as on the others thanks to the restoration.
Sorry for my voice / accent : https://youtu.be/vPfiYtBo0Wk?t=7m19s
Thank you for sharing, I subscribed as well!
Did the 2002 dvd recieve a different color-timing from the original dvd release a couple years earlier? I seem to recall reading a review that mentioned it. It would be interesting to see that initial dvd compared against the 2016 release as well.