Fang Zei

I wonder what’s going on with Jedi.

It’s the only one absent from RMW’s reel and Fraser doesn’t mention it in his interview.

baron_lando said:

The text of the books has never been changed, it’s just one of those things that some fans believe ought to happen, so it comes up every so often, or they ask Hidalgo about it. “New novelizations to better fit the blah blah continuity blah blah consistent with blah”

I could’ve sworn I read years ago that it actually was changed, but everyone’s reply tells me I’m wrong.

It’s possible I’m mistaking it in my memory for the shock of finding out that Owen being Obi-Wan’s brother was actually written into the book and then never changed even after the prequels blatantly contradicted it.

It might have been one of the more recent printings, but this was still at least ten or so years ago.

Either that or my memory is completely wrong on this.

Wasn’t there an alteration made to Jedi’s novelization at some point? They removed a reference to Owen being Obi-Wan’s brother. I’d be curious to know which edition was the first to feature this change.

I’d also be curious to know if any changes were made to the novelizations of Star Wars and Empire.

(In reply to Wazzles’ post):

From Zombie’s article on the subject over at Saving Star Wars:

“The 1985 interpositive was already starting to go pink in 1993 when that release was made, the final home video telecine. By 2020, it will be pink, but salvageable, but all release prints would basically be unwatchable as-is, even Return of the Jedi’s.”

http://savestarwars.com/filmpreservation.html#ch5

That’s a good point, doubleofive.

Why do they keep “finding” these things?

Very True.

I think people get way too hung up on the SE’s vfx being “only” 2k when that’s still the case for movies being made almost two decades later.

The same podcast where I heard that info about Catching Fire and Interstellar (fxguide, if anyone’s wondering) also did an interview with Lola where they talked about The Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron. When the host asked what res they were working at, he very specifically said 3.4k, which happens to be the same res the movie was shot at. Granted, they didn’t handle all of the effects shots in the movie, but I wonder why they would bother if it was just gonna get finished at 2k.

For what it’s worth, imdb lists it as a 2k finish. I can’t help but wonder if there are 3.4k files of the finished movie sitting somewhere at Disney just waiting for a 4k HDR grade.

Doug Trumbull beautifully illuminated the main cause of the problem when Scott Wilkinson interviewed him on Home Theater Geeks a year or so ago.

The problem doesn’t have to do with saving storage space (at least I don’t think it does). Rather it’s the fact that rendering 4k vfx shots on these big tentpole films where you have a ton of effects shots - most of the shots in the entire movie, in fact - is more expensive than simply settling for 2k. The studios also love to bid these effects houses against each other knowing they will give the lowest possible rate out of fear of losing the job to another company. When most of the finished shots in your movie are stuck at 2k, there’s little point in doing a 4k DI.

From what Harmy was saying earlier in the thread, this might’ve changed in the last year or so. I remember hearing as far back as three years ago that the vfx work on Hunger Games: Catching Fire was all in 4k. Same goes for Interstellar a year later, although this one makes a little more sense since Nolan always finishes his movies photochemically and likes to do as much “for real” and in camera as he can.

As said, imdb is not the best source for DI info. TFA had more vfx shots than TPM. If they were only finished in 2k, I’d say the movie is effectively stuck at thay res.

stealthboy said:

Fang Zei said:

I was scrolling through facebook and noticed someone had done a fan-made saga trailer.

One of my biggest problems with the prequels is that George decided to shoot 2 and 3 on glorified HD video cameras and they look terrible compared to the other films.

And now they can’t be re-scanned at 4K like film can. Ooops!

To me it’s more the fact that those cameras’ sensors were only 2/3", or less than the area covered by regular 16mm, nevermind regular 35mm.

I’m sure George considered this ahead of AotC, but he probably figured the drop in frame area was worth it just so he could abandon film for digital.

Since shooting digital was such a new thing in general back in 2000, this also meant abandoning the 2x anamorphic lenses used to shoot the OT and TPM on 35mm (aka true CinemaScope) for spherical lenses.

Those are my two biggest problems: the smaller frame size and the lack of anamorphic lenses.

I was scrolling through facebook and noticed someone had done a fan-made saga trailer.

One of my biggest problems with the prequels is that George decided to shoot 2 and 3 on glorified HD video cameras and they look terrible compared to the other films.

I first heard about it in the 90’s, probably after reading in the Essential Guide to Characters that Boba Fett’s first appearance was in it.

Heard about it every now and then throughout the early-to-mid oughts. Empire of Dreams’ earlier cut apparently had a segment on it that didn’t make the final release.

By the time I joined this forum just over a decade ago I’d already heard about how the holiday special was “out there” if you knew where to look for it, much like the OOT had been when I was lurking the year before.

Finally watched it in late '08 after downloading it from google video (remember google video?!) and thought it was equal parts bizarre, boring, and WTF. The commercials really added to the experience.

Since someone brought it up earlier:

I remember finding it interesting that Fox had the copyright in the end credits and not Lucasfilm. Did Fox pay for its production and simply make it with George’s blessing?

The newspaper comics are another item from that time with Fox’s name on it and not LFL’s, IIRC.

nickyd47 said:

doubleofive said:

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/817634108419371008

Pablo admits that 2 & 3 are stuck at 1080p

It’s been public knowledge for a while now that episodes two and three were finished at 1080p

Two and Three were definitely shot in 1080p. But I’ve always been curious - especially since these movies are framed at the scope ratio of 2.35:1 - whether they were finished at 1080p or true 2k.

lovelikewinter said:

moviefreakedmind said:

They might’ve been a last minute thing since they couldn’t release what was originally intended for that time.

Maybe.

Hopefully the covers for the 4K OOT will reflect the original poster art and not the horrible steelbook cases. Though I would love a steelbook release to go with my TFA and eventual Rogue One blu-rays. This does leave Phantom Menace as a possible release later on, but Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith will be forever stuck at 1080p and be even more disconnected from the good movies.

Resident Evil: Afterlife, a movie shot in 1080p, is getting released on 4k UHD this month.

The prequels may be stuck at 2k, but they’re by no means stuck on regular blu-ray.

lovelikewinter said:

I wear glasses so I never go to 3D movies, I end up looking like a twit wearing them over my glasses and I get a headache from the double lenses.

I can at least deal with that for real-d and LieMAX 3D, which use polarization. Dolby 3D and Imax laser 3D both use the 6p method, which results in a foggy haze around the image if you’re wearing prescription glasses (haven’t seen a movie in either of those formats, it’s just what I’ve heard). I’m long overdue for a new prescription anyway so I’m just going to get new contacts as well.

One thing giving me hope is that we’ve gotten a reissue of the 2011 blu-rays every two years, which means we’d be due for another one this year, which just happens to be the 40th anniversary.

So, unless they want to give us the same discs yet again, they’ll come up with something entirely new to sell us.

I was so, so sure we’d be getting something new in the lead-up to TFA in 2015, and then all they did was steelbooks (although the movies were finally released individually at least). Even if they don’t bother with a UHD release just yet, I can’t fathom how they would repackage the blu-rays yet again without something, anything, that isn’t just a fancy container.

I’ll only see a movie in 3D if it was at least partially shot that way.

I’ve only intentionally broken that rule twice: Pacific Rim (digital Imax 3D, I later saw it again in regular sized 2D with a friend of mine) and Gravity (real-d). Well, I also saw Jupiter Ascending in real-d out of some misplaced sense of wanting to support The Wachowskis in their crazy space opera experiment that was guaranteed to flop. Maybe it would’ve looked better if I’d seen it in digital Imax 3D (this was right before they started rolling out the laser system), but I thought the post-converted live action looked terrible. The natively-rendered-in-stereo cg vfx sequences, as with any 3D movie, at least looked okay.

I honestly think 3D is mainly there to squeeze more money out of the movies that are gonna make a killing anyway. Pre-2009 there would be be three or four screens showing the same highly anticipated movie all at the same multiplex. Now, when you’ve got a big movie like The Avengers opening, two of those four screens are the 3D version. That means whoever didn’t get their 2D tickets early enough are stuck either waiting for a later showing or just seeing it in 3D, and whatya think they’re gonna do? That’s what happened when I saw Guardians of the Galaxy with my friends, and it wasn’t even opening weekend! At least it wasn’t their first time seeing it, and I ended up liking the movie so much anyway that I took a friend who hadn’t seen it to a 2D showing. The 3D version at least looked decently good.

So, yeah, that’s the one time I involuntarily broke my rule.

It’s frustrating to see the studios pushing the 3D versions of these 2D-shot blockbusters on us while giving the shaft to intentional 3D movies like Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. That’s commerce, I guess.

The only shot-in-stereo movies I know of that are coming out this year are Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (entirely stereo, just like the last two) and Transformers 5 (mostly stereo, just like the last two). Alien: Covenant might have been shot in 3D but there’s nothing in the trailers or posters even advertising so much as real-d. Ridley Scott shot Prometheus, Exodus and The Martian all in native stereo, so it will be interesting to see whether or not he abandoned it for Alien: Covenant.

moviefreakedmind said:

I think the RMW footage looks pretty great.

EDIT: Then again, I think that this entire forum is overly concerned with color correction. I think I might be in the minority there, though.

We should also remind ourselves that the brief clips in their reel may only be from a restoration of the SE. It may not matter if the color timing isn’t accurate.

That might only be for the publishing division to worry about.

Have the Tartakovsky clone wars or the Ewok movies been re-released in any way since 2014? Like, even as a digital download? I could maybe see them slapping it on the poster that you see on the “buy/rent” screen and mayyyyybe on the cover of a physical dvd case, but that kind of stuff (including the animated 80’s shows) seem of little consequence to the new canon.

He doesn’t seem to think so.

There’s also a video about the Threepio shot:

https://vimeo.com/123475322

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Just re-watched the reliance demo reel. Don’t know what y’all think, but it’s stunning IMO, especially the shots from the Bespin duel. On the BD, is just drab and gray looking. In the demo, all kinds of blues are coming out, and the sabers don’t suffer from that terrible over saturation.

Mike Verta wasn’t so thrilled with some of the shots in their reel, such as this one of the stormtroopers running through a Death Star hallway in ANH:

https://vimeo.com/mikeverta/realitycheck

nickyd47 said:

suspiciouscoffee said:

The Star Wars Saga: The Original Trilogies Trilogy the Collector’s Edition Set (with space left open for VIII and IX in the box).

Haha yeah they did that for the Jurassic Park Blu ray set

And the 2012 Bond collection IIRC (left a space for Skyfall).

moviefreakedmind said:

I’d buy a $120 complete saga set to get a legitimate HD copy of the Original Trilogy, but I don’t think that PT would be a wise marketing move to package with the OT. Also, there really isn’t a “complete saga” anymore because there’s going to be so many movies.

Which is exactly why they should just give each movie its own ultimate set.

That dupe neg talk was just speculation on Robert A Harris’ part. I’m pretty sure we know for a fact that George had the changes cut directly into the o-neg. RAH is correct, though, that the o-neg is not needed for an amazing OOT restoration.

Now that it’s Disney’s money to spend on such a project and not GL’s, I’d say the chances are much greater. George even changed his tune from “my original vision” to “it’s too expensive right now” not long before selling the company. I honestly don’t think it would bother him if the remastered original were packaged with a remastered SE.

Ah, so now we know why Zombie hasn’t updated his youtube channel in the last couple months.

moviefreakedmind said:

This may be useless, but Peter Mayhew’s tweeting of the original script (with emphasis on Han shooting first) to build up to a “big announcement” that he ultimately never made.

EDIT: Also, according to a poster on another forum in 2015, his company was instructed to remaster “Empire of Dreams” in HD.

Good point about Mayhew.

As for Empire of Dreams, could that hd remastering simply have been for purposes of putting it up on youtube? Or is that upload still in 480p like the dvd?