Fang Zei

The farthest they've ever gone is comic book adaptations of some of the novels.

Darth Editous said:

 

Star Trek VI is a 1080i-to-1080p conversion for crying out loud!

There's really only a semantic difference between the two when you're talking about film transfers - it's not like 1080i has half the resolution of 1080p in this case.

Since they only released 2, 4, 6 and 8 individually and never got around to the other six movies

Whatchoo talkin' bout? I can see 1, 3, 5, 7 all on Amazon.

DE

 

Maybe in your neck of the woods, but here in the States you can only get 2, 4, 6 and 8 individually on blu-ray. The only other options are in a I-VI boxset, a II-IV "trilogy set" and a four-film set of the TNG movies.

The fact that they're releasing even a sample disc of TNG episodes in HD is pretty ridiculous when the actual big-screen films are yet to get decent blu-ray transfers (Wrath of Khan's restoration notwithstanding). Star Trek VI is a 1080i-to-1080p conversion for crying out loud! Since they only released 2, 4, 6 and 8 individually and never got around to the other six movies, I'm still holding out hope that Paramount will do new transfers of all ten movies (well, except Wrath of Khan) and put them out whenever the next Abrams movie hits theaters.

I don't have the set, wouldn't even if I had the money, but from what I've seen of the screenshots I kinda hate AOTC's new color-timing. I've been scratching my head at why they changed it. ROTS looks exactly the same as before, color-wise. It's almost like they don't want those two movies to have the exact same look, so they changed one of them.

I've heard it mentioned that the old transfer of AOTC didn't have the exact same color-timing as the theatrical release either, but I prefer the look of the hdtv broadcast over this new teal-shifted job.

Also, I have to say, stuff from eps II and III sticks out like a sore thumb. At least Episode I was shot in the same format as the OT. Yeesh.

danny_boy said:

 

And it's hands down by far and away the best it has ever looked on home video

 

 

Uhhhh, it's a blu-ray.

It had damn well better be the best it's ever looked on home video.

zombie84 said:

I doubt they saved the digital files because for the 2004/11 SE it looks like they either painted over the existing work or went back to the original pre-comp camera negatives (e.g., this is what it looks like they did for the re-done Jabba).

They probably did save some elements though--a lot of them were re-used in TPM. The one exception to my theory that I can see is that they re-did the "entering Mos Eisley" shot and completely re-comped individual elements--so maybe there was some instances where they had all the digital data for the scene. It's really impossible to say what they have and don't have because it's all just files sitting on a computer that only select ILM employees even know about. But it certainly seems like there is no massive "1997 Special Edition" server that has every scene, element, plate and work record.

And yeah, the 1997 shots are from film scans, not a direct-digital transfer. It's the 1997 film-out that was cut into the negative. This is part of what makes me think a lot of the raw data is gone, or at least the whole scenes. Probably a lot of the data can't be read very easily now anyway, the systems they built and rendered them on aren't used any more and you'd have to probably convert them into a readible format or write a lot of custom software to get the new programs to read and run it.

Thanks for the info.

I just thought it was worth asking. After all, we recently learned that ILM (Lucasfilm itself?) still had the 2K files for TPM, and the SE was only a couple years before that.

bigmonkey2382 said:

In all honesty it SHOULDN'T kill the goose as there will always be a better format to release the OOT on.

Yeah, but who knows when or what that will even be. I kinda doubt there will be another physical format after blu-ray, but who knows? If they could figure out how to get a 4K file onto a disc I'd probably invest in it (eventually, when I could afford it), but I don't know how the industry would pull that one off. It wouldn't happen for well over another decade at the earliest, if at all.

Don't get me wrong, a new 4K format would offer some big advantages: increased resolution, better color space, and maybe even a true 24 fps playback (and not the 23.976 that almost all blu-ray titles have for backward compatibility with older hdtv's).

But let's not forget two big things. 1) the theaters and multiplexes will always stay at least one big step ahead of the home video industry, and 2) a lot of new releases made over the past decade have only gone through DI and had their effects done at 2K resolution, not 4K.

If the day comes when there are 30 million 4K televisions out in the wild, it'll be time to start thinking about a new format. Until then, blu-ray is "good enough" for the most part.

bigmonkey2382 said:

Must have been an older LD, most newer ones are wide screen.

..... It was widescreen. Still, it's almost as far away from ideal for that movie as you can get without watching it on pan n' scan vhs (that's all I meant).

True Story:

The first (and so far only) time I ever actually used an LD player was three years ago. The media center in the basement of my university's library had a viewing room and some of the tv's had LD players hooked up to them. They have a collection of about 250 laserdiscs. I wanted an excuse to both 1) use a laserdisc player and 2) watch Ben-Hur (which I'd never seen before). So I went up to the desk and gave the girl the call number and she gave me the set, a pair of headphones and a remote control. The booth I'd been assigned to was a 20-inch sony crt.

Yes, I realize that's about as far from ideal a format for that movie as you can get without watching it on pan n' scan vhs, but believe it or not it was actually a pretty cool experience.

You know what I find the supreme irony of Star Wars?

There was never some huge petition to get the original theatrical versions of Close Encounters, Apocalypse Now, or The Exorcist released on home video. But when those flicks hit blu-ray the original versions were included almost as if it went without saying.

Or take any modern new release title that gets a director's cut on home video. More often than not, the theatrical cut is at least made available (they usually just throw it in the same package, again, as if it went without saying).

The special edition of Star Wars is so well-known that it's entered pop culture. "Greedo shooting first" is probably the most infamous change ever made to a film. I don't think I've ever met anyone who knew about Star Wars and didn't know it had been revised. I would suspect only kids who are like 5 right now have no clue about the history of the films.

That's what makes the situation so ridiculous and why I'm convinced this is all about Lucas milking Star Wars. As others have said, he knows that giving us a pristine restored OOT would be like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

It's amazing just how clueless the multiplexes can be these days about projection.

Last summer I saw a nice digital projection of Splice at my nearby amc.

Too bad everything was still set-up for scope.

Stuff at the bottom of the screen was completely blocked. stationary shots of a car pulling up now became just shots of "sky." Tops of peoples heads were getting cut off to an extent that would be ridiculous even for a Super 35 film. Too bad I didn't know what the AR was going in. The problem didn't become apparent into well into the film.

Then there's what happened when I saw Don't be Afraid of the Dark a week after it opened.

Middle of the day on a Friday, so barely anyone attending or running the theater. This time I know the movie is academy going in. I get there during the trailers, and oh man, I immediately know something is wrong. It's the trailer for Drive and the light is spilling onto the top and bottom black curtains which are still set up for scope. I've learned from experience that if something is wrong during the trailers, it's gonna be wrong during the movie. I run out and tell a guy about how they gotta open up the screen in auditorium 7. The guy says "ok," gets out his walkie-talkie and I run back. By the time the movie starts, they still haven't fixed the problem. I run back out to tell the guy again. He gives this frustrated look as he reaches for the walkie-talkie, a look that says "I told them to fix it."

I run back to the theater.

After several minutes, I notice the guy standing by the entrance to the aud. He's looking at the screen, trying to figure out what's wrong. Then, finally, they open up the curtains.

But the cluelessness doesn't stop there.

They fiddle with the lens, switching it to anamorphic for a few seconds, which makes everything look like stretch-o-vision hdtv. Then they switch it back and leave it the hell alone.

Whoever was in that booth had no clue what they were doing.

I always stay till the very end of the movie, and this time I noticed something interesting.

When the logo appeared after the end credits, it was spilling out over the 1.85:1 screen, which told me that it must've been 1.37:1 full-frame academy for that one shot. Of course, this means that the projectionist also didn't have the projector plate set up properly. Luckily that didn't matter. The print itself must've been hard-matted to 1.85:1, otherwise that spill-over would still been going on during the whole movie.

Y'know, the subject of the digital re-comps raised a good question in my mind:

When they removed the original pieces of negative to replace them with the digital re-comps, did they place the original pieces in storage somewhere? Or did they simply throw them out? After all, those pieces were pretty faded because of the particular film stock used for those shots. If we were to get a 100% restoration of the true OOT, would the o-neg for those shots be salvageable or would they be beyond all hope of restoration after all this time (34 years and counting)????

Zombie, out of curiosity do you know if ILM saved the final digital renders for the re-comps and cgi shots back in '97?

My guess has always been that they didn't, since the '97 cgi shots in the 2004 transfer exhibit filmic anomalies like gate weave. Just look at the beginning of the new entrance to mos eisley. The "camera" is supposed to be stationary at the beginning of the shot (where the asp droid swats the hovering droid that's annoying him), but the frame isn't remaining perfectly still. In other words, it looks like it was scanned off the o-neg like everything else.

The whole reason I ask is that it seems stupid to do a 3D conversion of the OT-SE using a scan of a filmout of a cgi shot instead of just going back to the original cgi shot.

Simple explanation for the 2004 colors being messed up: they went back to the negative, which doesn't contain any of the color-timing information.

No, I wouldn't buy it.

Why would it be so complicated to just give us the 100% original version "as is" anyway?????

In my opinion, since Lucas has taken the "restoration" of the OT so far in one direction, I say that makes it all the more important to go an equal distance in the opposite direction. That means a restoration of the original version without a single change.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Hostmaster said:

The Star Wars Saga will never have a perfect edition.

If Lucas does it, for him will be like killing the chicken of the golden eggs.

What's he gonna sell in the future if he gives to us now a reference edition with our beloved OT?

There would always be the next better format, or the next better transfer technology.  Do you really believe that blu ray is the final format?  The future will also bring features that don't exist now, such as the ability to mark sections or build your own version out of alternate takes.  Or install it on a network or integrate it with your smart phone.  If he gives us something great, we'll be in it for the next version too.  We bought the VHS, then the LD, then the DVD, then the blu ray.  It won't stop there.  Plus, *I* would buy his next special edition if he also released the OUT.  Now, I'm not buying anything.

Here's what I would do if I were Lucas:

When it comes time to do the 3D conversion of A New Hope, do a new 4K scan (I can't believe they'd work from what will be an eleven-years-old 1080p master anyway). They would probably have to re-do the 2004/2011 changes, but they're few and far between if you ask me. After the proper color-timing, this would not only yield the 1997 SE, but also like 80% of the original version. Take the missing pieces out of storage and scan those in to complete a new master of the unaltered version, and color-time that as well.

When the blu-ray 3D hits later that year, just throw in the '97 SE and the original version on their own separate discs and charge a hefty price tag for the whole thing. Then just do the same for Empire in 2016 and the same thing for Jedi the year after that.

Lucas had made it pretty clear that it's all about money and not about his "vision." Actions speak louder than words. He even dumped a 1993 master onto dvd in 2006 just to maximize his profits. If he included both the '97 and original versions in high quality, you guys all know you would at least seriously consider buying it (I know I would).

Either way, Lucas will eventually see the potential for $$$$. If he doesn't include the older versions as a selling point for an otherwise superfluous 3D conversion (which would be a smart move if you ask me), then he'll at the very least do one last dip after that to shut us all up.

Mark my words, something will happen eventually. Lucas is too much of a businessman to pass it up.

I predict the number of signatures on the new petition will greatly increase in the coming weeks and months....

R2D2 said:

Just a mini update:

• SW4-6 blu rays don't have any easter eggs but plenty of Gigabyte free
• ROTJ: During the Vader throws down Palpatine scene (which is critisized the most in this release) GL talks in the audio commentary about how you can read his emotions from the mask. It's such ironical.

 

Didn't have the interest to watch the prequels yet.

It will be interesting to see how the vintage documentaries will look as Adywan source said they do come from old VHS/Laserdisc masters from the 80's/90's. Interlaced SD content, not prepared to be viewed on progressive (HD) displays. Such effort definately deserves THX blu ray disc certificate *sarcastic*.

 

 

Oh, that's nothing.

Kenneth Branagh's four-hour, 65mm-shot Hamlet takes up like 35 gigs or something on its blu-ray.

The three-hour-each theatrical LOTRs take up barely 40 gigs each.

The two-and-a-half hour Goodfellas takes up less than 25.

For a two hour movie like Star Wars, 40 gigs is plenty.

Ah, Freiheit, starring none other than the director of such classic films as Grease and Honey, I Blew Up the Kid!

Right, the only difference is that there's a discrete center surround this time instead of a matrixed one.

skyjedi2005 said:

It would be nice to have official screenings of the vintage versions of the films fully restored from the negative and best possible surviving sources.

We all know Lucas is never going to allow that.

Sky, these are my thoughts exactly.

Every time I read about a classic film getting a nice theatrical restoration (the most recent example being Ben-Hur), I think of how awesome that would be.

That's why it kinda gives me a kick to think that the next best thing - literally - happened in Baltimore last Summer.

Still, it's nice to dream about the smaller revival houses across the country screening digital prints of the OOT while Lucas gets to have his cake with the 3D versions in multiplexes.

They were showing the '97's at the AFI in Silver Spring, Maryland back during the summer of '05.

Honestly, I think Jim Ward's comment back in '04 about them now having a "digital negative" is kinda laughable. A 1080p master of a cinemascope film is sure as hell not a digital negative.

The past seven years bears that out. Has there yet been an actual theatrical projection of the '04 master??? Sticking the dvds in a player at a convention doesn't count.

It's funny just how much Star Wars has changed in my eyes over the last seven years. When the 2004 dvd set came out, I was pretty psyched.

2006 is when it really started going downhill for me. That day in May of '06 when I read confirmation from Bill Hunt at thedigitalbits that the unaltered Star Wars trilogy would in fact be from the laserdisc masters and that Jim Ward's comment about "state of the art, 1993" was quite literal .... oh boy, I lost a lot of respect for Lucasfilm. I would've rather they put out nothing at all than shovel obsolete transfers whilst acting like they were doing us a favor. It was just insulting.

Of course, I had become an avid collector of the comics around 2005 and kept doing so for a while after that, but I must've stopped a couple years ago because I literally can't remember the last time I bought anything Star Wars related.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if ILM saved the final digital files for the 1997 cg special edition shots???

My guess would be "no," since the 2004 dvd revealed noticeable gate weave and other filmic anomalies. I'm guessing they just filmed them out in '97 and didn't bother to save the files.

The reason I ask is this:

When they eventually get around to the 3D conversion, even if they do a new scan they'll be working from filmouts for those '97 cg shots. I'd imagine it would look better if they had those original 2K files to work with for those shots.

Also, while I'm on the subject of a new scan, I should point out that a decent 4K scan would kill several birds with one stone. Right off the bat you would have, right there, a scan of the '97 version (you would have to color correct it of course, but it's the '97 edit). You would need to redo the 2004/2011 changes, but c'mon, that's doable. Last but not least, you would have, what, 80-90% of the OOT? Just scan in the missing pieces and voila, that's everything.

Yeah, I know, I should keep dreaming.

(cue the Beach Boys' "Oh, wouldn't it be nice?")

Looks like someone spotted another change to TPM (unless it's fake):

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=20911739&postcount=5501

Can anyone confirm this???