GroovyLord

I was going down the rabbit hole of looking up changes, comparing stuff etc. I notice the lightsaber effects are different in many releases, like covered in the Visual Changes topic on here. Noticing it even more so comparing a few releases.

For example, Return of the Jedi, take the bit around 33:07 where Luke has his saber out and is swashbuckling a bit. In Despecialized 2.5 the lightsaber looks huge and chunky in this shot, bigger than ever. In 4k83 1.3, right from the film itself, it looks very very slim and sleek, with a darker green core instead of lighter white.

One question is, would this be considered an error in Despecialized, or did it look like this on home video? Did he base the huge untamed lightsaber there off of the GOUT/laserdisc, I don’t have those handy to compare. In general are the lightsabers considered to look different from theater to home video prior to the 97 Special editions? I haven’t noticed that in the changes topic.

https://imgur.com/iA84iIw
(4k83 1.3)

https://imgur.com/jwvvOGM
(Despecialized 2.5)

https://imgur.com/Yzb5wjR
{edit: here’s a cap from a GOUT dvd rip too. Does look different from above.)

https://imgur.com/olikVL1
(Destiny Edition 1.0)

I’ll say at the moment with the recent 4K official UHD blu-rays, like used in stuff like the Destiny Edition of ROTJ, the lightsabers are looking pretty good. I tend to stick with the original theatrical look, but these look quite nicely done. Still a bit wild and loose, with the white cores etc, and a bit sleek and smooth looking.

I gather in the middle somewhere, the 97 or 2004 versions, the lightsabers looked less good, with dark cores and too thin etc.

So a few random thoughts there. In Despecialized 3.0 I’m guessing Harmy will go with footage from 4k83 for example, and lightsabers will look completely different there than in the previous despecialized editions. Since I saw him say something about using film and not GOUT for this one. Though he could always edit the looks of lightsaber shots to his preference.

So those are a few directions to discuss, but in general anyway: what do you think of the various looks that lightsabers have? Both in official releases and fan releases?

Thanks, that’s good info and perspective there. I’ve always liked the home video (laserdisc rips) look, but I’m also open to warmer or more film-like ones. Also looking at changelogs and posts I saw it mentioned that 1.3 has less good DNR than 1.4 and up, since they started doing more fine tuned scene to scene profiles or something like that. Also 1.4 may be growing on me a bit, and I read that DrDre is working on a new update too.

It is wild how many choices we have now, and involves researching, but it’s fun and cool to have all these for sure.

Can you say what it is you don’t like about 1.3’s colors in particular?

And definitely food for thought on the pro calibration thing, but I don’t have an uncalibrated TV with those eye-blinding default settings or anything. Just mentioned my color temperature setting since I have an older TV with only three settings for that. And while for sure the more versed people in the scene like yourself who do editing will need that more so, I think many fans such as myself will just compare the screens of a few versions or pop on a couple and find what they like, when comparing. Even though almost everybody in this hobby’s monitor and TV settings will be different, there is still a noticeable enough difference between the versions that people can still kind of have a discussion and know what eachother mean anyway.

And I wasn’t asking for recommendations for a version to watch, since I know I prefer 1.3, so my calibration there wouldn’t affect what I’m asking. I was just curious why you good posters here didn’t like it as much as 1.4 and 1.6. If there is anything notable that it does that was fixed in other versions, since many seem to agree are improvements over 1.3. And with all three being so noticeably different from eachother, it makes me even more curious how people compare and rank them in their preferences. Thanks.

Question about versions and color preferences. What do you think about version 1.3? I see you prefer 1.4 or 1.6 respectively in recent posts, so I sought those out. For whatever reason, to my eye, 1.3 looks better to me than those two. 1.6 looks a bit muted, and 1.4 to me looks a bit “all over the place”. With side by side comparisons, some scenes are incredibly blue tinted, some are really yellow, higher brightness and saturation overall it looks like in 1.4. In 1.6, it looks subdued and like there’s a sepia tone filter on it or something (in my layman’s take on it).

1.3 to me (by looking at the video in MPC-HC on my TV via my computer) looks really pleasing. Skin tones, colors, brightness etc, it all just looks great. I find 1.3 does look a bit “cool” and reminds me of the laserdiscs, which I think I like for this film. Though my TV is set to the medium “normal” color temp. I found a thread where DrDre’s work is compared to Sanjuro’s work, and in those screen comparisons Sanjuro’s look really dark and a bit subdued color wise. But they don’t look that way in my player with my TV settings etc. And all three of these are being compared on the same screen for me. So I’m a little confused, but overall, just curious to hear your thoughts on what makes you not rank 1.3 so much etc. Thanks.

(And naturally, all three would make fine viewing, just trying to articulate my take on comparing. Kudos to all involved)

Thanks! That sounds cool, good to know.

Hi, question for ya! I last watched the Despecialized editions around December 2015, before The Force Awakens came out. I recall Return of the Jedi had a “workprint” in progress version of Despecialized or something like that. I haven’t been able to find a wiki or list of the version releases of Despecialized and when they came out. So my question, is there something like that? How many releases of Despecialized for the trilogy have there been since late 2015, and any info on those updates? Thanks.

Also, for example, has the color changed in A New Hope at all since the 2015’s version of Despecialized? That was the only thing that wasn’t 100% to my taste, maybe combined with the DNR of the blu-ray, skin tone just didn’t feel “natural” to me. Though I know it has the technicolor look etc. Though now we have the 4k77 version for that too which is nice. All in all, Despecialized is terrific for me, just checking back in. 3.0 sounds great, I read somewhere that the new HD version it’s based on removes some of the old DNR and has better color than the earlier blu-rays etc.

If they make a book about Justin Theroux’s codebreaker high roller character, I would so buy that.

Really enjoyed the movie by the way! Lot of fun, it juggled the various adventures and whatnot well, and of course compelling to see what happens with Luke. I hope he’s still in the next movie a good bit by the way, circumstances be damned, guy is a master.

Thanks, the info is muchly appreciate!

It looks like the editing to make that particular movie line up with another audio track would be very subtle. It’s not a different framerate or officially different cut of the movie, it just may be that the more recent blu-ray release for whatever reason used a print where say a couple seconds are added overall via just a few less than a second differences adding up, maybe in scene transitions etc.

That’s just hypothesizing though. My hats are off to people who add audio tracks like all the one available in the Star Wars releases on here, I can only imagine the work that goes into making sure they’re all properly synced up.

So I’d like to see the video of one version of a movie while hearing the audio of another version of a movie. I’ve never made a video file other than ripping a DVD or two years ago, but if I already have several versions of a movie in mkv format, is there a way to combine elements of these mkv’s into a new version? If so, how do I do that?

And optionally another question, how to get the subtitles from one mkv file and extract them to put into another mkv file.

For the record the movie I’m talking about is The Killer (1989 John Woo), which I own a DVD and blu-ray of. They messed with the audio on my preferred version of the blu-ray video (an HK one in an mkv file mentioned), so I want to play it with the original audio (in an mkv of the criterion DVD) for example. And if possible I’d also like to use the Criterion one’s subtitles.

And to add to the wackiness, I’d have to add a second or two of silence to the beginning of one of the preferred audio tracks to time them up properly I think. Or any other method of having it start playing at the exact moment it should by comparing the two.

Short version, I’m looking to watch a blu-ray mkv I have of a fav movie while listening to the DVD audio of this movie, and optionally using the subtitles from that DVD version as well, but that is less important than the audio thing. I guess that part would involve reading up on how to rip mkv’s subtitles to an .srt or something which is probably easier than the audio/video stuff I’m looking to do. Thanks folks!

I could just pop in the old DVD I have of this movie, but as we know on here, that would be too simple. 😄

Also for the audio syncing to another video thing, another simple solution could be to figure out a way to start two different instances of a video player at the same moment, in MPC-HC64 for example. I’d have to put one a second or two in, pause, then via some method get them both to resume playing at the same moment. I don’t currently know of what that method is though.

edit: I just watched the movie via two media players, had to pause and mess around with them a bit to re-sync the audio on occasion, so there must be a few seconds of difference between the two versions here and there maybe a second at the end of a scene in one version etc. But I’ll leave this topic up just for curiosity and because it would be cool to know how to do this stuff for all purpose stuff, if not this film in particular.

Great film, recommend everybody check it out by the way! If you’re a fan of stylish hard hitting emotional action/drama.

Just saw it a second time, it’s still got it! Thumbs up! (BB-8 style)

Watched the ROTJ workprint earlier, great stuff! Well done, kudos as always. Great to see these in HD the way they oughtta be.

joshuar said:

Hey, quick question. There’s a pretty abrupt cut right at 27:44. Does anyone know if that’s intended (part of the theatrical release), a bug with the release, or unrecognized (a problem on my end)?

When one of the sandpeople is handing a gun to another and it cuts to another shot? That was there before, in the laderdisc etc. Looks the same here, doesn’t seem unusual to me.

Fun trivia there. Line sounds fine to me anyway. 😄

Revenge of the Sith is a very well paced movie, didn’t feel like any extraneous scenes were left in or anything. Just sayin’.

Just watched this, awesome stuff! By far the best this movie has looked, flawless presentation all around. And ditto on the love of the color treatment mentioned above. Kudos!

I’m not taking what she said literally, but if I had to guess, maybe Han will have some voice used in mysterious visiony-flashback things etc. Since this one did that kind of thing instead of a full on flashback scene.

Very excited for the future of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away! I forsee some fun training scenes with Luke and Rey, and I really look forward to what hijinks Fin and the resistance will be up to as well. Plus of course, going deeper and darker places with Kylo.

I like Revenge of the Sith, so I’d say if somebody is interested in Star Wars, might as well give that movie a try. But in general I don’t think you “need” to see it to appreciate Episode VII.

That said, what rock have people been living under to not have seen the Star Wars trilogy? 😄

As for a hypothetical order for somebody who has never seen Star Wars? I’d say marathon the original trilogy (preferably before they started messing with it, or the Despecialized version). And then if they’re hungry for more, throw on Revenge of the Sith for a one-off tale of weird darkness. And of course see The Force Awakens.

I’m not sure which versions I’ve been watching over the years, usually it’s just labeled as laserdisc edition. I posted a couple screen shot comparisons around here for example. I like the color of those because they look like your usual 70s/80s film would look. Where as some of the Despecialized version to me almost looks like Wizard of Oz or a colorized movie, very over-the-top saturation and whatnot that to me makes people look more like paintings at times.

But if that’s what it looked like in theaters, that’s what you’re going for. I would’ve guessed it looked more like Dawn of the Dead or something in theaters, or like your usual 70s film (not counting the green people 😄), as far as skin tone etc goes. But I know you’re going by film actual captures to compare.

I know these days they often mess with movies giving them a strong blue tint (or magenta), but I hadn’t heard that the old home video releases of Star Wars were considered to have color that was so off. I guess that’s just the look I prefer or am used to.

But personal taste on saturation/color aside, I’m not complaining or anything, Despecialized looks great, and it’s fun to see the movie in such high detail and clarity.

chyron8472 said:

Harmy, I just saw your FB post about ESB and ROTJ 2.0 already being better than SW 2.5, which still had issues.

What issues does SW 2.5 still have that warrants a 3.0?

The color could use improvements. For example you might notice sometimes from shot to shot Han Solo’s shirt varies a lot in how yellow it is etc.

Also, just curious what people’s thoughts on the laserdisc color is? I always assumed it was spot-on, though maybe a little less contrast and brightness than some like in HD stuff. For me at least, the color has never looked better than in the laserdisc version, contrast etc aside. It just looks the most natural.

This version is the best HD version by far though, and looks really good no doubt.

Just watched Despecialized for the first time (2.5), gotta say thanks! Loved it, a joy to see the movie in HD clarity. Which other than seeing the 97 version in theaters, I’ve only even seen on VHS or laserdisc version.

For some critique, I feel some shots the color isn’t quite 100% spot on. It looks like yellow is a bit overpowering in a lot of the movie, with stuff like Han Solo’s shirt popping, or skin leaning more yellow when it should lean more on the red side I think.

Here’s a comparison of Luke in Despecialized and an old laserdisc rip: http://imgur.com/a/tZV7t

Sometimes skin and hair etc to me looks a bit like a colorized movie in this version, if that makes sense. Maybe at times oversaturated, and maybe not quite the right hue. Also maybe more blue should be in the mix at times. That said, definitely better than the color choices of the official blu-ray, and this wasn’t in every shot or anything, just at times.

That’s my only constructive criticism though, really really impressive stuff. I didn’t notice any quality drops, all the effects shots looked great, terrific stuff all around, thanks again. And great sound too, I went with the 85 track. Much thanks!

FrankT said:

I… can’t believe Han’s gone.

If it takes place a long time ago, technically everybody is gone. I think Blue Oyster Cult has a song about this… but I know what you mean. If you leave off on a positive note, you just don’t have to think about the mortality of these characters.

SilverWook said:

It’s going to take a lot to make Kylo Ren deserving of redemption in my eyes after what he’s done.

I doubt it will ever happen, but Chewie ought to be the one to kill him.

I’m thinking Kylo will be irredeemable. At least, that would make for a bold direction. But I’m excited to see where they go with all this.

9 out of 10, or 92/100, or 91.7%. Groovy stuff, I am pleased!

CatBus said:

As for the inclusion of the mono mix lines, I also favor the original multichannel mixes because they don’t have them. The tractor beam line, for example, sounds like he’s off saying it in a broom closet instead of on the same set he says all his other lines. The line itself it fine, it just… doesn’t blend for me, even on the mono mix. Probably in the minority on that one, but this stuff is pretty subjective at some point.

If that topic linked is correct, the only mono line added to the 85 version is the tractor beam one I think? The blast doors one isn’t included for example.

And the track you prefer is technically a recreation, not an original theatrical track right? Not that this distinction matters too much, I just guess other than some changes it’s mostly the same as whichever laserdisc track was the base for it anyway? (edit: ah, I see there’s a topic about that track on the first page that answers my question there)

Definitely true that it’s subjective stuff, and the movie is enjoyable with any of these tracks.

SpilkaBilka said:

GroovyLord said:
While we’re talking, could you expand more on why you hate the 93 version? Just curious. Do any of the added effects stand out as particularly bad etc?

I can’t remember all of the differences, but the one that stands out the most to me is the sound of shattering glass as Luke/Han/Chewie destroy the sensors/cameras in the detention block. I hate that sound (also hate the sound of Lando destroying the core of the 2nd Death Star!).

Right on, interesting. Well allrighty, I’m going to go with the 85 laserdisc audio for this viewing. Looks like this version has this tractor beam line that I never got to hear with the 93 version over the years.

Thanks for the info. And that’s more out of curiosity anyway, I’m not enough of an audiophile to really notice anything like that myself. 320 kbps is plenty for me. Also it took me a bit but I’m starting to understand how that comparison page is laid out ha.

While we’re talking, could you expand more on why you hate the 93 version? Just curious. Do any of the added effects stand out as particularly bad etc?