Hal 9000

Well, here’s my wish list. This includes things that probably are outside the realm of feasibility. It also includes a few things that are available via TMWNN’s v1 of his Devastator edition.

• Mos Eisley entrance - as much as possible to work with. The SE shot with the mirrored troopers sans extra pair of troopers, rat, or robot. The shot with the Jawa swinging from the Ronto, with those removed to be the original shot with the SE background. (I like how my cut has this sequence but it could be better.)
• The SE scene where Luke reunites with Biggs has R2 jump upward where they removed some lines. Since it’s a SE inclusion it’s a prime target for improvement. Adywan has done this already, so when it’s released in HD I may cull this from that.
• Make R2’s blinking red/blue light work, as the original prop was broken. Adywan has done this but his will be the 2011 source. TMWNN has done a lot of this, but not the trickier shots where there’s a lot of motion.
• Removing Yavin IV from the first shot of the Battle of Yavin. Adywan has done this also, so perhaps when Revisited appears in HD.
• That one weird shot where Vader has been brightened in the Death Star hallway. I believe Dat_SW_Guy has done this.
• The Falcon needs its radar dish in its first appearance.
• The crap Alderaan image out the Death Star window, as fixed way back by Darth Editous.
• TMWNN’s version of the droids outside the cantina spotting troopers, removing the foreground CG dewback but leaving the background one.
• Remove extra vaporators in a SE wide shot of the sandcrawler parked outside the homestead that disappear later (or add them to that shot).
• Use TMWNN’s or Dat_SW_Guy’s Alderaan explosion to avoid the added shockwave I don’t like.

ROTJ has been updated and is available now in the usual places. DrDre’s color matching tool has allowed me to make the Lapti Nek, Death Star II explosion, and ‘Yub Nub’ scenes closer to blending in seamlessly. I remain open to revising it down the road if superior source material becomes available. If Adywan presents a color-corrected ROTJ I’d be glad to update this with it.

ANH will come in time. I await TMWNN’s forthcoming project to fix up the 19SE and color correct it to be close to Adywan’s work on the 2011 BluRay. I plan to publish an update before then, with only minimal color tweaks from the OTD-19SE primary source, and redo it whenever that is ready. I’ll post updates here as I go, as there may be a few things yet that I could use some help with.

FWIW I agree. If the original shot of some speeders and people going by that originally opened the scene didn’t have so many foreground antics added in, I’d like to use a version of it without the silliness but with the SE backdrop so it fits in a bit better. I’m not unhappy with what’s in my current version, but it’s an area ripe for improving upon.

There’s a lot to love there! R2’s blinky lights are spot on. I like the shot comparison inside the sandcrawler; it looks like the R2 prop were repaired on set and working properly.

I don’t care unless they’re 4K.

It’s rewarding! Break a leg.

Doesn’t mean there can’t be mistakes to notice and be aware of; nothing is flawless.

If it’s official, there’s no problems, then?

Crossvader said:

Anyone have any idea if there is a colour corrected version of the 2019 Blu-ray Release of Return of the Jedi?

There’s OhTeeDee’s. I’ve got a LUT that makes it look better overall, but I honestly don’t remember at this point who provided me with it.

Yeah, if the aqua tint wasn’t there so strong I probably wouldn’t have felt the need to do this. It’s beyond me to remove it completely, but it’s at a pretty good happy medium between OhTeeDee and Adywan(‘s 1997 Reconstruction).

Only to correspond to using the SE (and Adywan) version of the expanded windows in one scene.

And including a natively ProLogic II stereo track as a bonus.

Film preservation is often much more of a cobble job than you may realize. I think we all understand your opinion on things at this point, so why not direct your attention to threads belonging to projects you are interested in?

You’re barging into a thread for no reason other than to shit on something.

This project is quality work, even if it’s not your thing in particular. The only thing that may not be natively 1080p is the Emperor scene, and Adywan made it fit in rather nicely.

V5 of ESB is now available in the usual places. I am very pleased with how it turned out, very much thanks to DrDre’s color matching tool. If I do say so myself, it’s the best I’ve seen this movie look. It now feels truly complete, this project as far as ESB is concerned.

Looks good to me, the fuzzy edge feels right. What’s that last image?

AdmiralWasabi10191 said:

Yup. The 35mm scan is looking mighty fine too compared to this outdated project from the mid-2000s.

Says the guy asking about LaserDisc preservations?

Probably not, because in order to use it the sequence cannot be any longer than the OOT version. I recall trying to make it work but it’s too short. Some rendition of ‘Dianoga’ is needed if you’re using any of it. Which I will, at the very least for the initial shot of the landspeeder.

AdmiralWasabi10191 said:

Would rather wait for a 35mm film scan in 4K of TESB 1997 Special Edition compared to whatever this is.

You do that. Back in the mid-00’s this was as close as was possible to get.

The Lowry master’s version of the Death Star explosion is bad. But the 19SE isn’t, and it has the fiery colors back.

And I’m open to whatever material for Mos Eisley may exist. I PM’d Dat_SW_Guy to see what he had made. I think he was even going to try to use that shot but with the SE background of the buildings. That’d be cool.

It’s not possible to cobble together something totally seamless between the original and SE versions of these movies, but I’m shooting for as close as I can get. When I was first introduced to Star Wars through renting them from Blockbuster in the late nineties, the original and SE versions were both available and I experienced both. The personal motivation for this project is to get at the ideal compromise that I have a pseudo-memory of from back then. What feels right while maintaining continuity. Can’t be totally realized without a team of VFX wizards, but can get close enough in a way that’s at least preferable to the SE as it is.

Master Lawdog said:

Are you planning on keeping the despecialized version of this shot, Hal?

Can’t see the image. What shot are you talking about?

The first Death Star exploded very quickly like a firecracker. The second exploded more gradually, and also in light of TROS we’re expected to believe it wasn’t totally vaporized. (Granted that’s a post hoc rationalization.)

Again, the way I have it there’s only one explosion that happens to have a shockwave, making it unique and less weird to always happen in the OT but never anytime else.

I find it weird that the SE introduces a praxis shockwave ring around all three major explosions of the trilogy. If there’s only one, that feels better to me.

And since I’m using the SE version of the battle of Yavin, I feel it’d be weird to switch into the OOT right at the moment of the climax. Plus, that shockwave (first Death Star) actually feels like it adds something to me.

Yeah I’m still open to possibilities with Mos Eisley, but it’ll be some hybridization between the OOT and SE for sure. (For the ‘Victory Celebration’ version ending of ROTJ, it helps to have seen that SE-ish version of Mos Eisley.)

People a while back pushed back against using this shot between the speeder first pulling up to the city and arriving at the checkpoint:

But according to this map, I don’t really see why it would be wildly inaccurate to cut to it instead of the SE helicopter shot. Evidently the checkpoint is well into the city itself, so either shot should be fine. That would allow me to use a shot that actually looks halfway decent instead of something that doesn’t.

That guy with no name said:

. Most changes from Darth Editous’s edit have been replicated here.

Wow!

EDIT: Are you on meth?