Are they really that out of ideas Sith again?
I’m almost afraid to ask what nostalgia bait and member berries they will insert into the film.
I like that Zahn retconned the Lando/Mara romance and mocked it in the Thrawn duology.
I’m indifferent on him also mocking The Emperor reborn and taking a shot at Veitch. When he himself has a Clone of Thrawn in the story we never get to see.
I liked that the Callista romance went nowhere. The Akanah thing was a total waste of time. The Black Fleet trilogy was garbage.
Though I actually like 2 of the 3 Callista trilogy novels.
Well there is Splinter of the Mind’s Eye where Luke and Vader first fought, and Luke had a sort of almost romance with Princess Leia. Vader even appears to have fallen in a deep pit and died and he lost an arm.
Then Lucas made the Empire Strikes Back and it’s like Splinter is elseworlds.
Lucas dropped the love triangle between Luke, Han and Leia set up in the first film. And its barely there in deleted scenes for Empire, and when Luke is in the medical center, but Leia obvious falls for Han on the way to cloud city and at Cloud city. Lucas little bandage he put on it in Jedi, making Leia the sister, and making her the other was to this day completely unbelievable to me.
You think Luke is pining for his sister, kisses his sister. Saves her from the death star and is standing at the medal ceremony smiling at her because they were platonic. Its one of Lucas dumbest moves.
I don’t believe in the doctrine of attachment it was made up on the prequel. It exists literally nowhere in the original trilogy or the expanded universe before episode II. In fact Luke wins because he doesn’t follow what Ben and Yoda told him, his attachment to his father turns the tide of the war bringing Anakin back to the light.
No it was a compromised production at every level. He never was in control of the process. It was a virtual nightmare for him.
He would say I can see the seams, all the places where everything is held together and barely worked.
When he says it was 25% of the movie he wanted to make that is being generous, he thought it was a turkey and his career was over.
Considering I’ve never had a chance to see Star Wars in theaters in general, I’d undoubtedly go to this regardless of cut. Obviously I’m hoping for the OUT, but I won’t hold my breath. We went through similar speculation for the 40th anniversary with absolutely nothing to show for it.
And the 30th and only got the Rinzler book and no film.
Can you be more specific what 2012 scans is this Maclunky. Those scans were done in 2012-2013 are these fan made?
I specifically avoided the Revenge reissue release because the ticket price was 20 dollars and standard laser DCP. On their smallest crap screen. At AMC. Meanwhile Sinners was on the Imax. If it was the Imax I would have paid as much as 25 dollars.
It wasn’t even in the Dolby cinema that was some other movie too.
Reminds me of when I wanted to see Dead Reckoning and both Imax screens were showing Barbie and Oppenheimer.
If this is not the original cut they can forget about it. 1981 release I probably would see just for the hell of it, but they aren’t doing that, Lucas and his vision and all that speak.
Even if I despise the title A New Hope.
To be 100% transparent the 2020 Maclunky cut from the official 4K home video release, Dead on Arrival. For me at least, although so many people will just go see it anyway. They don’t care it’s not the real deal. A lot of them like Lucas so called enhancements. And won’t mind seeing Han shoot second in 4K. or the awful Artoo behind cgi rocks. Of the three films it is the least ruined 4k release. It had a ton of DNR but not ruinous like Empire. And the Atmos mix is not bad. It’s not the actual movie, it’s a redone mix but for modern mixes it’s as tasteful as you can get.
TBH the only Star Wars I’m waiting and hoping to see is the 70mm Star Wars. Since Lucasfilm is not going to restore the oot for home viewing in any century without Lucas’s consent. He is more in tune and interested with his museum of narrative art and his charitable causes and god love him for that, but I want Star Wars. Not A New Hope.
George is never relenting, he is a known quantity. He never apologizes and he never forgives, he never comprises. And he always wins. He likes it that way, fans be damned. Unless suddenly the man has mellowed, and says give those Gen X haters of the prequels the originals. He is more likely to withhold them even more, due to his quote they throw rocks at me. They do fanedits of my movie, it’s my movie. I’m paraphrasing but he said similar things. He also said the original movie was crap because it was a laserdisc. That whopper was at Cannes.
I will pass if maclunky in 4K I already own that. I realize people will argue DCP are better quality than a 4K disc.
But if it’s not Star Wars 1977 I’m not going to bother. Instead I’ll watch 4k77 on May the 25th.
Or Puggo Grande or the laserdiscs. Even gout would be better than the horrible cgi version.
Its amazing that they are ignoring two anniversaries. The one in Jan for the 30th of the 1997 Special Edition, and the one on May the 25th. 50th of Star Wars 1977. May the 4th is completely made up.
Its coming to an end. I haven’t read any of the books or comics. And now its a closed book with the final comics series getting published. And the last novel.
I’m not entirely sure. But I believe Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival is alternate angle from Return of the Jedi. In the Empire Strikes Back.
Luke hugging Wedge In Return of the Jedi.
Sailor Moon on the other hand one imperfect DNR ridden fest, or at best decent upgrade over old video master material. I don’t have those blu-rays.
The original laserdisc have their drawbacks of course but no DNR applied. But poor telecine and some color issues. I wonder if some fan tried to upscale the laserdiscs.
And of course there is no 4:3 version of Beautiful Dreamer from Urusei Yatsura at all in the realm of HD. The last video master was on laserdisc. Which CPM cleaned up for DVD with its own associated frame blending and cadence issues. And English titles superimposed over Japanese ones. the 16:9 on the blu-ray as well is an ancient DVD master which was HD remastered but for DVD. Toho was going to do a new scan and had even pulled the Blu-Ray release for some years due to not even being up to a standard of quality, and then they release it as is anyway. The other ones were brand new scans but film 1 was not uncut like the DVD aka Only You. I have no idea who owns the rights to the tv series currently and the films except for film 2 being owned by Toho Co.
I mean because Kitty films is defunct, Pony Canyon obviously does not own the rights. Its likely Bandai or Warner Bros or some damn holdings group.
I did not want to double post but i just had quite a bit to say.
I’d be lying if i said DNR, Color correction and upscaling does not have their uses. But i dislike DNR intensely. The only cases i can think of where it may be necessary is where a damaged film source, or very dirty piece of film is scanned and limitedly applied as grain management and not global DNR. Also Q-Tec has their own upscale, and you have AstroRes.
As for AI like in the way Peter Jackson’s company uses it i don’t know if it would be a good use for anime. The type of image stacking, sharpening and manipulation.
And for computer cgi animation i did see Lord of the Rings from Sola Digital and some of the flying camera shots were very impressive.
The biggest use again of these oldest and newest tools in the video restoration toolbox is for old as hell composite video masters or 1 inch tape or digi-beta. Lots of shows, lots of OVA. That can’t be afforded a new film scan or the film may be lost, or it was animated on cel but finished on videotape and few such shows can warrant an expensive redo.
One of my favorites and a friend of mine’s favorites was his and her circumstances, well that does appear in not a so good place for a remaster. Or as its called in Japan Kare Kano. Anno.
Fairly recent digital done shows like 2009 maybe or a few years earlier done in 480P anime. Yeah those are usually upscaled by some company if they even bother to do Blu-Ray for them at all and just don’t have one DVD release. or they reissue them on DVD. Or put them up on a streaming site.
I’m thinking of Haruhi Suzumiya season 1 that was animated in SD. And I do have the Blu-ray. You might be able to trick me into thinking its 720P because it’s not the worst upscale but it is definitely not 1080P.
Even the alleged to be 2k master of the film in 1080P looks to me not very highly detailed and a rather low ish bitrate on the disc. If I was again told it was animated in 720p I would believe it.
Those are just one example.
There are cases where an upscale looks worse than the DVD like Lucky Star from Kyoani.
Or Shakugan No Shana from J.C. Staff.
And there are certainly decent examples but imperfect like the 4K of Nadia Secret of Blue Water. Which is from a film scan and not an upscale but had been subjected to DNR and has less detail than the previous blu-ray.
Most people are happy with the result of increased contrast and better colors. And being faithful to the animation cels and won’t be upset over the film grain being gone.
You also have really tremendously good remasters only knocked down a peg or two by the use of DNR like Urusei Yatsura original not remake tv series. Dirty Pair TV series, movie less subjected to DNR but still applied. Plus old gags removed for copywrite reasons ever since the remastered DVD. And need the old DVD or laserdisc for those scenes.
Ranma as well good film scans. Most of the Rumiko works. I forget if they redid Mason Ikkoku. Or the Rumik World. But certainly, the films of Inuyasha had good scans. I forget if the series did.
I was thinking about it today and I much much prefer the idea of Vader hunting down the Jedi knights. and not an order 66 killing younglings, none of that is what lines up with what Kenobi said in SW.
A Young Jedi named Darth Vader was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil. He helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights, he betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force.
And Lucas original prequel outline of Vader being a Jedi assassin and secret Sith is better than what we ended up with.
Of course you have to still keep the part about Kenobi lying, because in Star Wars when he said that he wasn’t lying and Luke’s father was killed by Vader.
And then you get the certain point of view speech in Return of the Jedi and Luke looks at him, WTF Ben, with his looks. A certain point of view really?
I couldn’t make it ten minutes into a Space Adventure hour even for free. Wesley is awful and not Kirk. I’ve seen so many better and even funnier parodies of Shatner.
This guy is like Jim Carrey playing Kirk without the funny. On a CW show.
I’ll finish the rest of the season later but it’s just absolute drek.
I’m no longer upset about the cancellation of the series especially after the Muppet preview for season 4. They make all sorts of things and none of it is Star Trek.
What is the point they could just make Star Trek but won’t. I don’t hate everything about new Trek but I start to wonder whether the secret hideout contract should be cancelled, and Kurtzman given his walking papers.
I miss the era of nitpicking and everyone wanting to fire Berman from their comfy seats on the internet. But i can rewatch TNG its good and bad, and Deep Space Nine is excellent. Even Enterprise my least favorite series has something to offer in comparison to whatever this modern so called Trek is.
I started reading Northwest of Earth the complete Northwest Smith.
The first short story was incredibly strange. C.L. Moore.
I found it very uncomfortable to read. Shambleau. I will try and continue on with some of the other stories but maybe it’s not for me.
This book was claimed to be Han Solo or Indiana Jones like and its nothing like that, and not like Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter stories either.
I do remember reading A Merritt The Moon Pool.
350 is actually a good price but i don’t have that kind of chunk of money just kicking around for this kind of thing. and I have no 35mm projector.
Is there something wrong with the blu-ray or DVD.
I don’t know what to think of Academy but I’m totally against Strange New Worlds doing a puppet episode. I hated Those old scientists the cartoon episode, and the musical episode subspace rhapsody.
Akiva just doesn’t get it. It’s not Star Trek these big swings are gimmicks. The show has limited episodes as is and was cancelled already.
The Khan Audio drama the person they cast has no gravitas does not sound at all like Ricardo Montalban.
I also doubt when Nick Meyer was doing it as a series Sulu and Tuvok were going to be in it. I hope its good and i change my mind but it doesn’t feel like prequel to ST II it feels like something else.
No you aren’t wrong the color cast on the star wars videodiscs the orange and pink tints was a product of the telecine.
16mm is completely possible in 1080p with no loss in quality a 2k scan is usual. You can scan 4k but most of the time they haven’t. 16mm negative and having to fall back on 16mm tv prints is a separate thing.
A show done in 35mm but with a missing negative and all they have left is a 16mm dupe or at best a master tape far away from the negative things can be dicey.
Most anime being 16mm or tape where no 35mm film source or negative does exist, you have the option to upscale or just do standard def Blu-ray. The remastering of tape sources using some form of dnr is quite common. And its the colorists job to grade the image, in the days of dvd it was generally what looked good or was done on the fly with little regard to historical accuracy.
On films where they believed the negative was lost in some cases they even used a laserdisc as their master. Anime i mean, no Hollywood film would ever rely on a laserdisc, i’m speaking of Project A-ko. Eventually the negative was found. But was lost for decades. The negative episode 16 of Eva has never turned up.
There are proper real HD masters of anime that happen in Japan and never get a US release. Like Devil Hunter Yohko, and i just found that in 2022 the Ova series for Armitige III and the films got an HD upgrade with the English dialog even.
No North American release of course.
And Space Battleship Yamato the films on blu-ray and 4k and the first season have been done, will never see the light of day here. The films for Galaxy Express getting new scans from film and not an upscale is a good thing, now do the tv series and both Harlock series from film and not video.
I hope seasons 2 and 3 eventually get better than DVD releases but highly unlikely due to their 16mm negative status.
Even something like the Nozomi Dirty Pair Blu-Rays went up like a puff of smoke since Crunchyroll took over, I don’t even think the Kickstarter backers got them. They are supposed to be replicated and on their way soon. Its only taken some years. No word on a mainstream release which I want, I have the Japanese Blu-Ray set.
For fans of Stover’s novel Revenge of the Sith, there will be a deluxe edition released in October. The list price is 60 dollars, is quite expensive for a hardback. 170 new annotations and a new introduction by Stover.
I remember thinking in some ways the novel was better than the movie.
Transferring from cel to videotape in the old days was less than a perfect thing.
I have no doubt some of the color casts were not intended but they are how the shows looked. To make them look like the original cels is revisionism, maybe it’s one people want and enjoy.
Stuff stuck on standard def videotape and interlaced really does not look good.
Color correction is not a perfect science and those restoring an anime for blu-ray or streaming from less than perfect sources I’m willing to give the benefit of doubt to an extent, if they are working from component or composite videotape D1 or d2. or 1 inch masters or u-matic or Digi-Beta.
If they are working with film, it is another story. They have to get it right.
Even when the negative if filmout tape. Like with Ghost in the Shell no DNR should be applied.
What they did to Akira was ridiculous you had better color definition and more dynamic colors, but the DNR gave the 4k less detail than the blu-ray. And there are cases where they scan in 4k or even 5k and then they stack detail and sharpen an image like with Macross do You Remember love. It looks great and all but the film was never sharp its artificial detail. Never mind the part they only had videotape of and no film and had to upscale. As in Macross Flashback 2012.
As for weird tints unintended those are from the film to video telecine which did not reproduce the full color of the cel art. Its an artifact of an earlier era, you can restore them to cel colors but again that is also revisionism, you have to argue its one that was intended. I can’t speak for DBZ or Sailor Moon because i don’t have the laserdisc at hand to see the original telecine. Later applications of digital transfers you’d be surprised how faithful home video got. Cowboy Bebop laserdisc is not that far off from how the Blu-ray looks. Even the Tenchi Muyo THX set looks similar to the blu-ray. The early laserdiscs look like crap. Its amazing how terrible home video was for most of its life cycle. How people accepted imperfect colors, blurry picture. What was phenomenal about home video was generally excellent audio quality. Especially in regards to Hi-FI VHS and LPCM digital laserdisc.
Ozzie Osbourne. I still remember the first time I heard Black Sabbath, my uncle was playing war pigs on vinyl.
My brother totally got me into Crazy Train with Randy Rhoads.
A music legend there won’t be another like him.
For me its Visions Ronin. The entire episode from start to finish. Its feels like if Kurosawa made Star Wars.
The idea a Sith can be a good guy or at least morally grey is very outside the box from the idea of George Lucas good guys and bad guys, and good guys use blue and green, bad guys use red.
The idea of good Sith and Evil Jedi is only hinted in EU in things like the OLD Republic MMO.
The only other example I can think of is the Kotor comic where the masters commit murder and frame a padawan. Zayne Carrick.
Only 10 days in release and at 406 million and already being heralded as a flop because of the budget.
It’s made 60% of its haul domestically. Anyone hoping this would either match Man of Steel box office or hit a billion was dreaming. The film industry is in sorry shape. The movie business isn’t a shadow of what it was before the covid shutdown and streaming took over the landscape.
500 million would actually be sort of a success, no Gunn movie has ever made a billion dollars. not even 900 million, not even MCU. If only the budget wasn’t over 300 million. It’s never making 2.5 budget. It can underperform to an extent because they are setting up DCU and this is a part of a long-term investment.
The issue is its lagging in international box office which is where they make all their money these days. I still think it’s early and too soon to say, give it a couple of weeks and then declare it’s a flop.
It’s going to be available to purchase digitally before the end of August and has stalled at 514 million, likely it will be pulled from cinema. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a flop.
How sane is it to have a 300 million domestic and to be a flop. They need the video sales to tilt the scales for this entire endeavor to have been worth it.
It’s crazy when adjusted for inflation Reeve Superman 1978 made over a billion dollars.
Even non anime produced by the Japanese like Transformers that is also Toei.
No HD version of that exists either. the finished negative was tape. all the retakes and finished edits were done on tape so while Rhino video had access to negative and interpositive sources they introduced problems with unfinished animation and errors.
Now no one knows where those negatives ended up there has been no attempt by Shout Factory to make a blu-ray. Even the Japanese Blu-Ray are standard def with no English subtitles or English dub. with The Japanese opening and closing.
It makes no sense to me they could get an interpositive and scan it in 4K for the 1986 film but not do at least the first two seasons in HD. The Toei ones. AKOM season 3 is not going to be improved by any HD restoration.
As for Toei and Dragon Ball or DBZ any negative would be better than old videotape. Its laughable that Funimation could scan 16mm prints well down from the negative and they were better than anything anyone has done. But they abandoned those. Why won’t Toei spend the money to scan their film sources in HD and higher.
Robotech is a different example while the original Macross was 35mm negative the Robotech master was 16mm dupe. Both are film scans. Both remastered in HD. The 35mm obviously is of a higher quality, North America didn’t get that the Japanese did.
Star Blazers also exists in 16mm. But Space Battleship Yamato season 1 at least is 35mm negative. There is a blu-ray in Japan of Yamato there is no HD Star blazers, no Star Blazers anything except for videotape they slapped on DVD. no HD scan.