JadedSkywalker

My Star Trek II and III gold-colored Japanese rental discs come today, and damn aren’t they beautiful even without an OBI.

I haven’t had the time to watch them yet but they are pristine.

Now i just have to wait for Willow Rental with OBI, and Star Wars Technidisc trilogy, and my James Bond 20 film special edition DVD boxed set from UK in PAL to arrive.

Edit:

my technidisc trilogy arrived in better than described condition, i’m pleased as punch. i only wanted star wars so getting empire and jedi is a bonus in my opinion.

I helped them get rid of something from an attic cleanout, i got my films, they got paid a non-criminal fair price, we both win.

Edit: Bond set lost in the mail. Now I have to see if Willow actually arrives. It’s like no package from UK can reach the US for some reason and not get lost.

Willow arrived. with two sealed bonus laserdisc i’ve never heard of some French film and a Bergman film. It’s a wonder it arrived at all considering the seller did not pack it in bubble wrap and uses a standard box meant for shipping oversize magazines or documents. and no bubble wrap or craft paper or cardboard.
It’s slightly suspicious that seller is allegedly in Uk and item was shipped from France using a Swiss delivery company. and it took weeks to get here for an expedited item. But it did arrive.

The James Bond DVD set though is since i was giving a non-tracking tracking number i’m forced to believe the seller never had it in stock or did not want to deal with the tariff situation for a such a large box set.

As much as George spurred on the digital revolution with ILM and Pixar and the Lucasfilm computer graphics group, i don’t think they are nearly as groundbreaking as the originals. They are more contemporary to the films that were coming out in the age of cgi movies. Where films like the Matrix, and Lord of the Rings, and the Spider-Man movies and Superman Returns existed.

And the MCU is, and Disney Star Wars is like their successor.

They didn’t change the face of cinema. Have they inspired an entire generations imagination. Will they be remembered in 50 years as significant. I can’t answer that because i’m too old for the films to have been made for me. The OT was made for me. By the time prequel fans hit 50 i’ll be long gone or old and gray.

Yeah, it stutters and freezes. Whoever uploaded did not correct unless that is how the tape is.

With all his unfinished works being published. With the exception of the Alliterative Beowulf in verse. I’m surprised the estate hasn’t changed their mind about allowing other writers to write in his universe and make new novels in Middle Earth.

You have Conan novels not by Robert E Howard, 007 not by Fleming, Oz not by L Frank Baum, Tarzan not by Burroughs. Holmes books not by Conan Doyle. Literally dozens of imitations and knock offs of Burroughs Martian series.

Terry Brooks Sword of Shannara is the most obvious clone of LOTR. And with the sequel Elfstones thankfully he took that series in its own direction.

I see that Christopher Tolkien was all about protecting his father’s work primarily the legendarium itself and the Silmarillion, and he wished the films by Peter Jackson had never been made. Amazon never would have gotten the rights to Rings of Power within his lifetime period. and even that is just extrapolated from the appendices they aren’t allowed to adapt the Silmarillion. The licensed derivative works are in video games, animation and in film. No books.

To me the prequel he promised in his original outline and in the OT is what I wanted.

Not the prequel as made.

But I’m not going to argue with kids who grew up on these as being valid as their Star Wars.

But Phantom Menace sans the pod race and duel of the fates, and maybe the design of the underwater city I like so much and Mos Espa, is shockingly bad. Though I do like Maul and Qui-Gon.

But the trade dispute and those trade federation guys whose mouths move funny, is just worse than even the Flash Gordon serials in quality. With none of the old charm of the serials. The beginning of the film lags, and Jar Jar is hopelessly a bad character, who bungles his way into situations accidentally to become a hero.

And the politics dialogue in Episode II is even more listless and boring and even Ian has difficulty delivering it.

I almost hate all the palace and senate scenes and Jedi Temple scenes. Though I think the testing of Anakin in episode I is fine. and I quite enjoy the opera scene in Revenge of the Sith.

I wish Lucas had not made unnecessary retcons and made the prequel to fit the original trilogy.

Christopher Lee brings some gravitas to Dooku, and a presence you never got with Maul, because he barely ever spoke. And Obi-Wan cut him in half pretty quickly. and Grievous was like a cartoon mustache twirling villain. I still remember that animated like sequence of Obi-Wan on some lizard and that was awful in the theater. Chasing Grievous and the noise the lizard made,lol.

You never do see Anakin and Obi-Wan develop a friendship or relationship, its left off screen in between episode I and II. And in between II and III. Leaving this up to EU and Clone Wars which came very much later from Filoni was a mistake. There should have been a falling out between them, but first you needed to see these guys as brother warriors who had each other’s back. And slowly Anakin is seduced to evil.

I will give Lucas credit he is a much better visual storyteller than a writer. The prequel is easy to understand and follow visually and if you follow the notes of John Williams score that gives the ideas a beating heart it’s a reasonable experience. But if one wants to build upon or deepen or recontextualize Star Wars in the manner The Empire Strikes Back did, they will come away disappointed. Or if they wanted the same swashbuckling derring-do of SW 1977 they would be disappointed as well.

And not to double post i do love the soundtrack for phantom menace and probably would enjoy it with in an isolated score track.

Leia remembering her mother. Obi-Wan’s teacher being Yoda. No mention of Qui-Gon. Anakin was supposed to be a good friend and star pilot. Who was slowly seduced to evil. There was no learn the dark side to save Padme.

Those bother me.

And i know you covered them.

The Storyboards of the original trilogy book by JW Rinzler. It is quite good, and a very nice companion piece to the trilogy of making of books he wrote. Recommended for all fans of the OT.

there are shows that there were made on film the film material destroyed in favor of the tape because film storage is expensive, and they never intended to have HD anything back in the days of SD video.

Sometimes a reel of film gets lost for some reason or an entire episode goes missing.

Some of the studios even junked original audio tape master’s and original audio for shows.

Have to rely on fans that taped or recording the audio.

And you also have the case of film-based aka cel shows edited on tape. And redoing them for HD is expensive, it’s basically the process Star Trek TNG had to do as that final cut negative was broadcast masters.

What they do is go back to raw camera negative as if they are doing the show from scratch, this makes no sense for low budget anime OVA or tv shows.

It depends on the show and movie and whether the physical blu-ray or DVD sales or 4K sales warrant such a thing, if not streaming them.

Even Studio Ghibli except for Miyazaki’s latest film has not made the transition to 4K.

Then you have upscales like the upcoming Girl Who leapt through time and the recently released Wolf Children and Summer Wars. Mamoru Hosoda.

I also think Perfect Blue and Paprika were DNR, i’m not sure if those were 4k scans or 2k upscales.

I hope the rest of Artmic works show up or get new HD scans. Its a shame only Bubblegum Crisis has been done. Gall Force i have the laserdisc set and i waited forever for a HD version, i don’t even know if the film still exists or just another tape show.

Like i wish Evangelion episode 16 would show up in its original form on film.

A lot of stuff just goes to disc without any menus compressed to hell and they don’t even dub most shows. Japanese releases except for the fact they almost never have dubs or subtitles are always superior on compression and quality.

The problem is far too many upscale old composite or component videotape and even if they made the effort to scan a negative at 4k or higher they hit it with DNR. And Q-Tec always filters releases scrubbed grain they even got a newish AI process that was used on Macross do you remember love. I even said what was the point of a 5k scan just to do what they did sharpen the image and degrain it.

I’m quite tired of them doing these film grain noise busting, it’s usually bad when they manage grain.

It was also done on Space Battleship Yamato to bring it into 4K for the 1977 film and for Farewell to Yamato from 78. You know there is a problem when the 4K has better color definition, but the blu-ray has more detail and filmgrain.

It has even happened with Akira.

Never mind they used a digital source for Ghost in the Shell a filmout tape and hit it with DNR. Why didn’t they just scan the interpositive used to make release prints. Sure, its further down than the filmout tape but its looks more organic.

Its revisionism.

Even when they do it right like with the Tenchi Muyo OVA or some older HD scans that scan never gets updated and its becomes the only master for decades in some cases like with Bubblegum Crisis which will probably never get a new 4K scan.

You even have Funi be the only ones to bother to do scans of Dragon Ball from film 16mm in fact in the level sets and then stop. Toei is a huge issue they just remaster old tapes. I’ve been asking for years where the HD scans for Transformers season 1 and 2 for instance, why can’t Toei and Sony BMI resolve their differences or whatever Hasbro has to do to get new masters made. Rhino had workprint 35mm negatives and somehow or another they’ve been lost since.

There is DNR on Sunrise shows like Outlaw Star and Dirty Fair but for the most part it’s not ruinous. Nor is it on Cowboy Bebop, though I would prefer none at all was applied.

Have you read the history of middle earth by Christopher Tolkien editing JRRT, or John D Rateliff history of the Hobbit.

the 1950s Hobbit to bring it in line with lord of the rings was never finished. It was shockingly terrible and without the charm of the children’s novel. I’m quite glad that and the new shadow was never completed.

I do wish the revised Silmarillion, and the Fall of Gondolin had been completed. The longer version of Beren and Luthien. or the lost road had been completed.

The earliest Silmarillion the book of Lost Tales and Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth I did read quite a few times.

Thanks for the share of the PAL UK SW and Empire Strikes Back 1997. from Lee Thorogood. It’s too bad Jedi never turned up.

Cool? no. you got bullied for liking Star Wars, comic books and Star Trek.

If you did anything other than play Football for the school, you were of an unwanted status. That made everyone that was not a jock into an eclectic group of misfits.

Star Wars spoke to me personally, but at that time video games and music were more universal.

Star Wars was like not even a real thing in the middle 1990s unless you read comics, and played the Nintendo games or read the Zahn books.

Then the Special Edition came out and made it more broad to people who did not care for Star Wars for a moment. Because of the anniversary and it was a major event.

Then the prequel happened, and it was for another generation. Explicitly not made for Gen X.

Anything nerdy was not cool that includes reading Marvel comics, reading Tolkien.

My god I mean 60% of my graduating class didn’t even graduate. Like a lost generation and Kurt Cobain was the voice that spoke to us. I’m surprised with all the drug use and widespread desire to escape worse events hadn’t happened.

People got on with life, but this town is the dead center of nowhere. If nowheresville exists, this is pretty much it.

You mean there is someone below frame under Artoo? Weird.

Is that Kenny Baker? The resolution of the image does not make it clear what is being looked at.

I’ve always respected these guys but the stuff on Phil Tippett and Richard Edlund, and especially Joe Johnston makes me respect them even more. I’ve always thought he was a supreme draftsman and artist and had a good eye, and he is one of my favorite directors.

I’ve idolized him since reading those OT sketchbooks as a kid and taking the art books out of the library for the OT. One of my earliest memories is marveling over his speeder bike sketches on ROTJ and The Snow Speeder on Empire Strikes Back.

Not just him but really being taken aback by Ralph McQuarrie paintings, they transported you to another place and time. Especially the ones for SW evoke a Kurosawa meets Flash Gordon esthetic. Which I love. And no wasted space in the paintings.

Also, it’s delightful to watch them geek out over Forry and famous monsters as I loved that magazine, to think they also reverence Ray Harryhausen, which I suspected but not so many of them.

I feel like season 2 was quite rushed. But i guess we were lucky to get anything with Kerner going bye bye.

But almost nothing on Revenge of the Sith when so much was focused on I and II. And nothing on the sequel trilogy.

I watched the episodes that covered Star Wars 1977 and was surprised to see theatrical footage and not from a laserdisc source and not special edition 1997 or anything after. The dirt and scratches and the lack of any sort of digital cleanup was very obvious.

This proves Lucas is lying about the film being a laserdisc. Because it’s terrible that’s how it was. if the original cut only exists on laserdisc where did Kasdan get the film from for this documentary?

The part about Lucas allowing ILM members and even the equipment to be on used on Battlestar Galactica was something i never knew. I knew John Dykstra had been fired, but I never knew he stayed on as long as he did and just wasn’t asked to join the select members who moved from Van Nuys to the new location to do Empire.

Grant Mccune was only talked about briefly i wish he was alive to tell his story.

Also the part with the company that had employed a lot of them to do tv commercials before ILM was interesting, i know Lucas talked about them doing Pillsbury commercials i never knew the name of the company.

Kenji Kamiyama can be hit or miss you can get Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex season 1 and 2, or you might get the awful 3D 3 and 4th seasons. And you could get a animated lord of the rings Ride of the Rohirrim.

I haven’t seen Visions as no longer have Disney plus.

I think of saw a bit of the old Clone Wars from Genddy and the last season of Dave Filoni and Bad Batch. I don’t believe we get it free no more from Verizon we got a whole year free.

I’m not a big fan of Sola Digital. Production IG did the first two seasons of Stand Alone Complex and in 2D.

Though i have seen one or two of the films they made for Appleseed and i can’t recall if i did watch Starship Troopers. Shinji Aramaki. I did think Lord of the Rings was impressive looking at least.

Does Disney and Sony ever have a plan to release any of the animated Star Wars on physical media?

Edit: having seen both seasons of Visions Ronin is the short that should have been made into a series.

I thought that too except about Phantom Menace until i saw the awful redone colors and DNR on Attack of the Clones, a digitally shot movie. The 4K is a mess. The 2011 blu has more detail in places. Lucasfilm keeps making these ridiculous mistakes with releases going back to 2004.

The 4K of Phantom Menace looks waxy and smeary in places like a 1080P HDCam and not a movie shot on 35mm motion picture film.

I think with the Filoni movie i just no longer care. Luke, Han and Leia can show up deaged and i’m already more than half completely done with Star Wars. I’m sticking around for Andor. Or for the potential of episodes 10 11 and 12. Maybe the Rey movie depending on whether its compelling. But sick of the marvelization of SW.

I’m kind of sick of Filoni/Favreau Mandoverse.

Once again no news about the Original Original Trilogy. But thanks for the wrap up anyway.

Can you believe Star Wars is 50 in 2027, I remember the 30th like it was yesterday we got the Rinzler book and no film.

Yeah i wanted to see this when it was Rogue Squadron and Patty was the director.

Censored or time compressed so they cut some scenes?

CX audio instead of Dolby Stereo also seems odd.

This appears to be its own release. The Hong Kong release is uncut with Cantonese subtitles and is the same master as the US VHS Pan and Scan.

It’s also an officially licensed release. Not a bootleg. Very strange indeed, but this was for the South Korean consumer or rental market I assume.

I’d be super grateful if you could do such a preservation.

The Pan and Scan THX master has only been preserved as VHS.

And no one has done the Korean or Hong Kong release.

Also, welcome to OT.

Gout is better than composite master its component d1 master tape, but its not suitable in modern parlance for anything.

its 4:2:2 Component. Most laserdisc masters were composite D2 tape. and some were Digibeta. No theater is showing a laserdisc.

SnooPac said:

ornithocc said:

is there an 35mm version of all the 3 movies extended edition?

Only FOTR extended has a 35mm scan so far.
In theory it’s possible that someone will find a TTT extended print and have it scanned.
In theory it’s NOT possible that someone will find a ROTK extended print and have it scanned, as 35mm prints were never created in the first place.

Note, I have no personal knowledge about this stuff, I’m just repeating what I’ve read from others since these scans had become available.

absolutely right, 100%.