Lestrade

TV's Frink said:

Nope, that's not new.

Crazy! I never ever noticed that. Now it makes more sense how the temple was wiped out. 

In Revenge of the Sith there's a shot of troopers in the Jedi temple, shooting Jedi and younglings (just before the scene where Anakin confronts the padawans). Is this new to the Blu Ray? I don't remember this at all.

I don't buy many movies these days (I've turned psycho-minimalist after always owning too much stuff), but I fuggin' love the Blu-Ray format. For movies I'm not ridiculously attached to, I totally dig HD Netflix streams. But for those few films (Blade Runner, sigh, Star Wars, etc.), it's so great to see such amazing presentation. In the right hands, Blu-Ray is the shiz.

On another note, I'm happy to finally post this. After all my turmoil getting the Harmy and dark_jedi edits of these films, I thought I'd show my gratitude by making an awesome box set for myself and a couple of friends, so they can appreciate the efforts of the fan community. If Lucasfilm won't put these on my shelf, I will!

I must admit, perhaps in folly, that I thought the Blu-Ray release might actually be impacted by people's reaction to the leaked changes. I constantly hear people talking about the BDs and the changes on the street (I live in Toronto). Sadly, I guess this is not the case.

I'm not sure what to think, what to feel. Maybe I should be disappointed, or outraged, or kind of sad, or wistful, or something. Instead I kind of feel just nothing. 

Here we go again...

Question: I have the opportunity to buy the BD set from someone on Craigslist for a discounted price. It's a bit cheaper, and Lucasfilm doesn't get my money. Should I do it?

I finally got all my issues sorted as well. Random CRC errors meant I had to redownload RAR portions several times to avoid corruption.

I have all three films on discs now and they look wonderful. I have some friends who are going to be very happy this week. Thanks for the incredible work, Harmy. 

Hi Worov! I think if you don't have a Blu-Ray player or PS3, you would need to use the DVD 5 version.

Question for everyone else: I am having a difficult time trying to get Harmy's edits. My downloads come partially corrupted, or something. After following all the instructions, getting all the pieces of ESB via the DLC file, JDownloader says that part 07 can't be extracted, and thus everything gets listed as "Extract failed." I've tried redownloading it, but with no success.

I'm at a loss. Can anyone please help?

Dominic: I think that dream change has been mentioned in a few places, yes. I just listened to the audio on another forum to hear it for myself. It definitely gives the scene some needed context.

Come on, folks, let's keep this on topic. :-)

Those DVD Active reviews are interesting, and nicely detailed. My god, they make me want to watch Attack of the Clones again, which I thought I hated.

In those reviews Chris Gould, I think, is spot-on, and treats the text from the point of view of a reviewer, not necessarily a hardcore Star Wars fan. I find this refreshing, since when his complaints and comments on the films (content, technically, or otherwise) agreewith general opinion, it's nice to know those of us who aren't crazy about the prequels haven't just blinded by years of hatred. :-) 

That said, I'm really interested in what he said about the "teal shift" in Attack of the Clones. I know it's been mentioned before, but for those who bought the Blus, have you noticed it, and does it "tone down the cartoon look" as he says? One of the few positive points of the Phantom Menace for me was that at least it was shot on film, and didn't have quite the pumped-up digital look of Episodes II and III. It felt more "Star Wars" to me because of that.

(Then you watch something like The Social Network and realize, hey, digital movies can look every bit as warm and enticing as film, in the right hands. Then you cry.)

I have stuck to my guns so far and not bought the set. Went into an HMV to see the display, and admitted to my wife, "I hate the fact that I want to be excited as all hell for this, but can't go through with it."

I actually just made a pretty killer box-set with custom artwork of the dark_jedi v3 cuts and Adywan's current two colour-corrected SE AVCHDs (SW and ESB), so I am watching those instead...

Disappointing that Bill Hunt gave the movie a big shrug and a, "Well, it's Star Wars on Blu-Ray" like everyone else. From everything we've seen, read and heard, this release sounds objectively off-putting (SE changes or no). I can't imagine anything other than Star Wars being given such a lazy pass, considering all the quality inconsistencies and missing bits this set seems to have.

My god, Predator sent shockwaves the world 'round (I'm exaggerating, I know), and a substandard release of the biggest movie franchise in history is, apparently, going to be successful regardless of quality.

It's not that I'm shocked and horrified—but I am disappointed.

I think it's safe to agree there ain't no amount of polish gun' get that turd ta shine.

Gaffer Tape said:

I would like to read that article, though, but your link is just a broken link to something in this thread.

Oh, sorry! I've fixed the link.

This whole mess feels insane. I've gone through so many stages of Star Wars grief, I don't know what to do anymore! Stage one: encouraged optimism. Stage two: blissfully ignorant excitement. Stage three: sudden shock and horror. Stage four: prickly malaise.

My wife just sent me this link. The bad-Lucas-press wagon hasn't stopped rolling yet. I don't have anything against the guy, I just feel a confounded confusion about the man. If true, though, then this seems to prove what a lof of other folks here have been saying for years:

Link to original article

The geeks eventually got their face time with Lucas and I want to stress how respectful these guys were, and that they paid a lot of money for face time with Lucas. This was not a surprise interaction; Lucas came to this event knowing he’d be expected to mingle with the peons. I don’t advocate bugging celebrities in their daily lives, but this was a professional event designed to encourage these interactions. The guys were not out of bounds. They started by telling Lucas that they loved him/the movies/grew up watching them. Then they very politely asked why he wouldn’t make the original versions of the movies available on DVD/Blu-Ray. They stressed that they don’t mind the retroactive edits (doubtful, but they were being nice), they just wanted good digital copies of the original cuts, too. Lucas’s response? An eyeroll and a huffy, “Grow up. These are my movies, not yours.”

Oh man, this is all a cryin' shame. 

Yeah, I saw with my own eyes a very different-looking transfer (well, in terms of overall brightness and contrast), so I didn't think these were legitimate. 

Don't worry, folks, we've only 18 days to go... :-)

Adium said:

Hmm, I saw the same footage at Fan Expo and was kinda facepalming. Then again, I don't exactly have a great eye for these things, and there was definitely harsh lighting on the show floor.

Interesting! 

Unfortunately, none, I haven't seen any of the HD broadcasts. What I did, do, however, was pop in the 2006 DVD set into my PS3 after lugging all my goods home from the show, while it was fresh in my head (hardly scientific, I know). 

Seeing the DVD again, I thought it looked much darker, but everything else (the mattes, etc.) looked the same, of course. 

It's hard to judge much under a full ceiling of harsh fluorescent lighting, but I still think the Blu-Ray looked good.

Just sayin': I saw Blu-Ray clips of Empire Strikes Back today (the Hoth battle) while selling books and touring around at FanExpo here in Toronto. It looked less dark than the 2004 DVD, and very, very sharp. I was impressed.

Hey folks:

Not sure if anyone else caught this, but some folks at Millenniumfalcon.com made some comparison images based on a few new stills released on the new Blu-Ray official site (http://www.starwars.com/movies/saga/).

The comparison thread is here: http://www.millenniumfalcon.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=165608#165608

It looks to me that some of the crushed blacks have been improved. The Jedi shot looks brighter, but not in a way suggesting someone just artificially pumped up the levels from the 2004 source. The detail that would have been blown out by the crushed blacks (like stars, some of the detail in the Death Star) look like it's there again. Could just be that the final transfer to 480p in 2004 removed a lot of this and was further darkened, and this is the "real" way the 2004 transfer was meant to look.

Also, if you compare the twin sunset shot with the comparison images on these forums, it appears to have the same colour cast, but it's not nearly as dark.

Cautiously hopeful that the transfer will be a bit nicer.

Hey, I just took this quick comparison between the 2004/2006 DVD release and the hero image currently on the Star Wars site. These look like different takes, so it may not matter; bonus/alternate scenes likely have never seen the Lowry beast.

Still, it's worth a look:

Walkingdork, am I too late to get an invitation? I'd love to get on MySpleen and check out dark_jedi's v3 DVD.

Thanks,

L.

TheBoost said:

 Your wife and I would be in agreement.

 

Ah, very cool! I just read this thread (I somehow missed it before) and I agree. Since Lucas is executive-producing the show, and not directing or specifically writing, I feel things are much, much better.

The fact that Clone Wars is a cartoon, too, makes a lot of what was difficult to relate to in the prequels much more believable. All the tireless jumping, fighting and superhero maneuvering is fun to watch, instead of crashing against my disbelief as a viewer.

Also, the show has some actually interesting space battles. It's really neat to see the clone commanders in charge of Republic/Imperial destroyers. Nothing like a long, slow shot of one of those big ol' boats amongst the stars to remind me why I liked Star Wars in the first place.

My wife and I have become devoted Clone Wars fans; we watch it every week and really quite enjoy it. I'm the real Star Wars nerd in the equation, but the show has made her like Star Wars again (me too, come to think of it).

She has said on many occasions: "If only they skipped the prequels and went right to this show, Star Wars would be unequivocally awesome again." (She may or may not have used the word, "unequivocally.")

Like any show, not all the episodes are winners, but the writing is generally quite good, and surprisingly mature. I have come to love clone troopers, I like Anakin (finally), and despite a lot of fans' moaning, I really like Ahsoka.

I agree with others' comments that the stories add some much-needed depth and nuance to events that seem thin and hard to fathom in the prequels. By this point in season three, we have seen Anakin as more of a real person, and we can understand his plight much, much better than the seemingly awkward vignette presented within Revenge of the Sith.

Sadly, it's true that while GL had the best intentions with the prequels, the execution wasn't quite up to the task (I know, understatement of the year). And though this is not how I would have preferred things, I feel like the Clone Wars is patching a lot of those holes and smoothing out most of those rough edges, so that the grand story starts to flow again. It's not Shakespeare, but it's enjoyable.

Everyone's asking, of course, "What's going to happen to Ahsoka?" since we know she isn't in Episode III. I am more curious, besides, to know, "What's going to happen after Revenge of the Sith?" I would like a similar series to help that transition between Episodes III and IV be a little smoother than it seems right now.

I think Clone Wars proves that Star Wars really does work best when it's episodic and serialized—maybe if GL had gone this route after the OT, the story we wanted to see would have been much better represented.