MattMahdi

What's the appropriate response to finding the Special at a DVD booth at the State Fair? The insert could use a little editing, but it looks reasonably professional.

It doesn't say how long it is or what bonus materials there are. So no idea which transfer, and I didn't feel compelled to spend twenty dollars to find out.

They're also selling "Song of the South" on DVD, and what I'm fairly sure are bogus copies of the [legitimately released] Ewok film double-feature.

Star Wars Insider issue 144 (October 2013) has the single-page entry:

"YOU'RE BARRED! The Star Wars Holiday Special Cantina's Barflys Revealed" by Leland Y. Chee

It's a landscape picture of the Cantina patrons, nineteen of them numbered and identified. Not necessarily exciting, and certainly not a reason for buying the magazine, but a fun moment nonetheless. Sadly my subscription is digital... the Nook has it as page 28, but it also shows it as a right-hand page. They can't both be right.

[Hypothetically, if someone did a hi-res scan, and happened to send me a PM....]

[Never mind... discovered a decent image.]

Over at fanedit.org, TM2YC has posted "Fear and Loathing in The Star Wars Holiday Special":

http://www.fanedit.org/ifdb/component/content/article/86-fanedit-listings/shorts/921-fear-and-loathing-in-the-star-wars-holiday-special

This edit is only about a quarter of an hour as it features only the cream of the madness from this notorious TV Show. Including Princess Leia singing, avant-garde alien dance, Wookiee pornography, drinking through the top of your head, a cooking lesson from an alien drag-queen in blackface, a bar of drunken aliens and a Stormtrooper rubbing a ceramic penis.

 

I was scanning through the SW holiday special (Never watched it properly before 'cause I couldn't stand it ) for my Workprint project and noticed that some of it comes off like a terifying acid-trip nightmare. Thus the idea of compiling and remixing only the very trippy-est moments into a short film.

18.73 minutes of hilarity. Viewable only on Vimeo due to length and picture quality.

Impressive work. To both of you.

You_Too said:

The difference you'll notice right away though, is the restoration of the colors. Check this post I made a while ago to see a comparison where the difference is very visible.

Not only colors -- the difference in CLARITY is amazing.

Chewtobacca said:

Doctor M said:My 16x9 comment was merely that it would fill the screen, but not remove anything they didn't expect to be cropped in theaters.

Ah!  That is a point.  I understand now.

And what with all this nonsense of putting both a film and its sequel on a Blu-ray (Pocahontas, Atlantis, etc.), one could hope that they'd put both 16:9 and 4:3 versions on the same disc.

They won't, of course.

But one can dream.

[Hoping that when The Little Mermaid comes out this fall, they'll be kind enough to put both the sequel and the prequel on their own Blu-ray instead of selling them separately.]

I love your signature:

The changes that George Lucas has made over the years to Star Wars is the equivalent of someone keying your car. On an intellectual level, you know that the car still works, and its only marred a fraction of a percent of the paintjob. On an emotional level, every time you see it, it's all you can focus on, and it makes you want to rip someone's face off.

It's been a while since I watched either, but to my memory Deleted Magic seemed more scattershot than Star Wars Begins.

Jambe began his film after he'd covered Empire and Jedi -- since ocpmovie had well-covered Star Wars -- but then decided to cover that film also.

So he seemed to have a better sense of purpose, a more focused approach.

If you watch both then I'd recommend watching Deleted Magic first. There was even a Revisited version, but again its description seemed interesting but scattershot and I don't think I ever watched it through.

And what I'd *really* recommend of ocpmovie's work is "Return of the Ewok": his reconstruction and preservation of a fascinating short film made while Jedi was filming, and hilarious. Turns out, memorably, that Carrie Fisher spent her time in her dressing room wearing her outfit from Jabba's palace.

You_Too said:

But sometimes I wish I could just transfer my memory of all those countless hours spent on color correction over to them so they would just see what I've seen. :)

From "Blade Runner":

"If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes!"

It sometimes takes quite a bit of patience when downloading links that belong to a free account. That much sharing maybe isn't appreciated by RapidShare.

But patience is often rewarded. Good work!

[That said, I think that I had to resort to using 7zip instead of the Windows built-in functionality. For some reason Windows had trouble with the archive, but the archive was definitely intact.]

Didn't Radar O'Reilly once quip that, knowing the Army, it would be "Any time after five o'clock next summer"?

[VERY soft quote: general idea only, but it's stuck in my head for decades.]

That's not creepy at ALL.

(And please don't post mine.)

Reading this page has changed my outlook, similar to the effect of Lying with Statistics.

Shortly after I read the dozens of recent responses, I came across a blurb about the upcoming release of Mulan:

Celebrate the 15th anniversary of Disney’s critically-acclaimed masterpiece “Mulan” with this sensational 2-Movie Collection – presented for the first time in Blu-ray High Definition. Mulan’s triumphant tale of honor, courage and family pride shines brighter than ever with new digitally mastered picture and sound!

Interesting how hyperbole can suddenly turn devastatingly factual.

If that didn't work I threw it on imgr too: LINK

Thank you! the first one didn't, but the second is terrific.

Best I was able to do was zoom and then do a screen capture and crop that. Ugly method, but at least an improvement. (Also, aren't they wonderful, your zoomed URL gives me an insulting error message. Sigh.)

Today's "Sally Forth" has a reflection on the SWHS:

http://www.oregonlive.com/comics-kingdom/?feature_id=Sally_Forth&feature_date=2012-11-23

Best idea of all is the thought that the family could watch the DVD of Ted giving a commentary on the Special while the Special itself played on a TV behind him.

I know that there was one other time the strip referenced the Special. Have there been more?

(Also, I can't find any sites that will allow me to zoom it and then save the image. Anyone see one?)

Davnes007 said:

Actually, he said his deadline was Nov 17th......he didn't say it would be shown on that day.

Did he mention which year?

EDIT: yes he did. Maybe that'll teach me to check my facts before I mouth off. Maybe.

INTERESTING. I had no idea.

I agree with the remark (on that page) that it's probably due to their compensating for the 3D experience (one commenter said that when you watch it in a theater you're effectively wearing sunglasses).

So sad that I'd now wish I'd waited a year and bought the 3D version.

Shifting films, is it true that The Little Mermaid will be in 3D next fall? I'm so hoping for its Blu-ray.

bkev said:

I wish I could buy the 3D disc without having to buy the Diamond Edition in that set; the colors are so much better, but I don't know if my PS3 will downconvert it to 2D...

I'm not sure I understand why you'd want the 3D version without a 3D player... was there actually a color difference between the two Blu-ray discs?

Williarob said:

Yes there is, but right under the video is a link to Download the original DVD VOB files created by G-Force.

And thank you for that. Your link worked much better than the original. I was just surprised to see the difference in display size.

Williarob said:

Looks brand new! Don't know how long the send space link will be good so I have posted it here:

http://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2012/10/25/Star-Wars-Holiday-Special-Boba-Fett-Cartoon.aspx

I have also converted it to an MP4 so you can watch it online.

I'm curious... isn't there a loss of resolution between the two? At least when I play back, the MP4 has a significantly smaller window than the original.

I'm not the source.

But I was amazed when I looked at a Blu-ray disc that its file structure is just a collection of MP4s. I'm so used to the opaque VOBs of a DVD, but on the Blu-ray disc the animated bit should just be its own separate segment. Far less frustrating than extracting the video once it's encoded to a DVD.

And I'm DEFINITELY looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

MattMahdi said:

Found it when I searched for star wars holiday special documentary, hoping to see a sign of something that Bruce Vilanch mentioned in an interview. Some people were shooting a documentary... that apparently went nowhere. (The interview was on "Feast of Fun" in July 2010.)

I was just pondering this question: Bruce Vilanch mentioned a documentary that some people were doing, and that their fundamental problem was that the footage they'd need -- the SWHS itself -- wasn't available, so people would be watching a documentary about something that they wouldn't be able to actually sit down and watch.

Does anyone here know anything more about this documentary? That interview is the only mention of it I've heard, and it sounds like a fascinating project and well worth seeing. I know I'd invest to make sure it happened, and probably others here, but I can't find other mention anywhere.

Nostalgia Critic applied a few subtitles when it covered the SWHS. They're around the three-minute mark.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/15087-swchr

The subtitles are kind of in the vein of the Phantom Editor when he subtitled the conversation between Greedo and Han Solo, in the special features section of one of his prequel edits. They make you see the story in an entirely new way.

Erikstormtrooper said:

Where can we find such a wonderful thing?

I downloaded a copy from a.b.sw a week or two ago. Barely noticed it because a huge amount of stuff was posted at the same time so it was one line among dozens. Binsearch says it was posted 24 days ago.

By the way, Carrie Fisher's interview at Celebration VI is fun. These links are in 720p:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWtSU-nE-58&list=UUZtB-ipGrYDWw3sLprXknMg&index=7&feature=plcp

(start at the four-minute mark, "Double Take")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVsRaznvQVI&list=UUZtB-ipGrYDWw3sLprXknMg&index=6&feature=plcp

(the first minute and a half)