Mavimao

Nice!

I haven’t heard from Puggo, but I should send him a PM rather than just shooting off a comment in this thread.

I read an article how machine learning was able to remove watermarks from photos.

https://gizmodo.com/nvidia-taught-an-ai-to-flawlessly-erase-watermarks-from-1827474196

VFXfan said:

Thanks for the restoration of that Horizon episode, Harmy! As a layman that doesn’t work in special effects or the film industry, it was amazing to see what analog tricks people could do back in the day! Also cool to see the analog origins of terms like matte etc.

I have 3 questions for you:

• was there any reason you used H264 instead of H265/AV1 as a video codec?
• was there any reason you used AAC instead of Opus as an audio codec?
• is it OK if I put your 2 restoration versions and your 5-min intro into a torrent and start seeding it for more people to grab it?

Thanks for the great work again!

I’ll let Harmy give a definitive answer, but for me, h265 doesn’t have enough hardware support and Opus is pretty non standard. 264 and AAC are industry standards and the video will work in pretty much all devices.

Tobar said:

Continuing discussion from this thread.

DominicCobb said:

As to [Hux’s] seriousness, I’d say it’s about the same in both. He’s not making jokes in TLJ, he’s the butt of them.

Every moment he has in the film is undercut with him being made a joke. The only actual serious moment he has is when he almost shoots Ren and that was an improvised moment from Gleeson.

Snoke has a far bigger role with much greater relevance to the plot at hand in TLJ than TFA. Just because you expected him to survive TLJ because of his role in the lore pre-TFA doesn’t mean his death undermines TFA. In any way.

I don’t care at all that he died in TLJ. It was a good moment of character growth for Ben. What is inexcusable is that Snoke was not expounded upon AT ALL before his death.

Are we talking about the same character who crawls across a crowded table to stare at Finn in TFA?

Come on. You very well know there’s a galaxy of difference between crawling across a table and literally flying around like a video game character taking out hordes of off-screen enemies.

TFA was the film that sent [Luke] into hiding in the first goddamn place. I’m honestly baffled that anyone expected anything else of his character other than reluctance.

The very nature of his originally intended introduction says otherwise. Here are just a few alternative explanations for why he disappeared:

• As explained in TFA he went off looking for the first Jedi temple. Why? Perhaps in hopes of learning how to defeat Snoke. Why? What if Snoke was an ancient evil of some kind that Luke was unprepared to deal with.
• After finding the temple he crashes and is stranded. Perhaps the nature of the planet is such that it blocks anyone from reaching out or being reached out to in the Force. Which is why the temple was built there in the first place.
• Perhaps there were other survivors from his original academy that he secreted away to continue teaching. Hiding so that they can continue in peace without fear of Kylo returning to finish what he started.
• Perhaps Luke knew he wasn’t meant to be the one to stop Snoke and so he shuts himself off and devotes himself to preparing to train the one who is. Waiting for the Force to bring them to him.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. TLJ didn’t contradict TFA at all.

TFA ends with a clear setup for the sequel that TLJ completely ignores. “Leave the base at once and come to me with Kylo Ren. It is time to complete his training.”

The start of TLJ should have been the mirroring of Rey and Ben through their simultaneous training. You can even keep the “Forcetime” plot device so that they can communicate with each other throughout this time.

The Kylo training segments would also be an opportunity to expound on Snoke.

Go to 0:33 in this video:

https://youtu.be/86zgadLCu9g

Quote: “Luke felt responsible. He just walked away from everything.”

So yeah, this is word for word consistent with what we saw in TLJ.

Handman said:

So, has this been cancelled?

Who knows? The problem with your link is that it lists a lot of sources from the ‘foaming at the mouth’ side of TLJ hate-dom who are reading too deeply into something someone mentioned. I’m sure they’d love nothing more than to see Rian Johnson fail and are spreading FUD to satisfy their desires.

I personally hope Disney and Rian persevere.

^^ yeah, the video is formatted for 16x9 tvs. Ipads are 4x3 if I remember correctly.

Congratulations Puggo! The circle is now complete.

Yes I am interested in doing a GOUT sync for the 16mm mono track. There probably aren’t any differences but you never know.

If you can send me the uncompressed track, that’d be great!

Hey Harmy, thank you for taking the time to create a “purist” version. I’ll be downloading this when I get home!

Looks great Dré!

Fang Zei said:

Collipso said:

can the holiday special be remastered in HD? i thought it had been shot on tape, therefore that would be impossible. what about the ewok movies and the 80’s cartoons, can those be HD?

All the live action stuff in the holiday special (which is most of it, IIRC) was shot/finished on standard def videotape*, yes. The animated sequences might benefit in some way if they were shot on film first and those elements still exist in storage somewhere, ditto for the 80’s cartoons.

The Ewok movies can absolutely benefit from HD and even 4k**, since they were shot on film (presumably 35mm).

*pretty sure this was analog videotape too

**Don’t say it’ll never happen! We already got the Peanuts specials released in 4k UHD with both SDR and HDR versions included, and I’m pretty sure at least one of the Ewok movies actually got a theatrical release.

Yup, it would have been analogue video as digital video wasn’t released until 1986.

It would definitely remove a lot of red tape. Star Wars would now entirely belong to one entity instead of being split up.

• Fox Fanfare for all movies (why not add them to the sequel trilogy as well?)
• OT restoration and distribution.

But the final word is up to Lucasfilm or Disney.

Mocata said:

snooker said:

We never got the Maz Leia scene from TFA, did we? They’ll probably pull footage/dialogue from that.

Maybe. There’s also another deleted scene that was on the home release. The Oliver Reed in Gladiator treatment would be fine, depending on what they have to work with.

I saw on Twitter that there was also a scene filmed of Leia at the Republic asking for ressources.

SilverWook said:

They could still do some CGI compositing to put her into new scenes ala Brandon Lee in The Crow.

True! As well as body doubles from behind. In any case I am glad they found a solution rather than just starting episode nine with ‘oh and Leia’s dead’…

Casting announced: https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-ix-cast-announced

Tl;dr: Carrie will be back… but by using unused footage from Force Awakens. Luke and Lando confirmed as well.

Well, one step closer…

https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/21st-century-fox-disney-merger-shareholder-vote-1202888023/

Hmm… the magenta looks a bit too strong on those faces.

This is a great documentary and I love seeing it in great quality with the modern scans spliced in but…pillarboxed AND letterboxed? I feel like I’ve time travelled back to the late 90s, early 2000s!

In all honesty, it looks really tiny. I personally think a simple pillarboxed presentation is best.

pittrek said:

If I understood the TOS situation correctly, or in other words if the people in the comment sections under those videos were correct, the Blu-rays are not source from the ORIGINAL negatives, as the promotional material suggests, but from new internegs created in early 80’s for syndication. That’s why they include unified opening credits (originally each of the first 13 episodes had slightly different opening credits) and fixed some of the effects scenes, like the planet shots in The Naked Time.

Harmy - a quick question - so are the TNG episodes available on Netflix in whole Europe? Do they contain the fixed versions? http://trekcore.com/blog/2015/08/netflix-brings-vfx-fixes-to-star-trek-tng-in-hd/2/ I’ve been searching for the fixed episodes for years, so if they are indeed there maybe I can finally have a reason to get Netflix myself.
And by the way, not ALL of the effects were done on video. Only Dan Curry’s team apparently shot effects on video at 30fps, Rob Legato’s team and definitely ILM were shooting them on classic 35mm film.

Well, on the making of documentary for the TOS blurays, they’re definitely handling negatives. Beyond that, I have no idea why there are tiny differences between the two.

For TNG, the only effects that were “video” were the early CGI and phaser shots (maybe others as well). But Dan Curry definitely shot on film but at 30 fps which caused some issues for the remaster since everything was done at 24 fps instead of 30 fps of the video masters. You do see some weird artifacts, but unless you’re really staring at it, it’s fine.

And the reason for recreated shots of the ship were because they would often be missing an element like a light pass or a matte pass and it would have been too difficult to recreate the missing pass in CG so the entire shot would be replaced instead.

Of all restorations, I think Star Trek, The Next Generation has got to be, without a question, the best recompositing job.

They took the original 35mm elements which were originally composited in video and redid everything in high def and with modern techniques.

A shame that they were missing elements for certain shots and were obliged to turn to CG recreations, but I don’t think anyone can say they look WORSE than the original video masters.

TV’s Frink said:

I Just Want To Know What Is Up With All The Captials

Everything I Say Is a Title.

Mocata said:

oojason said:

TV’s Frink said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

Well, I disagree entirely. First off, it is obvious we are supposed to side with Poe. Holdo is expecting Poe to follow orders. That he doesn’t is not surprising because she doesn’t share what she is doing. And ultimately it is Poe who turns Holdo’s cunning plan into a disaster. Poe sends Finn and Rose off to solve the problem his way. A daring venture full of risks with a possible payoff. But because they do not find the hacker that Maz recommends (probably because he can be trusted) and they end up with DJ and DJ learns of Holdo’s plan, when the mission goes sour he uses that to get himself out of trouble. As a result most of the resistance is destroyed, rather than losing the one ship and hiding out on Crait until someone came to get them. Poe is a hotshot pilot but that is not what makes a leader. Knowing when to not be the hotshot and play it safe is the lesson he needed and he got it the hard way. However the movie makes it very clear that if he hadn’t gone ahead and destroyed the dreadnaught at the beginning, it would have wiped them out later. So his first reckless act that he got demoted for turned out to be the right thing to do at the time, but after the fallout, Poe is making wiser decisions. Not bad for a character Abrams almost killed off.

That story line is full of old war movie tropes. How Holdo treats Poe, how Poe reacts, and how he learns. That may not be your real world experience, but it is many people’s. And Holdo doesn’t seem like she is much of a people person. One of those who rose to command through brilliant tactics. She obviously is a friend of Leia’s. So her tough treatment of Poe makes a lot of sense. Military methods of leadership are not the same as private sector methods. The military needs people who will follow orders without question plus brilliant strategists. So using civilian leadership techniques to critique a military interaction doesn’t work well. The same rules don’t apply. There is a reason why the traditional drill sergeant is tough and gruff. Dressing down a subordinate in a military setting isn’t about their well being, it is about their discipline and willingness to follow orders. In a military setting you need someone who will not panic and will act on their training no matter the price. In a civilian setting an employee’s life is rarely on the line and you rarely need blind obedience. So it is comparing apples to oranges.

So both on the writing side and on the realism side, this part of the story reflects some brilliant writing. I find the entire movie to be brilliant. I love it more the more I watch it. And it is definitely very Star Wars. War movies and samurai movies were very much a part of the original trilogy and Rian Johnson captured that part far better than Abrams did in TFA. I watched Twelve O’Clock High and Three Outlaw Samurai after I heard they, plus To Catch A Thief, were classics Rian Johnson was watching to prepare for this movie. Three brilliant films that definitely had an influence.

Maybe you should read the link I posted from someone with actual military experience

Still leaning on this I see.

C’mon Frink, no-one in the military has ever got it wrong! We should read everything anyone who has fought says - or else we may not think as others think we should, as our lives may depend on it some day, otherwise an ER tv doctor will not save us - or something…

How does SW or war movie logic equate to anything in the real world though? These are broad character archetypes and well worn arcs. This is a series where people are promoted to Commander and even General whenever anything vaguely heroic happens.

This^^

You’re applying real world logic to a movie about SPACE WIZARDS.

I mean, where are the military articles about Emperor Ming’s or Colonel Miles’ tactical abilities?

DrDre said:

I actually have another question. Does the process of going from the negative to a release print distort the image in any way? In other words is it technically possible to retrieve a more or less exact copy of the original interpositive by averaging and then deblurring an infinite number of release prints? In general I’m wondering what the limitations are of doing a restoration from a set of release prints, rather than using an interpositive, or the original negative.

Interpositives and prints are made with contact printing. That is to say, they sandwich the two pieces of film together and shine a light on it. Because there’s no lens, there’s no risk of light refraction.

But I could be wrong…

After some intense googling, I found the following:

https://www.starwars.com/news/designing-solo-a-star-wars-story-part-1-making-landos-millennium-falcon

The gun turret and the dish are similar, yes.