SilverWook said:
Show me something that saw print in 1977.
I was going to ask the same thing. I doubt if there were many (if any) reviews in '77 that said the film was "poorly directed."
You should probably ask that question in the preservation forum- It'll get more attention.
Responding to the original question, no, I don't think it's "our fault". It's just George being George.
Is has entirely to do with Lucas own personality flaws, insecurities, whatever you want to call them. He's always been a control freak, but when he was young and struggling (and still at the mercy of others) he wasn't able to have control over as many things as he would have liked. Now that he's rich and powerful, he can be the George he always wanted to be.
It's ridiculous. With what other popular series of films would the fans consider blaming themselves as if THEY had done something wrong? He's treated us terribly in return for all the support we've given him over the last 32 years.
The only wrong thing we've done is pump this guy so full of cash, he can destroy the things that we originally loved. :-(
As far as the prequels go- the man obviously no longer has any taste, so I don't think the prequels could have ever been better as long as he was at the helm.
fleggett said:There was an absolutely beautiful painting commissioned for Slipstream that would be terrific to track down. I recall it being printed as a two-page spread in a magazine like Starlog or Future. At the time, I remember it being one of the most stunning pieces of artwork I had ever seen.
Was it like this image?
The scene on Dagobah when Luke is fighting Vader - the stabilization script caused the scene to be very jerky, especially during the close-up of Luke with his saber just before and just after Vader's helmet explodes. It was probably due to the slow-motion effect in that scene. G-force just revised the script so that it's now "off" during that scene.
It was discussed here:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/GOUT-image-stabilization/post/371302/#post371302
What just happened here? :-P
Jabba was always referred to as a gangster. Maybe he was like the boss of the Chicago mob in Las Vegas in the 1950s. ;-)
But yeah, I never got the impression from the OT that he was anything more than a thug.
captainsolo said: I do agree that these coffee table books are getting out of hand, both in size and price.
BTW what did the hardcover version of Making of SW have that the paperback didn't?
I think it was like 20 or 30 extra pages of content. Can't tell you exactly what, though.
I also agree that the coffee table format is unwieldy. I had a really hard time with the first book just finding a seating position to comfortably look through the thing.
Vaderisnothayden said: The ROTJ script was good stuff.
I agree.
The second death star didn't make a huge amount of sense (why make another one with exactly the same GLARING weak point?), but it worked very well for closing the trilogy.
I always liked the 2nd Death Star idea. It served up the right amount of threat for the rebels, and added a nostalgic link to the first film.
Thanks, DJ.
Are you close to finishing the final versions of these yet or are you busy with the Blu-ray versions?
skyjedi2005 said:
I wonder what the state of the internegative used to make those willits deigns film cels is in? The empire cels had good color and grain structure and contrast, the star wars ones while going a little magenta werr far less faded than they should have been given the territory of eastman filmstock before LPP. But the color on return of the jedi was almost gone and was faded severly, funny as the same year LPP printing really took off jedi was released. Not sure if these represent how the 70mm film cels actually look, or if it is due to the process of how they were scanned but they are here at this link.
I own about a hundred of those cels, and I can confirm that at least in my case the Jedi cels are fading while the cels for the other two films seem to be holding up pretty well.....at least the last time I checked. I had them on display for a long time but when I saw that the Jedi cels were getting reddish, I put them all in a box in my closet.
JayArgonaut said:Hello everyone,
I'm in the process of acquiring gear to work on a few preservation/transfer projects (I'll post more details on them when they're closer to completion). One of the items I'll need is an LD player to transfer my source material. I've searched through the forums and read the suggestions by Moth£r, Laserman and others not to bother with PAL machines or consumer units. The Pioneer Elite range are out of my budget, but I've seen the industrial models and some seemingly high-end players going relatively cheaply.
This page may be of some help:
http://www.mindspring.com/~laserguru/askjosh.htm#hardware
budwhite said:dark_jedi said:So has anyone watched these yet?
We would love to know what you think of them.
Watched a bit of empire today. This is almost real DVD quality on my 32" tube. I have seen anamorphics dvds from the 70s that dont match this image. I guess it doesn't look as good on a 52" plasma but... hey, this is a big upgrade to what I've seen before
I think they look great on my 32" LCD as well.
Those who have been denigrating this project (who shall remain nameless) are really missing out. Too bad for them.
Octorox said:Mielr said:Octorox said:"5.51 In Star Wars: Episode IV--A New Hope, the take-off of the Millenium Falcon was filmed as a model against a blue screen and matted into a shot of a building with imperial stormtroopers firing upward."- Film Art 8th edition
The shot they show is a cg shot from the SE doh....The section is about matte work btw
If I were you I'd contact the publisher and inform them of the error. Maybe they can fix it for the next edition.
hmm....do you think they would require that I have some sort of source to back up my claims? (I mean other than the films themselves of course)
A still photo of the original scene might help- but a nicely written letter mentioning that you're well versed on all the Star Wars versions should do the trick.
What mixes were used for the "hologram" widescreen VHS set? I know that at least SW and ESB had different mixes than the DC laserdiscs, as they had added/alternate dialogue.
Octorox said:"5.51 In Star Wars: Episode IV--A New Hope, the take-off of the Millenium Falcon was filmed as a model against a blue screen and matted into a shot of a building with imperial stormtroopers firing upward."- Film Art 8th edition
The shot they show is a cg shot from the SE doh....The section is about matte work btw
If I were you I'd contact the publisher and inform them of the error. Maybe they can fix it for the next edition.
digitalfreaknyc said:Damn. I thought we were talking about the "unreleased" documentary. :(
Sorry about that. I'll change the title.
Thanks, DJ. That straightens it out.
dark_jedi said: I did not like the way the latest v6.64 looked on my setup
What was it that you didn't care for? (EDIT: Never mind - I just saw on the previous page that you thought they looked "blurry").
DJ-
What versions did you use for the last DVDs?
What versions are you using now for the next set?
I'm having trouble keeping this straight.
CompMovieGuy said:Guys, as soon as GL dies, which could be any day....(have you seen his fatness???), within a year of this occurrence, the OT WILL be released on DVD/BR to make another buck off of SWs
Its just good business practices with GL out of the way with his stubbornness
Careful now, you wouldn't want to be accused of "Lucas bashing". ;-)
Darth Venal said:Mielr:A whole lot better than we're likely to get from Lucas, anyway
Now that's just absurd. I'm sorry, but you're talking nonsense. Blind Lucas bashing achieves absolutely nothing. Yes, we all take a major issue with the odd colour tinting on previous releases, but the actually detail level of the image is as good as the format allows.
And the Theatrical versions will be released in a superior version. If you don't believe that, just wait and see.
Blind Lucas bashing? LOL! That's a riot. If you think THAT'S "Lucas bashing" then you haven't been around here more than a few minutes.
Are you aware of what site you're on? The site that was originally dedicated to a petition directed towards George Lucas to get a quality DVD release of the OOT- which still hasn't happened?
Or were you trying to be funny?
I don't think there is a new Jedi script- but I think DJ is planning on moving the subtitles up for the next version.
adywan said:I can't believe that you're saying that this project couldn't even come close to the GOUT using the scripts. All the scripts in the world can't replace detail that isn't there. And its been already mentioned but the GOUT suffers with so many things including the DVNR smearing, interlacing artefacts among others. Plus the GOUT was taken from a non anamorphic Laserdisc master while this will be a scan from an anamorphic print. A home scan just can't compete with a professionally done transfer which is why we are sticking to a DVD release only. Even though it will be scanned at a high resolution it would only look like an upscaled anamorphic DVD if we decided to do it as a HD release but the detail in the DVD version will still be greater than the GOUT could ever wish for.
All things being equal- yeah, you're right, a 35mm print is certainly preferable to the GOUT. In theory. But the reality is that it's highly unlikely that a quality 35mm scan will reach fruition.
The GOUT is laden with flaws which I'm well aware of, but it was professionally transferred and I don't think that even today a civilian with a less-than-pristine 35mm print going to approach the results that they got back in '92. Not to mention that even if they did, it would only be 1/3 of the trilogy.
The work G-force and dark_jedi have been doing is quite impressive. No, the lost detail hasn't magically re-appeared, but if someone were someday to combine the '04 DVDs and/or the HD broadcasts with the OOT footage from G-force's project, it would be a pretty tough-to-beat approximation of OOT. A whole lot better than we're likely to get from Lucas, anyway.
I wish you luck, though.
The only way this would ever work as HD is if you scan ONLY the non-SE footage to replace the SE footage, and then combine it with the existing HD broadcast of the 'unaltered' remainder. And even that would be a huge undertaking- just replacing a few minutes of SE footage would consist of thousands of frames.
Scanning every single frame in HD (over 180,000 of them)......never gonna happen.
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but I'm just being realistic.
adywan said:
Even a DVD version will still be better than what we have now: the GOUT.
A SD scan would hardly be worth the effort, IMO. I don't think the results would be even close to the tremendous results G-force & dark_jedi are getting from the GOUT with the stabilization scripts.
G-force-
I watched ROTJ the other nite and it looks fantastic. I watched it all the way through and I didn't spot any problems (not saying there aren't any- I just didn't notice anything funky like I did in the ESB magic tree scene).
dark_jedi says that the 'gold trim' problem in SW has reappeared with the latest tweak (is this V. 5 or 6? I've totally lost track. LOL.) Is there a simple way to fix this without affecting other scenes (like you did on ESB)?
Thanks again for all the work! These versions are destined to be definitive (they are for me, already). :-)