Mr Ghostface

Bingowings said:

It may be possible to present that scene in a interestingly different way regardless of how well it was originally created.

This is a special edition not a restoration.

I can't speak for the techniques suggested as I'd have to see some examples to make a comparison but I'm not filled with rage by changing a scene in a film that already looks good if it matches ethos of this project (which to make a genuinely special special edition).

Change for change sake is bad but change to make some sort of visual difference which sits better with the other changes in this presentation needn't be based on just technical 'errors' or shortcomings in the original versions of either ESB or the various ESB:SEs.

 Isn't this exactly what Lucas gets lambasted for? Considering this is all a matter of personal preference, it's difficult to really criticise Lucas for doing what he wants with his movies when Ady and everyone else is doing exactly the same thing. Your first line in particular encapsulates it for me. Oh, don't get me wrong, I love fan edits, I just don't think the hypocrisy towards Lucas is very fair.

Tobar said:

doubleofive said:

The battle droid head is one of my favorite parts of ANHR, the first thing I saw that made me KNOW this was my kind of Special Edition.

 

It was a good idea but I think a Pit Droid would have been a more appropriate choice.

 Who would've thought that, putting something from the prequels into the OT would make people happy. Interesting...

Why the hell would you WANT to change that scene? It doesn't look that way because of a technical error for heaven's sake.

Ooh, a worse-than-the-Holocaust joke. Very tasteful.

Darth Editous said:

AuggieBenDoggie said:

Those Jpgs really don't mean much, and you know better than to do that,

They mean exactly what I meant them to mean - that on some frames there is a big (and on every frame, moderate) quality difference between HDTV and Blu-ray, so there is every justification for using the Blu-ray rip as the source of an edit, your impatience not withstanding.

You're mistaken on several other points, but we've gone too far off-target already, so you can have the last word if you want it (frame-based is the correct term, 756 pixels is based on the perceived resolution (70%) of full-frame field-based interlaced against progressive material, progressive wrapped in interlaced is fine, digital either works or doesn't, I was being facetious about Monster cables, all HD TVs must decode 720p, "720p is the preferred format for the broadcast...")

DE

 What he said.

WhatsMyName said:

But he does it because he knows what SW fans want.

 Well, I think he does it because he knows what he wants. As much as he undoubtedly appreciates all the support he gets for these edits, they are personal projects. I'd say more Star Wars fans would like cleaned up, restored theatrical versions than anything else.

;-)

I just wish Lucas would give us decent versions of the theatrical cuts and I wouldn't even care about any fan edits. Not that Ady hasn't done some awesome work, as have others, but a lot of it probably wouldn't have happened if he'd respect the fans of the originals.

I'm tired, that wasn't what I meant either. My own fault for over-simplifying. What I meant on the captures in particular was that there is not more information in a capture than there is available in the source its being captured from. Anyway, bedtime, I'm not firing on all thrusters. I don't know why I cared to get into this anyway ;-)

Harmy said:

Well, the broadcasts themselves weren't perhaps 1080p, but the captures of them available on the internet sure were.

That doesn't even make sense.

A capture is not 1080p or any other broadcast resolution and although I know what you meant, a capture at a high resolution does not contain more information/detail than its source.

You're right, I was just clarifying as people seem to believe the broadcasts were 1080p, which isn't the case. No biggie.

How long would it take to download a 1080p rip anyway? I think I'll settle for 720p.

Well obviously Ady has decided the blu-rays are the best source for his HD edit, so there's not much point having an ongoing debate about it. For one, the original HDTV broadcasts were NOT 1080p, they were 1080i, and although some people will argue that, I work for the broadcaster that showed them, and there are NO 1080p broadcasts. Either way the blu-rays are very good, clean transfers for the most part and I think Ady is doing the right thing.

corellian77 said:

A New Hope looked like it was made in the '70s again.

It's pretty sad that it takes a blu-ray released in 2011 to just bring the quality of the OT back up to the standards of 34 years ago... doesn't say much about the 2006 GOUT release, does it?

Although, that being said, I'm sure a number of people here would disagree with that comment, and tell you that the films as they were presented in theatres in 1977, 1980, and 1983 are superior to what we're seeing on the blu-rays.

Well, I didn't say it looked better than in theatres, I just said it looked like it was shot on film again, and it looks undeniably 1970s. Which I appreciate. But remember also that traditional projection also masked a lot of flaws in a lot of movies which HD now exposes, so I think that says a lot about how "good" movies looked in theatres back then (and I've been watching movies in the cinema since the late 1970s).

I love final words on things, it reminds me of movies like Friday the 13th The Final Chapter, and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, neither of which were very final.

So yes, do what you want with your money, but please don't be dumb and broadcast how little regard you have for the law, if that is how you feel about it. It doesn't matter what Adywan does with these movies in his edits, the fact remains that Lucasfilm owns them, and if they choose to they can probably pummel into the ground anyone who uploads their material online. You can argue about "reasonable changes" being made and "grey areas" all you like, but we all know it, the copyright for these movies belongs to that affable, bearded lumberjack who lives just over the Golden Gate, so we'd be wise to remember it.

Anyway, back on topic, did anyone else like the blu-rays? Because despite more annoying tinkering, I thought the OT looked pretty great. A New Hope looked like it was made in the '70s again. All I can say is, I'm happy they left all the Wampa stuff on the cutting room floor.

Damn, some of the things that get posted here, anyone would think George Lucas never created all this wonderful stuff in the first place. Never mind what happened to it since 1997, the man did create the entire Star Wars universe and everything that went into it. Lucas hating and all that sort of hysteria is incredibly juvenile.

As for donating to Ady, like Bingowings said, there's no conflict there. You can give Ady money for whatever reason you like, there's absolutely no problem there. But pushing a "boycott" of the blu-rays, that's asking for trouble. Firstly, it wouldn't achieve anything except for a miniscule, negligible dent in sales, and two, if they caught wind of it, you're asking for them to stop fan edits being published online.

timdiggerm said:

Mr Ghostface said:

Who cares what Lucas thinks? It's not like he got the prequels right in many other respects either, is it? There's no real way around it, the prequels are written as continuations for the audience, regardless of the chronology of the events they're depicting. You can watch Memento in chronological order if you want to, but it wasn't intended that way and doesn't work as well.

While this is true, Memento is a bad example because the movie is edited into the order it's shown in. It takes significant work to both watching it in chronological order.

Star Wars, on the other hand, has six distinct parts which, with absolutely no effort, you can watch in any order. Now, if you have six things, labelled 1 - 6, which do you think you're going to watch first? Probably not 4.

If I'd never heard of Star Wars, then yeah, 1-6. But people have heard of Star Wars, and in 1999 when these movies were made everyone had heard of Star Wars. Movies aren't made so that a generation down the line if someone comes across them they will know the history behind them and all that, they're made for the audience that sees them when they're first released. The Phantom Menace was never going to be written as if it were something brand new, was it. That would be dumb. It's not like audiences of the original movies thought they better hold off for the first three episodes. The Star Wars movies were written to play in the order they were made. Lucas and some fans might want them to work in story order, but they simply weren't written that way. It's just the way it is.

timdiggerm said:

Mr Ghostface said:

Who cares what Lucas thinks? It's not like he got the prequels right in many other respects either, is it? There's no real way around it, the prequels are written as continuations for the audience, regardless of the chronology of the events they're depicting. You can watch Memento in chronological order if you want to, but it wasn't intended that way and doesn't work as well.

While this is true, Memento is a bad example because the movie is edited into the order it's shown in. It takes significant work to both watching it in chronological order.

Star Wars, on the other hand, has six distinct parts which, with absolutely no effort, you can watch in any order. Now, if you have six things, labelled 1 - 6, which do you think you're going to watch first? Probably not 4.

 If I'd never heard of Star Wars, then yeah, 1-6. But people have heard of Star Wars, and in 1999 when these movies were made everyone had heard of Star Wars. Movies aren't made so that a generation down the line if someone comes across them they will know the history behind them, they're made for the audience that sees them when they're first released.

timdiggerm said:

Mr Ghostface said:

Who cares what Lucas thinks? It's not like he got the prequels right in many other respects either, is it? There's no real way around it, the prequels are written as continuations for the audience, regardless of the chronology of the events they're depicting. You can watch Memento in chronological order if you want to, but it wasn't intended that way and doesn't work as well.

While this is true, Memento is a bad example because the movie is edited into the order it's shown in. It takes significant work to both watching it in chronological order.

Star Wars, on the other hand, has six distinct parts which, with absolutely no effort, you can watch in any order. Now, if you have six things, labelled 1 - 6, which do you think you're going to watch first? Probably not 4.

TV's Frink said:

Mr Ghostface said:

Well, of course it doesn't introduce us to anything, it ISN'T the first movie in a series. It's the fourth. Hence it's a prequel, meaning it was made after another movie but it takes place before. It assumes knowledge of the previous movies. Just because it takes place before doesn't mean it has to begin all over again with introductions to things that virtually everyone going to see it already knew about.

No one in 1999 was going to see The Phantom Menace wondering what it was about. They went to see it because it was a new Star Wars movie. So the introduction to the universe would be unnecessary.

This is all well and good, but Lucas expects people to start with TPM now, not ANH.

Who cares what Lucas thinks? It's not like he got the prequels right in many other respects either, is it? There's no real way around it, the prequels are written as continuations for the audience, regardless of the chronology of the events they're depicting. You can watch Memento in chronological order if you want to, but it wasn't intended that way and doesn't work as well.

TV's Frink said:

Mr Ghostface said:

Well, of course it doesn't introduce us to anything, it ISN'T the first movie in a series. It's the fourth. Hence it's a prequel, meaning it was made after another movie but it takes place before. It assumes knowledge of the previous movies. Just because it takes place before doesn't mean it has to begin all over again with introductions to things that virtually everyone going to see it already knew about.

No one in 1999 was going to see The Phantom Menace wondering what it was about. They went to see it because it was a new Star Wars movie. So the introduction to the universe would be unnecessary.

This is all well and good, but Lucas expects people to start with TPM now, not ANH.

Who cares what Lucas thinks? It's not like he got the prequels right in many other respects either, is it? He

SilverKey said:

I was thinking that even though TPM is supposed to be the first movie in a series, it never really introduces us to anything. It just assumes we all know what Jedi are or what the Force is.

Well, of course it doesn't introduce us to anything, it ISN'T the first movie in a series. It's the fourth. Hence it's a prequel, meaning it was made after another movie but it takes place before. It assumes knowledge of the previous movies. Just because it takes place before doesn't mean it has to begin all over again with introductions to things that virtually everyone going to see it already knew about.

No one in 1999 was going to see The Phantom Menace wondering what it was about. They went to see it because it was a new Star Wars movie. So the introduction to the universe would be unnecessary.

SilverKey said:

I was thinking that even though TPM is supposed to be the first movie in a series, it never really introduces us to anything. It just assumes we all know what Jedi are or what the Force is.

Well,

It's a very nice shot, the quality is excellent, but I agree the gas mine doesn't work very well. As for Cloud City, it might be big but it still should come forward independent of the clouds behind it. As is it looks like clouds moving in front of a static backdrop.

TV's Frink said:

Damn, I thought he was just trolling me now ;-)

Mr Ghostface said:

TV's Frink said:

So you agree with Bingo then?

 

TV's Frink said:

So you agree with Bingo then?