Nerfherder

I wouldn't even bother frequenting blu-ray.com these days - what's the point? Life's too short! Let them believe what they will about Lucas and all his revisionist shite - we thankfully know better.

The Home Theatre Forum has a good discussion going on about the blurays at the moment. A nicely moderated forum where (for the most part - 'Fellowship of the Ring' green tint thread aside!) people generally make their points without crapping on anyone else. Some well balanced arguements on there and the mods don't delete you for having an opinion! Many posters are very knowledgable about film and film preservation on there - and therefore sympathetic to the notion that the original Star Wars films should be released - not to mention the added bonus that many industry insiders apparently read many of the threads to get feedback on their releases...

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/303111/star-wars-on-blu-ray-fall-2011

Let blu-ray.com disappear up it's own exhaust port I say ;)

Another HQ laserdisc project gone AWOL :/

Uhhh just about all of them since the films came out...

Apart from the, "you can type this shit George but you sure can't say it" comment, he's always gone on record as saying what fun they were to work on, plus the fact they combined real storytelling & characters you cared about with special effects. I always get the impression he was very pleased with the way the films turned out, although he was disappointed he didn't get to kill off Solo in Jedi. I never sense any embaressment from interviews with him about Star Wars over the years. I think he's proud of his part in them. Occasionally he gets a bit sarcy about them but that's Harrison isn't it, plus getting bored of the same questions being asked again and again over the past 30+ years.

Then again perhaps I'm just talking out my ass...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWTtMdXAazs&feature=player_embedded

;)

I think the most telling critique of the prequels is one I've not seen mentioned anywhere yet. None of the cast - to my knowledge, and SINCE the films came out - have been keen to mention much/anything about their involvement in the prequels. Hamill/Ford/Carrie all seem very enthusiastic when talking about the OT Star Wars films, but there's absolutely none of that enthusiasm from the prequel actors. I know Liam Neeson wasn't impressed with Episode 1, and I'm pretty sure Ewan McGregor went on record as saying, "they're not much good are they" or words to that effect. On the blurays there's no new/recent commentaries from the cast either, unlike the OT discs. What is there on the new discs is 'archival' comments, and probably made up of gushingly positive sound-bytes from when the movies came out and they had to be positive. Certainly there's NEVER been any sense of, "we knew we were going to be part of something big/special" on the rare occasions the PT cast talk about the films since.

I get the impression the PT cast have done their best to distance themselves from the films over the years. Speaks volumes I think ;)

- Nerf

Baronlando said:

A better look at what comicon was showing. (and some nice dinner theater awkwardness as a bonus!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofxcM6Cufw

Looking at that painfully am-dram laden clip, it's clear the blue glow is still there in the Death Star explosion - I cannot believe (actually, yes I can!) that Lucasfilm have been so lazy that that hasn't been fixed! It's been - what - 7 years since the 2004 DVD release?!

I really hope this half-assed release is universally panned - but it'll probably shoot to the top fo the best bluray seller lists in days :/

Does anyone here know anything about the ins and outs of Trades Description Acts? The Bluray advertising for this set clearly states, "own every moment". As the original versions of the original trilogy are not available, this advertising is clearly false...

Any grounds at all for legal action from any law-savvy Star Wars fans here?

Great work on the covers, though I think that fake leather look is a little dated now perhaps? As a possible alternative, I rather liked the navy blue background of this early release:

http://serialkillercalendar.com/VHSWASTELAND/HIGH-RES-VHS-COVERS/STAR-WARS.jpg

For the nostalgic amongst is, it would be nice to have an original trilogy set using this cover:

http://www.theforce.net/collecting/posters/trilogy/images/uk-30x40-trilogy.jpg

Just throwing some ideas out there :)

I think mine look a little better, to be honest. I don't think those mini-docs were on the SE LD sets though unfortunately. Just the main SE documentary, plus the trailers, and I think all those are going to be on the blu-ray anyways.

Harmy said:

Well, it sure would be nice to get some higher quality transfers. Especially for Jedi. I think someone said that those featurettes were the same on the Japanese 97LD as the US and European VHS. It would be cool to get transfers of those. Though they'd probably have burned in Japanese subs, which would of course suck.

I've got all the special features transferred from my NTSC 1997 SE set, if it's of use Harmy? Very good quality (used a Pioneer CLD-2950 LD player and a Panasonic stand-alone DVD recorder).

Cheers!

My heart just sank when I first saw it. It had been sneaked onto YouTube or something a few days before the official release, and I was hoping it was some fan pulling our legs.

It just makes no sense to me, because it is LUKE, and Luke only who is seeing these force images right? Nobody else in the celebration sees them... Presumably Luke had never seen Anakin in his younger guise. He views Ben as he did when he last saw him, ditto for Yoda too. So why does Anakin suddenly appear younger? I can (grits teeth!) sorta understand Lucas wanting to tie the trilogies together, but this was NOT done correctly or intelligently. Luke's vision of Anakin would have been as the man he last saw on the Death Star.

Second is the fact it was done 'on the cheap' by just quickly inserting Hayden's head over Shaw's body. Stunningly lazy work for one of THE iconic & important shots in the entire trilogy! I can just imagine Lucas sitting in a chair, surrounded by monitors, kicking back, sucking on another Cola and lazily just ordering one of his minions to replace Shaw's head "gee I bet the fan's will go crazy over this change - haha!".

ARGHHHHHHHH!

Meh.

Hi Harmy!

Finally finished downloading all the files today (took me a week and a half with our less than ideal ISP). It was well worth the wait - you've performed miracles in despecializing Empire, and I feel like for the first time in a VERY long while I'm able to watch an old friend again 99.9% how I remembered it. Prior to your work I relied on the GOUT upscaled, but now I'll be able to kiss that one goodbye.

THIS is THE Star Wars release of the year for me - September 12th has come early ;)

There were literally only a few instances where I can tell footage has been mixed, and even then it's purely because I've watched this film more times then I care to mention! I loved what you did with the Falcon cockpit in zooming the shot out again - flawless! It bought tears to my eyes to see the truly awful "alert my Star Destroyer" section excised and the original and perfectly paced & scored sequence restored to its former glory - great stuff!!! Lovely to see the lightsabers restored to their former glory too particularly in the dagobah cave sequence. Ditto the Hoth Wampa sequence which is now back to its original and scarier best!

My only slight criticism (hey there had to be one!) is that the colours - at least on my monitor - looked a bit too red in places. However using VLC and turning the saturation down by only a slight amount restored things to near-perfection.

Thank you so much for bringing back this film in such high quality Harmy - the work you've put into this is of a very high standard and one can tell it must have been hard work. It's very much appreciated by this fan and it'll be the version I watch either on my own or with others!

Needless to say I am eagerly following/looking forward to your Star Wars Despecialized edition.

- N

Harmy said:

OK, here goes, I darkened the technicolour picture to more reasonable levels (only brightness and contrast, nothing else) and tried to approximate the colours of that:

Looks really good, though there is JUST a hint of a yellowy-green creeping into things around his neck area, at least looking at it on my monitor. Looks like he had a heavy night on the moloko-plus the night before ;)

I'm no expert but I do like my film to look like film, and true to the original screening wherever possible.

From those shots I'd say you've comfortably nailed it, and then some - beautiful work! :)

Wow this is looking absolutely fantastic - the next best thing to having the OOT restored by the company who owns it and (you'd have hoped) would care about it too! I'm far more excited by these projects than the official blu-ray 'event'.

Due to our slow ISP I'm still downloading the depecialized AVCHD ESB file by file, and should finally have that finished in another day or so. Needless to say I can't wait to get my projector fired up and watch that :)

Thanks Harmy - and indeed to all others here - for spending so much time and effort in keeping the original version of this film alive.

- N

Now I've seen a higher res version of the OT cover I have to agree it looks awful - pity I thought it showed promise in the smaller pic. Yet another quickly photoshop'd cut and paste job (Jesus I am getting tired of cheap-ass looking bluray artwork these days!), instead of either using the original iconic film posters, or getting someone to do a decent painting for the cover.

Very cheap looking alas :(

Hahahaha! Nice! :)

adywan said:

From the official facebook page. The "conversation with the masters" promo. Notice anything? EPIC FAIL. An indication of how poor these sets are going to be ? ;)

Is this legit??!? Surely not with a typo like that???

zombie84 said:

2) Impressed that the classic docs are being put on here. Nothing new for us, but a lot of people haven't seen them. Unfortunately, they are 1970s and 1980s video masters, and not likely to look much better than what was on the LDs. Not much you can do about that. Maybe the footage will be good replacement candidates for the GOUT but I doubt it. Too bad the best one--SW to Jedi--is left out

The original making of docs were on 16mm film - probably too much to expect Lucasfilm (with their OT track record!) to transfer these from scratch, rather than take them from existing (if they still exist) telecines of them. Would be nice to see them in their best possible light however. If that was the case, AND they'd included From Star Wars to Jedi I would seriously consider pre-ordering the Saga set.

As it stands, I have to say I LOVE the artwork for the OT bluray set (hey, credit where credit is due and all that). Sort of retro and similar to some of the original concept artwork for Star Wars in feel. I would actually be happy to pre-order the OT set, IF all the video & audio problems have been sorted out finally, AND the deleted scenes disc includes the original bits chopped out or changed in the SEs...

I'm usually quite the pessimist, but I have the strangest feeling these scenes will be on the extras disc.....

Krakatoa said:

Site's actually up now.

 

"Share to Reveal"? Wakefield Track and Field?! To reveal more than 20 seconds of previously-released images in a low-res video?!

Ridiculous isnt it - all that countdown for a few seconds of an image, that you then have to share to see more. THAT was the big deal??! Lucasfilm and/or 20th Century should be ashamed of this media 'event'.

Very strange also that there's no new (not that I can see anyways) mega documentary on the films ala Empire of Dreams. Still early days yet and I guess we'll learn more about the set(s) once this damn website gets its act together...

I really just want to know if the colour timings have all been sorted out this time, and no pink sabres etc etc. and the sound has been properly remastered. And if the 4th disc of deleted scenes does include the pre-SE'd sections amongst other material. If it does I'll probably pull the trigger on the OT set. It would be nice to own the original Making Of's in HD but I've seen them MANY times before, and there's no way I want to pay extra AND have to get the prequals too just to get this bonus disc...

generalfrevious said:I hate to admit it, but even ANH and ESB were products to control you on a subconscious level and make money for LFL.

..........yah! Nice talking to you ;)

generalfrevious said:

They did this to make our lives miserable. This is what I have been saying about LFL for a time now; the manipulate our nostalgia for these films to sodomize us over and over again because we are the addicts and they are the dealers. There is an infinite demand and and an infinite supply: the suppliers can do whatever the hell they want with the fans because they cannot let go of SW. No one can. They always sink lower and lower and it will never stop.

I think some of us need to calm down a little...... "they did this to make our lives miserable" - Ridiculous comment!

No matter how much we want the originals, they ARE just films. Take a look on the front page of any news channel to see what really IS important, and the true suffering many people are going through......

No Star Wars to Jedi doc then? That's my fav one! Still seeing the original docs presumably in HD would be pretty awsome.

IFFFF the deleted scenes mentioned happen to be ALL the bits that were cut/altered for the SEs then I'll have to pre-order this. If not no sale I think!

Still no webpage here in the UK - pretty piss poor show I have to say!

No Star Wars to Jedi doc then? That's my fav one!

IFFFF the deleted scenes mentioned happen to be ALL the bits there were cut/altered for the SEs then I'll pre-order. If not no sale I think!

Still no webpage here in the UK - pretty piss poor show!

Harmy said:

PM sent :-)

Many thanks Harmy - much appreciated :)

May I receive this most excellent of links too please?

Party on!