NeverarGreat

I had a dream that we were watching The Last Jedi, and it was a horrible, boring mess. I couldn’t even pay attention to the movie and kept zoning out until a part set on Skellig Michael. There were AT-ATs walking around a stone temple in a cave on the island, and they had to walk around big stone letters that spelled out THE LAST JEDI in English. Then it cut to an alien world where an ‘adorable’ CGI creature hopped around and talked about random rubbish to a 3-inch tall Finn. Then there was something about the lava villain from Moana chasing us around a port town, and then I woke up.

I dunno, you seem to also be able to read and write, something that most people throughout history were unable to achieve.

I’ve been able to find the widescreen VHS and the accompanying filmstrip. The only thing on hand to scan this is this film converter: https://www.amazon.com/Wolverine-Mighty-Digital-Converter-Bundle/dp/B00YB15SS8/ref=pd_day0_421_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00YB15SS8&pd_rd_r=SBK5CEN7W115QY6QKTTC&pd_rd_w=5n2As&pd_rd_wg=QPl0f&psc=1&refRID=SBK5CEN7W115QY6QKTTC

So it’s not ideal, but let’s see what it can do:

Not bad, but just in case I made two extra scans at either end of the exposure curve:


For comparison, here’s what the Blu-ray looks like:

CatBus said:

I’m saying that Trump’s allies control the House and the Senate, and they have already bent over backward to avoid investigating this matter, so it’s abundantly clear what they’d do if he fired Mueller (same thing as when he fired Comey–either nothing at all, talk about how Mueller was a liberal partisan hack, or the McCain Special*). The courts have no legal authority to investigate, prosecute, or remove a President, so it doesn’t matter where they stand.

* Talk about what a sad, bad, terrible thing this is. Outrageous, unwarranted, and unprecedented. And then do nothing.

I agree with you, just making a Star Wars reference.

Warbler said:

CatBus said:

Warbler said:

TV’s Frink said:

So WaPo is reporting that Trump is under investigation by Mueller for possible obstruction of justice, and there’s also a report that Trump floated the idea of firing Mueller publicly in order to influence Mueller to go easy on the investigation.

Amazing.

I hope he does fire Mueller it will add ammunition to the case.

More to the case, yes… but with nobody left to prosecute it.

I think a lot of people underestimate how lucky we are to have a Special Prosecutor in the first place. If the stars hadn’t aligned just right, the only things checking the power of this menace would have been the House, the Senate, and the courts. And while the courts are doing an admirable job going it alone on the whole checks and balances business, there are some things they simply lack the legal authority to do.

There’s this school of thought that if Trump indirectly fires Mueller by cycling through justice department heads just like Nixon did (he can’t fire him directly), that this will lead to widespread outrage, and that this outrage will lead to Trump’s goose finally being cooked. But what’s missing from this theory is the legal mechanism and authority that would cause Trump’s downfall. Courts can’t do it. House and Senate won’t do it. 25th amendment? Pfft, Trump’s own hand-picked cabinet of sycophants won’t do it. Voters? Show me how any amount of voter outrage can work against this map to do anything but give Trump an even friendlier Senate than he already has, and don’t even talk about House maps. Where’s the realistic path? Are we counting on military coups now? [Different, friendly] foreign interventions? Alien abductions?

Mueller is all we have. Please don’t wish for him to be fired just so you can feel the rush of righteous indignation, because it would only be followed by the utter incredulity of watching nobody doing anything about it.

Nixon did it and there was still a mechanism that eventually led to his downfall.

Yeah, but it took a Democratic majority.

Are you saying that Trump has control of the courts and the Senate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXlao2KNYjQ
Tommy Wiseau and Star Wars? Yes please.

Wish I could do more than crummy mockups but I’m away from the data tapes for a few days.

The audio needs to be shifted forward almost a full second to work in this case.

SilverWook said:

The Rogue One thread is that a way. 😉

All these threads blend together after a while.

Not sure why the Death Star should have remained off screen. It’s pretty relevant to the story, and it’s a part of ANH from the opening crawl. If anything, the Death Star in RO was a necessity so that it could have a grand introduction.

Tarkin, however, should have been relegated to cameo status, with Vader as a feared agent of the Empire who will just as soon kill rebel spies as interrogate them. What a cool movie it would have been if the Rebellion’s informants keep disappearing to this shadowy agent of evil, constantly threatening the mission as they barely keep a step ahead.

Ever since I was a wee lad I wanted to see every Robin Hood movie ever made. It’s not a burning desire so much as a sustained curiosity. According to Wikipedia, there are a whole lot of them to see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_and_television_series_featuring_Robin_Hood

However, I’ve limited myself to only Robin Hood movies released in theaters. From that list I own the following, annotated with their best quality:
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) - The best Robin Hood, period.
The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952) - The best Maid Marion.
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) - The best outlaw hideout.
Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) - The best Errol Flynn since the original.
Robin Hood (2010) - The best rendition of a realistic England.

Furthermore, I have seen and wish to own:
Walt Disney’s Robin Hood (1973) - The best Prince John, Friar Tuck.
Robin and Marian (1976) - The best old man Robin (sorry, Russel Crowe).

This leaves me with quite a few movies yet to see, mostly from the 20’s-60’s era. Does anyone have a recommendation of a version of the tale (TV or film) that I simply must see?

nightstalkerpoet said:

Lady (I’m sure there’s got to be one) and Gentlemen, we’re officially getting Christmas in July!

Has anyone told you that you could have a successful career in PR?

NeverarBot confirmed.

TV’s Frink said:

Sounds like the guy who tried to shoot up the GOP baseball team was a liberal nutjob.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/virginia-shooting-suspect-james-hodgkinson.html?_r=0

This sucks. I hope everyone makes a full recovery.

Also, Mr Hodgkinson, thanks for giving the Republicans years of ammunition with which to pillory Democrats.

The biggest challenge is just keeping the tones consistent across the entire film, while at the same time avoiding the ‘samey’ look of an overagressive blanket color grade. It’s a fine line, and from the example frames above it looks like this monotone look could be a problem when using this software. With the 3 frames that Dre chose, you can see the variation in the skin tones from location to location. Yet with the two examples, the color of Obi-wan’s face looks the same in the desert as it does in the Death Star.

I think the Black Leader line makes sense in the context of the scene. After all, Ackbar didn’t mention how the Oscillator was damaged.

As for the new implementation, it still feels like Ackbar isn’t talking with the X-wings. In my version I had reversed the shot so that Ackbar looked from Taslin Brance to the viewer as if addressing someone else, and I think that works better. It also needs something by way of introduction. I used a line from ROTJ, but surely there’s something that will work better.

Sir Ridley said:

Glad to see everyone’s busy with interesting ideas! I’m currently trying to finish the Maz’s Castle sequence with a surround mix.

How’s the timecode removal going? I only ask because the deleted scene is the last major thing I need to do right now.

Either scene alone would be sufficient for proving the Oscillator operational, but each has additional benefits. The Snoke scene allows for the Ileenium system as the new target, so it would allow for Hux’s ‘prepare to fire’ line to be included. The Snoke scene also solves the ‘new star’ problem by implying that the planet has enough juice for another shot, something that the Ackbar line doesn’t imply.

On the other hand, the Ackbar scene nixes the argument that the X-wing attack is now just an act of vengeance, especially if it is coupled with the Snoke scene.

Looking forward to it!

Alternate take on Snoke and friends:
https://vimeo.com/221526067
Password: hux

‘My work here is done’ now has a new meaning 😉

An excellent start in any case. It will be interesting to see how it behaves with more material, especially since it will have to interpret skin tones seen under a variety of locations and lighting conditions. Heck, even I have trouble with that.

Most of the sounds in my renders are just the isolated center channel of the 5.1 mix, and shouldn’t be used for the final mix. I’m still trying to get a handle on 5.1 editing, but it doesn’t play well with my projects since they were initiated in stereo. Unfortunately, for right now these renders are ‘some assembly required’.

However, I’ve re-encoded ‘Leia and the Starkiller’ as well as ‘Starless Starkiller’ since I updated the effects somewhat. Leia and the Starkiller will have all 4 stereo tracks encoded separately so that the music and some of the sound can be used. For most of the sound however, it’s best to go back to the source.

Here they are:
Starless Starkiller 3:
https://mega.nz/#!mIsxlToJ!x-vHaj99-HgCSdBbdEWxVz_PCla1_wSfU4mJz64e5MM
Leia and the Starkiller 14:
https://mega.nz/#!zIsjVSAR!gbqadYAasxlud1sYA3UjUAw2mCtVKe2_YQjLNh5f2XU
Track 1:
https://mega.nz/#!CMlWTBCK!DeTL3B8UPOoZbs_Qptf9k_FLe7pRYG13AxXDzRm4F0w
Track 2:
https://mega.nz/#!CE0kxTKa!PTWbdzmVLnnrQxxIDd_NjA7rt5Ho3l_1b4pMJerrln4
Track 3:
https://mega.nz/#!rYcDABRK!VPRzvqpOtcXDS_2BiDH4NAe3UAT2-F_zLPgHTtUoCic
Track 4 (just the ‘fire’ dialogue):
https://mega.nz/#!7VsDRLbB!p43yx2rMx_VwsZ4gp0o4vUuSpHrVgzA3B7Xq_IYTMz4

canofhumdingers said:

Possessed said:

I don’t think that they are even very bad. They just aren’t… Good. Sure some of the dialogue is awful, but there’s worse. It’s bad enough to keep them from being good, but not so bad that it makes them terrible. They are terrible if compared to esb, but that’s not saying much not many movies can survive that comparison.

I’ll bite…

I’d argue there are MANY films as good or better than ESB. And I say that as someone who for a very long time held ESB as far and away my favorite film ever (some other films have caught up with it in my favoritism but it’s still easily in my top 5 or better). But there’s a reason it’s rarely included on lists like the AFI’s top 100.

Second, the prequels are BAD movies. On so many levels that I can’t begin to understand people who try to argue they’re not. It doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person or stupid or any awful thing like that for liking them. I love lots of bad movies. I have a real soft spot for 50’s B movies and I unabashedly love Godzilla and other giant monster movies. But I can acknoweledge that many, even most, of those movies are bad movies by any reasonable criteria. I can understand why people criticize them or don’t find them enjoyable. Doesn’t stop me from loving them inspite (or often because) or their badness. But I’d never try to argue Plan 9 From Outer Space is some brilliant piece of high art with numerous layers or depth and meaning. THAT would be preposterously silly. Just like that ring theory nonsense…

I am one of those people who will defend the ring theory as possibly not nonsense, for the simple reason that forcing a trilogy to conform to an antiquated storytelling form is precisely the sort of thing that George would do. The ring theory doesn’t make the prequels any better as movies per say, it merely provides a method of interpreting the creative decisions that went into those trainwrecks. Anyone who puts a Yin Yang into a cloudbank is clearly trying to say something deeper than 'there were these Clone Wars, see…'

All that said, the fascinating thing about the ring theory subtext is how this deeper understanding is entirely undercut by the lack of competence on display in the text of the film, so it’s almost impossible to genuinely appreciate this subtext. And it is fascinating, because I don’t know of another series of films that achieves this balance of textual incompetence and subtextual thoughtfulness. Most other films that try this just come across as pretentious.

Nope. It could well be Hux, though Hux doesn’t usually wear a hat.

It’s only slightly weird that in this version we don’t see him order the execution of his life’s work.

Alternatively, instead of an entire Snoke scene late in the film, the V1 dogfight could remain in place but with the Ackbar dialogue as if on the radio:
https://vimeo.com/221369138
Password: craft

Very rough, but you get the idea.

Then I’m happy to leave the firing as is. 😃

The contrast looks great on my calibrated monitor. I wouldn’t say the highlights are blinding. If you want to see that, just check out the Matrix 35mm scan. 😉

I agree. It’s a very human perspective on the whole thing.

Now to change it:
https://vimeo.com/221360199
Password: leia

This reverses the control room shot and adds the ‘fire’ line. I don’t know if the reversal helps the scene, but again, I do like the ‘fire’.

Also included is a mockup of what DominicCobb’s ‘second firing’ idea could look like in action, which feels somewhat necessary to establish the operational status of the Oscillator. I think Snoke should have a congratulatory line for Hux, but the most I could find was ‘It is time’. It’s not ideal, since it’s repeated soon after. The music needs some work as well. Perhaps something more percussive like the first few seconds of the scene but throughout.

This scene would allow the X-wing attack to happen as it does in the original, sans the two reaction shots used in the Starkiller Firing.

So what do you guys think? Does this have potential?