NeverarGreat

Whew, just marathoned season 3 (except for the finale of course), and I’m sure everyone’s dying to hear what I think.

(light spoilers follow)

The Bendu: Excellent addition to the show. I wouldn’t mind seeing him in Ep 8 or 9, considering where they seem to be taking the Jedi philosophy.

The Holocrons: Leaning even more heavily into the idea that the Sith and Jedi are two halves of a complete philosophy, I really appreciate this.

Maul: On the other hand, I still don’t know why we’re dealing with this guy. Color me entirely unimpressed, and yes, I include Twin Suns in this evaluation.

Thrawn: His voice is so subdued that it’s oddly grating, but I appreciate his addition since it brings some competence to an otherwise incompetent Empire. He feels wasted in most of the episodes, however, only really coming into his own in ‘Through Imperial Eyes’.

The Tactical Droid: I really liked the idea behind this character, but the execution left something to be desired. It felt too inconsequential. Nevertheless, this episode is head and shoulders above most Season 2 episodes.

Sabine (and Mandalorians in general): It’s difficult to make a warrior culture interesting, so I wouldn’t mind if I never heard about Mandalorians ever again.

Iron Squadron: A clever idea for a weapon. Won’t somebody think of the children?! Because I can’t summon the effort to care.

Fulcrum: I found myself enjoying this character immensely, a marked difference from earlier.

Ghosts of Geonosis: Saw’s character arc felt forced, clearly in an attempt to turn him into the man we see in Rogue One. Other than that, it was a fine two-parter. The circle within a circle was also a clever bait-and-switch.

Hondo: Oh how I despise thee. It’s a shame, since the show could really use some interesting non-military characters, but do they all have to be caricatures?

AP-5: ‘Double Agent Droid’ is probably my favorite episode so far. It is a perfect blend of humor and adventure, marred only slightly by the willful stupidity of the Ghost crew and the episode being several shots too long. AP-5’s spacewalk is hands-down my favorite sequence in this show. He also happens to be my favorite character of this show. If Rebels only focused on this droid duo, I’d be happy.

Twin Suns: After all the hype, this episode wound up being merely serviceable. If you take away the nostalgia surrounding the elements of the '77 film, you are left with an episode that twiddles its thumbs instead of providing a fulfilling confrontation between Maul and Ezra. In fact, Ezra seems almost perfunctory to the proceedings. I did appreciate the brevity of the final fight, however.

In summary: Despite all my criticism, I quite liked a lot about this season. It is more even in tone than previous seasons, with fewer obvious filler episodes. The lack of inquisitors is a marked improvement, and the replacement of Vader with Thrawn allows for more strategy and less lightsaber shenanigans, another improvement. In short, more good characters, less bad characters, and shaping up to be a better season than the first two.

DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

This is a very rough approximation, and is definitely not an accurate color reference, but the Mike Verta scans look something like this:

…whereas the print itself looks something like this:

On my main monitor the top image looks too red and the bottom image looks too blue, you can see it in the highlights on C3PO. There’s a very noticable difference in colour between those two frames, at least to my eyes. Both are oversaturated as well IMHO.

For those interested in comparing, here’s roughly that frame from the new Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.6 I just uploaded to tehparadox:

It will be interesting to compare your regrade (and others) to the calibrated frame scans, once I’ve digitized them. I have a number of frames of this exact shot. I will also be getting a number of shots of the entry to Mos Eisley scene next week. I’m very interested what that scene looks like. Particulary the color of R5-A2 (orange or yellow?). Once I’ve started the scanning process I will create a separate thread for color references.

I have around 100-200 Star Wars technicolor print frames as well from different parts of the film, I bought them from an ebayer a while back when I was researching the colours for the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.5, perhaps from the same person you did. They’re lovely to look at but as NeverarGreat said before, the colours can often be inconsistant from shot to shot, meaning every frame can’t be taken as exact colour references unless you plan to replicate those shot by shot colour inconsistancies. I have a feeling that every Star Wars technicolor print also looked a little different from each other colourwise as well.

I’m curious, are you planning to catalog these print scans just as a reference for everybody here to get a better feel for the colours of a Star Wars technicolor print or do you plan on creating a Star Wars release graded to a technicolor print similar to what NeverarGreat has been working on?

It is true that technicolor prints vary in color. However, the original grading itself also suffers from inconsistencies, as poita also noted in the past. I personally feel these need to be replicated for a print restoration project. Of course in color grading a semi-specialised edition the goals are somewhat different, and I would go with what’s aesthetically appealing. I plan to catalogue them as a reference for everybody, but I’m also working on another project, which involves golor grading a print scan. However, to know more about that I advice you to contact williarob.

If I was doing such a print restoration project I would choose the technicolor frame with the best colour that I had from a certain scene and regrade the whole scene to be consistant with that frame. I know that the original Star Wars prints were supposed to be notoriously inconsistant colourwise from shot to shot but I think people watching films now have certain expectations when it comes to consistant colours in a scene on home releases. It’s an option that I think you and williarob should consider.

In my view that would be going into special edition teritory. The color inconsistencies are part of the original viewing experience, just like matte lines, the orange blob, etc. So, for a print restoration I would not try to improve the original presentation. I believe, the goal of a print restoration should be to restore the print to it’s original state.

I thought so too for a long time, and graded the first half of the film to mirror the inconsistency. At some point I realized that the effect was too distracting and revised it to be consistent from scene to scene.

The problem with changing the color from shot to shot within a scene is that you’re no longer trying to sustain the illusion of a world within the film, but rather you are destroying the illusion of a world in order to create the illusion of a film. Yet the intent of the film is to create the illusion of a world, and the film was never intended to be inconsistent. Theoretically, each scene could have been consistent in terms of color, and this makes it different than matte lines, which couldn’t have been eliminated with 70’s technology.

Granted, my project is ‘the Special Edition in the best possible light’, so I have had to make peace with these sorts of interpretive changes.

I agree with you to a large extend, but when I look at the technicolor frames, I don’t see the level of inconsistency that would destroy the illusion of another world. I would agree with respect to the Mike Verta scans, which are all over the place, but the actual frames I have, don’t show this level of inconsistency. In fact I was surprised how balanced the frames look.

Fair enough, I look forward to seeing what you come up with 😃

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

This is a very rough approximation, and is definitely not an accurate color reference, but the Mike Verta scans look something like this:

…whereas the print itself looks something like this:

On my main monitor the top image looks too red and the bottom image looks too blue, you can see it in the highlights on C3PO. There’s a very noticable difference in colour between those two frames, at least to my eyes. Both are oversaturated as well IMHO.

For those interested in comparing, here’s roughly that frame from the new Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.6 I just uploaded to tehparadox:

It will be interesting to compare your regrade (and others) to the calibrated frame scans, once I’ve digitized them. I have a number of frames of this exact shot. I will also be getting a number of shots of the entry to Mos Eisley scene next week. I’m very interested what that scene looks like. Particulary the color of R5-A2 (orange or yellow?). Once I’ve started the scanning process I will create a separate thread for color references.

I have around 100-200 Star Wars technicolor print frames as well from different parts of the film, I bought them from an ebayer a while back when I was researching the colours for the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.5, perhaps from the same person you did. They’re lovely to look at but as NeverarGreat said before, the colours can often be inconsistant from shot to shot, meaning every frame can’t be taken as exact colour references unless you plan to replicate those shot by shot colour inconsistancies. I have a feeling that every Star Wars technicolor print also looked a little different from each other colourwise as well.

I’m curious, are you planning to catalog these print scans just as a reference for everybody here to get a better feel for the colours of a Star Wars technicolor print or do you plan on creating a Star Wars release graded to a technicolor print similar to what NeverarGreat has been working on?

It is true that technicolor prints vary in color. However, the original grading itself also suffers from inconsistencies, as poita also noted in the past. I personally feel these need to be replicated for a print restoration project. Of course in color grading a semi-specialised edition the goals are somewhat different, and I would go with what’s aesthetically appealing. I plan to catalogue them as a reference for everybody, but I’m also working on another project, which involves golor grading a print scan. However, to know more about that I advice you to contact williarob.

If I was doing such a print restoration project I would choose the technicolor frame with the best colour that I had from a certain scene and regrade the whole scene to be consistant with that frame. I know that the original Star Wars prints were supposed to be notoriously inconsistant colourwise from shot to shot but I think people watching films now have certain expectations when it comes to consistant colours in a scene on home releases. It’s an option that I think you and williarob should consider.

In my view that would be going into special edition teritory. The color inconsistencies are part of the original viewing experience, just like matte lines, the orange blob, etc. So, for a print restoration I would not try to improve the original presentation. I believe, the goal of a print restoration should be to restore the print to it’s original state.

I thought so too for a long time, and graded the first half of the film to mirror the inconsistency. At some point I realized that the effect was too distracting and revised it to be consistent from scene to scene.

The problem with changing the color from shot to shot within a scene is that you’re no longer trying to sustain the illusion of a world within the film, but rather you are destroying the illusion of a world in order to create the illusion of a film. Yet the intent of the film is to create the illusion of a world, and the film was never intended to be inconsistent. Theoretically, each scene could have been consistent in terms of color, and this makes it different than matte lines, which couldn’t have been eliminated with 70’s technology.

Granted, my project is ‘the Special Edition in the best possible light’, so I have had to make peace with these sorts of interpretive changes.

Then I’m content with the idea that a Jedi disappearing into the Force takes only those things that are part of their ‘self image’. In Obi-wan’s case, that includes his boots but excludes his lightsaber and cloak.

Jetrell Fo said:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/us/secret-court-says-fbi-aides-misled-judges-in-75-cases.html

It’s an older article but it checks out.

. * Checks date *
AUG. 23, 2002

You weren’t kidding.

Also: FTFY

SilverWook said:

The questions still stands then. Where did the boots go? 😉

Where did his undershirt go, and his leggings, and his belt? I think it’s fairly obvious, since we see him wearing his costume in ghost form, that he took everything except his lightsaber and cloak with him.

Now the question becomes: Where did Obi-wan and Yoda get their ghost form cloaks?

Handman said:

Wouldn’t these frames also look somewhat different when projected, accounting for the warmth of the bulb etc.? Can you really just look at the frames themselves?

There are conflicting reports on the temperatures of these lamps:

correlated color temperature of a white flame carbon arc lamp is 5800K

Xenon arc lamps are approximately 5400K

Which doesn’t make sense since Xenons are supposed to be bluer than the carbon arc lamps.

Here, David Mullen says this about it:
“They (Carbon Arc and Xenon projectors) should be similar (daylight-balanced, like around 5500K) but Xenons are slightly bluer I think. But since carbon arc projection is extremely rare these days, most people color-time for Xenon lamp projection. It’s a bit of an issue when projecting old Technicolor dye transfer prints with modern Xenon lamps since the print looks slightly cooler than it used to, since it was timed for carbon arc projection.”

Also mentioned somewhere is the fact that carbon arc light was notoriously inconsistent since the ends of the carbon would burn at a variable rate.

Here’s a source that gives strangely low numbers, but at least it shows that the carbon arc lamp is yellower: http://inspectapedia.com/electric/Bulb_Color_Temperatures.php
Projector bulbs, carbon arc (traditional movie) 3,900K
Xenon arclamps 4,100K
This image shows just how similar the lights are, if the 200K difference can be believed:

The difference is even less than the difference between two of those panels.

So to answer your question, it appears that you would need to adjust the color of technicolor film about 200K yellower to counteract the grading for carbon arc lamps.

Jetrell Fo said:

NeverarGreat said:

Jetrell Fo said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgXHklzuwGQ

Hannity interviews John Solomon and Sarah Carter. The Trump/Russia connection was not real. 3rd Party masking itself as Trump Tower Server pings Russian Bank from the United States. Russia ask U.S. Justice Department to investigate. Willing to hand over proof to U.S…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeIg4Ihd1Ns

Press Briefing … a must watch no matter which side you support.

Here are his tweets:

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!

I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

Clearly Trump thought that wiretapping meant phone surveillance since he accuses Obama of just that in his two later tweets. As such I can only assume that Sean Spicer is lying through his teeth when he tries to misconstrue the president’s statements.

This is all fine and dandy but Trump is not the only Government official to make this claim.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2017/03/14/former-dem-rep-comes-to-trumps-defense-on-wiretap-claim-obama-admin-did-the-same-thing-to-me-n2298681

Also, Trump comes from a different era, he is not as tech saavy as some seem to expect him to be.

I am not suggesting that the wiretapping did or did not happen, since there is no evidence to support it. I wouldn’t be surprised if his communications were recorded by the phone companies, and if he was suspected of acting as an agent to a foreign power then the government could easily have gotten a FISC warrant for those communications. His claim isn’t outlandish in that it is possible for such a wiretap to happen.

But he very clearly got the idea in his head because of news sources with no evidence of their own, and accused the previous president of personally ordering the wiretap while he was campaigning for the office. He then further said that Obama was either sick or a bad guy (it’s hard to keep a straight face while reproducing Trump’s childish name-calling). It is disturbing because it is very clearly a bit of early morning gossip-fueled paranoia broadcast to the entire world.

Jetrell Fo said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgXHklzuwGQ

Hannity interviews John Solomon and Sarah Carter. The Trump/Russia connection was not real. 3rd Party masking itself as Trump Tower Server pings Russian Bank from the United States. Russia ask U.S. Justice Department to investigate. Willing to hand over proof to U.S…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeIg4Ihd1Ns

Press Briefing … a must watch no matter which side you support.

Here are his tweets:

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!

I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

Clearly Trump thought that wiretapping meant phone surveillance since he accuses Obama of just that in his two later tweets. As such I can only assume that Sean Spicer is lying through his teeth when he tries to misconstrue the president’s statements.

SwissArmyTin said:

I wonder how long it would last if you gave it to Frink

I hear he will make OTforums great again, so why not?

SilverWook said:

Now that I think about it, where did Ben’s boots go when he vanished?

Now that I think about it, I haven’t ever noticed what Ben was wearing on his feet. Perhaps he was barefoot.

The difference between different shots of a Technicolor print can vary widely. Some are definitely too red, but some are also very yellow, and I expect that this would vary from print to print. Also, it does look like the overly red highlights are partly a contrast issue. small differences in the highlight color are magnified when the highlights are reduced.

It looks like I have quite a few frames from that seller as well, judging from the 5 frame cutting. They’re probably from the same reels. I don’t have any from the first 3 reels, but the preview images showed them to be very yellow, with red highlights. The Ben frames seem to indicate this, and poita’s scan of the burning homestead as well. It would be interesting to see these early frames in more detail.

Possessed said:

I thought firefly actually was highly regarded though? But I’ve not seen it

The term ‘shiny’ is bandied about on that show a lot, and is synonymous with the word ‘great’.

Trump, probably:

DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

Yeah, if Trump did leak this anodyne part of his return himself, then Maddow played right into his hand.

I mean, I don’t usually like to feed into the “mastermind Trump playing 4D chess manipulating and distracting people” narrative, but this really couldn’t have gone better for him. I don’t really think it’s what happened, but it’s certainly possible this is his admin’s doing.

I also dislike the mastermind hypothesis, since it sounds like I’m awarding him credit for being a Machiavellian snake. The trouble is that the media consistently falls for his tricks. He really is like a third-rate magician, telling everyone where to look, and the media goes along with it instead of looking where they are supposed to, which would be literally anywhere else.

The truly horrifying thing about Trump’s manipulation of the media is that it appears that the media hasn’t operated in a free market of information until recently. What I mean by that is that there has always been the veneer, and occasionally the substance, of real journalism in this country, where reputable news outlets simply wouldn’t publish the manipulative utterances of a career con-man. News outlets would police each other so as to maintain their veneers, while gossip magazines gladly filled the public’s need for sensationalist and misleading alternative facts without the public mistaking it for actual fact. The often unwritten rules of journalism have prevented such a situation as this…until now.

Now the media has been so thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the American people that the unwritten rules of journalism have been, by necessity, discarded in favor of a market approach to information, where there are no gatekeepers guarding the public from statements designed to override their rational minds.

Once Trump could no longer be ignored in the Republican primary, it became inconvenient for any media outlet to ignore his engineered statements, and once a single media outlet reproduced them, the more ‘respectable’ outlets were crowded out of the market. Trump’s statements were so calculated that the public literally couldn’t help but pay attention in the way that people can’t help but look at a wreck in the middle of the road. Some outlets tried to ‘ban’ Trump from their news because of this (such as The Young Turks), but they soon realized that Trump was now vital to their cash flow.

Trump has now revealed the face of a media that is fast becoming an unregulated market. Now, quality reporting is being hidden behind paywalls and buttressed by subscriptions, while the truly viral news is dangerously misleading, endlessly partisan, and sometimes downright fake (in the actual definition of the word).

Why this is all so horrifying is that such a system rewards people like Trump instead of punishing them with obscurity and ridicule. A truly free press, like a truly free market, is a market which is blind to such nebulous and high-minded ideals as ‘truth’ and ‘compassion’. If a buck can be made off of someone’s ignorance, that is a buck a free market will gladly extract. If a click can be earned off of a fake headline, then by thunder in a free press it will be.

Yeah, if Trump did leak this anodyne part of his return himself, then Maddow played right into his hand.

I notice that the phonebooth shot has more natural lighting in the 35mm frame from what I can tell. Arnold’s face is quite red in the shadows, his jacket is more uniformly gray, and the trees appear more green, at least from what I can tell.

Your examples don’t include any shots with a lot of red, such as Sarah’s reaction to the explosion or the time-traveling photo. Including these shots (or shots with flames) would be helpful in determining if the red/orange side of the spectrum is where it should be.

Handman said:

I started watching Return of the Jedi at about 6am, and its issues outweighed the good for the first time. Honestly, it gets worse each time I watch it.

I had this experience the last time I marathoned the trilogy. In isolation, I can appreciate the charm of Jedi, but as the capstone of the trilogy it really drags.

While trying to get to sleep in the living room one night, the red light in our tortoise house came on as it does periodically, and I got to thinking about the red of lightsabers. It seems to me that apart from being culturally associated with evil, a red light in the dark allows one to see without requiring one’s eyes to adjust to the light. This would be a noticeable advantage to a Sith Lord who operates primarily in the shadows. A bright blue blade on the other hand is a blinding light in the darkness. It would please me greatly if the reason for the red lightsaber really came down to such a practical consideration.

doubleofive said:

NeverarGreat said:

I can only speak for the things I’ve found, but this one’s definitely a Deliberate Creative Decision:

What’s happening here is that there is a noticeable increase in brightness between the first and final frames of this shot, as if someone thought ‘hey, the door is opening but it’s not getting bright enough inside’. The SSE shows no increased brightness.

Added

Anything else?

That’s all I know for sure that was intentionally changed. The removal of the single frame laser blast from the TIE cockpit might have been intentional, but I doubt it.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Urban legend?
http://www.throwcase.com/2014/12/21/that-five-monkeys-and-a-banana-story-is-rubbish/

That criticism of the original story doth protest too much, methinks, particularly with regards to how the original experiment has ‘nothing at all’ the same as the modern tale. In fact, the male monkeys, when placed with a naive newcomer, would actually use physical force to deter the newcomers from the unique object. Female monkeys would sit back and observe newcomers manipulating the object and allow themselves to unlearn their previous behavior.

So there is a seed of truth to the idea that a learned behavior can be transferred to others in this way. In fact, there is an example from my time in college that I find particularly enlightening of herd mentality: If just one student thinks that a classroom door is locked, they will wait outside of it and in many cases other students will gather with them in the shared assumption that the door is locked. This was particularly humorous when some students had already entered the classroom before the student thinking the door was locked, and particularly when class was about to begin and the teacher had to ask everyone what they were doing standing outside like a bunch of sheep.

JEDIT: I am also baffled by the debunker’s vitriol towards TED talks.

flametitan said:

NeverarGreat said:

See also: Luke’s clever use of foresight in knowing the outcome of a complex web of cause and effect in Jabba’s palace which culminated in an almost miraculous rescue of Han Solo with no Rebel casualties.

That just made me realize. Han chides Finn for not understanding how the Force works, when in reality, how many harebrained schemes do we see in the OT that seem to rely on sheer luck, i.e. using the Force?

Yet more vindication that Finn is the best character in TFA, in addition to being my personal favorite.

She was obviously wearing it underneath her combat uniform in case the need arose for a formal dinner. Since she was able to predict so precisely the type of dinner she was to attend, this is yet another piece of evidence in favor of her relation to a Force-sensitive bloodline. See also: Luke’s clever use of foresight in knowing the outcome of a complex web of cause and effect in Jabba’s palace which culminated in an almost miraculous rescue of Han Solo with no Rebel casualties.

TV’s Frink said:

I just watched Moana last night and it was pretty great…so, no.

Moana is the same on Blu-ray as I remember it being in the theater: wonderful.

Also, a random Star Wars pic: