NeverarGreat

Gorgeous!

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-Prequels-35mm-4K-Filmized-Editions-by-Emanswfan/topic/15033/page/1/

I don't know the status of this, but it seems to be the best bet for such a re-graining.

As for fixing episodes 1 and 2, I think that TPM could be vastly improved by changing Jar Jar's character through a new voiceover, making him possibly more of a wise jokester and someone who actually has good advice on occasion.

It would be interesting to start the edit on Tatooine, if only because that seems like the natural beginning of Anakin's story. I think there's a lot of potential in those scenes, especially in the podrace if it can be cut down and strengthened. Mostly wrapping up the story with the Tatooine scenes in Episode 2 may be a bit anticlimactic, but would at least bring the new edit full circle. Perhaps some expository flashback on Naboo at the beginning of Episode 1 before the Tatooine segments, then the marriage scene on Naboo ending the edit.

Anyway, just kicking around some ideas. Good luck with your edit!

Also, It might be interesting to see who's been here the longest. From the aforementioned thread, I see that at least three of the posters created accounts on March 10, 2003: Luke Skywalker, Bossk, and MeBeJedi. Did the site begin on that date?

Here's one from June 2004

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-The-Edits-and-DVDr-releases-thread/topic/801/page/1/

crampedmisfit1990 said:

mumbles_ said:

I think Jedi is pretty important to preserve considering how butchered the film was with all the special editions. It was my favourite of the three as a child but now I think I like them all just the same.

 I share this opinion, I do not like Jedi any less than New Hope or Empire. In some ways it is my favorite, in others it is not. I always feel like watching all 3 together and feel weird if I only watch one at a time.

I think it would be weirder for me to watch all 3 together. Sounds like a mess ;)

I also hope this thread...awakens, if you will. ;) But what should we talk about?

I saw this video recently, which offers a breakdown of JJ's visual style. It's pretty interesting, though perhaps less snark is in order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tx5z1kAFwQ

I totally agree that the Yoda reveal should be preserved in ESB. Directors should take a sort of Hippocratic oath when making prequels/sequels/spinoffs of movies, in that they vow to 'first do no harm' to the original story and characters.

FanFiltration said:

"Attack on Titan"

The best anime series I have seen in a very long time. This one will be a classic.

I can't wait for the second season. From the admittedly limited amount of anime series I have seen, this is my favorite.

Also, there's a live action movie in the works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InF16sp7J0M and it looks just terrible.

Movie trailers could be so much better.

For instance, in Star Wars, the opening crawl tells of the first victory by the Rebel Alliance, yet the film begins after this presumably exciting battle. What if the trailer for Star Wars was simply this battle, edited to around two minutes in length? The film would remain the same, except that it now has a cool deleted scene that adds to the story instead of ruining bits of it beforehand.

darklordoftech said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

those airtubes which don't seem to serve any purpose

TIE Fighter pilots in the OOT also have airtubes.

The difference being that those airtubes are connected to an airtight spacesuit instead of to...the side of his face? Does he have little auxiliary mouths on either side of his main mouth for air? Is he an aquatic creature with gills? It could work I guess, it just seems kind of awkward.

Turisu said:

Is anybody with the know-how interested in colour-correcting these? All that beautiful recovered detail with the awful GOUT colours seems like a crime.

Either Harmy's or TeamBlu's versions could be used as a reference as both have much improved colours.

Team Blu's '97 Special Edition preservation is also a good color source, and I would argue that it is the closest of the projects to the original coloration of the film from 77, albeit with somewhat muted colors. But pretty soon there may be a much more definitive color source in the screenshots Mike Verta is planning to release. So I'd say hold off on color correction for now, good things come to those who wait :)

No, it shouldn't be applied to the intro crawl, as it desaturates highly saturated yellows. This LUT will make most scenes better, but of course it will have issues with any scene that is supposed to have a magenta push, such as the Binary Sunset. The end credits also shift ever so slightly green. I'd disable it in those three areas, but other than that, it should be good to go.

The magenta push is gone, but the lights are still somewhat red. This is mostly fixed by correcting the luminance of the shot, which I have done separately throughout the film:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/133233

The boosted reds are also brought down somewhat, and the purple tint to the entire picture is brought to a warmer, more natural hue.

I'm correcting this film shot by shot, as there is sadly little consistency to the color problems. When I get to this one, I'll be reducing the saturation for sure.

If you're looking for a LUT to fix the Blu-ray (or the DVD for that matter) of Star Wars, here's one I just finished work on:

Torrential downpour with sudden onset of hail. Wouldn't be so bad, except I was driving through it. It's kind of surreal, getting hail in the middle of summer.

Very cool! Hope whoever wins it shares this with the community.

Just saw the preview. It's got a ways to go, but it looks like this will shape up to be a respectable release when all is said and done. So refreshing to see Star Wars from 35mm without the special edition changes!

Pulling up the shadows with Premiere Pro introduces a lot of ugly noise that's hanging out down there, so I've gotten the trial of AE to see if the noise reduction effect will work for the shadows, and it doesn't look very good. fine detail is obliterated with that effect. Perhaps some sort of Super resolution effect would work.

Purely hypothetically, if the original grain plate which was used for the Blu-ray was found, would it be possible to cancel out the grain?

Thanks! Yeah, the shadows are trouble. I experimented with pulling up the black level, but that caused more problems than it solved, and the convolution kernel idea simply increased blurriness. Despecialized 2.1 (the version I have for reference) seems to have gotten a bit more detail in the shadows than I've been able to do, how did you manage that? When I view the superblacks in speedgrade I see a bunch of information down there just like in the superwhites, but I'm at a loss as to how to bring this back up.

Thoughts?

Brooks said:

I just saw this thread today, I haven't had a chance to read the previous 30 pages yet.  Is this something that can be applied to still photos in photoshop?  I looked at your samples and I'm intrigued.  I have a ton of old negatives that I've scanned and I'm curious if this technique will work.  Keep up the great work!  -Brooks

As I understand it, this technique works by combining detail from surrounding frames, so no, not really.

Hello again after...(checks calendar)...7 months!

There's been progress, unfortunately not too much. I'm halfway through the film, but I'm continually learning and making improvements to my technique along the way. On that note, I have taken advantage of the 30 day trial of Adobe Speedgrade and made a LUT! It has about a dozen secondary color adjustments within it, fixing most of the global problems with the blu-ray in a single convenient package. I use the Luther.LUT with a curves adjustment before and after it in Premiere Pro. The first curves adjustment brings the highlights in the Superwhites down to legal levels, then the LUT is applied and then the final adjustment brings the highlights back up to proper levels. The good news is that there's more highlight information than I originally thought, and it's easily accessible with the curves adjustment. Here's the LUT file for those of you who want to experiment:

https://mega.nz/#!ndMg1Q4S!ro5BIbfxhJMyrjcMTGzHrD0ZYT8PmhvBlTPPJf-3XvQ

And some comparisons showing it in action with the curves adjustment:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130898/picture:0

One of the issues in the Blu-ray is that some of the mid-highlights are shifted green, whereas other areas in this region are shifted red. I've done my best to normalize these shifts which are clearly visible in the Tantive corridors. The oversaturated magentas are now within manageable levels, and the red lights in the last comparison which were blown out have been brought down a bit throughout the film.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130901/picture:0

Here you can see the color shifts in the highlights, specifically in the stormtrooper helmet vs body and in the lights beside the door, which have been normalized and brought back down to legal limits. In the next comparison, the blues which had been boosted in the Blu-ray have been brought back down, and finally the oversaturation in the greens of the final shot has been dealt with somewhat.

I'm definitely using this LUT going forward, and perhaps even going backward to apply it to some of the first reel.

So again, sorry about the apparent lack of progress, but there's a whole lot going on right now behind the scenes, mostly work correcting the HUNDREDS of places in the Blu-ray where colors are simply gone and I need to pull color information from other sources entirely.

The work continues!

Based on what I've seen, the Blu-ray is at least free from warping and has good aspect ratio. Compared to Team Blu's '97 edition, the blu-ray, and other 35mm frames (which pretty much agree with each other), the GOUT is the odd man out in terms of image warping, although it is a pretty good match in terms of cropping. It has a very unusual warping pattern that very tricky to reconcile with the blu-ray (believe me, I've tried), so you would need some advanced distortion controls to fix it. If that could be fixed however, that would make it the go-to version for me at least ;)

I wonder if it would be more productive to list the essential styles, techniques, genres, eras, and directors in film and then provide a list of films for each category that are considered the standouts in that category. That would allow people more freedom in choosing what they're interested in seeing.

Those latest images are really excellent. One thing I noticed though, particularly in the final two images, is that objects in motion tend to lose their detail, such as Luke's hair as it is moved by the wind, and some detail on the speeder in the last comparison.