NeverarGreat

I've edited the post, but it is difficult to see unless you're looking up at the monitor from a low angle, then you can tell that there's no information in the Blu-ray highlights. That's why I posted the histograms as well, as they are a better gauge of image information than the monitor.

JEDIT: Since this is on a new page, I'll put the question again:

Which version of the HD broadcast has the highest quality?

Here's an example of the differences between the HD broadcast and the Blu-ray:

1: Broadcast

2: Blu-ray

3: Combination

(Flip between the images to  better see the changes)

And here are the histograms with the Broadcast on the left, Blu-ray Center, Combination right:

There's been a lack of updates recently because I'm in the process of upgrading my computer and my editing program. I should be all set before the end of the month though, and the long haul through the movie can commence.

I was just reexamining Harmy's Despecialized edition however, and realized that his version had highlight detail that simply doesn't exist in the Blu-ray. Looking through my screenshots, I found that the HD broadcast actually has comparable highlight detail to that of the DVD, but with slightly higher quality. The broadcast does not however have as much shadow detail as the Blu-ray. So it seems that I will need both the Blu-ray and the HD broadcast in order to save as much detail as possible.

Does anyone know what the best source for this broadcast is? I used to have the Wookiegroomer Presents version, but I deleted it some time ago. Is this the best version?

When I first watched this I was totally lost when the Shatner bit came on, probably because I don't know what it's from (Airplane 2, I now know), but you could smooth the transition by showing Kramer on the "computer screen" right before Shatner comes on, as if the officer was just receiving a transmission, some line like "...you'll work the relay" (taken from the control room scene of Airplane!), as if he's relaying orders to subordinates.

SilverWook said:

NeverarGreat said:

Getting a lot better! I'd vote for less Airplane! material, and it would be neat if you could find a way to sort out where Shatner's crew is as opposed to the Airplane control tower crew. Since it's night in the Airplane sequence, I'd vote for having Shatner be in the destroyed tower (cut the line about only having a bridge) and having the Airplane flight controllers be somewhere else (no guy jumping out of the window). Both crews are funny on their own, but it's like they're both hanging out in the same place, which is so confusing that it kills the humor for me in places.

 If you look carefully at the tower, the windows are dark. They obviously have the solar shields deployed. That's why it looks dark outside. ;)

Shatner is clearly broadcasting from the basement of the tower.

 Then perhaps there could be a pan down the tower when Shatner's part arrives, I don't know. Here's a frame cobbled together from several shots of the tower as there's no good shot of it un-destroyed, which you can use to show where the action is taking place:

Some dialogue between the teams in the tower would be funny, as they realize that neither of them are alone.

JEDIT: ^I see you already tried that.

JEDIT 2: How do you insert an image that expands to its full resolution when "view image" is selected?

Getting a lot better! I'd vote for less Airplane! material, and it would be neat if you could find a way to sort out where Shatner's crew is as opposed to the Airplane control tower crew. Since it's night in the Airplane sequence, I'd vote for having Shatner be in the destroyed tower (cut the line about only having a bridge) and having the Airplane flight controllers be somewhere else (no guy jumping out of the window). Both crews are funny on their own, but it's like they're both hanging out in the same place, which is so confusing that it kills the humor for me in places.

Couldn't help it.

Bleeped Empire

I'm so ashamed.

Erikstormtrooper said:

I just had a weird thought (a tad off topic) while thinking about the parallels between Episode I and SW (Ep IV).

Amidala is the MacGuffin of Episode I. She is the Death Star plans.

 But she's clearly never going to sign it, so when the data's analyzed a weakness will not be found. :)

Bingowings said:

Harmy said:

I don't know, I never expected the prequels to be about anything else but it didn't need to be the sole focus - it may have been better as Obi-Wan's story, with the fall of Anakin as just a smaller part of that story.

It seems daft to me to make any of the OT characters the main focus for the PT.

Not only do we already know their fate (thus making the story redundant) it also adds nothing new of real value.

It would have made more sense to invent brand new characters have them the main focus and have the known story happen in the background with a few twists.

 But that's the thing. With 20/20 hindsight we can say that focusing on known characters was a mistake, but as Harmy says, it was expected that the story was going to be about Obi-wan and Anakin. That's the risk that you take when building backstory for characters that have been ingrained in the public consciousness for twenty years. You're not going to please everyone.

@Bingowings: I don't think Luke's "I'm never coming back" line should be twisted to be ironic. He's simply never intending to return as he has no reason to. If later he has a reason, he will come back. The problem with returning to Tatooine for me is that it limits creative decisions for ROTJ.

@darth_ender: I could buy the idea that Tatooine had some sort of business which was encouraged by the Republic, which was then forgotten by the Empire and led to the nothing planet of the OT. But if we're comparing PT to OT, perhaps we should actually look at Tatooine as it appears in the original 77 film instead of the "sunny blue sky Tatooine" blu-ray. Tatooine originally was intended to be unpleasant in every way, and not just to Luke. I don't think there was any intent to have Tatooine be anything other than a frontier town until George got rose colored glasses for his revisions. It's just that the movie is rather inconsistent in terms of its universe, leading for example to an Imperial officer telling Tarkin that a ship "blasted its way out of Mos Eisley", as if Tarkin would be familiar with a little nothing village on Tatooine of all places. If the movie were more consistent, the officer would probably say that the ship blasted its way off Tatooine.

I'm saying that if JJ fails to make a good Star Wars movie, and the next guy fails as well, people may come to see the property as "cursed" or simply think that the balance that was struck in the OT is trickier to get right than is assumed. None of us (as far as I am aware of) has ever made a Star Wars movie, so it seems kind of presumptuous to say "I could make a better movie than that!" Maybe, but then again perhaps the prequels could never have been great despite what we imagine, and people may simply accept that after every new movie is a letdown.

Of course Episode 7 will probably be a worthy contender with the OT and in that case I will happily stand corrected.

The most interesting thing about these sequels for me will probably be years after they are released, and people are evaluating the George Lucas Star Wars versus the Lucas-less Star Wars. It will be interesting to see whether people look at the prequels with a more forgiving eye based on what JJ did to the franchise, or if they will wish JJ had done the prequels. In short, how easy will it be to capture the fun adventure spirit of Star Wars? I have no idea, and that's pretty exciting in any case.

As is usually the case with these things, Tatooine was going downhill when Lucas decided to put Jabba's palace there, instead of on an interesting or exotic planet like a rich gangster would want. That always bugged me. Why not have our heroes go to some surreal underwater fortress that was actually dangerous and difficult to escape from, instead of a place that Luke and the droids simply walk into without any trouble?

As for the idea that Tatooine was turned into a dump when the Empire took control, it doesn't square with what we know. I could buy that there used to be more going on there twenty or thirty years ago, as evidenced by all of the derelict equipment just sitting there in the desert waiting to be picked up by Jawas, but none of those trashed droids were in service in the prequels, so it's anyone's guess how they wound up in the desert.

It's looking much better, but the green is still getting blown out leading to a loss of highlight detail.

I really can't tell which of the three is better, I think there's much greater difference in skin tones between the Tauntan Luke and the convalescing Luke than there is between the comparison images below.

The infirmary is looking very natural in either case, excellent balance I'd say.

JEDIT: It looks very much like the deleted scene:

Be careful with clipping your colors kk, the blue levels are fine but the red and green are both too high. Here's a comparison based on one of your previous screenshots:

The top one is your screen, the middle is the DVD, lower is my guesstimate based on some production stills culled from the web (shown on right). But other than keeping an eye on the histogram levels, I'd say aim for keeping the whites (such as snow and highlights) at a neutral white.

The music really adds life to the beginning of the race, good work!

I've always wanted to see that race with just a single circuit. It would have music in the beginning, but actually disappearing towards the end, because in the final stretch the podracers increase in speed and everything gets faster and more intense (reference intended ;)) It tends to bother me that in movies when someone is driving a car they will turn their head for five seconds at a time to look at another person instead of concentrating on the road. There should be none of this in the race (such as when Anakin has engine trouble) as they're supposed to be going hundreds of miles an hour. Also, it would seem like Anakin's pod would be more fragile than the others, so it's totally unbelievable when the two are hooked together at the end. It could perhaps be recut to look like Anakin skillfully clipped Sebulba's pod with his own, neatly severing a coupling and paying back the Dug's sabotage.

Just some thoughts, probably useless as this is already a done deal. Eh.

Watching old Flash Gordon episodes and found this fun little reference:

It has the same sound effect and everything! Nice one George.

I believe this is the link you're looking for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBM7i84BThE

As far as being the original mashup anyway, the other version intercuts some Clone Wars stuff I think...

Bingowings said:

For me Star Trek (2009) is practically identical to Star Trek into Darkness and not that different from Star Trek : Nemesis or Enterprise.

For me Prometheus is almost exactly the same film as Alien Vs Predator (2004).

And yet critically and in terms of popular opinion the reaction is wildly different.

My only conclusion is that trends are not set by quality but by some market led opinion swing. I highly expect the Star Wars sequels will be as bad as ROTS but as popular as Skyfall, just because the markets have decided Star Wars is to rise again.

Watch this space.

While Star Trek '09 has a similar conflict to Into Darkness (stop the evil baddie who has it out for the Federation) you are right that the reaction is very different because of expectation. This is very important. If The Empire Strikes Back told the same story as Star Wars, I believe that Star Wars would never have become a multi-generational phenomenon. Empire needed a darker tone that took risks with the material and actually advanced the story of the original instead of repeating it. Because of this Empire earned its place alongside Star Wars. Into Darkness is very similar to Star Trek, except that it doesn't introduce the crew, establish the universe, or explain the backstory of any important character, things which the original was required to do. So Into Darkness is a movie without a Prime Directive, coasting along on name recognition while systematically making nonsense of things which held the franchise together for almost fifty years.

kk650 said:

NeverarGreat said:

kk650 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I'm aware that is how light works.

Ouch.

haha it wasn't my intention to be catty there, I remember reading somewhere that the cinematographer is usually the best paid job on a set, even above the director, because it requires the most qualifications, painting with light and all that. I'm just an amateur, my profesion has nothing to do with grading or cinematography or filmmaking at all so there's a hell of a lot I don't know about light, that comment was simply acknowledging that, so any sarcastic tone was completely unintentional.

I got yer meaning, I should have put a ;) after the ouch.

:)

I'm an amateur also and I really doubt that anyone who knew what they were getting into would actually mess with this film. That's probably why poita is commenting on everyone else's stuff instead of doing his own correction. Too wise for that and so forth.

I think the more someone knows this film the more they see wrong with it. I thought the control room scene was going to be easy until I started working on it, then I realized that almost every shot needed some form of correction past the blanket scene correction.

Tantive scene looking good btw!

kk650 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I'm aware that is how light works.

Ouch.

In my experience white light sources are a far more reliable way to get the correct white balance of a film than clothes.

 That may be true for most films, but as we know, Star Wars is special. For example, take a look at this shot:

It has white lights that are entirely white (255 across the board), and the clothes are quite different than your later shot, which also has completely white lights. In many cases, I expect that the brightest values have been clipped, so it's anyone's guess what color things should be. If you're going for a global fix there's only so much you can do to fix things, and you're practically guaranteed to make some other things worse in the process. Good luck to you, but I would warn against examining the movie too much if you're not planning a shot-by-shot correction, or it will suck you in as it did me. ;)

R2 rarely looks as blue in reality as he is in the blu-ray, so I'd say reducing it is better.

On a different note, the thing about the blu-ray that most stands out for me is how everything which is supposed to be white has been pulled down into a greenish or bluish murk. See Luke and Leia on the Death Star shot you posted. Leia's dress is supposed to be a cream color, and Luke's shirt has very little green in it, however in most of the blu-ray their clothes look green. On the R2 shot you posted, I always check the white background at the edge of the frame, but here again it's green. This shift makes C-3PO look too green as well.

My method for correcting this persistent green shift in the mid-highlights has been to isolate four or five levels of luminance throughout the movie (deep shadows, shadows, midtones, mid-highlights, highlights) and add blue and red to the mid-highlights, and then adjust the brightest highlights to keep them neutral in terms of color cast.

Now that I think about it, the only one that really dragged was the lightsaber fight at the end. I was expecting Yoda to be sped up like 500%. Sad that it was pretty much just video game music on top of it. Not a lot that can be done with that stuff, probably. On the other hand, Padme's "I'm a senator" had me rolling every time.

Here's the guy's page:

http://skullboy2772.tumblr.com/post/67311967988

Some pretty good compositions there.

Well here's an interesting thing...

Coincidence?! I think not!

Or yeah, maybe.