NeverarGreat

Chewtobacca said:

I was thinking the same thing.  Recreating NeverarGreat's settings in Avisynth would take a long time, and I'm not even sure if it's possible.  The only current option is for someone with a fast computer to purchase Premiere Elements and apply the same settings.

I was thinking about this last night, and I realized that even if somebody else applied these seven video layers to the movie as a global change, shots like the Death Star explosion above would require massive deviation from the settings. The above correction pushed the settings to their limits, and though it was second nature for me to manipulate the settings, it would be a steep learning curve for anyone else to learn about my peculiar settings for a scene-by-scene correction. So perhaps it's time to scuttle this project and start a complete color correction. I would be dissatisfied with releasing any settings which didn't fix the binary sunset or the Death Star explosion, for example.

The Editdroid Facebook page has links to some videos I've never seen before, one about lightsaber tests, another one being an Episode 4 blooper reel. Cool stuff.

Well this is really unexpected...

My conversation idea was really just a random suggestion, but I didn't expect you to fully incorporate it into the story. I'd better be more careful about what I say, though the results were certainly explosive. Poor Boba, we hardly knew ye. He seems so expendable in this situation. I would have expected him to lie in wait for Vader like he waited for the Falcon to show itself, or for him to infiltrate the ship stealthily. I'd expect him to look out for number one.

But moving on, I based Leia's decision to use Boba against Vader on Bingowing's idea that Leia would turn to the Dark Side. If she is Luke's sister, that is. If not, she would be less dangerous, but she could still potentially be ruthless. In any case, she should be written to be much more assertive than in ROTJ.

I'm still kind of in shock that this part of the forum has seen so much activity. Other than sporadic posts by DuracellEnergizer, McFlabbergasty, and yours truly, this place is usually silent as a crypt. Nice to see dramatic progress!

Ah, I see.

Mike Verta has said that he is planning to post definitive screencaps of every shot in the film on his website, which he is updating as we speak. I have no idea when the screencaps will hit, but probably before the completion date in 2015. So I know that these sources will be available by then.

George? Are you gluing extra pages into the book? That's cheating. Class has begun, you've got to turn in what you have.

Chewtobacca said:

NeverarGreat said:  One reason that I've stuck with this method for so long is quite simply the lack of good sources for scenes.

I can help you with the scenes that were changed between 2004 and 2011, but not much else.

Do you mean they changed the color balance of the movie when they released the Blu-ray? I was only aware of the superficial changes such as R2 behind the rocks and the removal of the blue ring around the Death Star explosion, and was under the impression that the color remained unchanged from the DVD. Is this not the case?

@Msycamore:

You can get a lot out of shots if you don't mind doing them one at a time.

JEDIT: I'd say the journey from DVD to the correction below it took thirty minutes to do. Multiply that by the amount of shots in the movie (assuming good references) and that would be how long the correction takes, working from the global settings.

RETURN OF THE JEDIT: This is one thing that perplexes me about Despecialized. There are explosions in the Trench Run which require fairly little correction to look right, yet these are replaced with inferior GOUT upscales.

msycamore said:

NeverarGreat said:

 

There's still some blue remaining, but this is still much improved over the original.

Not to discourage you, but the above screenshots gives you an example of how much color information that was eaten up by the "Lowry restoration" in this sequence, the blue artifacting in the '04 transfer is one thing and these '97SE screenshots are too cyan/blue so they looks a bit off but you can clearly see how screwed up the "fire" in the picture was, the same thing can be seen on explosions in the trench run as well. Just thought I would point that out to you in case you had forgotten how it looked. Might be impossible to restore though.

Well again, this isn't a scene-by-scene correction. Though from what I've seen, there can be a lot more done with these shots than most people would think. It just requires a lot of time (in my case) to figure out how best to do it. I would not be surprised if the original colors of the 97 SE could be completely rescued, but it would require a shot-by-shot correction, and I'd want to use the blu-ray in that case so it wouldn't have to be redone in higher quality. All of this falls beyond the (albeit limited) scope of this project.

@Chewtobacca: I've actually wanted to do a scene-by-scene correction for a while, essentially an optimization of the existing settings whenever needed throughout the film, without re-rendering to preserve quality. This would require 1: The know-how to work with the Blu-ray (easily attainable) and 2: A reasonable quantity of definitive sources for every scene (less easily attainable). One reason that I've stuck with this method for so long is quite simply the lack of good sources for scenes.

Chewtobacca said:

You've more than made up for the long silence with your last post, NeverarGreat.  Your results are fantastic.  Can you do anything about the purple in Obi-Wan's hair?  I see it was present in the DVD.

That's a tricky question to answer.

The short of it is that the purple in the skin tones helps other aspects of the movie more than it hurts this one. For example, consider the following:

The second one down is what I've settled on, which has the same settings as every other scene in the movie. I don't believe for a second that the first or second examples are what this scene originally looked like. The reality is more like the GOUT, in my opinion. It just looks better. So I took the above correction and pulled up the blue and red just a bit in photoshop, something that took perhaps twenty seconds, and the result is much closer to the GOUT than months of tinkering on the movie-wide settings. So the movie obviously needs a scene by scene correction, and the global settings are really just to fix the most glaring systemic issues like the blue bleeds and pink flashes.

I'm liking this! The way that Jabba is handled completely off screen makes sense, and actually fits with the previous entries in the trilogy. Boba's personal code could be established earlier somehow, as his about face is somewhat jarring. Also, I see this kind of discussion between Leia and Boba:

"Boba Fett: I have a target for you."

"Who?"

"The man who hired you to hunt down the Falcon."

"Vader?  It's bad business to target Imperials."

"As a matter of fact, he has defected."

"Then how would you like him?"

Leia stares fiercely at the helmeted figure.

"Disintegrated."

"As you wish, your highness."

Something like that perhaps. I'm thinking that if Leia had access to a bounty hunter, she would want Vader destroyed at all costs because of what he did to her and her family, even if she hired him on the sly and used Alliance funds to do it.

These scenes are short, which is good, but in some cases they are too short to allow full comprehension of the scene. I'd like more about Vader's defection, for example.

Looking forward to what's ahead!

After agonizing over some of the Senator Technicolor reference photos, I decided to make a comparison of all the sources for the "Force" scene:

I'm guessing, based on this comparison, that the Despecialized color correction of the Blu-ray was based on a Technicolor print, probably from Mike Verta, for even a theatrical print (Team Negative1) has a reddish cast. Granted, this is prior to color correction, but it is very similar to the GOUT.

Basically, I'm not worried about trying to match the Senator Technicolor photos in this case.

Also, the video has been rendered, though there is a glitch and I will need to re-render at a later time. Render time is up to 25 hours, because of the 7 video layers involved. However, the rendered results are shown below:

The pink flashes have been all but eliminated, and the highlights restored. After re-rendering, I'll see about showing more high quality comparison video.

Apologies for the long silence guys, school and all that ;)

Harmy said:

NeverarGreat said:

I imagine that Harmy's watching this thinking:

"Hmm, higher quality Leia hologram."

Here we go again! ;)

Actually, what I was thinking watching this was: Cool, now everyone can see I wasn't making up the vertical scanlines :-)

Also, I used the NetVideoHunter plugin for Firefox and it downloaded fine :-)

Thanks, NetVideoHunter seems to work fine! Better than Video Download Helper in this case.

Mitch said:

I mean this look fabulous...... no way that is film! wow!! Amazing

Usually, 35mm films look better than this. Digital video is only now able to equal the quality of film, so I'm not sure what you expected it to look like.

team_negative1 said:

Here's another sample : 1 minute and 30 second.

It looks a little darker on the site, however, the resolution should be 1080p.

We are not sure what compression they are applying to the original clip though. =========================================================== http://www.veoh.com/watch/v62846381a9BFwPpN

Team Negative1

Just a heads up, if you try to download the video, the Veoh web player will try to unload a bunch of crapware on your computer during installation. I hate these deceptive programs. Is there any way to get the video without Veoh?

I imagine that Harmy's watching this thinking:

"Hmm, higher quality Leia hologram."

Here we go again! ;)

Eh, I thought for a while that Biggs said that Luke was the "best push pilot in the outer rim territories." Had no idea what that meant, and I didn't know the term "bush pilot" then.

One of the commentors on the Badassdigest article said that all of the executives want to be a part of Star Wars, and that is probably contributing to the uncertainty over the script. I'd like to think that this wasn't true, but it sounds plausible. It may just be such a massive psychological undertaking that nobody really wants to commit to a story for fear of it becoming like Episode 1.

As Alan Shepard said while the suits waffled: "Let's light this candle!"

Reegar said:

This reframes ROTJ in a sinister light across the board. The Emperor here would put Dumbledore or Jigsaw to shame. Some of the details of his master plan may be difficult to convey without exposition dumps in the story, but that might be compensated by the fact it's so fascinating. 

Much of what you have here seems to be in hindsight, though. It's revelations of past events. How will Luke, if he's the one to do it, arrange another assault on the Empire in the future? The Rebellion here sounds all but destroyed. We end up in much the same place as in the beginning of ANH, but with a cast of different faces perhaps, and the potential for another Force-sensitive.

I hope you can get around to writing this, even in prose. That'd be a huge task. I can understand if not. But it'd be nice to see you at least continue to develop the plot.

I've kind of taken a hiatus from Star Wars writing, but I may flesh out this idea in the future. So far this idea is my favorite for a post-ROTJ world, as it "fixes" ROTJ to be much darker as you said.

The opening crawl of Episode VII would be the most difficult aspect to get right, as it's basically a revelation on the magnitude of "I am your father". I'm thinking that it may have to be a bit longer than normal, and the music should change. Still brassy and bombastic, but with a heavy undercurrent of choir for the Emperor's triumphant theme. Here's a variation of the above crawl:

It is a time of galactic tyranny. The evil EMPEROR OF THE GALAXY, using a twisted clone decoy, lured a fledgling rebellion into attacking and destroying an Imperial superweapon at the moon of Endor.

This rebel victory was short lived, however, as Imperial forces regrouped, and the moon of Endor was soon pulverized under the firepower of the entire Imperial starfleet.

The rebel heroes Luke and Leia Skywalker, narrowly escaping the devastation, evaded the Imperial starfleet and escaped into exile, gathering new strength in the fight for justice and freedom among the darkening stars....

Who is this General Star who Wars against the Random Thoughts Thread?

I'm having some difficulty following who is talking. I originally thought that Luke was in a cave on Tatooine, mentally communing with Yoda, but the moss and the light years make it sound like he is back on Dagobah talking directly to Yoda. I assume that he is also hearing Vader's voice in his head while this is happening.

It's a good start, but would be easier to follow if we were told who was speaking.

Reegar said:

Is there anyone who would have at least a slight interest in reading a short story that acts as an "alternate universe" to ROTJ? 

Some proposals in this thread can string together for quite an entertaining tale. My word count goal would be 10 - 20,000. Nothing major. Everybody can walk away saving a lot of time if the story turns out less than exceptional.

I'd prefer to know before I start writing that a couple of people besides myself will read it. And maybe those people, if they are feeling gracious and in the mood, will write reviews. 

I'm always interested in reading other interpretations of the lesser Star Wars episodes, as they're usually more interesting than what happened in the movies. I'd recommend creating a thread in the scriptwriting forum and linking to that thread from this one, just to keep everything organized.

+1 reader.

I would like to issue a formal apology as to the contents of Imperialscum's mind.

I am on the panel that approves Imperialscum's thought processes, and we were unaware that the list of things he hates was so small. Accordingly, he is now experiencing an intense dislike of shuffleboard, 80's hairstyles, and and the sound of someone biting into a crisp apple. You may add these items to your list at your earliest convenience.

Signed,

Imperialscum's Personal Brain Care Specialist, PHD, PDH, NYPD, ETC

My beef with the new villain is that he doesn't look so much like a villain so much as the winner of a "Design a Sith" competition. A double bladed lightsaber was a cool novelty. In 1999.

As far as Luke and Leia being non-siblings, it's curious: What if someone wrote an "alternate" ROTJ fan script or even directed an animated film, and had Luke and Leia romantically paired together? Even if everything in the story was objectively excellent, I suspect the fact they're siblings is too ingrained in fans, and they'd never be able to accept romance between the two. 

 

Strangely, they may be more willing to go for a Jaime/Cersei type romance, if only because "Game of Thrones" is big right now. Check back in two years or so when it loses steam.

 

The book you're looking for is "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" The quasi-romance between them kind of works if you can remember that it was written before Jedi, but I couldn't keep from cringing.

Hindsight is always 20/20. So I would go back to the original script meetings and steer the conversation into a new direction. For example, they were discussing Had Abbadon for the setting of Jedi. The theme of the movie was to be a more primitive people overthrowing a technological regime, and Endor was a moon over Had Abbadon. I would have consolidated the final battle to simply be a group of enslaved aliens on Had Abbadon being feed by the Rebels, including Luke, Han, and Leia, and using their knowledge of the imperial complex to infiltrate it and take out the Emperor. Meanwhile, the Imperial fleet would engage the Rebel fleet over the planet. Luke and Vader would have a final confrontation in the presence of the Emperor, while the complex slowly destroyed itself from within. The outcome is largely the same, as in the completed movie, and there could even be a few Ewoks in the mix of freed alien slaves.