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Nilbog

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Join date
14-Oct-2020
Last activity
20-Dec-2023
Posts
49

Post History

Post
#1502255
Topic
Anyone else think Empire Strikes Back's Special Edition is actually better than the Theatrical Cut?
Time

I prefer the original version, but I wouldn’t fault someone for liking the 97 version more. At the least, I agree the 97 version is the best SE version of any Star Wars movie from 97 onward.

As previously mentioned, the main improvement is the expansion of Cloud City. I like the extra Boba Fett footage. Such a minor detail but I like Vader going “oooomph!” when he falls off the ledge instead of “argh”.

Post
#1502221
Topic
If you had to make at least one SE change
Time

If you had to make a change to at least one movie in the OT, what would you edit? This is purely a hypothetical and intended as nothing more than a fun brain exercise.

** Reversing an existing change doesn’t count, but you can modify it.**

If I had to choose one, for the SE Jabba scene in A New Hope, instead of Han stepping on his tail, the scene should cut away to a zoom in of Chewie or another bounty hunter.

5 year old me would remove the mynock jump-scare in ESB. It took me longer than I care to admit to rewatch it.

Post
#1462107
Topic
Return of the Jedi joins the National Film Registry
Time

Return of the Jedi was inducted today in the National Film Registry, completing the induction of all three movies of the Original Trilogy.

(https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-21-078/)

What does this actually mean? To my understanding, the Library of Congress already has a copyright deposit print that’s most likely in rough shape and nowhere near as good as the print for 4K83.

At least the US Government now has a mandate to keep a copy of the theatrical cut in their protected archives so the original version never becomes a ‘lost film’.

Post
#1455068
Topic
What will be the next physical home media release of the Original Trilogy?
Time

The obvious answer for a physical re-release of Episodes IV-VI is 2027 for the 50th anniversary of Star Wars.
I wouldn’t bet substantial money on the unaltered cuts being included, but it’s the most likely scenario in the near future they’d be released.

This will be a massive box set of all Star Wars movies and spin offs; possibly including some television shows. The Holiday Special is a given to be excluded.

In terms of 8K resolution, I only have lay knowledge but my understanding is 35mm film is native 4K.
8K only brings out more detail on movies shot on 70mm film. Maybe 8K will be a thing by then but again, I don’t know how much more detail there is in the negatives to be extracted that a 4K scan would miss.

It’s worth noting even if the original versions are released and the restoration is indeed gracious, clean, sharp, with natural grain and 5.1 audio mix - the efforts by Team Negative 1 are still priceless. As noted, Star Wars wasn’t a clean and grainless movie. The 4KXX projects help preserve how they originally were.

Post
#1454045
Topic
There should be a proper release of the 1977 Star Wars at this point
Time

That guy with no name said:

Thats Impossible!
Remember what george said in the 90’s:
“(There will only be one. And it won’t be what I would call the ‘rought cut’, it’ll be the ‘final cut.’ The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, ‘There was an earlier draft of this.’…What ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that’s what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition).”

To borrow a quote from Home Alone - “Too bad Acey ain’t in charge no more”

😉

Post
#1452683
Topic
There should be a proper release of the 1977 Star Wars at this point
Time

Revisiting this thread months later with fresh eyes, I’m sorry if I came off as rude and snarky.

I stand by my prediction the theatrical cuts will eventually be released, possibily for the 50th anniversary or when Disney simply wants more money. However, it’s also a safe bet there will be issues with the release such as faulty colors or excessive DNR.

Post
#1435186
Topic
<strong>The Book Of Boba Fett</strong> (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * <strong>SPOILERS</strong> *
Time

I’m personally over all the spin-offs.

The reason Boba initially had a huge fanbase was he had the quintessential ‘less is more’ aspect. We knew very little about him aside from he was skilled, respected by Vader, and he didn’t fear talking back to him either.

A canon backstory or expansion only waters him down for me.

Post
#1408317
Topic
There should be a proper release of the 1977 Star Wars at this point
Time

Fang Zei said:

We live in a post-#ReleaseTheSnyderCut world now, where something that no reasonable person thought would ever happen is now being financed to the tune of $70 million. The studios are all looking for ways to make money on the cheap with their business disrupted due to the current unpleasantness, and an OOT restoration would cost a small fraction of what AT&T is spending to finish the Snyder Cut.

My final input is Disney may be evil, heartless and fake-woke, but they aren’t stupid. They saw value in buying Marvel, Star Wars, and 20th Century Fox with huge aspirations in mind and these now look like genius moves. They’ve also lobbied to Congress to prevent Mickey Mouse from hitting the public domain. They didn’t gain their corporate power and influence by dumb luck.

When/if Star Wars hits the public domain many years from now, as far as I know, it means anyone can put Darth Vader into their movies or merchandise. The studio will keep the negatives, sources, and distribution rights, but it’s possible creating fan projects would no longer be piracy.

In short, they’ll release the theatrical cuts when they deem it best for business.

Post
#1407955
Topic
There should be a proper release of the 1977 Star Wars at this point
Time

Fang Zei said:

On a long enough timeline, the unaltered versions get restored by Disney simply because they run out of ways to keep repackaging and reselling the same movies again and again without including them.

Agreed. I doubt Disney would release them out of the goodness of their hearts (although they’d market it as such), but rather because they’ve just about killed the golden goose.

As noted, the 50th anniversary is probably the soonest we can realistically hope for a formal release, but even then I doubt they’d spend much time on properly restoring it.

Post
#1407356
Topic
There should be a proper release of the 1977 Star Wars at this point
Time

Fang Zei said:

As someone points out in the replies to that tweet, in May as much time will have passed since the release of TPM as had passed since the original Star Wars when TPM was released.

Anyway, 4k80 is roughly two-thirds done. Once it’s finished, the entire unaltered trilogy will be available for everyone to watch in not only full hd, but 2160p ultra hd as well. There won’t be any hdr versions (unless someone is working on that?), but this still feels like history repeating itself a little. A big reason the GOUT happened was because Lucasfilm realized how much money they weren’t making from all the fans who were acquiring fan preservations of the laserdiscs by downloading them for free or, worse, paying someone for a burned copy.

To be fair, it’s a miracle in itself that Lucas was willing to even release the GOUT DVDs and acknowledge the theatrical cuts existed at all.

I stand by my prediction that the unaltered versions will someday be re-released in my lifetime, but I also predict they’ll botch it with their restoration methods by adding too much DNR or frozen grain so the fan projects will keep being made.

Post
#1407354
Topic
Vader's voice change in the OT
Time

KurganX said:

More comparisons…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlEG7awIuck

I always assumed it was done with tweaking, rather than re-recording the lines with JEJ or using different audio takes.

Honestly, I’ve never noticed the tweeking in the Special Editions.

Regardless, there’s still no doubt Vader’s voice in ‘Star Wars’ is different than his Empire and ROTJ voices; granted they each fit their respective movies.

Post
#1407158
Topic
There should be a proper release of the 1977 Star Wars at this point
Time

It’s common sense Disney will do something huge for the 50th anniversary in 2027.

Most likely, there’ll be some massive box set released. Possibly the movies in 8K, if that’s a thing by then.

That’s probably the earliest we can hope for the original cuts to be released. If they aren’t released by the golden anniversary, then we can assume they won’t be as long as George Lucas is alive.

Then again, if they are released, it’s a good bet they’ll include all the restoration problems that came with the current versions.

Post
#1406738
Topic
Vader's voice change in the OT
Time

Although James Earl Jones has consistently voiced Darth Vader in the movies, there is a difference in his voice between “Star Wars” and “Empire Strikes Back”.

It’s not necessarily night and day, but the more noticeable examples are:

“I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TjiXJiAEn0)

versus

“the force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet.”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igx0nazlpfE)

I’ve wondered if it had to do the with the post-production equipment available or James Earl Jones growing into the role.

Post
#1405146
Topic
Info &amp; Opinions Wanted: Choosing Between Various 4K Restorations
Time

If I may ask, because I don’t have D+80, is the restored footage mostly to replace the Emperor, the windows and fly overs of Bespin?

I figure ESB has the fewest amount of restored shots of the OT.

I don’t mean to sound ignorant of the projects and their efforts, but as far as restoring the unaltered footage goes - my understanding is we’re at the mercy of the 35mm print sources for the best available quality, short of someone breaking into the Lucasfilm vaults and stealing the negatives or interpositives.

Since Harmy is also using the new Blu-Rays and 4KXX as his primary sources for 3.0 , I wonder how much different it will be than the D+77/80/83 versions.

I also understand there’s a Skywalker Edition in the works, which looks absolutely stunning on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc9A54WgTrc).

Post
#1398411
Topic
Info &amp; Opinions Wanted: Choosing Between Various 4K Restorations
Time

I suppose it all depends on what you’re willing to compromise.

Unless Mike Verta’s Legacy Edition is ever released and it’s everything he claims it to be, the 4KXX projects are the most pure restorations currently available with the highest resolution.

The versions without DNR have the least cosmetic work done but as a result, film grain is more prevalent.

There are some samples of 4K83 you can pull up on Youtube.

4K83 v1 (no DNR)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PTn_qmVaQSw

4K83 v.1 (DNR)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oRqmZAat4uw

The no DNR is preferable to me, although the DNR version is more colorful. I’m not tech savvy to advise on why that is.

You can also find multiple samples of 4K77 without DNR on YouTube.

This fan trailer for 4K77 might be DNR but I’m not sure.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JL9nRJMowas

If you have a smart tv, I’d suggest pull open the samples on your screen to get an idea of how’d they’d look.

Fan projects such as Harmy’s Despecialized that aim to recreate the original versions will look better, but some of the edits may not flow as consistent with the main HD footage. Other projects sourced from the Blu Rays/ UHD discs will also inherit whatever methods were used by the studios to clean and sharpen the images.

Post
#1397568
Topic
Opinions Change
Time

I grew up with the mindset Phantom Menace was the worst of the prequels; which admittedly was influenced by the fan consensus.

I still don’t think TPM is necessarily a good movie, but of the three prequels, it felt the most like a Star Wars movie.

I had more fun at the theatre when they re-released it in 3D during 2012 than I did during the Avengers, Skyfall, and The Dark Knight Rises.

I also thought Attack of the Clones was awesome when I first saw it at my friend’s birthday party during opening weekend.
Nowadays, I find AOTC to be the worst of the prequels by a distant mile.