Phase3

O00ll00O said:

Here’s what it could look like with some color.

That looks great! 😃

Luke’s lightsaber is way to thick and would need to be fixed too. I’m not saying whether it should be included in the movie or not, but I don’t think it would be thrown out based on picture quality.

That’s my thinking too – the scene can be restored, which may give Adywan a new scene he can add into his edit if he wants to.

Matt.F said:

That already looks much better in the screenshot, and as you say it’s got plenty left that could be done with it. Restoration tools and techniques have come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, and are only going to improve further with each passing month. If you do further restoration of this scene Phase3 please do share!

I’m restoring a few different ROTJ deleted scenes, including this scene, which upon completion I will share in a separate thread. 👍🏽

Bingowings said:

Personally I would prefer to see Luke assemble the saber on Dagobah using the Force.

Same here! In my own edit, that’s precisely what I’ll be doing – replacing the background with Dagobah.

lionscout42 said:

This is another reason why I chose the DVD grade over the Final Cut. The Criterion laserdisc, which came from a completely different source from the Director’s Cut DVD (the LD came from an interpositive of the International Cut), looks quite similar to the DVD. This is evidence that the DVD’s color grade is accurate to what people saw in the theater.

I absolutely agree! Another good source for the original colours, aside from a scan of a 35mm print, is the 1983 LaserDisc released by Embassy.

lionscout42 said:

(FWIW, I also saw some 35mm frames, but they looked closer to the DVD. We are talking about analogue media, not digital, and no two release prints will look the same. This is especially true 30+ years after the fact.)

The colour timing of the original film was a source of much conjecture over the years; the 1996 DVD’s colour grade is just about the same as the 35mm version.

With regard to it being from an analogue source, a high-quality 4K or 8K scan of 35mm film will always yield beautiful results, and can easily surpass what is commercially released via DVD and Blu-ray.

SpacemanDoug said:

Actually I’ve seen stills of frames from a real authentic 35mm print and the Final Cut 4K matches it very well. The neutral grade isn’t accurate at all.

Looking at a still frame, and seeing 35mm or 70mm film projected in a cinema aren’t the same thing. If you track down a copy of Blade Runner sourced from a 35mm film print, you’ll quickly see that the colours are nothing like what is on the Final Cut Blu-ray.

The Final Cut has a teal tint throughout the film, whereas the original 35mm release doesn’t have that tint at all.

That guy with no name said:

He also said that scene was unusable due to its quality.

The deleted scene of Luke building his Lightsaber is a good candidate for restoration; for example, here is a first pass restoration I did on that scene – some of the dust, dirt and scratches are circled in blue.
To note: I’ve added a bit of green to the blade colour, however no other colour correction has been done, plus I’ve added a light film grain. Deinterlacing and upscaling haven’t been done yet either.

timdiggerm said:

• I suspect some portion of 7-10, 11, & 13 are effects shots for viewscreens in the control room as Jerjerrod realizes he must follow the Emperor’s orders and blow up the Endor moon. Fixing that sequence up to high quality is almost certainly impossible, but I’d love to see someone try.

There are restorations and upscales underway of the deleted Jerjerrod scenes.
They’ll definitely be useable in a fan-edit.

Solemn.Philosopher said:

I like the fact that you are changing the voices of some of the aliens. Any chance you are doing the same with the battle droids? I think it makes more sense to have them speak the same language as their masters, but perhaps also sound a bit more digital or mechanical and less goofy.

I’ve removed 90% of their dialogue already, so all of the poor attempts at humour and silly goofy stuff has been removed. I haven’t changed the sounds of their voices though; once I watch a workprint version, I’ll see if the voices would benefit from being changed.

I was thinking that more lights on Naboo may look better (no motion blur has been added for this sample photo):

Bepis28 said:

I think Tatooine looks good but some of the city lights sections on the Naboo shot have some harsh edges. I think if there is some more scattering or feather out of speckles of lights that’d look more natural. But adding lights is absolutely necessary to these shots!

There is still some tweaking left to do, including softening the edges, and adding some motion blur. Hopefully soon I can get them all finished!

DarthTzetzo said:

Will you add the deleted footage from the trailers and supplemental materials to the Duel of the Fates?
😃

From the teaser trailer, I will use the shot of the spinning N-1 starfighter.

With the extra footage of the Jedi & Sith duel, I’ve upscaled the footage and will see if I can insert some of it into the edit. It really depends upon if the footage will affect the pacing or not; I’ll be trimming the various end battles, so I’ll see if the extra duel footage will have an impact on storytelling and pacing or not.

An update:
Naboo – original video

Naboo – now with lights visible from space:

Tatooine – original video

Tatooine – now with lights visible from space:

JoyOfEditing said:

Great work as always, bro! Love the regrade!

Thanks for your kind words! 😃👍🏽

Bepis28 said:

cant wait to see this one!

I hope you’ll enjoy it!

I’m working on some shots today (Naboo city lights visible from space). I’ll post some updates once that’s done.

Version 2 is currently underway; I have updated the first post with a revised list of changes.

Here are some examples of some of the new additions to the edit:

Destroyer Droids – I wanted to use the original 35mm version of the Jedi running to escape the droids. The 35mm “4K99” scan has a large amount of dust and dirt, which I have removed:
Original:

Revised:

Queen Amidala – I’ve removed the visible power cable:
Original:

Revised:

Hologram of Gunray - I wanted to use a few extra frames of footage, but without Gunray, so I removed the hologram:
Original:

Removed:

Darth Maul hologram – the original video has blue stars in the background; this has now been corrected to show white stars:
Original:

Revised colours:

A flipped shot of Padme:
Original:

Revised:

Examples of revised colours:
Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Qui-Gon – sloppily done power windows, which removed colour:
Original:

Restored colours:

Mackey256 said:

Chapter 21 started without a “previously” intro segment like other episodes. Instead there was a promo for

Currently I’m leaning towards this plan:
No intro Version in the episodes folder (This just starts with the Star Wars Clone Wars logo)
Alt Version Folder Includes:

• Begins Next promo version
• Cartoon Network intro version

Your plan makes perfect sense – the main video shouldn’t have an intro, since that is how it was broadcast. Including alternate versions in a separate folder is a really nice bonus!

It’s a great transfer – thank you so much for doing this!

JadedSkywalker said:

Jason is going to check the file from .bin to ISO. Maybe he can make heads or tails of it, if not it will have to rerecorded.

Edit: Whelp it was not the BIN to ISO conversion. I’ll wait to see what enater has to say.

That’s disappointing…Hopefully enater will chime in soon.

I can imagine that it would be annoying to have to capture it again, but hopefully it can be done again with no hassles.

JadedSkywalker said:

Nope you’re right the file has an issue in Leawo it misses Luke’s and company run on the trench and literally skips to Ben telling Luke to trust him.

Some kind or corruption in the file, i hate to have to say so.

Ahh that sucks…Hopefully enater will read these messages, and chime in with some further details.

I’m hoping that it was simply an encoding glitch, which can be rectified via a new capture of the video.

JadedSkywalker said:

VLC literally quits out for me after that point in the film. Can you tell me what Sofware you are using for playback.

I played the video in:
MPV
MPC
MPC-BE
VLC

They all had the same glitch, at the same timestamp.

Has anyone else had this glitch towards the end of the film? During the final trench run scene, there are multiple frames that have very heavy pixelation, for example:

It starts at around 01:52:59 and lasts until 01:53:07
I’m wondering if this is only on my download, or if others have found this too.

Both clips look fantastic! 😃

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

Oh yeah, I don’t think I ever told you but, Chase3, your upscales are certainly the best I’ve seen yet!

Thanks very much! 😃

I wonder if the paid version of Starlight gives you adjustment options? Or if not, do you think there are elements from the Starlight version you (or anyone) might comp in? maybe lower the opacity so it blends? I don’t know, I haven’t tried anything yet. 😛

I’ll check the system requirements first; my computer is getting quite old, so I’d need to find out if my current hardware could handle it.
I’m in the process of upscaling and restoring some other SW footage (ROTJ Jerjerrod scenes, Star Tours footage, ROTS shots from VFX reels), but I will definitely look into this Starlight model.

Mackey256 said:

I used Topaz Starlight pretty extensively in my Clone Wars restoration project and while it did great with animated footage, I often had to upload the same clip several times to get multiple versions. I then had to edit those versions together taking the best frames of each upscale. For some shots that was 8 or 9 different uploads of the same two second shot. In the end I still had to recreate some elements with Photoshop for the best version of a frame.

Ultimately it worked for what I was trying to accomplish, there isn’t a place for it here. Phase3 did a truly fantastic job on these shots!

Thanks for your kind words!😃
What you did on those Clone Wars shots was fantastic! 👍🏽

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

So I used up all but 2 of my Topaz’s Starlight credits on old home video clips (which do look pretty dang good btw). With the 2 credits I had left, I ran a clip of Palps from the deleted senate scene in AOTC (Phase3’s upscaled version:

https://streamable.com/bjbpl8

This looks pretty dang amazing. Much more definition in the face.

Sorry, I couldn’t make a comparison video…you’ll have to compare it yourself! 😛

As per our PM conversation:

The image has too much AI processing; it now looks like an AI-generated image, instead of a human being.

Fine details have been scrubbed away, making his face look too smooth, almost waxy; plus there is less detail in his clothing.

Midtones and highlights have been exaggerated, and it’s slightly oversaturated too.

Take a look at his eyes, and areas around his mouth - compare this video to the original video, or my upscale, and you’ll see they’re quite different.

I’ve heard a lot about this Starlight model, however if this is what it produces, then I will stick with what I currently have.

hharlan23 said:

Just to be sure?

The blue tint was added for the 1997 Special Edition.
The walls are actually a brownish-red.