Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

luke.the.darkside.is.fun said:

So you guys didnt make your own dvds B4 star wars was on dvd?  Alot of ppl  on here i bet did, and i bet alot of ppl on here buy star wars bootlegs, when in fact alot of these ppl make covers for bootlegs, like dvds of the star wars the definitive collection on dvd, i get what your both saying but i think a star wars fan, would want to collect all kinds of dvds even bootlegs, i see ppl on here all the time talking about downloading the unaltered trilogy, star wars its self is at war, fans vs. george lucas, so lets not make him money if we can. btw thanks for the heads up, i will not post links to cool bootlegs again. lol

That's a heck-of-a long sentence! :)  Seriously, you need to understand that the ONLY reason this site even exists, is because it enforces rules about profiting from piracy.  There are some truly wonderful projects going on here, and YOU can enjoy participating in them, but only if you follow those rules. You can moan all you want about those rules being unfair, but understand if those rules were not enforced, this site would get shut down VERY quickly. And the most important rule of all is NO exchange of money, EVER.

So, my suggestion, is read up, educate yourself on all the fantastic projects going on here, join in on the discussions, and you'll not only become a part of a wonderful and noble effort, but you'll also make a lot of friends and meet a lot of kindred souls.  AND, you'll also get to see Star Wars in its original theatrical glory.  The various efforts here put those "5 star" videos to shame anyways.

LexX said:

Finished. Strokes look funny, they aren't like that actually.

LexX, your cover looks awesome.  Where can it be downloaded?

I will be happy to test them on my 52" plasma :)

I love how the "maniac" is calmly walking down the street with his head in full bandages, and carrying a huge knife poised to stab!  I laugh every time I see that.

About two years ago, I was listening to the Mike O'Meara show (a rather bawdy radio talk show).  The hosts had just conducted their own Star Wars marathon, and were comparing the special effects of the six movies.  They were describing how the special effects techniques in 1977 were so primitive, and the example they used was the jabba scene and how fake jabba looked.

Why, what do they say?

Ghostbusters said:

When I'm watching the SE and the prequels, some of the acting and special effects are so bad, I wonder how did they even got past quality control? Didn't George Lucas hire anybody to do that kind of work for him? Nobody said, um George, this looks fake, or um George, these performances were really lousy. Who ever did quality control on the prequels/special editions needs to get fired.

This question answers itself:  because is so rich he can afford to surround himself with yes-men.

That said, I have nothing against the prequels.  They suck, but so what? It's the changes to the OT that both bother me and suck.

strangelove said:

But if we're going to be picking and choosing individual shots that 'could look better', I feel that the Mos Eisley drive-by is a low priority.

With respect to the GOUT, when people talk about making it "look better", they aren't talking about fixing the red glow... they are talking about how it is the probably the most poorly-transferred segment of the laserdisc master. It is blurry with color bleeding all over the place, whereas the original film was sharp like the other Mos Eisley scenes.

strangelove said:

Minor sidetrack: In my opinion (previously stated long long ago, somewhere on this thread) the Mos Eisley shot has so much wrong with it I'm not sure what a restoration could accomplish, short of working from the camera original. It's not just color balance and grain-- the concept of the effect is flawed.

The filmmakers obviously weren't satisfied with the way the practical landspeeder photographed, and it appears that the orangey 'force-field' area is actually the vehicle's real shadow, painted out frame-by-frame. I get that they wanted to see some daylight beneath the supposedly hovering craft, but there are too many visual cues indicating its true position relative to the ground. The result is that the shadow appears cast towards us, consistent with a light source coming from the background, while every other shadow on location is cast away from us by sunlight from behind the camera. I mean sure, two suns, but still.

I'm confused... are you saying that the original isn't worth restoring because it couldn't correct the flaws in the special effect?  That's a necessary byproduct of a preservation - it preserves everying... including the flaws... inherent in limitations of the time when the movie was made.

bkev said:

Oh, dear, I thought that's what I was sending you Puggo... is there anything else I can offer if that's been taken?

Well, I don't mind getting a backup.  But now that you mention it, do you have the PaulisDead Vintage Edit?

Thanks for the kind feedback.

"The Maniac" was one of three films on an super8 reel made by a group of middle school kids in about 1980. The other two films are a detective story, and a robot story. They were unedited with numerous takes of each scene... I assembled all three of them as best I could, and added music. I also chose the title... I considered calling it "Phsyco Maniac" based on the misspelling in the fake newspaper headline.

Of the three, "The Maniac" was the best, and I think a pretty good effort for a group of kids having fun. Some of the camera angles were pretty imaginative, not to mention brave(?) filming in a construction site. The robot film is less solid, but with a hilarious special effect of the robot getting it's leg cut off in a duel. The robot suit looks suspiciously like a storm trooper outfit. The detective one was the most ambitious, but incomplete and incoherent. However, it had the single best effect that they managed -- a detached hand crawling up the outside of a window. I may or may not include those other two films as future extras. As far as why they were in a tin labelled Star Wars, I would just assume that was by mistake.

Oh, they also filmed footage of them making the films... so a "making of" could actually be done of their films(!)

The soundtrack for Krig is identical to the Grande, except that the Grande had a couple of patches inserted to account for brief missing segments.

So, sorry if I missed it in the thread, but is this up somewhere for download?

Well, digital transfer is not ever an exact restoration or preservation of a film, because the media are so utterly different. The color models are different, the way they are viewed is different, the size of the viewing screen is different, the resolutions have different characteristic pros and cons, etc. Therefore there will always be some decisions and some compromises made. As long as a digital restoration involves making decisions in an effort to most closely replicate what viewers witnessed in a best possible theater projection of the time, I am ok with that.  But adding effects or doing things that go beyond what viewers would have witnessed in a theater is going too far.

The garbage mattes are a grey-area (no pun intended), in that they were present in the film, but not necessarily in a viewing. So if a digital viewing of them presents as an "artifact" a greater likelihood of their visibility, and thus an alteration of the experience from what a theater-goer would have experienced in the best-possible theater setup of the day, I would be ok with a restorer deciding that a digital version in which they are removed would be closer to restoring what the film experience was like.

Harmy said:

Like I always say, the garbage mates shouldn't be there because they are a mistake created by the video transfer, not the original cinematography.

I tend to agree.  There is a difference between preserving the film versus preserving the video.  I don't ever remember seeing boxes around the fighters in the theater. I'm guessing some people did, but I think that they shouldn't have been visible in a properly configured projection.  Just because early video transfers exposed some things that wouldn't have been seen in the theater, doesn't mean that those artifacts are worth preserving on later, better home videos.

However, the vaseline under the speeder was present in the projection, and I find it interesting that they came up with that solution.  It was there intentionally and it was a creative way to deal with a difficult problem, and nothing for Lucas to be embarrassed about.  I never knew it was a "problem" until we were told in 1997 that it was a problem.

As they say in the trench, "It's awayyyy!!!".

Sent out 12 disks this morning.  Unfortunately, it's a holiday weekend, so they probably won't arrive until tuesday.

perkyporker said:

While it might yield a useful reference, 16mm soundtracks have a fairly limited frequency response – around 150 to 5000 Hz with a dynamic range of about 40 dB.  A 35mm Academy mono optical track is more like 45 to 8000 Hz with a dynamic range of around 48 dB.

From wikipedia, the linear track on a VHS tape has a frequency response of 100 to 10000Hz, so was probably a better source for the audio - certainly in terms of high-frequency content.

While it is true that video has a wider frequency response, I think that a film's optical audio is worth grabbing.  I've come to really like working with optical film audio a lot.  In my experience, optical audio doesn't degrade over time in the same way as magnetic audio. In fact, it barely degrades at all.  Prints that are heavily scratched, pink, even vinegary, generally have audio tracks that sound largely the same as they did when they were new.  And they don't develop hiss, wow/flutter, and other stuff that need to be filtered out of magnetic audio.  Optical soundtracks are extremely easy to work with in post production, since they are generally well saturated and don't require much "work" to get to sound good. Removing hiss from old video can lead to metallic artifacts, or just needing to leave the hiss in which can make for distracting listening.  Severe warpage can cause trouble in film, of course, but that's true in video too. Capturing optical sound also tends to result in hum, but in my experience hum is very easy to remove, whereas hiss is much harder to remove. In other words, both forms of media have their strengths.

Here's an interesting dichotomy...

It is possible that it is only obvious to people who have seen the OT already, because Palpatine looks so much like the emperor.  So this would support George's contention that you should see the PT first - so that you don't get the palpatine reveal.

But if you see the PT first, you get the "Vader is Luke's father" reveal.  So you should see the OT first so it doesn't spoil the dramatic revelation.

In this respect, the PT spoils the OT, and the OT spoils the PT, so there is no suitable order to watch the entire saga.  Best to avoid the PT altogether :)

bkev said:

Huh? Puggo, I think you misread the post. It's not in a literal sense of shrinking the movies; it's the discussion of whether or not Lucas shrank the universe itself with all of his coincidences that seem to occur to either wrap things up or tie them together.

Ngyahhh!!!... I seriously misinterpreted the thread.  Yes, I understand that Lucas shrank the universe with each new movie.  I somehow thought that there was a project in the midst to shrink the movies in such a way as to unshrink the universe.  Sorry about that.  Although it might be a cool project.

I really like this idea, for the simple reason that what made the original movie Star Wars so great was the editing.  All the unnecessary stuff that got cut out tightened up the movie and made it so much better than it might have been.  As the saga progressed, the trend reversed, until the prequels were so burdened with integrative details.  The prequels show us just how bad Star Wars might have been.

With each successive movie (meaning, in order: 4-5-6-1-2-3), you can probably cut a greater and greater percentage of unneeded stuff, and if done well could improve things.  Great concept!

Another great scene is when Tarkin is talking to Leia.  Peter Cushing is masterful the way he crowds her and says "I grow tired..."  nobody could have played that scene better!

There are too many to list. But one of my very favorites is in Ben's hut. After they watch the hologram, how Obiwan looks at Luke, then gets that gleam in his eye, and the whole movie changes.  Alec Guiness was such an incredible actor, he elevated the entire movie.

Harmy said:

Strictly speaking no, less strictly speaking only if it's the same transfer and even less strictly speaking it's up to your own conscience, after all it is in a legal grey area in any case.

Hmm, what about the Puggo Grande, then?  Should someone own a copy of the 16mm print?  And what about laserdisc transfers?

Ok!  The Swedish disk is done.  Anyone who wants a copy, please PM me your mailing address.  If you have any of the disks on my revised "want list", and are willing to burn me a copy too, let me know that too:

• Adywan's theatrical ESB
• Harmy's despecialized OT
• Deleted Magic 1 and/or 2
• G-Force vs. 3 (is it out yet?)
• Star Wars - Attack of the Federation

(someone already sent me infodroid's indy2)

none said:

The idea that their monitors are a different class then the TVs in most people's homes, provides another wrinkle to how the films look different dependent upon the equipment you use.

The claim that ESB came out too blue because they were using better monitors is, frankly, laughable.

TV's Frink said:

Chewtobacca said:

I'm with Puggo on this one.

You guys are having kids?  I'm so excited for you two.

Puppies.