Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

kenkraly2007 said:

Now assuming they are going to re-mix and fix the films audio on blu-ray which source of the audio will they use the 77 theater mix the 85 mix other SE's from 97 and 04? I've heard on other blu-ray movie titles that they try to get the best mix possable for different films that are released on BD.

We have no idea which mix they will use.  And I have no confidence that Lucasfilm will "get the best mix possable".  With each release the mix keeps getting worse, because they seem to be more interested in making changes than in restoring it.  If there were an office betting pool, I'd put my money on their using the most recent mix, and just pooping in a bunch more changes.

Your link to "Attack of the Show" is dead.

hairy_hen said:

Here are some 70mm film scans--they'll give an idea of what he might have seen.  Some are degraded but most look pretty good.  Note the natural colour scheme and great image detail (and lack of horrid blue-cast).  http://www.jedi1.net/default.aspx

Those pictures made me cry.  THAT is how I remember SW.

In Ep.IV, I never understood, given the PT, how Leia (in her cell) would know that Obiwan's name had become "Ben".  George should go into Ep.IV and digitally fix that. :)

Finished reel2.

Reel3 is rendering, will work on reel3 sound sync tonight.

I enjoyed TPM in the theater.  It's not a very good movie, but I enjoy watching it... it's fun.  The visuals in AOTC are fun to look at, but it's an even worse movie... I have a hard time sitting through it.  ROTS I saw once in the theater and haven't been able to sit through again, although I probably will one of these days.

I don't hate any of the prequels.  They aren't generally my cup of tea, but that's just personal preference.  BUT, as long as the OOT is unrestored, I will RESENT the prequels because they are being used as the excuse for many of the horrendous changes to the OT. And why on earth a truly classic movie should be so slaughtered to conform to a deeply inferior movie, is beyond me. My resentment will end when the OOT is given a decent restoration and release.

Sevb32 said:

Why does it have to be either/or why can't it be both?

I don't know, ask George.

Sevb32 said:

It shouldn't be an either or, or OT against SE, it can be BOTH.

That is our point.  It is LUCAS that says it can't be both.

Anchorhead said:

I never considered Empire superior to Star Wars.  I did like it when it was first released and even had a laserdisc of it a few years after that.  After a while, the things that I had never liked about it (Vader as father, Yoda, 3PO silliness) ended up becoming the things that caused me to lose interest.  To me, it felt small and stylized compared to Star Wars.  It was too slick, too formula.  I very much prefer the vast unknown, far away adventure of Star Wars.

I agree with you.  Also, the script and acting are noticeably better in SW (esp. Guinness and Cushing).  ESB has lots of cool stuff in it for saga fans, but as a movie, SW can stand up against any film ever made.

Sevb32 said:

Yeah this thread should be all negative, I hate this and I hate that. I want this person beaten and that one dead because my opinon is fact and rules over all. Nevermind many of us would never reach anywhere close to the levels of Burtt or Wood.

So do you have something positive to say about the OOT never being restored?

The truth is, I really don't care if there are people who actually prefer the prequels, or that there are people who think Jar Jar is the best thing since Yoda.  That's cool.  But as long as the original trilogy is suppressed, stuff like this just sorta rubs salt in the wound.  I think that if the OT were restored properly, we all - OT fans / prequel fans / SE fans / CGI fans / CW fans / ... would just celebrate together.

I wish you hadn't ponted me to that page. My wife had to hold me back from slitting my wrists.

Then I realized that the whole thing... the panel and the audience... were just CGI so now I feel better.

Redid the framing and color balance of reel1, and re-encoded.

Finished sound sync of reel2.

Redid the framing and color balance of reel2, it's rendering now.

Still need to post some screen caps (haven't had a chance, but will hopefully this coming week).

Great.  More "improvements".

Your countdowns for reels 1/3 vs 2 match the ones for Ep.IV.

kenkraly2007 said:

Good point zombie84 and I don't think it will be the same mix that it was in 2004. Sound technolgy has improved a lot since 2004 because now their is lossless audio formats like dolby ture hd and dts hd master audio which was'nt around in 2004.

The problems with sound have nothing to do with the technologies available at the time. The sound released in 1977 was considerably better than the sound released in 2004.

Switching audio in the surround channels is an amateurish mistake that I myself rescued a project from once before... it was during an audio mix which I was assisting.  I watched them place the wrong sounds into the rear L and R channels, and I kept telling them over and over they had it reversed, but they wouldn't listen. Luckily the producer had pretty good ears, and he kept saying something didn't sound right. He was asking them to fiddle with this, and fiddle with that... finally, I overstepped protocol and jumped in, insisting that they "humor me for one minute" and try reversing the rear channels. They rolled their eyes and tried it (to humor me).  Bingo, the producer acknowledged that it fixed it. Amazingly, I had to explain to them afterwards, that if you have mics labeled L and R when you face one direction, then turn around 180 degrees, that L becomes R and R becomes L.

What's really hard to believe, though, is that such a thing can happen all the way through to a DVD release of friggin' Star Wars - it just goes to show how fundamentally screwed up the LFL/SW franchise has become. I can hardly imagine what sort of skewed QC processes must be in place for such a rudimentary mistake to happen in the presence of millions of dollars of the world's best technology and technical support. Having been to Skywalker Sound myself on numerous occasions, it's just unfathomable.

zombie84 said:

I saw 2001 about 4 months ago, and it looked the best I have ever seen it, even compared to the Blu Ray. Not a speck of dirt, and sharp as a tack. Obviously not an original release print, and in 35mm, but I was aghast at how prestine it looked. Guess that re-issue varied across the continent.

Interesting.  The one I saw was 70mm, and so was the one my friend saw in Minnesota 5 years later. It made my jaw drop, but my friend said it was quite rough.  I suppose there are some 35mm prints going around too... not every theater can handle 70mm (obviously).

The blu-ray still makes my jaw drop.

thecolorsblend said:

I guess there could be some new crap in there but what more is there to add?

Well, for starters, he could redo the cantina scene so that the music is more like the one in Jabba's palace.  I'm sure we'd all enjoy that.

mcfly89 said:

Here's what I propose: if you can pause the film in the workprinter and take one still with a DSLR (similar to what's been posted, except with careful manual focus and several different exposures which could be combined using the HDR technique to get the full dynamic range of the print), then we can hold that high resolution image up against the GOUT and do a little color correction, and see how it holds up. Wouldn't be expensive or take a lot of time, because we're just talking about one or a couple stills.

I'll try to do that when I get the ESB prints.  I don't have the SW prints any more.  It's a good idea.

zombie84 said:

Puggo you magnificent bastard, I finally got around to downloading this a few days ago and its so much fun! An amazing, unique project. Part of me wishes this was done in HD because I'm sure there is more quality to squeeze out than a DVD can make apparent. Anyway, very cool. Made me nostalgic for the Star Wars 1977 midnight screening I never had, LOL.

Thanks for the high praise, Zombie.  Had you actually seen a midnight screening in 1977, the quality would have been considerably better - pristine in fact (I know, because I had one).  However, it does indeed remind me of that mid-80s screening (was it 1984? 1985?) of the entire trilogy at the local theater, which lasted well past midnight... that was grunge city but a heck of a lot of fun. Although I remember being a bit sad that the film looked so beat up.

Speaking of film getting beat up... about 10 years ago I saw the newly-restored "2001" in 70mm at the Castro Theater, must have been one of the first stops on a tour that lasted several years.  What I saw was razor sharp, and not a speck in sight - the most beautiful image I'd ever seen on screen.  Five years later, a friend of mine saw it in Minnesota (I'm guessing the same 70mm print), and said it didn't look that great. That's what life on the road will do to you.

Had to redo reel 1, because I discovered that in several places the subtitles stepped over the frame boundary.  So there are now some lengthy segments where the top of the frame appears along the bottom, in order to see the entire subtitles.  Like I said, for completists only.

canofhumdingers said:

does the transfer make for an anamorphic dvd?

The transfer is anamorphic.

regularjoe said:

Couple weeks now and no luck with "live' torrents of this.

Quick question for you - are the transfers that you did just the 2 x 400' reels for Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back or did you use any film from the original 200' reel that came out for Star Wars?  If I recall correctly, the scenes in Ben's hut on the first reel that came out were mostly complete and then were reprised in truncated form on the first 400' reel that came out that had scene digests beyond Ben's hut and the escape from the Death Star.

I did two different telecines:

1. "puggo edition" - this is the 400' super8 highlight reels for SW and ESB.

2. "puggo grande" - this is the entire SW film in 16mm.  See the links in my sig for more information.

If you are right and the 200' SW reel has some footage that the others don't, I will want to follow up on that.  Thanks for the lead.

talkinghead80 said:

I really just want this kid to experience STAR WARS for the first time the way I did.

So do we. There is no such thing out there.  That's why this site exists.  Star Wars was an incredible 70mm film that looked and sounded gorgeous.  There is no reason that movie couldn't be stunning in HD.  It is one of the few major motion pictures that has not been released in decent quality. And probably the only major motion picture that the producer has deliberately suppressed.

Finished resizing and letterboxing reels 2 and 3.

Experimenting with very light sharpening. Will A/B over the weekend.

Would like to add that synching the sound is complicated by the different frame rates.  I have to do a temporary pulldown, then synch, then go back to the original unpulled video and encode with pulldown flag. The issue here, is that ALL video edits must be complete before synching the sound... you can't include any video edits during sound synch because you don't actually encode the video file used for sound synch.

Will start sound synching reel 2 over the weekend too.