Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

captainsolo said:

I would suggest the Japanese artwork also found on the Spanish and Australian posters. For me this always felt more representative of the overall tone of the film than the US versions did. Plus it feels a bit grittier. ;)

http://www.theforce.net/collecting/posters/esb/spain.asp

Thanks for posting those, I'd never seen them before.  Although I still think I like the "standard" one better - more Vader and less cartoony.  Maybe I have to look at the other some more.

No complaints... I was just wondering if I had missed it :)

Darn, I was was just about to find out what kool-aid I had inadvertently consumed.

To which kool aid do you refer?  There are a couple of different ones out there.

Awesome sales pitch!

Say, has anyone taken a shot at cover art?

Oh, also, it's not exclusively the older forum members who prefer the originals.  Some of the most militantly anti-SE folks on this forum are under 20 years old.

sig looks better :)

pat man said:

I know it's about the history of films and the culture of films, but i'm just stating why we want the originals. 

That IS why we want the originals (well, why I want the originals - I can't speak for everyone).

If this offends anyone or gives the wrong impression, then I'm sorry.   

No offense taken... it just appeared as though you are trying to draft a message representing all of us.  As such, I thought you would want some input so that you could make sure it indeed represents the group as a whole.

p.s. - you actually have two typos in your sig - the first is a simple "the" instead of "they".  The second is some sort of incorrect html tag that makes the buttons at the bottom of your posts look strange.  I didn't even know that was possible :)

Interesting idea, but I think it would make us look like a bunch of crackpots.  Didn't Yahoo just run a story on the silliest petitions to the white house?

I like it!  I'd wear a shirt like that, especially if it had a picture of CPY on it.

But CPY isn't an inconsistency... CPY is awesome.  An inconsistency is Anakin telling a senator that he just killed an entire village, and the senator not having him arrested immediately.  It would be like the Newtown kid showing up at City Hall and the mayor saying "oh, that's ok, it's human to get mad now and then".

It was George's original vision that it LOOK like the crew had to put R2 in the rocks.

I think it over-stresses what people like and don't like.  That is irrelevant, in my opinion... preserving important films is important because they are a part of history.  It doesn't matter what I like - history is what it is and it isn't cool to try and change it.

(p.s. - you have a typo in your sig)

AntcuFaalb said:

You_Too said:

@msycamore: You're right about the glue. I just checked Puggo's version of ESB and it's there.

The glue is ALL OVER the JSC. It's at the end of almost every shot (not scene!) change.

Hehe, and here I thought they were homemade 16mm splices!

Now that the site is back up, can we still donate to it?  :)

SilverWook said:

I never thought Jar Jar was intentionally a racist stereotype.

I thought he was unintentionally racist, which is interesting because it furthers the observation that nobody around George is willing to speak up, even over something obvious.  He must truly be surrounded by yes-men.

That said, the klutziest, stupidest, and stereotypically annoying character in TOD is white.  And I actually didn't think the portrayal of the meal made the culture look bad - the meal was different, but clearly elegant and upscale, and she (and most of us) couldn't handle it.  I didn't take it as a knock on them, but a knock on us.

msycamore said:

Is it possible you saw one of the many SE clips or documentaries around that time.

Yes I saw the SE promo materials... and the first time I saw the Biggs scene as related to the SE, I immediately recognized it as the scene I had seen before.

I cannot change your memories and I don't say you are wrong but I do find it very hard to believe that several of these revisions at different stages took place and especially being screened as late in its run... an early cut with the late mono mix and even some UK prints showing this early cut.

I don't expect anyone to believe it, since there isn't any actual evidence.  I wouldn't believe it either, and I recognize that my memory could be faulty, and that perhaps I had seen it elsewhere (although I don't remember that).

According to my diary, the first day I saw it was June 26.  I should clarify that I don't know for certain that it was the mono mix -- but I do know without question that the "close the blast doors" line was present.  Now, I know that the only mix that contains that line is the mono mix, so it is highly likely that is what I saw.  But the reason that I say I don't know for absolutely certain that it was the mono mix, is that if I allow for the possibility of also seeing the Biggs scene and Vader not flying away, then that also opens the door to other differences, such as a mix that hasn't materialized since then either.

I wish I had smuggled a tape recorder into the theater.  It would have been easy.

Star Wars Purist said:

... or the dewback obscuring the iconic mind trick scene.

Good observation, I hadn't considered that aspect before.

I should add that I probably would have removed the Biggs scene too.  Although it adds nicely to the story arc, it is rather poorly acted.

But the way it is inserted into the SE, with a crucial line removed, makes it doubly atrocious because now the dialog makes no sense.

adywan said:

For the first showing i took my portable tape recorder and use to listen to the film every night so knew the film off by heart by the time i saw it the second time.

And, you no longer have this tape? (preparing an "argh!")

I also think I saw the missed grappling hook... but I have always been willing to accept that I am mistaken about that one.  My justification there, is that in every other movie where someone attempts to lasso something, they miss the first time.  So it makes sense that our minds could fill it in, and then remember it that way.

The brief shot of Vader's ship spinning and then flying away made me go "whoa" when I first saw it on the VHS.  Even after seeing SW three times in Utah, I assumed he had been killed.  It shocked me to later see him clearly survive.

Between Biggs, hook, and Vader, I believe if one of those three scenes is ever shown to have made it into a theater in 1977, to me it would be strong evidence of all three.  Until then, I have to agree that it is pretty hard to accept with nothing having materialized in all these years.

I read both for the first time about 2 years ago.

danny_boy said:

I envy you for having been there at the beginning!

Were those all 35mm presentations that you saw ---or was the stunning one a 70mm projection?

In June I saw 35mm/mono three times in a relatively small theater in Utah.  My memory was the movie being fantastic and the image being marvelous.

In July I saw 70mm in a large theater in California.  My memory was that the image was better, but that could have been excitement, or just a better projector.

Late in the year I saw it again - I'm not sure the format, and I don't remember any particular thought of whether it was better or worse. I believe it was probably 35mm and stereo mix.

In 1985 I saw a marathon of all three films in a small late night theater.  The image quality was atrocious and I was sad to see the film(s) in such a damaged state.

I do have two memories that don't jive with historical record - like being quite certain that in Utah I saw the Biggs hangar scene all three times, and NOT seeing Vader survive and fly off.  Before everyone assumes I'm crazy, I would also like to point out that I also remembered "close the blast doors" despite wondering where it went in every subsequent viewing.  It wasn't until joining this group that I learned that my memory was actually correct in that case, despite the lack of any intervening confirmation.  Regarding the Biggs scene, upon seeing it in the SE, my mind was able to fill-in the removed chunk of dialog from memory.  And no, I didn't see it in the documentary because I only saw that for the first time very recently.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!! :)

Harmy said:

No matter what I try, no matter what codec I use, I keep getting these rendering errors when rendering AVI:

Those are not errors - that is proof of life on Mars.  If you set up a website here in the states, and put these pictures on it, you can become a celebrity on late-night radio.

danny_boy said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

danny_boy said:

The highest resolution that the assessors could still discern in the sharpest part of the screen(not neccassirily it's center) in the most performing movie theater was about 875 Lines/PH

 

I could see that, for the "most performing movie theater".  I'm not interested in the quality of the "most performing movie theater".  That's irrelevant for high quality film restoration.  A proper restoration would try to achieve the quality of the highest quality projection, such as in a high end 70mm theater with a brand new print.  Do your studies indicate the resolution of high quality 70mm projections of brand new prints?

 

And 70mm contact printing will suffer the same degradation through an analogue duplication workflow as 35mm.

Point taken, although I still question the "most performing theater" source.  I saw SW in three theaters in 1977, with quality ranging from stunning to grungy.  And wouldn't I want to get a source from the "least performing" theater?  It would seem that a print from there would be less worn out.

AntcuFaalb said:

The question is: Should I try to stabilize the vertical jumping/jitter?

Lots of types of cleanup can only be done if the video is stable.  Have you used DeShaker before?