In the long run, the PT's main influence on culture may turn out to be how it influences the legal side of the movie industry, with respect to preservation. For better or worse.
You can get a rough idea by looking at my log (scroll down to the timeline):
http://www.hardbat.com/puggo/puggoGrande.html
Of course, it doesn't list all the failed captures, times I had to start over, etc. Also, wherever the timeline says "finished bla bla bla", it means that there were many hours before it actually doing the work.
Actually, for me, this stuff is all fun. I wish I had more time to devote to it. I have a queue of projects waiting to be done, and would love to dive into all of them.
Right, the only color correction would be to apply a single set of color changes to an entire reel. I totally agree with the "less is more" approach, and wouldn't do anything that compromises the closest possible reproduction of what it's like watching these films on a 16mm projector, to the extent to which I'm able.
Adywan has agreed to give it a shot! He said he's going to try it on reel one and see if I like the result. My instructions to him are to only find a single color correction for each capture of reel 1.... no contrast or brightness adjustment, no tweaking of individual scenes, just a single color timing shift for an entire reel in an effort to get the best white balance overall. That way, the balance and emphases won't be affected. It's what I tried to do for PG, and for the 8mm PEs. And again, although I could do this myself, ESB has proven much harder because of the settings and subsequent difficulty in achieving what I consider to be an acceptable and representative white balance.
I'm excited to see what choices Ady will make, given what he sees.
The only slightly bad thing is that we are on different sides of the Atlantic. Thankfully, he says he can work equally well with PAL or NTSC. But we're going to trade files using the archaic method of thumb drive and snail mail. So I won't have anything to report for a little while.
Thanks Adywan!!!!
Thanks to everyone who replied. Switching to Czech didn't work, but it worked great on MySpleen.
This is an awesome edition. My only quibble might be that the reds still seem a bit hot. But this is now my go-to version. The amount of work you put into it really shows.
I am also a big fan of Darth Editous' version.
There has been some amount of color correction in all of my previous projects. See, contrary to what one might think, there really isn't a way to capture the films exactly as we see them. Cameras are just not as sophisticated as our eyes and brains, so you have to do the best you can with the white balance during capture, and then tweak afterwards. ESB is a bear to color-correct because most scenes take place in dark or strangely-lit settings. SW was more straightforward. I'm thinking there might be people here who would do a better job than me.
Or, someone could try and tell me how to best use the "color curves" in Vegas. The explanations in the built-in help don't say much, and the axes aren't labeled.
I started working on it again last night, and realized that what might really help it, is to have someone better than me color-correct it. Any suggestions? I'm leaning towards asking Adywan if he'd be interested.
Anchorhead said:
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
... the relationship between Vader and the Emperor was much more scary when we DIDN'T know all the crappy PT backstory. We see how horrible Vader is, and everyone concerned says he's nothing compared to the Emperor, who spends most of his time shrouded in a hood. But in the PT, Vader is a whiny young brat and the Emperor is essentially a power-hungry crazy guy they goes all Gollum in the process. Sometimes less is more.
Bingo. Lucas answered questions people weren't asking.
Another example was when, in ANH, the imperial officer says "how will the emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?" It's a brilliant line. Then in the PT, they actually show us the bureaucracy. Ugh.
Hey folks, I have sadly had no luck at all downloading this. I've tried various browsers, and JDownloader, and it always crashes about a third of the way through.
So, is there anyone here in the U.S. who might be willing to make a copy for me (the HD version), if I send a USB hard drive?
In my opinion, the relationship between Vader and the Emperor was much more scary when we DIDN'T know all the crappy PT backstory. We see how horrible Vader is, and everyone concerned says he's nothing compared to the Emperor, who spends most of his time shrouded in a hood. But in the PT, Vader is a whiny young brat and the Emperor is essentially a power-hungry crazy guy they goes all Gollum in the process. Sometimes less is more.
Besides blowing all the reveals, seeing the PT first prepares the viewer for an entirely different type of movie than SW was ever intended to be. I'd be disappointed in ANH too if I was expecting a sequel to ROTS.
How well would the Berlin Chamber Ensemble go over as a closing act to a Mellalica concert? Regardless of your preference, your mind is just too scrambled to seamlessly head in that direction.
Regarding the reveals, there are a LOT of them. For example, when Luke says "what a piece of junk!", compared to the ships in the PT it really IS a piece of junk. So that line is ruined. We've already met Jabba so that reveal is blown (well, the SE blew it already I guess). Of course the Vader reveal, the sister reveal, the Yoda reveal, the force reveal (Obiwan in Mos Eisley)....
You're in the right place. You can actually do better than the VHS releases, as there are several options for seeing decent transfers of the original trilogy. The "GOUT", DarkJedi's improved version of the GOUT, and Harmy's Despecialized editions are three great places to start. Peruse the preservation threads and summaries, and welcome aboard!
I think I remember back in 1977, George saying that when they tried to make up alien languages they just weren't convincing... not enough variation to sound right. So they took an existing language and ran it backwards - or something like that. Actually it's one of the (few) things he's said that actually makes sense; languages are very complex and it's not easy to just make one up, even for a movie.
I'm curious what would happen if someone from here trolled blu-ray.com in a sort of reverse way. That is, what if someone posted ala kenkraly but even moreso? Like: "I hate the boring OOT and am so glad there adding more effects the old obiwon guy was so stoopid an they should put more ghosts at the end of jedi i am SO stoked eps 1-3 are coming out on BD." I wonder how far you could take it without getting banned. Is there a limit?
I've never thought it was a good idea to watch Ep.4 in the context of episodes 1/2/3. It's like watching a battle of the bands between Metallica and the Mozart String Quartet. You just can't appreciate one while being bombarded by the other. I'd be much more interested in someone's reaction to seeing them in the order they were made.
And it's not at all surprising that many people these days are reluctant to watch Star Wars. The whole franchise and saga have gotten so silly that people assume the whole lot is a bunch of juvenile silliness.
Hi Ken. Perhaps you are confusing the transfer from film to digital, versus the transfer from digital to user media. Of course transfering to BD is different than transfering to DVD. Folks here are talking about the earlier step which is transfer from film to digital, and given that it was done in 1080p there is a very good chance that it won't be done again. Else why would GL have done the last transfer in 1080p in the first place? It was done for this very purpose.
Of course it will look better than the DVDs because it won't have been downscaled.
I also would be surprised if they didn't tweak the colors [sic] -- in fact I'll bet that they'll reduce the blue a bit in ESB in post, and that will get a bunch of the apologist brainless sheep beaming that it's a brand new transfer. Haha! That's just a prediction of course... might not happen. But if it does, I'm going to say "told you so." :)
All of the above is irrelevant, however, because it's not going to be the original academy-award winning trilogy that came out in 1977, 1980, and 1983 and changed the world of movies. I'm waiting for that and until then I'll stick with the fan preservations. That much we DO know, and it's enough for me. I'm just not interested in watching early CGI remakes of ground-breaking 1977 special effects.
I think that the preservations coming from this group (Harmy, Adywan, etc.) are going to keep the OOT alive, because over time it is going to just get easier and easier for people to download them. And, it is possible that they will factor in to real change eventually. I'm hopeful.
The inclusion of the line "...and we know Lucas will be quite adamant about QC" invalidates the review in my opinion.
none said:
As you pointed out the curious things is that two reels have similar lead in material while the third (middle reel) is something else entirely. Wondering if this also happened on the Krig. (haven't looked yet)
Yes, the same situation was on the Krig. Apparently, it's not uncommon, although I don't know why.
Bobby Jay quoted this from an article:
Release of the older films in particular on Blu-ray will be a real challenge for Fox, owing to the limits of cinematic technology of the era, but Episodes II and III should have the potential to truly amaze.
Geez, statements like that even give sheep a bad name. Pathetic.
It might be possible to date the PG reels by studying the lead-ins/lead-outs provided in the provided extra.
My guess is that many mono releases are 2.0 because many cheap systems have a cheap center speaker. Knowing that, a mono playback is more likely to sound good in most people's homes if they force playback on the better mains.
PG is mono 2.0 because I didn't know any better. Now that I do, I probably would still encode that way.
I have stated many times on this forum that not only do I enjoy SW better than ESB, I also think SW is a much better movie. Yoda and the scenes on Dagobah save ESB from mediocrity. Similarly, Jabba and the Emperor save ROTJ from mediocrity.
One difference, in my mind, is that every scene in SW contributes to the story... it is a superbly structured movie. Contrast with ESB, where many scenes, even lengthy ones, exist only because they are cool. For example, the scene inside the asteroid where they're in the gullet of the giant snake is cool, but is irrelevant to the story despite being long. It also has a poor ending.
I also find ESB to be a claustrophobic film. Every scene takes place in an uncomfortable, closed-in location. That might be one reason I actually enjoyed ROTJ in the theater more than I enjoyed ESB.
To this day I don't understand diehard fans' insistence that ESB is the better movie. The Yoda character is a masterpiece however, and manages to fill Alec Guiness' shoes admirably.
And a camera :)
Seriously, I still maintain when all is said and done, even a HD 16mm telecine with one of those beauts is still going to basically be a reddish collection of scratches, dropouts, furrballs, and assorted mouse droppings. The money is probably better spent helping -1 with his 35mm transfer.
I honestly don't remember how I found this site. I stay because it is an oasis of sanity in a sea of lunacy.