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RATLSNAKE

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Join date
12-Jun-2004
Last activity
21-Feb-2024
Posts
199

Post History

Post
#1533114
Topic
Why are people like this?
Time

CatBus said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

One thing though is that plenty of home video releases are NOT the pinnacle of image quality.

Absolutely. And a corollary argument that could be made is, even IF you accepted that Lucasfilm could release the original trilogy, would you actually want them to? Because Lucasfilm has been fucking up the trilogy on home video since there was home video to fuck it up on. Don’t make me whip out the four-eyed stormtrooper again!

100% I wouldn’t, as they’ve proven since at least the early 90s they can’t get the QA right, and in recent decades it’s even worse. I will NEVER forget how poor those first DVDs were with the colour and saber effects…and the audio during the X-Wing attack fanfare. <sigh>

Controversial or not, I think I’d only be happy if they engaged Mike Verta to do it. Is he the best person? No. Is this what he does for a living? Big no! But in that infamous video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3W_O-tp0_g&t=6079s) he shows his anal-attentive detail he’s willing to go into, and so I think it’d be as good as it’d get. He’s at least “known” to the firm and “part of” the business of Hollywood.

I swear I still can’t get over them tweaking each release every single time. The Vader changes in ROTJ…give me a break.

Post
#1533113
Topic
Why are people like this?
Time

Nien Nunb said:

…Some *sshat in a Star Wars group on facebook kept deflecting to every technicality he could possibly grasp at…

This was your first mistake…people on those platforms are the worst. Not to say good people can’t be found there, but FB, Twitter, YouTube (shudders)…it’s just poison.

It was publicly stated years back by RAH that multiple Technicolor dye prints of each film exist in private collections, etc. That for me is adequate, as there’s plenty of classics on film who’s OCN was lost or destroyed long ago, and beautiful presentations now exist for consumption.

Just don’t engage with the worst the Internet has to offer.

Post
#1370820
Topic
Info: Mike Verta’s 4K Restoration - May 2020 Livestream
Time

DavidMDaut said:

act on instinct said:

I think there’s some sour grapes on here because we don’t have access to Legacy, but this is more than a decade of work and it has been a labor of love, I’m not comfortable brushing aside all that dedication and effort as MV just doing whatever he wants, he could really be much less considerate if it was the case that he was exclusively altering to personal taste.

Speaking only for myself, this isn’t a case of sour grapes. I’m very happy with version 1.0 of 4K77, and the improvements being worked on for 2.0 just push it over the top. No, the reason I’m down on Verta is because he’s courted this cult of personality surrounding himself predicated on this hypothetically perfect preservation of Star Wars that, after all these years, he still has almost nothing to show from it. Further, what little he has shown, it seems clear that he is grossly misrepresenting the process used to achieve those results (I’m trying very hard not to use the word “lie”). I’m just very exhausted by having to continually pretend that Verta’s Legacy project is worth being discussed in the same conversation as legitimate works of preservation and reconstruction like 4K77 or Despecialized. Or worse, that it is somehow superior to those efforts despite the fact that not a soul on Earth has seen it. If Mike ever sees fit to release this thing, I’m more than happy to evaluate it on its own merits. I look forward to having that conversation in the year 2086. In the meantime, I wish we could all move on and stop hailing as a hero the guy selling something that, at this point, might just be snake oil.

I think this is well said, some other similar posts saying the same too. Mike’s heart is in the right place, and good on him, and I too would love to see this in entirety one day, either officially released or not.
My one criticism (like others) would be in any situations where he is saying or even alluding that it’s a restoration in the more truest form. I for years have always said if you want to understand a true film restoration the stuff guys like Robert A. Harris’ have done, that is the science of restoring motion picture films. Unlikely it would happen but if a day came that Disney hired him and gave him all the support and access to source what he needed the world over, I feel we would see the right thing done without personal creative touches added.
Aside from that I think having guys like Mike with the legitimacy he has in that field helps, but it’s important his contributions are kept grounded and labelled correctly.

Post
#1340924
Topic
Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 4k UHD -- 27 DISC Boxed Set -- 3/31/2020
Time

It’s been so long since I’ve been able to come here, and the release of the this mammoth set was the best catalyst to do so. Here in Aus we’re being told (at this time) one of our largest retailers in electronic goods has exclusivity to the 27-disc set. Meh, I’m sure that’s time-based.

https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/star-wars-the-skywalker-saga-limited-edition-2020-4k-ultra-hd-blu-ray

Disappointed to read what adywan has reported. Between all those big companies over the years I cannot understand how not one of them can ever make a Star Wars release that meets quality control.

The consensus seems to be mixed here. My issue is that with local currency it works out to $AUD 44.00 or so per movie.
Even though that includes both a BD and 4k copy, that is still quite steep.

Post
#679925
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

michaeldc said:

RATLSNAKE said: 

Those are sweet! Why are the official releases never even close to this? Oh that's right LucasFilm and Fox have always been operated by twats.

Quick question, does the U thing need to be on the spine? As in to keep the covers "international".

 Thanks :)

The 'Universal' logo indicates that this is suitable for all audiences - I put the logo there because it's how I remember my old old VHS looking mainly but you'll find this or similar logos on most BD and DVD releases. I wanted the spines to not look out of places in peoples collections.

Ok that didn't take long - edited the Jedi art, looks much better now!

http://www.multiupload.nl/LJBTB4DZ2Z

Right. Here in Australia our ratings systems have always been different, and don't have such logos like "U" etc. Mind you they got REAL ugly a few years ago, where as opposed to being thin font watermarks that once matched the artwork and weren't too distracting, they're now massive solid colored logos depending on the rating.

Terrible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Classification_Board#Film_and_video_game_classifications

Post
#679612
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

pittrek said:

The Lowry master isn't 2K, just 1080p

Correct.

And for those new to this site, nor should the late John Lowry or his then company ever be blamed for the shoddiness of the release. His company did as requested by LucasFilm under less time than he would normally recommend and were not permitted to work with the original film elements in the same manner they've done with countless other classics.

Those keeping track, Lowry Digital were later bought out by DTS, and after some more selling and name changing are now known as Reliance Mediaworks.

For more info, take a sneak peak of the Lowry details here: http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html
Also recommend people to grab a copy of MK's book. I bought it years ago off Amazon, and thought it was a great read.

Post
#679609
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

michaeldc said:

Hi Harmy, while waiting impatiently for the blu-ray I got to work on some box artwork for the discs. I like the ones you made but I fancied giving it a go using the classic theatrical posters and I tried to keep it minimal (saving audio/despec/video information for an inlay) - I don't know if anyone on here would like them but thought I would upload them in case.

Wanted to run it by you in case you took issue with it at all, if so I will take them down. I purposely left off most mentions of despecialized as to me these are the definitive editions of the movies in HD, nothing else comes close so this, for me, is just Star Wars, and nothing more. Does that make sense?

http://www.multiupload.nl/G8UQV70H9Q

Also, did you manage to find an appropriate piece of software to make the BD disc yet? I tried to find something but kept running into brick walls but I will keep looking if you are still having trouble yourself.

Thanks again x

SW-Art-MC

 

Those are sweet! Why are the official releases never even close to this? Oh that's right LucasFilm and Fox have always been operated by twats.

Quick question, does the U thing need to be on the spine? As in to keep the covers "international".

Post
#679606
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

Harmy said:

I wouldn't say it's the best movie ever personally but I did like it a lot - definitely liked it a lot more than Citizen Kane, that's for sure.

BTW. this is how I watch all 1.33:1 films - the red curtain makes it feel like I'm actually watching it in an old cinema.

I have both the DVD and the even more now rare OOP BD of this by Criterion, and while their decision to embed pillars so as to ensure people watch it "correctly" on 16:9 displays was controversial, one can argue why they did it (essentially it was more to ensure less picture loss due to overscan of older or weird current sets that still tend to do this).

Anyhow, I don't think red curtain pillars are great for preserving stuff, but if you like it for screening things, hey that's your call. :) Everyone likes different things.

Post
#665712
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

yoda-sama said:

RATLSNAKE said:

yoda-sama said:

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this yet, but the project is getting a little more attention (a coworker that didn't know about this project or that I follow it found this article and showed it to me). 

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/the-making-of-the-best-version-of-star-wars...-which-of-course-you-cant-get

The moment I saw the author refer to this movie as 'A New Hope', I stopped reading & died a little inside.

Jackasses like this are a small part of what killed Star Wars as it was. When you have a few million small parts like this, you get a world where it's accepted & we get films like the prequels & the 4th Indiana Jones film. :(

In all fairness, it is not his fault he grew up with the ANH crawl, it is Lucas' fault.  All we can hope to do is reeducate with accurate restorations and resolutely correcting inaccuracies when we find them (perhaps you should leave a comment on that page to make the author aware of his misinformation).  But I get where you're coming from, and it is sad how well some aspects of the revisionist history of Star Wars have stuck so well.

(Oh, and another way it could be taken [now that I've reread the article], besides him just trying to be clear to others who know even less than him about the project and earlier changes to Star Wars, is that when he says "Despecialized Edition of A New Hope", it could be referring to the SE Star Wars as A New Hope, which the Despecializtion effectively undoes...  Or to better word, while the film Harmy made is specifically original theatrical "Star Wars", it would still be accurate to refer to it as the Despecialized Edition OF A New Hope, since that was the source it was despecialized from.  Just a fun thought.  And actually, that line of thinking would even clear the way for BD cover art with Ep IV ANH DeEd emblazoned across it.  Let the arguments commence.)

I also grew up with the newer crawl, however until the 1997 fiasco, the movie was still billed as Star Wars as was every home media release of it. No one called it A New Hope until after the dreaded 97 releases. Even then upon their release it wasn't even billed as A New Hope, more so just "Star Wars: The Special Edition".

Post
#665634
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

yoda-sama said:

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this yet, but the project is getting a little more attention (a coworker that didn't know about this project or that I follow it found this article and showed it to me). 

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/the-making-of-the-best-version-of-star-wars...-which-of-course-you-cant-get

The moment I saw the author refer to this movie as 'A New Hope', I stopped reading & died a little inside.

Jackasses like this are a small part of what killed Star Wars as it was. When you have a few million small parts like this, you get a world where it's accepted & we get films like the prequels & the 4th Indiana Jones film. :(

Post
#643642
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

Harmy said:

Thanks for uploading :-)

 

I've been part of this community for about a decade now, and watching this short video has reminded me of the very reasons I signed up in the first place.

Thank you for all your work and those who contributed to those elements.

Cannot wait to see v2.5 and share it with future generations.

Post
#619867
Topic
When/Why did you become an OT purist?
Time

Simple.  As soon as it became evident that the 97 "Special Editions" were no longer that (that being what we assumed a little something done for the 20 year anniversary), and in George's mind now the definitive editions, making the original theatrical releases obsolete, I became a purist.

As far as I'm concerned, let a director release a zillion versions of their movies. But don't ever sit there and say this new version replaces the original film.

Granted there are examples of later cuts being a better, i.e. Alexander. Took 3 goes, but Oliver Stone fixed that failure as much as he could in the final cut. The theatrical and director's cuts were awful.

However, you don't see Oliver on a war path to stop the first two vrsions from being purchased or screened.

Post
#606070
Topic
Disney Acquires LucasFilm for $4.05 billion, Episode 7 in 2015, 8 and 9 to Follow, New Film Every 2-3 Years
Time

AuggieBenDoggie said:

Sources say that restored prints of the OUT are in the works, so a bluray release is a shure thing IMO. And I personally hope the Disney restored prints are what the 3D versions are going to be from and not from the ones on the current bluray.

I won't believe this until I see them on the shelves. Not even a press release is enough, as then there is still room for a decision chance to occur and it not happen. Call me pessimistic but after so long this is where I'm at. Until I can buy it, and I watch and I see it is what we have wanted for SO long, I won't believe it. No matter how many rumours or from where.

Especially as George will still have a hand in LucasFilm as an advisor, I can't see Disney saying "we're giving the fans what you wouldn't" and him just kicking back not caring. Otherwise what was the point of the last 15 years?

Post
#604858
Topic
Disney Acquires LucasFilm for $4.05 billion, Episode 7 in 2015, 8 and 9 to Follow, New Film Every 2-3 Years
Time

SilverWook said:

RATLSNAKE said:

Cobra Kai said:

Baronlando said:

Here's Rian Johnson, I'll probably be buying LOOPER just because of this.

https://twitter.com/rcjohnso/status/263821604629389313

 

Looper was a breath of fresh air amongst a sea of very bland big budget cg action movies that are the norm these days.  I don't have a whole lot of hope that the new Star Wars movies will be any better than your typical comic book movie, but if Rian Johnson is involved I will definitely be a lot more interested.

Did you read the response to Rian's comment?

https://twitter.com/JonathanDBrown/status/263824151876358144

^ People like that need to be shot! Anyone want to help me purify the earth?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXbu4pWRoZk :P

It looks like it was a joke to me. Don't take everything people say on twitter so seriously.

I got it, and I too was joking. Forgot to use <sarcasm> or an emoticon. My bad.

Post
#604854
Topic
Disney Acquires LucasFilm for $4.05 billion, Episode 7 in 2015, 8 and 9 to Follow, New Film Every 2-3 Years
Time

Oldfan said:

Mike O said:

Oldfan said:

Yet how many just on this site would buy the originals on blu-ray on day one? And not just this site. While probably the majority of people are mostly unaware that there have been so many drastic changes over the years to the films, a very large number of people are both aware and bitter about it, which is obvious from reading this news all over the web. That's a lot of people, all who would likely buy the originals if they were made available.

"And not just on this site." It mostly is just this site, I think. People on Internet forums aren't representative of the average person.

Go read the comments on arstechnica. There are several articles on this news since it was announced, with pages of users' comments following each one. There are tons of comments hoping for the untouched originals to get a release eventually due to the news. That's not a Star Wars forum, it's a tech site.

 

 

Tech site it may be, but full of Star Wars geeks it also is. Christ, why am I typing backward speak? This is somehow Mickey's fault.

Post
#604852
Topic
Disney Acquires LucasFilm for $4.05 billion, Episode 7 in 2015, 8 and 9 to Follow, New Film Every 2-3 Years
Time

Cobra Kai said:

Baronlando said:

Here's Rian Johnson, I'll probably be buying LOOPER just because of this.

https://twitter.com/rcjohnso/status/263821604629389313

 

Looper was a breath of fresh air amongst a sea of very bland big budget cg action movies that are the norm these days.  I don't have a whole lot of hope that the new Star Wars movies will be any better than your typical comic book movie, but if Rian Johnson is involved I will definitely be a lot more interested.

Did you read the response to Rian's comment?

https://twitter.com/JonathanDBrown/status/263824151876358144

^ People like that need to be shot! Anyone want to help me purify the earth?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXbu4pWRoZk :P

Post
#604617
Topic
Disney Acquires LucasFilm for $4.05 billion, Episode 7 in 2015, 8 and 9 to Follow, New Film Every 2-3 Years
Time

xhonzi said:

nightstalkerpoet said:

New interview with Lucas biographer:

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/star-wars-7-8-and-9-are-most-exciting-says-george-lucas-biographer-exclusive-63006

...Lucas was unlikely to turn to Mark Hamill, who played Luke in the original but whose performance left the director dissatisfied.

Because Lucas knows so much about quality acting and which actors are capable of it?

"Faster and more intense!" - Lucas
What a dickhead.

I loved Anthony Daniels response to this..."I don't think anybody could take a more intense 3PO"

Post
#604615
Topic
Disney Acquires LucasFilm for $4.05 billion, Episode 7 in 2015, 8 and 9 to Follow, New Film Every 2-3 Years
Time

TheBoost said:

I remain mostly optimistic. 

  • Nothing Disney can do could be any worse than AOTC.   

I wish that were true. There is always the possibility of "something worse".

And considering Disney have done this for only the one logical reason, that being bleed it dry for every last cent, then it's very possible.

I'm willing to bet, despite the backlash in 1999, they'll create a new JarJar-like character to make the little kiddies laugh, and bring in the cash.
I'm picturing something along the lines of those two border-line racist Autobots from the second film. Forget the names, they were ice-cream trucks or something.