SilverWook

There are larger, more subtle apocalypses looming other than zombies.

http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/megoplex/zogg.html

ToscheStation said:

Mike O said:

SilverWook said:

The sad part is '97 Jabba looks more like this fellow than the original Jedi puppet. ;)

What is God's name is that!?

 "Chet", from the 1985 Val Kilmer movie,  "Real Genius".  

Really? I thought it was the makeup test for the never filmed scene in Aliens where the Queen has Hudson's love child. ;)

It's an important piece of SW video history as it was the first release. The only gap in my collection is a VHD videodisc copy.

zombie84 said:

evan1975 said:

  I think the prequels showed people what bad Star Wars really was.

I think that, more than anything, has helped Hamill and Fisher.

Whenever people diss Hamill I always ask "have you seen Empire Strikes Back"? He practically carries the film, and the majority of his screentime is spent interacting with a literal rubber puppet. The guy gave nearly an Oscar worthy performance and he only has about three scenes where he is face to face acting with another recognizable human being. And I'm not even making that up! -One scene with Ford and Fisher in the hospital -one tiny scene with Dak getting into the speeder for about five seconds -a small bit when he is rescued on the Falcon -and then a reaction scene at the very end of the film.

Everything else is either done over radio, with masked characters, with puppets, or just reaction shots.

IIRC, Hamill has talked about the isolation he felt during the Dagobah shoot.

It looks really clean for a rental tape. These have been fetching nutty prices for a long time.

The transfer should be identical the the rental only Beta in my collection. The case on mine was damaged, and it took years before I found a similar one to replace it. No fun trying to open those heat welded seals without tearing the cover!

AntcuFaalb said:

TServo2049 said:

Isn't the TPM VHS copy-protected? You need to find a way to bypass that if you want to test the machine with that tape.

The TBC inside of the Panasonic AG-1980 should chew right through Macrovision protection.

Some DVD recorders like mine will still refuse to record if they detect the Macrovision signal though. The TBC will stabilize the video, but it can't remove the MV signal.

I think this is a indoor swap meet now...

The mall theater I saw Empire in glorious 70mm was carved up into small crackerboxes over the years, got kind of run down and seedy, (or so I've heard) and apparently is going to be torn down and rebuilt.

http://moorestown.patch.com/articles/demolition-of-moorestown-mall-theater-imminent

The honest to goodness movie palace I saw Jedi (and Raiders) at still stands, but it became a concert only venue not long after '83.

http://www.profilesinhistory.com/dreier-collection/catalogs-and-registration-information

Some interesting items and props I’ve not seen closeups of before. Some Indiana Jones stuff too. Start around page 123 to get to the SW stuff. 😃

Yeah, never mind Carrie is a best selling author.

Harrison Ford apparently can do no wrong.

Mavimao said:

Just was curious... So this P&S Japanese LD of schorman13's has the original 77 fanfare AND the 77 dolby stereo mix... in digital???

How awesome!

Did you do a bit for bit digital transfer? Would that even make a difference?

Who knows what treasures other obscure P&S LDs have in terms of sound. Mono mix and or 70mm mix in digital :-D ? One can dream...

Have all the early PAL versions been investigated?

DuracellEnergizer said:

Maybe one day, after Nolan's out of the picture but while Hamill is still capable, he'll be cast to play a live-action Joker. Maybe then people'll drop this "Luke Skywalker can't act" schtick and take the man seriously as an actor.

I totally want to see that. There's no iron clad rule the Joker has to be young, Nicholson was no spring chicken when he donned the makeup.

Some bat fans think it's a shame Kevin Conroy never got a chance to wear the cape and cowl as well.

He was also great in the Wing Commander games.

They also forgot Mark had a healthy voiceover career before and well after Star Wars. Nobody can touch his Joker!

Not to mention playing Mozart in Amadeus on Broadway.

The sad part is '97 Jabba looks more like this fellow than the original Jedi puppet. ;)

Watching it with the laptop patched into my HT in Pro Logic, and they sound fine to me!

I noticed Deems' voice seems to be slightly spread across the front channels, while Corey's is dead center. I attribute this to the differences in the way their voices were recorded and mixed.

I'm starting to see why the Taylor segments were trimmed in later versions, he practically gives away the Sorcerer's Apprentice plot in the "restored" portion!

It's funny how 35 years later, I remember a little kid in the theater yelling out "Bye Mickey!" after he shakes hands with Stokowski.

I wonder if any prints ever had a Vistasonic credit? Every version of Popeye I've seen didn't even have a Dolby Stereo credit. I actually thought the movie was mono for many years, having only seen it on tv.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Lots of useful information and opinions online about using the 1980.  There aren't really that many settings; it's pretty easy to use.  The good thing about the 1980 is that it is pretty conservative with its noise reduction. So you don't have to feel guilty about using some of its features.

Yes there are built-in head cleaners, but I opened it up and saw them - they didn't really impress me.   I find it hard to believe that they would actually clean the heads.  Personally, I'm so used to cleaning video heads myself that I feel more comfortable doing it than having someone else (or a machine) do it.  I guess it's because I work with all those old reel-to-reel formats that come from the "sticky-shed" era where you have to bake tapes and clean the heads even just halfway through a tape.  It's really not that hard if you're a careful, detail-oriented type of person.  Don't use Q-tips.

I did head cleaning the old fashioned way on some Umatic decks back in college. You had to "pop the hood". We had a special spray and cleaning cloths made for the task.

By way of comparison, I did have some build up on the head of my AG-1970 that caused some minor picture distortion until I used a cleaning tape as a last resort. I think some tapes I got in a trade were the cause of that though. I don't think I've ever had any real head problems with either 1980 I've owned.

One thing in our favor is 70's and 80's videotape were made to much higher standards. Things went downhill in the 90's in terms of quality.

Someone with the right tools could probably put a window in the cover. One thing I liked about some decks I've owned over the years.

Most of the Panasonic AG line machines were intended to be rack mounted though. I'm still surprised they even had a tuner. I don't think I could even set the clock without the manual.

Wow, Brian DePalma really had no frame of reference did he? You'd think he never watched anything but Hitchcock movies. ;)

The Clone Wars series is also moving right along, and probably generates most of toy sales right now.

There's another Celebration con this summer.

No way 2017 is going to slip by without something significant happening. It's too big of an anniversary to blow off.

All of this can go on with minimal oversight by George if he's really stepping back. Since he's the boss, it's not like he can't change his mind and jump back in.

Yeah, that's it. :)

Just how many short lived theatrical audio formats were there back then? I was aware of "Sound 360" and "Megasound", but this was a new one to me.

That is unusual, as there was no Criterion LD release of this in PAL that I know of. I'm not sure there were any PAL Criterion titles.

Maybe Gilliam and Jones were in England when the commentary was recorded and were watching a PAL transfer of the film? Of course, someone at Sony had to take the 1992 commentary and synch it up with the new HD master to begin with.

AntcuFaalb said:

Assuming that everything works OK: how many captures should I take with this new setup? Should I do something like an average-of-five or something crazier like five TooT()s followed by an average of those five?

You will definitely want to experiment with the 1980's built in TBC and the noise reduction.

That is way better than when I was watching it projected onto a blank sheet of paper taped to the wall! ;)

I came across an interesting bit of history on Raider's original sound mix over at the LDDB forum, but I think you have to be registered there to be able to access it.