TServo2049

doubleofive said:

I love how I remember somehow that it was changed because "A Jedi doesn't take revenge." Then I remember hearing that it was too similar to "Star Trek II: The Revenge of Khan", so they both changed their titles.

You're half right. The change from "Revenge" to "Return" had nothing to do with Star Trek II, which had been out for months when ROTJ's title was changed. Paramount changed the subtitle of Star Trek II from "The Vengeance of Khan" to "The Wrath of Khan" because at the time, ROTJ was still to be called "Revenge of the Jedi."

ST2 came out in June 1982, ROTJ in May 1983. Even though ST2's release date was a full year before ROTJ's, Star Wars was so big and anticipation for the third film was so high that Paramount worried that releasing a film with a title containing "Star ____" and "Vengeance of ____" would cause confusion and/or raise the ire of Lucas' legal department.

Irony: It was Paramount who came up with the "Vengeance of Khan" title in the first place. Obviously, someone else at the studio (maybe *their* lawyers?) then realized it wasn't a good idea. Memory Alpha says that Meyer himself brought up the ROTJ issue - he hated the studio's retitle and wanted them to go back to his original title of "The Undiscovered Country". I think William Shatner brought this up in his book "Star Trek Movie Memories".

OK, so there were more instances of "Return" being mentioned. I still don't buy the "Revenge = fake title" story, especially because zombie quotes the findings of a market research study conducted by LFL at the end of 1982. The footnote citation says it comes from Steve Sansweet's "Star Wars Vault" book, a Lucas-approved publication.

I find it very hard to believe that they'd have conducted a study on reactions to "Revenge" vs. "Return" if "Revenge" was a bogus title and they were intending to call it "Return" the whole time. It's just more of this whole "everything was planned out"/"Lucas is infallible" bullhonky.

It would have been much more honest to admit that during production and up until the end of '82, "Revenge" was the decided-upon title, and that it was changed to "Return" because Lucas decided that a Jedi wouldn't take revenge (i.e., he changed his mind) and/or the fans didn't like the idea of Jedi seeking revenge (i.e., Lucas realized that calling the film "Revenge" was a mistake). Of course, we're supposed to believe that George Lucas doesn't change his mind or make mistakes, hence "Return was always the real title and Revenge was a fake title".

I'm tending toward zombie's hypothesis in The Secret History of Star Wars, that Lucas fully intended for "Revenge" to be the title until the final change. I know that there was that one "Return" mention from '80, but I can't really buy that "Revenge" was a fake-out title. Secret History goes into full explanation of how the "Revenge" title goes all the way back to 1979. "Return" *may* have been kicked around early on, but Lucas obviously settled on "Revenge." Until Lucas and co. got second thoughts, "Revenge" was the real title.

The "it was originally called 'Return'" spin goes back to '83. For example, when Nickelodeon's "Standby, Lights, Camera, Action" had a segment on ROTJ, the film had already been retitled, but the documentary footage they showed referred to it as "Revenge of the Jedi." Leonard Nimoy explained that "Revenge" was the working title, but repeated the Lucas spin that "Return" was the original intended title. (And I'm not sure if the film was even out yet when this aired!)

https://picasaweb.google.com/109609428403596349302/HarmySStarWarsDespecializedEditionComparisons#5615986825652673058

In 2.0, will you do anything with Luke's lightsaber in this scene to match all the other shots (which you say came from Adywan's version)? From looking at various sources like the Technidisc SWE, the Moth3r telecine, talking with mverta, etc., I think it's supposed to be a more saturated blue than it is in 1.0. I'm pretty sure that the color variation from shot to shot was almost negligible on the original prints, so even though no official transfer has every shot looking the same shade, I'd think it would be closer to how it looked in cinemas originally if it were the same shade of blue as all the other shots in DE 1.0.

Seconded. The color timing is great, too; you can see all those blues and pinks in the explosion. Ginge, who saw the Technicolor screening, will know what I'm talking about. Look at Peter Gaultney's camcorder clip of the DS explosion scene, or even the Moth3r widescreen telecine, you can see tones that aren't usually apparent in the explosion because of the different timing of the various video releases.

The 2004 mix has way too many extraneous sound effects. The original mix had the sound effects placed for maximum effect; notice that when the Star Destroyer fires its big lasers in mid-flyover, there's about a second where there are no sound effects except the rumble of it flying over. The SE mixes, and specifically the '04 mix, are full of extra laser and explosion sounds that don't match what we see onscreen.

Also, the relationship between the FX and music in the '04 mix is odd. Mavimao says the music is buried under the sound effects, but in a way it sounds to me like the sound effects are buried under the music. The music is more audible in the remix (and it sounds too "dry" to me, it doesn't have the added reverb from the original mixes), and more clearly separated from the sound effects (too much IMO; it feels like an isolated score track with sound effects added to it).

What few original sound effects remain are buried under both the music and the new sound effects, or surrounded by so much new stuff that they lose their impact (for example, the aforementioned lull before the SD fires its big lasers - that's one of my favorite sound moments in the original, and it's ruined in the '04 mix because there is no lull anymore, just a bunch of new sound effects). The listener isn't given any opportunity to "breathe", but is instead subjected to a constant barrage of lasers and explosions. There's no focus in the mix, it's the sonic equivalent of those CGI battle scenes in the prequels where there's so much shit going on that you have no idea what to concentrate on.

doubleofive said:

My friend saw the trailer, which was a surprise to her. Her parents, who aren't huge Star Wars buffs said "Is that the only thing he does, mess with and then re-promote this series?

LOL. There are people who are starting to get it.

This is what happens when you start promoting a 3D theatrical re-release mere WEEKS after releasing the films on Blu-ray...

Oh that painting. The one in TAoSW is from the first shot - I don't think I've ever seen the blank matte painting of the second one anywhere.

My question is still valid though - anybody ever come across the second hangar shot in that series of limited-edition 70mm film cells?

CatBus said:

TServo2049 said:

Anybody got a 70mm frame of the hangar shot?

Maybe.  Do you think it'd be in this 70mm Technicolor IB print I've been using as a paperweight?

LOL. There's no such thing as a 70mm IB Technicolor print. :)

I put a smiley in, but actually, it's a serious question. Remember those limited-edition 70mm film cells that were available back in the mid-90s? Quite a few of them show up on eBay, I was asking if anybody has come across one of the Falcon hangar shot.

As I stated a few pages back, the problem with the Falcon docking matte is that it is not fully a painting. As Ellenshaw stated in his interview with Rinzler, he painted around a still of the model. You can see this painting, the one that was actually used, in the Art of Star Wars book - it's the hangar, and the *edges* of the Falcon.

You'd need a high-res film frame. The closest thing I know of is that screencap from the Senator screening, the one on zombie's site, and aren't you using that as one of the elements in your current composite?

Anybody got a 70mm frame of the hangar shot? :)

1.0 didn't use the full original matte painting, 2.0 did. Look at the stone walls.

Also, even with the GOUT's odd black levels, you can see darker shadow detail in the live footage than in the matte painting. And the original matte painting doesn't seem to have any black in it (though these tones aren't exactly what showed up on film, of course).

1.0 is too bright, 2.0 is too dark; maybe the answer would be to split the difference at something in between?

2.0 looks good (though maybe just a hair *too* dark?). Ginge and others who have actually seen the film in a theater can correct me, but I've always assumed that on a cinema screen, those painted people wouldn't be as bright and obvious as they were in the GOUT and other video transfers. All of the transfers had brightness, contrast, gamma and other level adjustments to account for the fact that video (and specifically analog video) has a narrower dynamic range than film, and it often played havoc with the black levels. It's the same reason that garbage mattes are so obvious, when they should be virtually invisible in the cinema.

(Also, the adjustments were not the same for every scene. Notice how in the pre-GOUT transfers, you can see the picture getting brighter as it wipes from 3PO in the desert to R2 in the canyon...)

Ginge, could you see the painted troops clearly in the Senator screening?

Two versions sounds like a good compromise to me...

OK, I get it now; you must do what you feel is right, of course...

Are we sure we want to go that far, adding FAKE grain and dirt and stuff?

I was looking at that newest Tantive test. It looks better than the original timing, but the problem with a lot of the pink/orange flashes and stuff like that is that it looks like they actually dialed down the highlights (and pumped up the saturation?) on those specific parts of the frame. Whereas the GOUT has clipped whites, a lot of the flash frames and explosions in the '04/'11, have almost *no* whites. Areas of the blaster-impact explosions that were highlights in the older transfers look almost indistinguishable from midtones in the newer ones, and look almost too colorful in relation to the rest of the image.

I'm also thinking of things like the sleeve of the Jawa applying R2's restraining bolt - that amorphous purple blob looks to me like some kind of digital color grading matte. And Harmy just spotted the brightening of Vader's face mask in that one scene.

mverta, I'm also unsure if that shadow was intentional. Before you pointed it out, I never noticed it. Now, I think I notice similar offsets on the sequels (though I can't tell if those are just video chroma shift or color bleeding or highlight ghosting or some other artifact of old video transfers...)

Empire's offset seems to "compress" closer to the main text layer as it gets closer to the middle (possibly caused by anamorphic lens distortion? I know that you can see a pronounced fish-eye effect to the main text layer...). If I futz with the saturation, gamma, etc. on the GOUT, I can see that the "shadow" on the left edge is clearly offset to the right, and on the right, it's offset to the left. On the GOUT, the text on the edges (especially on frame right) have this blobby blue glow/shadow/offset thing, but in the middle, there's almost none. But due to the blurring and diffusion problems with the credits in the GOUT transfers, I don't know how accurate they are.

Well I'm recording it to watch for myself, but I don't have the ability to capture it, at least not in HD. (I have a set-top DVD recorder but it's only capable of recording from a 480i source, I think...)

I'll record it on the DVR in my computer room, though, in case I can ever capture it properly some time in the future.

I'd really prefer if someone else could record it, who does have the means to capture.

I continue to maintain that a restoration of the original version of SW is not impossible, despite any of GL's many excuses.

As someone else pointed out, if there are no usable materials for the original, how do you explain Empire of Dreams? And some of the FX shots that were replaced were still in usable condition, because the original SE trailer shows the original version of Wedge blowing up the TIE Fighter.

And I'm also sick of this whole verbal sleight of hand of citing various issues with the elements of the *first film* to say that it's impossible to restore *any* of the OOT. I am certain that ESB and ROTJ do not suffer from the same problems, or at least not to the same degree as the original.

Which version of the end credits did you see, humdingers? The "opening day" version with the "tight" John Williams spacing, and the text at the end being spaced out really far apart, or the more familiar version that's always showed up on video?

I don't think I would ever have been able to notice the shadow if it weren't pointed out. (In fact, if one version didn't have the shadow, I'm wondering if it's even there on the starfield credits on any version, since only the scrolling section was revised, and appended onto the existing starfield section by putting in a new dissolve about half a second before the original one.)

Incidentally, while watching 2001 on Blu-ray, I noticed that the opening credits to that film also have a slight drop shadow I never noticed before.

There were clips from Mary Poppins and The Black Hole in the original version, which were cut from the video releases and later TV airings. (However, they kept Mark's line about "an English nanny getting full value out of her umbrella.")

There is a copy on YouTube with the clips intact (from a British TV airing?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIYFHUPOYCU

It's not about the look, it's about the sound. The current Blu-ray omits the original mono soundtrack, which was on the Image LD, the Image DVD and the MGM DVD.

You know, it's interesting that not much thought has been given to the separation masters. If they were made correctly back in '77, there are three B&W fine-grain masters, one for each of the YCM color records. I know Warner Bros. has a system called Ultra-Resolution for realigning 3-strip Technicolor masters - in a restoration/reconstruction of the original version of SW, couldn't some scenes come from separation masters and be similarly realigned?

This was brought up with Robert Harris on Home Theater Forum back in '06, he said that the same techniques used to recombine 3-strip Tech can be used to recombine separation masters. Sure, they'll be one generation removed from the negative, but they'll have no fading problems because they're B&W.

Jumps in quality during effects shots would be unavoidable in a 4K of Star Wars. But Baronlando is right, Sony was able to give us the 100% original version of Close Encounters, with no digitally recomposited effects shots, and it looked great. (However, in CE3K's case, the CRI elements may have been in better condition than SW, and thus able to be salvaged. I know that the CRI was still usable in 1991, because it was one of the source elements for the Criterion LD transfer.)

Where there's a will, there's a way. Lucas just doesn't have the will.

It was great. The print had several bad splices, there were whole lines missing (especially at reel changes), but otherwise it looked pretty good and the experience was awesome.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any future screenings of this print. This month, there are official screenings of the movie at various theaters, but they're digital-cinema, not film. :(

Yeah, it was a dark time for color film stock. When I saw Star Trek II in 70mm in L.A. last year, the host warned that it was a print from Metrocolor, and that prints from that lab were notoriously fade-prone. This print was faded enough that they put a blue filter on the projector to "correct" it.

Last year, I also saw Ghostbusters at the American Cinematheque. Also 70mm, also printed at Metrocolor, except it was on LPP. No fading. The age difference between the two prints was only two years, but the difference in the color was like night and day.

Back to the subject at hand, other effects-heavy films from the same time period as SW, which used the same kinds of negative stock, have been restored and presented in their original form. Close Encounters had similar issues with its O-neg, and was also full of optical composite shots on CRI, yet the restoration that's on Blu-ray looks darn good (and it has three different cuts of the film.) Superman had similar issues, and it also looks very good (though there was some digital color correction and recompositing done on that film). Both of them have a couple color flaws and noticeable grain (though I'm sure a lot of that was due to the cinematography), but they look very very good nonetheless.

The point is, I believe that the same *can* be done for the OOT, and that the fact that it hasn't been done is due to unwillingness, not inability.

Also, remember that all the hubbub about the restoration centered around the first film; I'm willing to bet that the original elements of ESB and ROTJ are in better condition.