2016 doesn’t look like a particularly interesting year for sci-fi. Though, admittedly, with Ex Machina, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the bar was set pretty high.
That said, I’m eager to see Rogue One and Star Trek Beyond.
The rest, I’ll probably catch one day on TV…
I Want to Believe this mini-series will be good, but, damn, that last movie was pretty awful. Still, all the trailers look great.
I also got the BD set, and it looks fantastic! To be honest, the occasional use of edge enhancement and the new fonts bother me more than the cropping. But, man oh man, X-Files looks so much better than it ever did. I couldn’t recommend it more, even if just to see the cinematography that pushed the boundaries for darkness on TV…
Would recommend picking up the seasons individually or, if you want the whole series box set, going for a foreign version: German or France, which, though cheap, contains identical discs.
The Terminator (1984)- 10/10- In many ways, a perfect movie. With a wonderfully intriguing premise, it functions as action flick, sci-fi movie, and slasher film, all bound together by a surprisingly convincing love story. Arnold’s T-800 is one of the most menacing, unrelentless villains to grace the screen of cinema.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)- 8/10- An excellent action piece. Despite following the template set for it by the first film, it takes surprising directions and manages to remain an exhilarating movie today.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)- 2/10- Is there anything good about the movie? The action, though practical, is nowhere near as well staged as anything in Cameron’s films. Thematically, the movie shows among other things, a fundamental misunderstanding of the franchise’s adherence to ambiguity when it comes to time travel. But, perhaps where it most fails is its wholly unlikeable characters. Even with the central conceit that John is fleeing his destiny, the movie fails to deliver, instead offering us the whiniest version of the future war’s messiah (even moreso than Furlong).
Terminator Salvation (2008)- 5/10- Fine, though it reeks of studio intervention.
Terminator Genisys (2015)- 7/10- I still maintain that, while this movie is far from perfect, it is the only remotely worthy followup to the first two. Underneath the lackluster direction is a clear understanding, from a writing point of view, of the universe that James Cameron set up.
Amazing. Thank you so much for this release, all involved. No matter how much color correction is done to the aging 2004 Lowry master, it will never have as a naturalistic palette as this. The clean-up is also quite impressive; the print looks like it’s a few days old, not 39 years!
Someone’s already come up with a way to merge the soundtracks here:
There are two variations: one, in which the most complete tracks are selected from both to form a more complete 1:29:41 version, and the second, in which editing is required to form an even longer version at around 1:42. I followed the suggestions there for the most part, except I reinstated the Star Wars theme and put the “concert versions” at the end.
Unfortunately, I must agree that this is John Williams’s worst Star Wars score; however, I must disagree with Alderaan in terming the third best Star Wars movie to be “bland and derivative” itself. 😃
Thank you!
Easy!
I have viewed said set. Unfortunately, except for special features, it has been all but supplanted by superior HDTV airings.
For his BD, Sapirstein heavily cropped that old Japanese HDTV airing to rid it of the subtitles. Also included is an upconvert of an SD source, but obviously, the new HD airings trump that.
In short, it’s not worth getting anymore.
In addition to HAL’s, Q2’s trilogy is also fantastic at giving it a streamlined OT feel. It’s much leaner and has less annoying stuff than HAL’s does, for TPM anyway, but I still rate HAL’s slightly above Q2 for that particular film because HAL’s approach of completely removing Gungan City worked rather well I thought. Much better than just trying to rush through it.
Completely agree with this. Removing Gungan City entirely, as per HAL’s intentions, makes it seem that the abandoned temple area, shown near their end, is the Gungan’s regular home. Consequently, it becomes more plausible that the Trade Federation’s presence could eventually affect Gungan life.
I find it quite implausible in the theatrical cut that the Trade Federation would waste the resources to find and invade a city hidden underwater.
I’m downloading the Fall of the Jedi Trilogy BD25’s from Usenet. I will upload to the spleen after I’m done. It could take a few days, but they’ll be up soon.
Last time I checked, those BD25s on the NZBS were missing too many parts. Is that no longer the case?
I’m also trying to get some of his other edits, specifically Blue Velvet and Fire Walk with Me, but had the same issue.
Hi AF, nice to see you again. My wife asked to watch the prequels after watching the OT and TFA, and we have been watching L8wrtr’s versions also. Vast improvements.
Hi Frink! Thanks for the greeting. It’s nice to be back.
I can’t stress enough how much of an improvement L8wrtr made with Attack of the Clones in particular, as reflected by the score. By removing Anakin and Padme’s desire to resist, his love story is surprisingly simple yet effective, and his improvement of the relations between Obi-Wan and Anakin actually makes Episode II fall more into line with Ep. III and, of course, the Original Trilogy, where Anakin is genuinely a good friend, whom Obi-Wan believes in, but the council doubts.
I do like the revised crawl above. Though it is a decent amount of exposition, it feels necessary. The movie itself, in my opinion, does not offer sufficient explanation of the political situation. First time I watched Force Awakens, I was confused why there was a need to separate the Resistance and the Republic. With a crawl like this, I wouldn’t have been.
Also, the theatrical thread might have started too specifically by having Luke Skywalker be the first topic. Star Wars crawls generally start on bigger topics (A PERIOD OF CIVIL WAR) before growing smaller and smaller to finally naming characters. Methinks the theatrical crawl will just get hokier and hokier upon reviewing.
Glad to hear the youngling scene is staying out. Its omission was one of my preferred things about this edit, as it consequently throws more focus on Anakin’s throttling of Padme as the crucial point of no return. It just makes more sense, because of the trilogy’s focus on Padme, that his attack on her (and not nameless children) be the moment that he has completely fallen to the Dark Side.
Also, there was really no need to make Darth Vader a homicidal child murderer in the first place.
Went on a Star Wars marathon of epic proportions, including preservations and fan edits:
Star Wars (1977) (Harmy’s Despecialized v2.5): 9.5/10
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (Harmy’s Despecialized v2.0): 10/10
Return of the Jedi (1983) (JSC LD Transfer): 7.5/10
The Phantom Menace (1999) (2011 BD): 4/10
Attack of the Clones (2002) (2011 BD): 3/10
Revenge of the Sith (2005) (2011 BD): 5/10
HAL 9000’s Cloak of Deception (2014): 6/10
HAL 9000’s The Approaching Storm (2014): 5/10
HAL 9000’s Labyrinth of Evil (2014): 7.5/10
L8wrtr’s Shadow of the Sith (2010): 5/10
L8wrtr’s The Republic Divided (2011): 7.5/10
L8wrtr’s Dawn of the Empire (2012): 5/10
Neon Noir (2015): 5/10
The Blackened Mantle (2015): 8/10- Check this edit out on YouTube…seriously. The Star Wars prequels rewritten with the audio in Japanese.
THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015) (70mm 2D): 9/10- What can I say? I loved it.
Hey there, Macs can certainly burn BDs despite the fact that Apple hasn’t chosen to officially integrate usage yet. You just need to buy yourself an external BD burner, which is a relatively affordable and worthwhile thing these days. Then, you just mux the Despecialized MKV into a BD structure (BDMV, Certificate folders) and, finally, burn it with a data disc.
For the record, I’m a Mac user myself and have burned many discs successfully.
Great edit!
I’m upgrading from V3 to V4 for Cloak of Deception. When making a BD in TSMuxer, do I still need to switch to “Do Not Change SEI and VUI data,” as was necessary for V3?
I already burned a copy, and it didn’t work. I think I switched it to “Do not change,” but I might have forgotten. If anyone who’s successfully burned a copy could chime in, it’d be much appreciated.
EDIT: I confirmed that I did switch it to “Do not change.” But, again, even doing this, the copy didn’t work.
Worked fine with the ‘do not insert’ or whatever for me. BUt those discs still have the green flashing on PS4s.
Hal9000: I’m not sure what you use to encode, but the error only happened for me when I used a specific version of Premiere (2012 I think) and it goes away with newer builds. Others online have experienced the same.
Thanks. The first copy I burned actually worked when I put it in my PS3. I guess I set it to “Do not change,” after all. Issue was that one of my BD players (a stand-alone Sony) doesn’t recognize the disc because of how it’s formatted. Ah well…
Still my go-to TPM edit! For the record, I’ve checked out Q2’s and L8wrtr’s versions, which are good, but HAL 9000’s simply trumps them both, in terms of editing choices and overall AV quality. The edited climax is especially effective, even moreso than L8wrtr’s, which I understand influenced HAL.
Interesting idea!
One thing though: as I recall, in its climactic montage in which the unique aspect ratio was used, Abel Gance’s Napoleon alternated between one single 4.00:1 image and a 4.00:1 triptych, in which each third would have a different image, essentially creating a split-screen effect albeit three ways instead of the typical two. Abel Gance achieved the illusion of the ultra widescreen was, after all, by displaying three 1:33 (full screen) images side-by-side. Because the illusion wasn’t always seamless, a good bulk of that movie’s final montage relies on the triptych effect with different images instead of one single one.
That said, I think it’d be worthwhile to try the triptych effect, instead of always relying on a single image cropped to 4.00:1. Lightsaber fights could be especially fun to play with in this regard.
Examples of the 4.00:1 in action can be seen in the Napoleon restoration trailer:
Great edit!
I’m upgrading from V3 to V4 for Cloak of Deception. When making a BD in TSMuxer, do I still need to switch to “Do Not Change SEI and VUI data,” as was necessary for V3?
I already burned a copy, and it didn’t work. I think I switched it to “Do not change,” but I might have forgotten. If anyone who’s successfully burned a copy could chime in, it’d be much appreciated.
EDIT: I confirmed that I did switch it to “Do not change.” But, again, even doing this, the copy didn’t work.
I know this is an oddly specific question, but, in V4, are you going to keep Zam Wesell as a changeling? Other edits cut it because:
A particularly good excision was done in Trooperman’s workprint. It goes from Anakin’s “I think he is a she” to Obi-Wan’s “In that case be extra careful.” Bit of humor added.
Never thought that the DVD version could be distinct from the one playing in digital cinemas. It's ridiculous that every Star Wars movie has a variety of versions!
Not to derail but, it'd be quite interesting to see a recreation of the Attack of the Clones: IMAX cut. The multiple lists of differences out there are reasonably detailed (far more so than for the mythical 70mm cut of ESB) and probably could be used as a guide to assemble a fairly accurate recreation.
I quite like like the sensibilities of the people who edited the cut. Any edit that axes the meadow scene in its entirety has my interest.
If anyone is interested, I believe there's an old Russian VHSrip on a certain Russian torrent tracker. I got it and discarded it long ago because it was full screen but not open matte. That being said, it didn't have a Harlan Ellision dedication, which may be of interest to some.
Eager to hear your findings, kaosjm.
IIRC, Roger Ebert hinted at the time that the 35mm prints may have been deliberately struck poorly, with low brightness, density, and saturation, in order to push the thought that digital, which was then poor resolution, was ready as a theatrical format.
To whoever started seeding the torrent for Matt Steven's custom disc again, thank you. Will definitely stay on.
Anyone still have the revised subtitles for Matt Steven's excellent custom BD of Hard Boiled? I unwisely burned a copy of the release's first iteration with some minor translation errors and never got a chance to see V2.
The original torrent sadly seems dead...