YAREL_RGP

adywan said:

I have tried posting this numerous times now and everywhere i’ve uploaded it, it has instantly been blocked. My only option was to upload it to google drive. I don’t know how long this will last due to the bandwidth restrictions , but it was my only option. You can view the preview or download the clip to see it in better quality ( which is what i would recommend )

If you want to prevent your video from being blocked due to copyright issues, add this to the YouTube description. (Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. No copyright infringement intended)

MORC said:

One thing I’ve been thinking about this restoration is: How are they going to handle the international dubs? For example, are they simply going to hire a Brazilian studio to make a new dub (as the special edition versions we have probably won’t fit well) or are they going to restore the old Herbert Richers dub somehow?

Disney maintains its own archive of every dub created for its films. For example, in 1997, when the Special Edition was released in Spain, 20th Century Fox commissioned the dubbing of the new scenes using the existing dub as a base. To do this, they first had to digitize the dub so it could be played on a DTS CD and then combine it with the new dubbed scenes. However, the dub from the unmodified version was still present, albeit in analog format. What Disney would have to do is re-digitize each dub for this restoration, since, as I’ve already mentioned, the changes for the Special Edition were made and applied digitally. It will be difficult to re-digitize each European dub, the Asian ones, and perhaps the Latin American one, but digitally they won’t have to modify anything, just clean them up until they sound like new, as they’ve done with previous releases (except for the Castilian Spanish dub, because we continue use the DTS 5.1 DVD track in 2025 thanks to Disney and Divisa Films).

oojason said:

NEW SCREENSHOT COMPARISON - AND A NEW VIDEO CLIP - FROM RETURN OF THE JEDI…

 

ALI…

God, I want to share my thoughts, and this can’t be ignored, but look at that level of quality. ALI is proving to be technological magic. Initially, I raised an eyebrow in concern when I read that this software extracts all the grain, fixes the underlying image, and then adds it back in. Even though they claim that not a single detail is lost, I was still worried, knowing that official Star Wars releases are usually disappointing and always seem to do something to ruin them. Here, they’re simply doing something unbelievable. If this is the level a 35mm film from the '70s and '80s can actually offer, imagine what we’ve possibly missed from other celluloid productions released on UHD. A while ago, I saw the new remaster of Jaws, and I couldn’t believe it; it looked PERFECT. The quality and the grain were exactly what this production was meant to showcase. But now I’m wondering if the ALI process would make it look even better.

That guy with no name said:

Mocata said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

JadedSkywalker said:

I’m really curious as to where they will get the original colors from 1977, 1980 and 1983 and to know they are accurate.

What references do they have. I’m somewhat skeptical because Lowry messed them up twice.

I don’t think Lowry “messed them up”. The DVDs and BDs almost certainly looked as George wanted them.

He just really loves magenta.

Which is odd, considering he oversaw and approved the gorgeous 1997 SE color grade lol…

The original negative was so faded that when it came to making the IP that would be the basis of the SE, they couldn’t afford to “experiment” with the colors that could be achieved with analog color correction; it was either have color again or never finish and end up completely wearing out the OCN until it was too late. With digital technology, George had the luxury of doing it, but for the 97 SE they had to be sure with what they had.

 
UHD…

This is one of the few shots that made me say, “UHD is far better than HD04.” While it’s obvious that 4K crushes the terrible 2004 transfer, it wasn’t a job that met modern viewing standards, with its horrible monochrome colors in HDR (I don’t know how it looks in Dolby Vision) and excessive DNR. Now we’ll have a true remaster, and it’s from the original, no less.

oojason said:

NEW SCREENSHOT COMPARISON - AND A NEW VIDEO CLIP - FROM RETURN OF THE JEDI…

 

ALI…

The most detailed old wrinkled one ever

That guy with no name said:

YAREL_RGP said:

That guy with no name said:

YAREL_RGP said:

Detail: ALI…

 
Detail: UHD…

Well, it’s important to note that this shot was digitized in 2K in 1997 to add the rope holding Han, so the UHD not only includes that shot with a clearly lower resolution, but also suffers from excessive DNR for the 3D conversion, which caused the image to lose detail.

Yeah, the point of the comparison is that this isn’t sourced from the UHD. Or you’re right, it would also have quality loss. Also good to note that the 97 filmouts also had fake digital grain added on top to disguise the new CG! So yeah, doubly worse…

I don’t know why you say “digital fake grain was added.” This shot was scanned, digitized, had CGI added, and was reprinted. If there’s supposedly more grain, it’s because of the reprinting. Although, back then, films had very fine grain, so no detail was lost when reprinting a film a second time. In the case of the enhanced shots in Star Wars, they look “worse” because they were rendered in 2K.

No, they had fake grain added onto them aswell… even in '97.
https://youtu.be/RMzif1D0nyA

Well, I think it refers more to the completely computer-generated shots, like the CGI shots of the Battle of Yavin, the CGI arrival on Bespin, among others, but the existing shots that were altered already had grain, and when reprinting, the natural grain of the new film did its thing.

That guy with no name said:

YAREL_RGP said:

Detail: ALI…

 
Detail: UHD…

Well, it’s important to note that this shot was digitized in 2K in 1997 to add the rope holding Han, so the UHD not only includes that shot with a clearly lower resolution, but also suffers from excessive DNR for the 3D conversion, which caused the image to lose detail.

Yeah, the point of the comparison is that this isn’t sourced from the UHD. Or you’re right, it would also have quality loss. Also good to note that the 97 filmouts also had fake digital grain added on top to disguise the new CG! So yeah, doubly worse…

I don’t know why you say “digital fake grain was added.” This shot was scanned, digitized, had CGI added, and was reprinted. If there’s supposedly more grain, it’s because of the reprinting. Although, back then, films had very fine grain, so no detail was lost when reprinting a film a second time. In the case of the enhanced shots in Star Wars, they look “worse” because they were rendered in 2K.

Detail: ALI…

 
Detail: UHD…

Well, it’s important to note that this shot was digitized in 2K in 1997 to add the rope holding Han, so the UHD not only includes that shot with a clearly lower resolution, but also suffers from excessive DNR for the 3D conversion, which caused the image to lose detail.

That guy with no name said:

Hey guys, I’m not trying to “gotcha” anybody, but I think that 4K77 is just the UHD, but color timed and regrained! And these two sources were created almost 40 years apart! TN1 are such hoaxers omg.

Damn, it was about answering him, not humiliating him.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Do we really think George cares? He did in fact release the OUT on disc, just lazily and cheaply. And he has approved screenings of OUT prints. I think it’s more he never wanted to spend the millions to restore them, given they’re not his preferred version. If someone else spends the money, which Disney appears to be, I doubt he’d care so long as his preferred versions also remain available.

One might think that although George detests the OUT version and didn’t want to invest anything in that version but did in the SE version, he allows the original to be seen if you find a way to do so on your own, or even if someone restores the OUT version, he doesn’t care as long as they maintain the SE version. This is a new perspective that may be true. George could easily think, “Hey, I’m not going to release this version because I don’t like it and I’m not going to invest in it, but if someone wants to, go ahead.”

I still find it strange that the VistaVision intermediate film hasn’t been scanned at 8K. I don’t know if 6K is really that good, because even though VistaVision is high quality, how comparable is it to a 65mm film to warrant scanning it at 8K?

Hi Adywan, I know that among your sources you are using a 2011 Blu-ray downscaled to 720p and upscaled with Topaz AI to 1080p, and the 2020 UHD Blu-ray for scenes and details that look better, but recently a completely new and restored version was leaked using the OCN, without abusive and poorly done DNR as in UHD Blu-ray and with a much higher resolution and details. We know that all of your work on ANH and ROTJ so far has been with the previous sources, but if these versions were to come out in 2027, would you use them to improve your edition? In my opinion the news is quite hard for your situation, since you have had to work hard to eliminate static grain in the UHD Blu-ray, only for a version with the correct grain and much more detail to come out now. (Obviously this is incredible news since it’s a leak from the OUT and not a renewed SE, I say this from your position when working on Revisited)

timdiggerm said:

I also wonder if they won’t do a purist version (original effects) and a nicer-looking version (original but recomposited effects), with the latter being what gets released in theaters.

We were talking about this in TheStarWarsTrilogy forums in the 50th anniversary section, we fans feel that there will never be a so to speak “definitive version”, there will always be criticism about the grain, quality, audio, color, etc., so we think that the original versions should be released in theaters, what was seen in theaters at the time, but in UHD Blu-Ray like Ridley Scott they should release apart from OUT, the SE from 1997, and the recomposed OUT which was an option that like you I proposed. SE can boast that they recomposed effects but there are not that many recomposed, and they were done in 2K, then in 2004 for TESB and ROTJ they recomposed things but in poor 1080p, they should release a completely recomposed version of the special effects in 6K/8K, be it laser shots, vehicles, creatures, backgrounds and if you want even the transitions using the original elements without resorting to the good transitions optically recomposed by Pacific Titles, nor the original composite transitions they are using for this new leaked restoration.

Broom Kid said:

oojason said:
They could be in indicator towards a physical media release (or large-scale internal archival project) - rather than just a DCP for a theatrical run for the 50th anniversary. I do hope we get to see some more of those kind of videos.

I think the dead giveaway this was always going to have some sort of physical release (whether it’s Disney doing it or they license it to a label like Criterion) - even before the official 50th announcement so early - is that they’re working on an Atmos mix next to the theatrical audio restorations.

I’ve heard the suggestions that it could be an internal archival project BUT an Atmos remix nulls all that out. You’d only be doing one of those if you’re planning on a big release, theatrical AND home, otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense to do at all.

I think in theaters we’re going to be able to hear that new atmos track that seems like it’s literally going to remix all the original audio elements, and when it comes out on UHD Blu-ray, there will be options for every theatrical audio track.

JadedSkywalker said:

Are they doing the original VistaVision first gen material. Because that would be like Oh my god. You have no idea how many years I’ve wanted to see those scanned at the highest resolution.

Seeing other films restored from VistaVision its quite amazing actually.

And the idea they found all the so-called lost trims and CRI that was claimed to be junked.

Were we lied to or mislead for years. Or did they really not know where all this material was.

They’ve been saying for years “Oh, they must have fooled us”, it’s obvious, they could always have restored Star Wars in thousands of ways, with the CSM, and if they had problems with contraction or something typical of a movie, digitally it would have been fixed, even any IP coming directly from the OCN would have been enough, maybe we thought that the CRI was so degraded that it was unusable, of course, in the 90s, digitally they could have left it as new

Fang Zei said:

It’s so funny that I actually vaguely remember hearing about this back in 2011.

Even if this was indeed a thing, it’s nowhere near as advanced as how dolby vision or even just regular hdr10 works.

This reminds me more of the “filmmaker mode” they finally started building into new tv sets just within the last several years, which completely turns off any processing like sharpening, noise reduction, etc, and also sets the correct 6500k color temperature (or as close as the tv can get to it out of the box).

Maybe that’s basically what this THX Media Director was, simply forcing the tv into a thx mode over the hdmi connection from the bd player if the disc and player were both capable, but … you should really just have that input set to that mode all the time so that whatever you’re watching on blu-ray is relatively accurate to the industry standards it would’ve been color graded and mastered at.

It’s possible that the difference with THX’s Media Director is that they actually took it a step further and tweaked the settings on a title by title basis … but again, that’s not really how things are supposed to work. Lucas, for example, isn’t supposed to grade and master his films expecting everyone’s televisions to be slightly tweaked one way to his specific set of preferences while Spielberg grades his films to another.

Maybe this really was an experiment in what eventually became hdr, and thx’s media director was able to somehow subtly tweak the settings this way and that as the movie played? Very interesting.

True story, I watched the 2011 disc of ANH on a 2k cinema projector in an actual movie theater back in 2017 and it looked surprisingly good. Like, maybe/probably that was just the insane quality of the projector making up for any shortcomings of the old 2004 hd master, but I could finally see where the bold statement all the way back then of it being a “digital negative” came from.

THX always sought to ensure that the colorimetry of their films adhered to the director’s vision, first the thing started with the alterations in the LaserDisc masters of 93, so I would not be surprised if George financed this technology so that interested film directors decided to hire it so that the Blu-Ray editions had the desired colorimetry, and then so that everyone could see the same thing on their TV the technology would calibrate the TV according to the title, but it was quickly forgotten and ignored, I discovered all this thanks to that user a few months ago, I hope I can contact him so he can show me examples of how this technology worked in the Star Wars saga

Anakin94 said:

YAREL_RGP said:
There is no 2K scan of the special edition trilogy, the restoration was all analog and physical,

And how the 2004 SE was made?
AFAIK it’s based on the 1997 SE 2k scan.

In 2004 the only thing that was digitized from 1997 were the SE scenes plus the redone wipes, everything else is from the original camera negative, perhaps in some trailers from 2003 when the trilogy was announced on DVD you could see scenes with the 1997 colorimetry since the digital restoration of the negatives was still in process and they had to show something now, this is the reason why the DVD menus and cover images have very different colors than the HD Master.
https://blog.sporv.com/the-strange-case-of-star-wars-rai-tre-broadcast/ and http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-2004-DVD-Interactive-Menus-vs-Movie/id/15265

That guy with no name said:

In 1997, as part of the restoration, the newly assembled negative was scanned and digitally restored in 2k. does this mean that there is currently a 2k file of the original film(s) sitting in lucasfilm archive?

There is no 2K scan of the special edition trilogy, the restoration was all analog and physical, Digitizing the entire film in 1996 would have been PROHIBITED due to the high cost and limited storage capacity of hard drives, the only thing that was scanned were the scenes that were going to be “enhanced” with CGI like the entrance to Mos Eisley until its exit, (Which was what George always wanted since 1977), or the stay on Bespin, and for some recompositions using original negative pieces, That George Lucas had saved for all these years and that LucasFilm surely has in a Disney vault, if today each piece were digitized in 4K or 6K and those scenes were recomposed, they would look better than ever, and scenes that even in 1997 were never recomposed would look very modernized, it is worth dreaming that one day they will make a recomposed edition…

That guy with no name said:

JAGNUS said:

Hello My friends. This is is amazing. I’m trying to get it for the Mac and @That guy with no name seems to have donwloaded it. May you guys give me the link to the Mac verison of the build. Thank you everyone.

Again, it’s currently in development. I have a testing version… It should be public soon. Williarob is working on it. apologies.

Is that test version the one you used in the color reconstruction of Adywan 1997 on the TESB Blu-ray?

The Star Wars Purist said:

I did try the THX Optimizer stuff for a viewing of ANH one time ('04 DVD, for reference), and I can definitely say I preferred the colors that gave me versus the stock settings on my TV, even despite the slightly limited settings I had to mess with. Not a massive difference, but I recall that it was a bit more natural-looking.

If you still have that THX equipment and have the 2011 Blu-ray, I ask you to try to see if there is a difference. I repeat, this technology was included in 2011 and STAR WARS was the first to use it.

stretch009 said:

YAREL_RGP said:

The colors look amazing, your description of the horrible colors of the UHD edition could fit perfectly with the 2011 BR of Star Wars, now, I have a question. Do you plan to add any language to your version? Since it would be great to be able to see and hear it in castilian, I’m just asking if it’s possible of course.

Does your UHD disc include castilian audio and subtitles, YAREL_RGP? You should be able to mux them in yourself if it does…

??? First of all if I do that I would have to download the TGWNN project, it usually gives versions with high or low bit rate, I always download the high bit rate version, (which usually weigh a lot) then I get the dubbing and sync it in a video editor, but when exporting it in my editor I would have to adjust the same bit rate so as not to compress it too much, after exporting I would have 2 very large files of the same size, then I would have to delete the original source and keep my synchronized audio version, everything I mentioned is a long process that takes some time, for that it is better that the track comes in the project and that’s it, when you say (You should be able to mux them in yourself if it does) you don’t realize that not everyone has the storage space or time for it, I’m not saying this for myself, I’m saying this for many people to whom this could happen.

The colors look amazing, your description of the horrible colors of the UHD edition could fit perfectly with the 2011 BR of Star Wars, now, I have a question. Do you plan to add any language to your version? Since it would be great to be able to see and hear it in castilian, I’m just asking if it’s possible of course.

Haarspalter said:

The complete Cannes interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHXLsHOdPiw

Fast forward to timecode 53:08 … the interviewer asks Lucas a question from a fan, if he will release the original versions in the future. Lucas drops the “it looks terrible” quote a few seconds later.

It bothers me that they put just anyone as an interviewer, if it were someone really informed I would have asked questions like, “If LucasFilm still has the original compositing pieces, why don’t they digitally recompose the original effects?” Since George talks about the restoration process done for the first SE of ANH, and says that the film was discolored and the negative pieces were scratched (Which is a fact), they currently have a restored negative although with scenes altered by CGI, they could easily scan the 1997 SE, (something that Disney already did since they have a 4K scan of that edition) along with the composition pieces and remake the unaltered version recomposing the original scenes, and if there are people who want to keep the garbage matte optical composition then they could also scan interpositives from that time whose biggest problem is color fading but not analog degradation, or even the CRI negatives of those scenes that in the 90s restoration were cut from the negative due to degradation, being replaced by higher quality recomposed negative versions or by CGI versions of course, they have no excuse, and if they complain about the laserdisc it is nonsense since at the time it was the highest quality home video, George makes up those lies to avoid releasing the unaltered version. It’s not because they can’t do it, IT’S BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT TO.

JadedSkywalker said:

YAREL_RGP said:

JadedSkywalker said:

I think still having to argue with people over why the original should be on Blu-Ray and 4K and Han why Han shooting second is stupid, 20 years after we signed a petition to the get the original released just to get Lynn Hale’s spiel, kind of makes me think it’s a lost cause.

I have 4K77 and I’m reasonably happy with it.

It won’t be lost because the British Film Archive and Library of Congress have the original. Its just not available to the general public. Unless you have out of print DVD, VHS or laserdisc. Yeah none of those is theatrically accurate but whatever.

Does that mean that the original negatives are archived in a place where they are available for scanning at any time today? From what source do you get this information? It is really very interesting

Not negatives no, but LOC do have 35mm prints they have scanned and archived. I’m almost 100% certain BFI has done the same. But I don’t have some inside knowledge.

Lucasfilm has the negatives, and it is true that the O-neg is conformed to the 1997 edit. But they saved all the trims. What is lost is the original color reversal negative, all the wipes and dissolves. Anyone who says they can’t do a restoration is being foolish. It’s not about the money, it’s not about can it be done. It is all about George, he hates the original and does not want it restored.

These are probably positive prints like the 35mm print of ROTJ used for 4K83, taken directly from the negative, Prints that approach the quality or have the quality of camera negative