I’m glad they aren’t using the crawl. It’s become overused with star wars material and outside of it. I’ve always associated it with the episodic saga and not anything else. It will be nice to see the anthology movies standing on their own. It’s certainly NOT a dumb idea to lose it.
Sat down and watched the 3D blu-ray of TFA again tonight and then again with the 2d version with JJ’s commentary. It’s been a year almost since the film came out and i still think it’s as good as ever. It has its flaws , yeh, but so do all the original 3, and we still love them. But this IS Star Wars, unlike those terrible prequels.
It’s amazing just how good the 3d looks on the blu-ray. At the cinema , the few times i saw it in 3d, the picture was a little blurry and lots of crosstalk. But i noticed that the projector booth glass was smudged to hell in all the cinemas i saw the 3d version. Gone are the days cinemas cared about giving you best possible viewing. no crosstalk and the picture is nice and clear. Colours are great.
The commentary is pretty good. It’s nice to hear JJ confirm all the things i said about rey and her abilities ( which are actually explained in the movie so it is hard for me to understand why so many seem to be confused and complaining about this). I won’t go into details about the commentary so people can hear it all fresh fro themselves.
The new extras on the disc are a bit too short, which is a complaint i had about the original release. I think it would have been better if these behind the scenes concentrated more on how they did things than so many talking heads. It was nice that the foley artists finally got some recognition as they are an integral part of a films production, yet they usually seem to get overlooked.
Only 2 new deleted scenes ( 3 f you count the one that was with the target release). Its a shame they included a version of the unkar plutt scene with the temp cg effects on the face. It would have been nice to see it with the original mask, no matter how rough that looked. Its probably a more violent scene than any other ever seen in a star wars film. But you can see why most of these scenes were cut. But the “Leia and the Resistance scene” is such a shame it was so short ( only about 17 seconds) and that it was cut from the film. This scene is classic Leia. Carrie was perfect. Slightly comedic and classic Leia attitude. Its also gives the destruction scene more emotion when the camera zooms in on the woman as we know she was sent there by Leia. ( in fact Leia is sends 2 people to their deaths in TFA if you include this scene. Maybe she is snoke after all 😉 ).
Al in all i am still loving every minute of this film. It’s still #3 for me, just below anh & ESB. It does make me laugh when i see people defending the prequels for being so original and saying that ANH is just a rip off of ANH. Yet AOTC has far more plot points ripped from ESB than TFA has from ANH. And TPM is basically just ANH & ROTJ. But i guess when George does it, it “rhymes” and when someone else borrows plot points it’s a “rehash”. ROTJ isn’t exactly original either. But TFA has some of the best acting in the whole saga. It did what the prequels failed miserably at - giving us characters we could actually care about and giving us actors that actually has chemistry together. I couldn’t have given a damn about any of the characters in the prequels. Including the ones from the OT. they were terrible. Even though Ewan was the best out of the lot, they portrayed Obi-Wan as a dick. Same goes for the Jedi. TFA also went back to the more old school way of telling the story, by not thinking they have to explain every single little bit of whats happening. another thing wrong with the prequels. Let’s have that air of mystery. Let’s figure things out for ourselves and have our own theories, no matter how right or wrong they turn out to be.
It was also a fun ride. Knowing that this is the first trilogy that the story has actually been planned out between the writers and directors, it’s nice to know that things were deliberately left unanswered . They didn’t need to be …yet. That will come.
So, for me, there are more good Star Wars films than there are bad. 3 great (ANH, ESB & TFA),one good (ROTJ) and three bad, one being very bad.
Ratings after a year (For Star Wars films NOT all time films)?
ESB - 10
ANH - 9.5
TFA - 9
ROTJ - 7
AOTC -3
TPM & ROTS - 1
I eagerly await Rogue One know to see if Lucasfilm without George can make it 2 for 2 with giving us great films.
Just a quick update.
Here’s the Wampa face just after it came out the mold. Its just temporarily added onto the inner skull for the purpose of these pics, so its not properly fitted at this stage. A bit of cleaning up work to do and the onto making the inner mouth, ears and painting, before onto the tedious task of adding the fur. The horns are done & ready for the molding process and will be added just prior to the fur stage. Ignore what looks like a rip under the mouth. that’s actually the edge of the mask now as the design of the costume has changed slightly.
You can get an idea of the size of the head compared to a human head as you can just about make out the mannequin head inside the mouth.
Everything in the new clip is spectacular except that Vader doesn’t look at Admiral Piett anymore which is a shame 😦
I posted this in reply to someone on facebook, just after i posted the clip.
Peter, you have to remember that most of the videos i post are never the final version. I don’t want to spoil the release by showing everything in it’s final stage
So, he does still look at Piette. 😉
Can we get a download link for the comparison video?
https://mega.nz/#!ABAVjDKB!ITpc4DhnCYxyWy7YpNhYPmBfmfRBhb91b3TTdhLYAwk
Is that the video downloaded from facebook? 4.7MB? no wonder the videos are turning out so bad over there now is thats how small it compresses them
Here’s a link to the original file i uploaded to facebook. Its approx 149mb
https://mega.nz/#!PcUGXJpb!mpAedAiz6Wkg1OYQOQ74UeIeGMoIcry_MbzIfGHPjwY
This new clip is really mind blowing!
I can’t remember, are the SD bridge back grounds miniatures?
SO MANY REPLACED BACKGROUNDS! So cool!
No, the backgrounds are just manipulated images taken from various existing shots
The new comparison clip is on the facebook page. I have no idea how to post the link to that post here. ( C’mom Jay, get this editor sorted out so we can start reusing this site 😉 )
For those that want the clip on its own, in higher quality & with the 5.1 ac3 version of the surround track, there is the direct download link on that post too
Yeah.
I don’t think so. Its the ANH/Rogue one style helmet with the pointed widows peak and the smaller triangular chin grille
That Vader is from ESB, right? When he’s using the force to talk to Luke?
Or is it from ROTJ during the “Where’s that shuttle going?” scene?
On the new poster?
I’m looking forward to seeing it. I actually think TFA is not as good as I first thought, because while the acting and directing is spot on, the plot doesn’t make sense.
I would say some of the acting is actually really bad. Ford had some very awkward movements. Though to his defence, some of the dialogue/situations were just embarrassing to begin with.
His acting in TFA is head and shoulders above the phoned in performance he gave in ROTJ.
Contacted the site, will keep you guys posted.
But, man, the heck did I get myself into here. Finally decide to donate to a campaign and try and do something good and it turns out to be a potential scam, and the person in question turns out isn’t very nice himself (though, I’m not judging anybody here).
Should’ve just minded my own business (unless it’s a legit campaign).
Things like this happen though. I helped someone I knew out through his gofundme campaign a few years ago after he was posting that he was about to be evicted because the unemployment benefits had been cut and were no longer covering all of his rent and he had gone into arrears. Sent him £20. Imagine how pissed i was when i saw a few weeks later that he was posting pictures of his latest haul of vintage star wars figures. Total scam.
Ok, i found this article, which includes a very interesting bit:
“He has been in a wheelchair since he was involved in a car accident in Ashland on September 19, 2006.”
Now this article was published in 2008. So, buy this time he has had a car accident and is confined to a wheelchair, then has another car accident in 2015 where he lost a leg and then another one in 2016 where he lost his other two legs?? Bull. It’s looking more like a scam every second.
adywan can you make vader’s eyes look like doubleofive’s eyes in all three of the original trilogy revisited
Already done 😉
doubleofive is vader’s eyes in all three of the original trilogy revisited going to be red for continuity i hope so.
No
yeh, let’s donate, because he is such a nice guy…NOT
http://www.barefootandprogressive.com/2008/07/sonny-landham-very-racist-very-stupid.html
And i’m VERY suspicious of this gofundme. How can he have just lots BOTH legs in this recent accident, when he had already lost ONE leg , supposedly, last year?
…i decided to build some more models 😉
Nice! Can ya tell us what they are?
I’m not really building any more models. It was just a jokey dig at Sevb32’s signature…
"“For over a thousand generations, adding more and more…Adywan worked on the models of ESB:R.”"
I read there was only 25 seconds left to do on ESB REVISITED, but that was about a month ago.
25 seconds left of screentime does not equal a short amount of work left.
Plus i decided to build some more models 😉
double post, sorry.
That’s because these scenes were shot with anamorphic lenses which gives a native 2.35:1 ratio. For such scenes, just include the 2D Blu-ray cinemascope counterpart. No need to use a cropped shot.
But then it wouldn’t be an as close to accurate representation of the IMAX version, which is what i am aiming for. From what i can remember, it didn’t shift ratios throughout that sequence. I could be wrong, but for this reconstruction i will keep the zoomed shots. It’s impossible to know for sure using the Starz version because the rest of the film is crooped and zoomed. Those would be easy to revert back if we find proof that they did shift ratios anyway
Adywan, could you confirm what the first shot of the Imax sequence is?
I always suspected it was the shot immediately following Rey’s “follow me.”
Yes, that’s the one.
If anyone wants the reconstructed IMAX scene, just drop me a PM
Out of curiosity, do you know what method Andreas used to make the crawls? I only ask because I just made one for Andreas not too long ago, assuming we are talking about the same Andreas.
It was created in 3DSMax. The ESB crawl was made a few years ago , but just recently decided to render the ANH & ROTJ crawls as these will be unchanged in their text. I doubt it’s the same Andreas as he would have already had the project template to make his own crawl if he needed to
I can make the Turkish subtitles. What should I do if I am to do this?
That would be cool as i haven’t got anyone working on Turkish subs. Drop me a PM and we can sort out the details
adywan said:
One thing i noticed is that the two BB-8 shots inside the Falcon during the IMAX section are zoomed and cropped from the standard version.The BB8 shot inside the Falcon posted by PDB, above is open matte, not cropped. Which shots are you talking about Adywan? Can you please post an image comparison for those?
By the way, your re-composites are quite good. Just the Starz image portions appear pixellated. They can be easily fixed by a de-blocking filter and then applying some 35mm film stock grain to match the fine grain look of the 2D Blu-ray.
These shots have been zoomed and cropped
And a deblock filter and grain have already been applied to the re-composite
Have you seen the IMAX version? Just asking to confirm that’s all. Don’t mind.
Yes, saw it 3 times in IMAX.
I’m working on overlaying the Blu-Ray onto the Starz HDTV cap to improve the overall quality. Not as easy as i first thought it as. For the standard version they not only crop the image but it also moves up and down thought a shot, so i have to manually match each shot’s movements. One thing i noticed is that the two BB-8 shots inside the Falcon during the IMAX section are zoomed and cropped from the standard version.
Here are some comparisons:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/185704
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/185705
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/185706
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/185707
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/185708
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/185709
And you can see a short video of part of the re-framing that had to be done so that the Blu-Ray video lined up with the IMAX footage. I had to do this manually too 😦
The scene of Finn on Jakku after the TIE crash was also filmed on IMAX as per the BTS stills and John Boyega’s own admission. Was that scene expanded vertically as well? It may not have been expanded on IMAX, but could be done on the Cable broadcast version. Can anyone check if the Starz or whichever version has this other scene expanded?
No, only the Jakku escape is expanded. But that’s how it was at the cinema. There were no other scenes.
OPENING CRAWLS: REVISITED
One of the most iconic things about Star Wars is the opening crawls. This was one thing i really wanted to change though. Why? Well none of the crawls in the saga match. They are all different speeds, placements etc.
This is something i wanted to redo when i did ANH:Revisited, but just couldn’t achieve it at the time. But now, thanks to our CG guy Andreas, it is now possible to have all of the Revisited crawls match each other. Now the speeds and placements match completely. The HD crawls for episodes 4-6 are complete. The prequel crawls will be done when i get to those films because there will be a lot of changes made to the text in those, which i won’t be sorting out until work starts on the films themselves.
Now, when The Force Awakens was released, there was a big fuss made about the font they used in the episode title in the crawl. many complained that they used the wrong font. Well , the font was the one used for Episodes 4 & 5, just slightly thicker. It was only when it came to ROTJ that they used a different font and then followed on with that one with the prequels. So i have used the style that originally appeared in eps 4 & 5, as these were the first ones in the saga and the one used in the very first seen crawl upon release (ESB). Visually, as i won’t be doing a TFA Revisited, the crawls will be almost exact in both colour and font, but not speed etc, mainly down to the new timing of the crawl.
If the main theme sounds a little weird to you then that is because, for this video, as each episode appears on the screen it switches to its corresponding title music form the soundtrack.
