astromech

It looks like any transfer was done from the original film which will have suffered what looks like substantial damage over the last 40 years. The shot of Monkey in the forest with the smaller monkeys looks like it has some kind of water damage along the top edge, whilst the ghosting effect may well be from the film touching itself when in the reel. Unlike the west and Hollywood, the far east have not had very good storage vaults when it comes to their movie archive. In fact, right up until recently, major studios were routinely destroying older movies when it came to space. That allied to the climate over there means film stock has an extremely limited storage life, so it's not surprising to see that much damage to this movie. You've done well with the damage repair where possible though! I don't envy you having to sit there and sort out the damage on a frame by frame basis (on occasion!)

I'm looking forward to your end result - it's been a very long time since I last saw this movie...well over 20 years in fact!

Those shots look great without that blue tint all over it. It's like Cillit Bang - one pass of Ady and the blue's all gone!! 

Moth3r said:

Thanks for the answer - I've since found this comparison which seems to show the Fortune Star Region 3 DVD is better quality than the HKL release.

BTW is it just me or is http://www.dvdcompare.net/ having problems at the moment?

I'm not entirely sure that the Fortune Star release has the re-edited Game of Death on it which the HKL one does - although I do agree that the Fortune Star release has a nicer picture quality to the actual movie as it is. Just to add more to the pot, the re-edited fight sequence included on the HKL disc was also released on it's own as a documentary in Japan. The 2000 release of this is apparently superior to the 2003 re-release bar one editing error which was corrected in the 2003 version. By all accounts, the 2003 version is significantly worse than both the original 2000 release and the John Little version of the same footage.

Moth3r said:

Seems that it fizzled out some time last year, which is a shame.

Anyway, your post reminded me of a related question, for anyone who might know. Which DVD contains the highest-quality version of the Bruce Lee/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar footage?

There are currently two versions of the footage floating about (in the UK at least):

HK Legends' release of Game of Death which has the fight edit as put together for the Japanese release of Bruce Lee: Game of Death

A Warrior's Journey which has pretty much the same fight edit, but allegedly put together by John Little and dubbed over by him as well (he did the brief dub for Bruce Lee in the extended version of Enter The Dragon).

Both of these were apparently put together from Bruce's note and are as high a quality as you'll get, but I reckon the HK Legends version to be of a higher quality.

Perhaps it might be worth considering laying this to a slideshow put to a Star Wars soundtrack...not necessarily with a vocal play, but with music to set the mood? It sounds like it's going to be a good 'edit'

I've had a look at GM's first edit of the Vader-Emperor convo and didn't think it was a bad compromise. I can see why there's a question over Vader repeating 'but he's just a boy' when the Emperor has already said he's a boy, but you could interpret that as Vader trying to come to terms with the fact that Luke would be as big a threat as the Emperor is implying. The interruption works well, but as said, the musical ending to the first edit was a little overpowering. However, having seen the second edit, it now seems that there is something a little lacking when he bows his head, as if there should be something to end the scene. Didn't the original one have a drum timpani ending to the scene (like a dum-dum type thing)?

On the subject of the Emperor, I'd like to see him clouded in a little more darkness. It's all very well seeing him, but I preferred the Emperor to be a little more mysterious. The 2004 additions were almost an exclamation of ILM saying 'Look what we've done!' (along with a lot of the additions they made).

I'll be very interested in this project...have been looking for a copy of this forever!!

Not sure what I can do to help as I'm lacking the necessary editing skills, but do have access to some editing software so might be able to help there (and learn at the same time!!)

The washed out quality of the Chinese print might well be due to the age of the master it would have been taken from...it is a fairly old movie.

2nd edit: I've just checked out the SRT and it only runs to 1:24:47.381, so the full 107min (or 114min according to the French version) would require additional translation of the scenes involved.

HotRod said:

Anyhooo, back on subject...Yeah...Snow...Wooki........

 

Only joking....I may have exhausted that one already. Roll on Jedi, then we can get back to the sand on the foot issue...That one has always bugged me.

 

Sorry if I'm nit-picking, I'm so tired....My son thinks it's great at getting up at 4.45 AM in the bloody morning.

 Actually, isn't there a leaf or a twig in the foot in Jedi...? :p

I'm sure there was some sort of official explanation for the red and yellow stripes on Han's trousers...something to do with the class of bloodstripe and the level of honour or similar. Red was supposed to indicate a high level of honour and yellow was a different class (I think!). However, I wouldn't have thought a fan backstory would be taken as canon unless it was indicated as such by GL...