Prequels are substance without excitement. Sequels are excitement with (less) substance. OT is a balance of both.
THIS^^^ This is easily the easiest way to describe my feelings towards the ST in the context of the other two trilogies.
Nah, I think the original looks great.
Either way, I love me some practical explosions over the CGI explosions in the ST.
The Seuqel trilogy movies from a directing, dialogue, and cinematography standpoint are much better than the prequels. But like the plots are just so much better with the prequels.
Take the plots of the Prequels and put them with competent writers and directors, and you’d have some damn good Star Wars movies.
I’m sure I’ll enjoy TROS, but the plot just sounds bad.
And I’m sure I’ll guiltily enjoy seeing Palpatine again, but when I really think about it, it just makes me feel like someone took a big crap on ROTJ.
I just watched the recent The Wizard of Oz and The Shining 4K Blu-rays this past weekend and may I say they look absolutely stunning and the best I’ve seen of older movies on the format.
Shame Star Wars will probably never get that kind of quality treatment.
(Only thing about The Shining is I wish the aspect ratio wasn’t messed up. I’d like to see both the original 1.85 and the open 1.33. If I remember correctly the new release is 1.78 cropped from the 1.85.)
Here’s the new trailer!
Definitely looks more like Rogue One in terms of cinematography, which is the best looking SW film IMO. It’s like a hyper-realistic OT, kinda like how it was for me watching the OT when I was a toddler.
Still nothing much to go off of story wise, but definitely seems more grounded and original than TROS.
That looks amazing! Just the Yoda I remember.
Still can’t figure out why Yoda looks off in TLJ, don’t know how they screwed that up.
I still eagerly wish to see what OT yoda would look like in the PT, or PT yoda look like in the OT. I just wish we could have a consistent yoda.
JEDIT: Someone should try and deepfake OT Yoda onto PT yoda or vise versa. That would be interesting.
I read up on the remainder of the plot spoilers and I can say that it sounds pretty JJ Abrams on paper, but it’s definitely impossible to gain any sense of quality without seeing the execution.
Still shocked they revealed Palpatine was officially in the film, but maybe they just figured they’d do it cuz it would’ve leaked anyway.
I’m fine with Ian Abercrombie’s performance for The Clone Wars, as nearly all the voices are different then their live action versions. But Tim Curry’s performance on the latter seasons stuck out like a sore thumb.
Was reading some pretty detailed leaks about the plot today and for better or worse this very much sounds like a JJ Abrams movie. I’m excited to see it on screen. Still haven’t seen much on the third act but it seems it won’t be long till that’s up online too.
I’m happy with what has been described of Leia’s role, seems like it will be the best they can do given they have to recycle old footage.
If JJ can nail the feeling of TFA, respect what was built up in TLJ, and create a truly original plot than I think I’ll be pretty happy.
So something I still need to figure out is the source for TPM. I was planning on the blu-ray, but with schorman’s updated HDTV preservations coming out I’m debating about using that as the source. I’ll be comparing them and seeing what works better and share some results.
If any of you have any wishes, opinions, or ideas regarding TPM (or the other two for that matter), I’d very much appreciate the extra discussion.
I’ll be excited to check out your updated AOTC. I’m also interested into seeing if your version of TPM would make a better source. I’d be happy with the blu-ray if it didn’t have that awful DNR.
Thanks for the references. I’ll make some comparison shots of those shots with two grades: my current and a theatre print accurate version. It definitely sounds like people are interested in versions with colors accurate to the theatre prints, so I really think I should release those as soon as I can, as those can be achieved with the same grade applied across the entirety of a film. So likely there could be three versions of this project: 4K theatrical 35mm colors recreation, 4K filmized singular grade, 4K filmized shot-by-shot grade.
I’ve been away from my personal computer for a month and a half due to health issues, but I should be returning home in about 2 weeks. Though as I’ve said before, I can really only make small clips and screenshots until I can purchase or build myself a new computer since my deaktop broke down last year. I’m also still heavily interested in potential official 4K releases, though I’m quite worried they’ll still be screwed up.
I’d agree that deepfaking fake wedge would be great, though I’m not familiar enough with the process to know how much work that would be. I’ve seen a lot of impressive deepfake videos but most still have noticeable artifacting, so I would only say it would be good if it can be done to a certain level of quality.
Rogue One’s cinematography certainly made me feel like how it was to watch Star Wars/A New Hope the first time when I was very little. Back then I didn’t notice all the imperfections and I just felt immersed in a galaxy far far away.
Probably why it’s still my favorite Disney era SW movie.
Seeing the new TROS teaser, I’m extremely disappointed to see the same old blu-ray masters being shown. I’d really hoped by now they’d be showing shots from new masters. I can already imagine the horror of discovering that the new 4K versions are just upscales of the 2011 blu-rays.
Just saw Once Upon A Time in Hollywood in 35mm this past weekend, and it was a really nice reminder to see how a modern 35mm print should look.
It’s given me a better idea of the look of modern film, and I’m confident I can truly master something close to that. What I do really struggle with is creating an authentic older look from the 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s. When I research for recommendations regarding emulating older stocks, there’s not much to find.
Also it seems that the projection I saw has more flicker, a softer look, and a warmer appearance especially in the skin tones.
Also here’s two more sources I’m wanting to use as reference. They have a very pure film look, something I want to strive more for. Even many movies shot on film today overdo it with the digital color grading that it ends up looking too similar to digital.
Wow what an unexpected surprise! I had just replaced the blu-ray for your v1 HDTV preservation for AOTC in my PT 4K regrading project due to the colors, so I’m very happy to see these updated!
Thank you for saving me a lot of work!
I’ve been recommended by a smart dude something that may be even better: ESRGAN/BasicSR. It’s an AI-upscaling algorithm just like Gigapixel, but you can train it with your own datasets, so if you have a representative dataset of what you’re trying to upscale (you need high res and low res reference for training), you can get really incredible results.
I’m currently playing around with it, and while training is very slow (we’re talking many days), it’s impressive what it can do imo.
I’ve tried some pre-trained ESRGAN upscalers, and I’d say it is a more natural looking upscale than ai gigapixel, but I’d still say ai gigapixel wins in the detail, even if it looks a bit too sharp. And I’d still say in terms of noise reduction ai gigapixel and waifu2x are better at removing compression artifacts. Of course waifu2x doesn’t try and add or recover detail, but simply a high resolution upscale that retains all the original detail.
All three are really good tbh, and all have their purposes. I’d say a mix of them is ideal.
I turned down the denoising setting from full to half in gigapixel, and this is what I get. It seems full does smudge some fine detail, but no denoising keeps those hideous compression artifacts in, so this might be a better balance. Either way you can definately see the big difference that the software does to take highly compressed 1080p and transform it to uncompressed 4k.
You can download it for a free trial and it has no limitations.
No limitations, besides a 30-day limit you mean?
Yep, just the 30 day limit.
I’ve been trying out gigapixel ai on my projects, and it works tremendously well. I previously used Red Giant’s Instant 4K and Waifu2xPhoto. There’s also ESRGAN, but I don’t currently have a machine that can run it.
You can download it for a free trial and it has no limitations.
Looks seamless to me, great work!
No Blu-ray? Seems archaic to only release something on DVD.
And also, they said they are releasing each episode one at a time more like a traditional show.
Here’s six new screenshots from AOTC using the new HDTV source, denoising, and AI upscaling, along with the methods I’ve previously used. I haven’t put much work into the new grade yet. But goodness, I’m happy to not be dealing with the horrid blu-ray colors anymore.
https://lensdump.com/a/aotc-4k-film.WEcJ0
I’ll post a comparison too once screenshotcomparison is back up (I can’t seem to get framecompare to work either).
