So this thread has basically turned into “let’s tear into every single aspect of TLJ”.
Honestly I never expected this movie to generate such a negative reaction, and I’m in a very lonely position of absolutely loving it.
I was just thinking that it would be cool if an elderly Mon Mothma popped up in Episode IX. I looked up and Caroline Blakiston is still alive, and indeed she has expressed interest in returning to Star Wars.
Oh, OK. So it’s a matter of bringing it closer to a theatrical projection.
Excuse me Dre, but I noticed that your screenshots of 4K77 have been slightly cropped and zoomed in compared to SE Blu-ray. Is this really the case?
As many of you have posted previously, all of the problems of the ST are rooted in TFA.
I’ve posted that I don’t understand why this mess of a movie had such an overwhelmingly positive reception. Apart from pretty much being SW 2.0, we have the First Order which is every bit as powerful and wealthy as its predecessor the Galactic Empire even when ROTJ + supplementary material have made it clear the Empire is no more and what remains is but a small fraction of what once was, yet that small fraction is somehow capable of taking an ENTIRE GALAXY back to the status quo, building a Death Star about 10-20 times BIGGER than the original and is WEALTHIER than the New Republic (see Rose’s line in Canto Bight about how only the First Order can make you this wealthy). I also disliked the fact that the FO was so loyal to Snoke, a random Force wielder with no previous connection to the Empire. The FO should have been lead by a Council of former high-ranking Imperial military officials and political figures, and if Snoke was needed at all it should have been as an advisor of sorts representing the mystical aspect of the FO, not as “Supreme Leader”. The FO should have also been portrayed as using guerrilla warfare, infiltration, espionage, sleeper cells, subtly gathering their strengths by conquering seemingly unimportant systems without the NR noticing, indoctrinating their conquered systems into absolute loyalty, using streamlined Imperial technology, slowly manipulating the politicians to earn their favour and so on and so forth. But no, instead we got the Nu-Empire.
With Abrams returning I expect Episode IX to be every bit as awful as TFA, yet everyone will probably praise him for “course-correcting” Star Wars. sigh
This thread just reminded me of a character from the old EU aka Legends continuity, Darca Nyl (or was it Draca?), a guy who despite not being Force-sensitive learned to wield a lightsaber to the point of managing to deflect blaster bolts and could hold his own against Force users in lightsaber combat.
Does owning the official DVDs count? TFOTR is the reason I refuse to own the trilogy on blu-ray.
Only slight disappointment for me is that Dan Mindel is back as the DP. Not that I didn’t like his work on TFA (quite the opposite), but I thought it’d be cool to have a different look for each film. Though I’m quite glad Rick Carter is back as co-production designer.
Apart from TFA being total garbage, I think Dan Mindel did a piss-poor job as DP in TFA, and even though the movie was shot on film it doesn’t look like it. Steve Yedlin on the other hand did a masterful job with TLJ and it’s a real shame he didn’t stick around for Episode IX. Then again JJ Abrams is back as director and co-writer, so I fully expect Ep. IX to be another botch job.
Hmmm, is this a shitpost or having fun?
I’ve made my dislike of TFA clear on several occasions, plus I’ve yet to see a JJ Abrams movie that I like. All of movies feel insipid to me.
As much as I love TLJ I am not looking forward to Ep. IX due to Abrams returning. I would’ve been more hopeful if Chris Terrio was the sole writer, but Abrams is a co-writer which further lowers my expectations.
I will only go see Ep. IX on cinemas to see how the story ends, which will no doubt be a botch job. This is JJ Abrams we’re talking about, after all.
With the merger I hope 20th Century Fox becomes the main source of Disney’s R-rated movies, a role previously done by Miramax and Touchstone (in case you forgot, The Rock and Con Air are Disney movies released through their Touchstone label).
Only slight disappointment for me is that Dan Mindel is back as the DP. Not that I didn’t like his work on TFA (quite the opposite), but I thought it’d be cool to have a different look for each film. Though I’m quite glad Rick Carter is back as co-production designer.
Apart from TFA being total garbage, I think Dan Mindel did a piss-poor job as DP in TFA, and even though the movie was shot on film it doesn’t look like it. Steve Yedlin on the other hand did a masterful job with TLJ and it’s a real shame he didn’t stick around for Episode IX. Then again JJ Abrams is back as director and co-writer, so I fully expect Ep. IX to be another botch job.
The first version of the scan did have overly saturated colours, I’ll give you that, but the second version corrected that problem and I don’t mind the blown out highlights and slightly crushed blacks. If anything they seem to be more a photochemical issue than a digital one. Notice that within the movie every time a light is flashed in front of the camera it looks EXACTLY like light flashes captured on film. The blu-ray and 4K remaster on the other hand have these oddly dim-looking light flashes.
This project really needs to come to full fruition. GoldenEye is the worst-looking of all the James Bond Blu-ray transfers (pretty much all of the Pierce Brosnan era movies, for that matter, but GoldenEye tops them in its sheer awfulness). Anyone who can please donate.
Why wouldn’t you trust the 35mm scan? I still think it’s the best reference in terms of colour with the added bonus of having that classic filmic look.
The GoldenEye project absolutely needs to gain more traction, after all it is the worst looking of the BDs.
From what I can see in those screeshots of the 4K remaster it looks like all they did was dial back the green tint and desaturate the colours, plus the movie has been slightly cropped and zoomed-in. I think I’ll stick with 35mm scan, although it would still be cool if someone took the time to colour-correct the 4K remaster and bring it closer to the 35mm scan.
That’s what what I miss the most about the old EU. Regardless of the varying degrees of quality in terms of storytelling and writing Lucas gave free reign to write about whatever they wanted to write, wether it was within the OT timeline, the distant past or the distant future, and we could even get stories set during the OT timeline that were taking part far away from the main events of the OT. Now like posted previously, under the Disney the expanded storylines are all about exploring every last minute detail of the adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie and Vader during the OT, from Leia carefully braiding her hair in her spare time to Luke’s weekend off after the battle of Yavin. Come ON Disney! You have an entire Galaxy’s worth of storylines of thousands upon thousands of generations.
Apart from The Last Jedi, which is currently my all-time favourite Star Wars movie
I’m sorry, what?
What? Is it some sort of crime to rank TLJ as my all-time favourite SW movie?
Don’t you know? Ranking any Star Wars film above ESB (except ANH or RotJ, depending on how the community feels that day) is punishable through death by rancor pit.
I sincerely hope you jest, and as much as I love the OT I wouldn’t be surprised nor bothered by someone ranking any of the prequels above TESB or the first SW. I do think however, that musically nothing will ever top the scores composed by John Williams for ANH and TESB, though I really enjoy the score for ROTS as well. Musically, I think TFA has the weakest score on top of being IMO the worst SW movie.
Screngrabs, please?
You’d better hope he doesn’t replace Kennedy, as some fans are wishing for these days.
If that were to ever happen I would quit Star Wars for good. Good thing those “fans” aren’t in charge.
OK, here’s my take on your regrade:
I like the warmer skintone on Leia’s face but I think the walls should be cream-coloured and not pinkish
The frame of Ozzil, Vries and Piett looks fine save for the actors faces which are too pink for my liking, almost as they’re all blushing. Maybe balance it out with a touch of yellow/orange and their faces would look fine.
While it has been agreed that Hoth is blue, the blu-ray went overboard with its blanket blue/cyan tint all over the movie, which is most apparent in the Hoth and Dagobah scenes.That being said the AT-AT and the snow now have a hint of pink.
That frame of Luke looks better but I suspect it should be a bit more grey-looking and Luke’s pilot jumpsuit looks a bit red instead of vivid orange.
Absolutely perfect regrade. Now Yoda is back to his natural olive green skin colour instead of the neon green that almost makes it look like he could glow in the dark, and the surrounding enviroment is back to the muted greys and browns I remember from promo shots and colour-corrected Grindhouse.
Actually this is the one where I think the blu-ray looks better. Your regrade looks a bit flat.
Another massive improvement on the blu-ray with the added bonus of restoring Vader’s lightsaber core to its original white instead of bubblegum pink.
The light beige on the walls of that frame is how it’s supposed to look, plus the overall warmer tone is a lot more pleasing.
Again, the warmer colours are a lot more pleasing to the eye and 3PO looks more golden which I like a lot.
This is yet another improvement with warmer colours. Notice than in the original blu-ray screenshot 3PO looks almost silver.
Colour-wise it looks better save for overly pink skintones on the Imperial officers in the second set of frames, but in terms of overall image quality I consider TESB to be the worst-looking of the OT blu-rays.
Apart from The Last Jedi, which is currently my all-time favourite Star Wars movie
I’m sorry, what?
What? Is it some sort of crime to rank TLJ as my all-time favourite SW movie?
BTW, I’m surprised you liked Star Wars Rebels after the way the butchered Thrawn, a methodical military strategist who’s twenty steps ahead of everybody and lends himself to more mature storylines, ruined by being introduced in a kid’s show and being thwarted by whiny teenager Ezra Bridger.
Yeah, I posted in the Star Wars Rebels thread that I’m done with Filoni and his risk-averse sanitised stories. As long as it has Filoni’s name in it I will completely ignore it.
So basically Ahsoka is one of Lucas’ ill-conceived ideas that has been allowed to exist past the point of any logic instead of being dropped. While I have previously stated that I don’t have anything against the character of Ahsoka I think she absolutely needs to be killed off, but as we’ve learned from Rebels, Filoni doesn’t have the balls to do so even when it’s the logical thing to do. I once told Amy Ratcliffe about Ahsoka’s necessary demise and she reacted like I told her “I hope your sister dies” or something like that. She even thinks Kanan’s death was risky. Please. It was logical.
I don’t dislike the character of Ahsoka per se, she’s a decently written character, though her hopeful idealism in Rebels got on my nerves (I hate overly idealistic characters in fiction, of which Rebels was overflowing with). What really annoys me about her is that her prescence and later continued existence makes no goddamn sense. She was Anakin’s Padawan and played a major role in many battles during the Clone Wars and against the Empire up until before the Battle of Yavin IV, yet she has NEVER been aknowledged in any of the live-action movies, and even worse, is revealed to still be alive in Rebels’ final season, plus she is shown to be interacting with practically every single major character in the SW franchise. At this point she’s like the elephant in the room.
IMO it would have been a lot better if Ahsoka had been introduced as the Padawan of one the many background Jedi Masters glimpsed in the prequels and have her story take place during the Clone Wars but removed from Anakin and Obi-Wan, fighting her own battles and occasionally crossing paths with Anakin and Obi-Wan. It would have expanded the Galaxy instead of having everyone knowing everyone.
Lucas no longer has any say in SW and we still have to put up with Ahsoka’s continued existence.