Really enjoyed this episode especially since I’m a sucker for all things Mandalorian in Star Wars. I hope one day we get a story that explores their warrior past.
Actually I was planning to work on Jedi in 4K before this project, but I’m still waiting on the scans. Figured I’d make a start on this while I wait. Jedi should be a relatively quick project because we have several good scans and much of it is very very clean. If those scans arrive before I finish this project, I’ll probably work on Jedi and knock that out first, then come back to this later.
Empire on the other hand will require considerably more work. Perhaps Poita or somebody has a better print, but I don’t have access to any great scans of Empire at the moment.
I was afraid you’d say that. TESB is the one most in need of a proper restoration.
Here’s a first example of the warmer color grading.
Before:
After:
The difference is very subtle, but 3PO now looks more golden whereas in the previous shot he looked somewhat copper-y.
You mean Disney AND 20th Century Fox. Remeber the first Star Wars is 100% the property of 20th Century Fox.
I managed to watch it on YouTube and I must say the colour depth and contrast of this 35mm print is far superior to that of the blu-ray, even when there are parts where there’s a heavy blu bias. The real challenge of ROTJ DeEd. V. 3.0 will be to have the blu-ray footage match those, as the colours tend to look very muted, almost greyscale. Hope Neverar reads this.
Christopher Nolan’s movies are processed photochemically without the use of digital intermediates, and from this comparison it’s obvious the digital master was done independently from the photochemical reveal resulting in digital copies that differ greatly from film prints in terms of colour and contrast. I assume having someone come up with a digital master that matches a film print would be time consuming as hell and so don’t bother which IMO is a criminal oversight.
BTW, Anne Hathaway’s face is brighter in the film cell than in the blu-ray screenshot.
He basically says in this review everything I said in my review.
Proof if proof be need be that I am the internet.
Could you post a link to your review so I can read it?
Seriously can’t wait to see the restored print of TESB. Once it’s available it will be the only way to watch TESB.
Really enjoyed the review, and I strongly agree with what he says about TFA. They played it way too safe and what we have is a remake of the first SW movie, plus there’s the creeping feeling Ep. VIII will be a remake of TESB.
I couldn’t resist 😉. Here’s my attempt at manually grading the frame starting from Williarob’s correction. I took out some of the green:
I must say I like this.
It’s been a long time since I last posted here. Where can I find this open matte version you’re talking about? Why hasn’t it been uploaded to the spleen? I myself like it very much as it has richer colours and better contrast than the other 35mm scan. If possible could the owner create a version cropped to 1.78?
Yeah I think he meant 35mm sources haha
Yeah, I was almost asleep when I wrote that. My bad.
Not that I’m against a V 3.0 but unless we’re talking about a complete overhaul in terms of colour, contrast and brightness like what Neverar is doing with Star Wars I don’t see much of a point.
Well, Neverar’s color work is going to be the starting point for the color in 3.0, so…
Anyway, the main point of 3.0 is for 1080p. SW and ESB will also still have a good deal of GOUT left in their pre-3.0 versions that will be removed.
What do you mean about the brother and sister scene? On the bridge? I don’t really remember how that one looked, but I am curious what will a 35mm source offer that scene.
Yeah the one where Luke tells Leia she’s her sister. The scene is sourced from the blu-ray and it looks very grainy and has very poor contrast, and when I saw the ROTJ Grindhouse it had none of those issues.
Hey Harmy, I am wondering: in what way would a V 3.0 be necessary? Watching V 2.5 looks almost flawless, with all the blu-ray footage blending in perfectly with the blu-ray sources and it all flows seamlessly. The only thing that sticks out for me is the Brother and Sister scene which doesn’t look right compared to the rest of the movie and should definitely be replaced with 35mm footage. Not that I’m against a V 3.0 but unless we’re talking about a complete overhaul in terms of colour, contrast and brightness like what Neverar is doing with Star Wars I don’t see much of a point.
I did a little experiment, matching the colors of the last frame to Harmy’s Despecialized 2.0, and while the colors might not necessarily be accurate to an original 1981 print, it does get rid of that nasty blue noise, whilst retaining the 35mm detail:
Harmy’s Despecialized 2.0:
Poita work in progress:
Poita matched to Harmy’s Despecialized 2.0:
Notice how much detail the 35mm screengrab has compared to Harmy’s 2.0. See what I mean? It’s why I think TESB is the worst of the OT blu-ray transfers.
Really looking forward to the restoration of the TESB, which IMO is the one with the worst transfer on blu-ray.
In what way? The changes are garbage and the color is not ideal (not as bad as ANH, though). Hopefully the next transfer will be better with regards to sharpening and noise reduction. But how is ESB anywhere remotely near the bottom of the list with all the atrocious blu-ray jobs out there. Just curious.
Exessive DNR, poor contrast and the transfer has this soft focus look which as shown by other transfers like the Grindhouse and other 35mm screengrabs, is not the case. It’s one of the reasons I can’t bring myself to watch Harmy’s 2.0 anymore because the 35mm despecialized scenes have far better image quality than the rest of the movie. I might change my mind about a new ESB Despecialized version if the blu-ray transfer goes through a restoration similar to what Neverar is doing with SW where he’s managed to make the movie look like it was sourced directly from a well preserved 35mm print.
Really looking forward to the restoration of the TESB, which IMO is the one with the worst transfer on blu-ray.
I’m curious Dr. Dre, why is it that so many home releases of movies have a revisionist colour timing like we’ve seen with Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park or the Original Star Wars trilogy? and it’s not just the Blu-rays, they’ve been doing it since the VHS days.
The yellow squares look brown.
Hows this for you?
also just some other grabs:
When I get time I’ll experiment with other scenes too,
Those screengrabs could use a little colour boost, the characters (Tarkin in particular) now look very pale.
The yellow squares look brown.
Awesome work.
That’s my one pet peeve about the SSE: the colours are too washed out, hopefully we get a full upload of this project through the proper channels.
Here is a pretty quick correction. I’ll try to further refine it but without correcting each element separately (which I assume would mess up the color matching process) it’s hard to get it looking right. There’s a lot of noise in the source which makes it incredibly difficult to correct. But anyways:
Before:
After:
That colour correction looks way too blue.
Could someone post an extended image gallery of V1.6? Right now I don’t have enough space to download it.
Have you seen these?
http://imgur.com/a/RkKhd
Yes I have, but I’d like more and larger screenshots.
Could someone post an extended image gallery of V1.6? Right now I don’t have enough space to download it.
Where can I find this 1.5 version of the SSE?
