fmalover

OK, I finally watched the raw scan of ESB and WOW! Sure, it's just a preview but the fact remains that it still looks infinitely better than the blu-ray which says a lot about how poorly handled the films have been treated special edition changes notwithstanding. A few points:

- Harmy and poita have argued about how the planet Hoth is indeed quite blue but I'm still not sold. To me whiter than white Hoth fits a lot better with the rest of the movie than the bluish tint poita talks about, I have even tested by playing around with the colour channels and although there is a hint of blue in some scenes it is very faint and is more aquamarine/turqouise than blue, being most evident in the scene where Luke sees Obi-Wan's ghost and whenever Anakin's lightsaber is ignited (it's got this greenish tint). My only concern is that liking "White Hoth" better than "Blue Hoth" and being wrong about it would make me a revisionist but I can't help it, White Hoth just looks right to me, it's a gut feeling.

- Looking at all 3 OT DVDs and BDs TESB has always struck me as weird-looking and the odd one out compared to SW and ROTJ because both SW and ROTJ look similar from a photographic point of view, as both have this grainy sharp focus look, with fairly strong contrast in many scenes and deep inky blacks whereas in TESB has a lot of soft focus and assumed it was down to the cinematographer (every movie had a different cinematographer and I imagined the cinematographer for TESB took a different aproach to his predecessor whereas the one for ROTJ decided to go back to the look of the original film). After watching Team Negative1's raw print I now know that is not the case, as in fact TESB is every bit as grainy and sharp with strong contrast and deep blacks as the other two which makes me realise the following: Although SW and ROTJ have had the most obvious alterations in terms of visual effects the prints Lucasfilm scanned them from were still in fairly good condition despite the many alterations in colour timing as there still is consistency between the many film prints you've aquired and the colour corrected blu-ray shots, and TESB was scanned from a very deteriorated film print. How else can you explain the poor contrast, smeared textures (compare Chewie's fur here vs. the blu-ray) crushed blacks to the point of drowning out any detail, washed out blacks come out as dark gray and that weird soft focus effect applied to many scenes to hide their shortcomings.

- The image quality is so detailed I noticed the amount of double exposure photography applied for the visual effects in this movie, lots and lots of translucent ships plus lots of garbage mattes, lol. I wonder if you'll let them be or will make your best attempt to correct those, do leave the matte lines alone please, I find them rather charming.

-Thoughout the movie I noticed almost anything blue looks teal/aquamarine/turquoise (i.e. Anakin's lightsaber, daytime skies) or outright green (end credits). Why?

I seriusly cannot wait until you release the finished product with all the colour corrections, colour boosting, dirt-scratch removal and overall cleanup. This is going to be the MUST-OWN version of TESB.

The Last Emperor is another film with altered aspect ratio. Originally 2.35:1, it has been cropped to 2:1 thanks to cinematographer Vittorio Storaro's supervision, who has become enamoured with the aspect ratio and has become a huge proponent of it in order to unify all movies, which is why I hate the BD, I want to enjoy the film in its OAR in HD. I would also like to add that I hate Super 35, since it means you have two versions of the same movie with different aspect ratios none of which is definitive.

Dowloaded the Restored Theatrical Colors Edition and I'm very pleased with the result. Too bad some scenes are beyond colour correction due to excessive tampering that you had to use upscaled DVD shots to compensate.

Any plans to release an improved version or will we have to make do with this? The only way I see this happening is if you get ahold of 35mm film prints in fairly good condition, scan the parts where you had to use the DVD and integrate them with the rest of the movie, but it could be this project has run its course and this is as far as we're getting.

Hey Harmy, several posts back you said the early shots of the Star Destroyers were problematic because the blu-ray had too many crushed blacks that looked like ink blots spread all over the Star Destroyers and indeed when you uploaded the first workprint you tested by placing footage from the 1997 Special Edition PAL in those areas, yet scrapped those and stuck with the blu-ray footage for the end product, so I guess you decided it was better to have a better source for those shots. Does that mean team negative1 will provide you with 35mm sources for future versions?(i.e. v2.5, v3.0)

To clear things up, no, it wasn't just the PT, it was the whole saga. I only focused on the PT because I don't see the point in talking about movies we all love.

Well, visually TPM certainly is the most Star Warsy looking of the 3, and that IMO is down to the fact that it was shot on film, whereas the other two were shot using digital cameras which gives them this clean sterile look.

Having nothing better to do I decided to watch it mostly because I hadn’t seen the prequels in a very long time and was curious about how they would make me feel and after watching them here are my thoughts:

The Phantom Menace: Honestly the first thing question that popped into my mind after watching it was: What the hell was all that about? Seriously, story-wise TPM feels so disconnected from the rest of the SW saga it doesn’t really feed into the movies that follow, and the plot is virtually nonexistant, just a cacophony random scenes cobbled together by a Lucas who has simply decided to let his imagination run wild taking advantage of the fact that the many factors that restrained him throughout the making of the original trilogy are long gone. TPM feel more like an unintentional parody of Star Wars than anything else, and Anakin, Obi-Wan, R2 and 3PO seem to be there only to remind us that this is supposed to be a SW movie. A waste of celluloid.

3/10

Attack Of The Clones: Every bit as illogical as TPM, and the overuse of CGI and green screen further enhances the feeling of disconnect that plagued its predecessor. Anakin and Padme are no doubt the most forced romance in movie history, two people who have absolutely nothing in common fall in love because the Skywalker twins have to be conceived somehow. I must confess however that I still enjoy the hell out of the lightsaber duel between Yoda and Dooku, even if makes absolutely no sense.

2/10

Revenge Of The Sith: Arguably the least disjointed of the prequels, the one that seemed to have a little bit more effort put behind it, and it is in fact the only one I don’t mind watching every once in a while.

6/10

I won’t give my thoughts on the OT because we all know them, we all love them and they will always have a special place in our hearts and minds, plus we all know how many of us feel about the incessant tweaking they’ve been subjected to.

Discuss.

Well, it's been nearly three weeks poita. What happened?

Yeah, I'll have to fix that.

Here's my colour adjustment of the screenshot based on what Ive gathered from previous sources. I also posted on another thread.

Here I did my own colour correction based on the various sources I've witnessed:

Let me know what you think.

Now this one heavily red tinted, as oposed to the earlier scan which was very green. One thing is clear though, the bacta tank is not the opaque cyan encountered in official releases of ESB and Luke's skin tone is not drowned out by the water.

I have a question: How accurate is the colour timing on this image?

http://www.jedi1.net/images/1600/ESB-Luke_Skywalker-2692-1600.jpg

I’ve seen Jedi1.net’s 70mm cell scan looks like it as well as PSB plus TeamNegative1’s restoration. Would also like to hear poita’s opinion who has seen a well preserved print of ESB.

Well yeah, that's the only instance of blue I've noticed in your print Puggo. However in that instance it doesn't feel anywhere near as intrusive as it does in the Blu-Ray.

I have seen the 35mm restored scan samples from -1 and Puggo Strikes Back and I have noticed that the scenes that take place there are very white with barely a hint of blue and that fact gives the Planet Hoth a very natural look and feel which I really like, however I remember poita once posted that those scans have it all wrong and in fact the planet Hoth was meant to be quite bluish after attending the private screenig of a carefully preserved print of ESB and Harmy himself stands by this, so much so that while I was watching ESB DeEd V2.0 I noticed he kept some parts of Hoth blue but something didn’t sit quite right with me when watching it, particularly the Battle of Hoth in which I felt the colour timing looked very artificial and the blue skies clashed with the rest of the frame in a way that looked unpleasant.

I don’t get that same feeling from PSB and -1 restorations and in fact the whitish Hoth IMO flows much better with the rest of the movie, and I’m even starting to suspect that due to the differences in photochemical processing at the time some prints of ESB had the naturalistic white Hoth while others had the colder bluish Hoth, but that is pure speculation on my behalf and I would like to know what Harmy, Puggo, poita and -1 have to say on the matter.

I would like to finish by apologising if this topic has already been discussed.

Yeah they do look bad as far as i'm concerned, the rest of the movie looks amazing.

Just finished watching V2.0, a vast improvement over V1.0 I must say in terms of colour timing, sharpness and contrast, still not sold on the colour timing of the Hoth scenes though. Can't really explain but something just doesn't look right whenever I watch them, however I don't get that same feeling from watching the Hoth scenes from PSB, it just looks right, but that's just personal taste and I know I won't change your mind on this, Harmy.

Of all the GOUT upscales the ones that stick out like sore thumb for me are the unzoomed shots of the Falcon's cockpit, pretty sure those are priority number 1 as far as 35mm scans go for you.

One question: Why does the scene in which the Millenium Falcon enters the Asteroid Field being chased by the TIE Fighters look so murky now? IMO it was perfectly fine in the original version.

Anyway this is V2.0 and I'm pretty sure you will brush up on any imperfections when you're done with V2.5. Keep up the good work Harmy and may the Force be with you.

Thanks!

fmalover said:

Guys I need help. Ive been downloading the MKV from myspleen but the torrent has stopped at 80.1%. Any suggestions?

 Anybody?

Guys I need help. Ive been downloading the MKV from myspleen but the torrent has stopped at 80.1%. Any suggestions?

Will you do a "Making Of" feature for ESB or will you wait until V2.5 is complete?

I agree with what nightstalkerpoet said.

One thing is certain, whoever did the cleanup of the SE sure as hell loves saturated colours. Notice how the sand has a very vivid hue and the sky is cyan instead of of a soft baby blue.

I don't see how an isolated score is possible in the first place Harmy, as the film uses versions that are vastly different from the ones available on music albums, i.e. The Ice Planet Hoth is very different in the movie to the album track, plus there are music cues that can only be heard within the movie that aren't available anywhere else, such as when we are introduced to the Hoth Base we hear horn section that is heard there and there.

BTW, don't you think it's embarassing that those few restored film scans done by amateurs look way better than anything from the BDs? The 35mm scans look sharp and with the right ampount of film grain, whereas the many scenes from the BD look somewhat smeared.