grisan

I like your gothic subtitles and also the font and translation of the Sat.1 broadcast. The official VHS and LD version pre 1995 are horribly translated and look awful.

Greedo scene subtitles 1982 german Laserdisc:

Greedo scene subtitles 1993 german Laserdisc:

You can download the clips of the scene here:

http://www.multiupload.com/12W85IX5L0

It also includes the opening of the 1993 german Laserdisc of Star Wars. The Lucasfilm Logo is also squished here, but I remember I have seen the logo in the correct aspect ratio somewhere. Maybe a fullscreen VHS version.

The recreated opening crawl looks quite nice. The fonts are close enough for me but not exact matches (at least thats what I think). The only thing that bothers me is the incorrect spacing in the third paragraph of the opening crawl. (Check the opening clip from the 1993 LD.)

BTW on german ebay you can get a Pioneer HLD-1000 Muse and a HLD X9 Player right now. Just in case someone has money to spent :-)

Apparently these are not quite as good as a X0 but pretty close.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Pioneer-HLD-1000-Muse-Hi-Vision-Laserdisc-LD-Player-/280731154794

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Pioneer-HLD-X-9-Laserdisc-Player-Hi-Vision-Muse-NTSC-X9-/180716731340

adywan said:

Another addition to ROTJ has been spotted. R2 now has more appendages when he gets shot:

Original

2011

They have also added really crap looking reflections to the 2 blue sections on his front. Also jets of smoke that really do look fake. R2 just looks CG now :( They have also changed his blue colouring in this sequence. Why do that when it's the original colour of R2.

But, as usual with all the SE additions, they completely forgot to add them next time we see R2.

So R2D2 was finally turned into Inspector Gadget?

As a 12 year old, I clearly understood that the lightening damaged his life-support system beyond repair and that it was failing him.

Me to.

People complain that the PT explained too much, then I hear comments like this and wonder...

Do we really want this in ROTJ

• LUKE: Why are you dying father?
• VADER: The Emperor's lightning powers short circuited my breathing machine. Didn't you notice the kind of 'broken breathing machine' sounds I'm making?
• LUKE: Not really. Anyway, do you want me to try and fix it? I'm handy with machines.
• VADER: No. It's 20 years old. They don't even make parts for it anymore. Now, tell your sister... you were riiiiiiight... ...

That would be awful writing, all it would have needed was to change one line.

V: "Luke, help me take, this mask off."
L: "But you'll die.."
V: "Nothing can stop that now."

V: "Luke, help me take, this mask off."
L: "But you'll die.."
V: "Emporer broke that piece of shit anyway.

There fixed!

Well, I didn't get that his suit was damaged that much from the prior scenes.

The emporer was shooting precise strikes at Luke for several minutes. All Vader got were 10 seconds of unaimed, random lightning strikes. It should have been shown in a clearer way if this damaged his suit. (you know: "show don't tell" as someone mentioned in this thread)

Anyway I never got that when I was younger and so Vaders death didn't make any sense to me and it bothered me.

BTW Yodas death didn't make much sense either. I know all of you will tell me that he was sick and only waited for Luke to arrive so he can finally become one with the force, but seriously what are the odds? He already lived on dagobah for 20 years, suddenly gets sick between ESB and ROTJ, but then still lives long enough to have a last chat with luke?

So to me ROTJ has almost as many flaws, bad writing, annoying characters and silly scenes as TPM. I can understand if you don't see it that way, but to me TPM doesn't totally suck.

Ziggy Stardust said:

grisan said:

 (never understood why a few seconds of force lightning should kill him).

Because the lightning caused his breathing apparatus to malfunction.

I have read that explanation several times and it makes sense, but I still think it should have been mentioned better in the movies or the damage by the emporer shoudl have been made more obvious. That's why I listed it as one of my main flaws of ROTJ.

theprequelsrule said:

I am still stunned at the fact that there are some people who rate TPM and ROTJ equally. I even respect some of these people. Can anything in TPM (or any of the prequels) match the following scenes?

- our first look at Jabba

- Luke's battle with the Rancor

- the battle at the sarlacc pit

- the death of Yoda

- the speeder bike chase

- the exciting three part finale (that does not feature a retarded duck-amphibion comic relief character defeating enemies that jedi could not defeat)

- Vader's death

- Ian McDiarmid's performance as the Emperor

C'mon Skyjedi, back me up big guy!

 

 

I wouldn't rate the battle at the sarlacc pit as a pro for ROTJ.

The reason why I rate TPM and ROTJ about the same is because both movies are really similar in its weak and strong points.

Pros:

ROTJ: Jabba, Rancor battle, Leias Bikini, speeder bike scene, 3-way battle scene with space, ground and lightsaber fights

TPM: Darth Maul, Qui-Gon, Watto, Druidikas, Pod-Race, 3-way battle scene with space, ground and lightsaber fights

Cons:

ROTJ: Sarlacc, musical number in jabbas Palace (either one),too many muppets, Ewoks, silly ewok scenes, Vaders death (never understood why a few seconds of force lightning should kill him).

TPM: Jar-Jar, R2D2, C3PO, Midiclorians, too many cgi characters, too much political talk, silly jar-jar scenes

Jake Lloyd as Anakin never really bothered me. He wasn't great but did an OK job. So overall I think both movies are about the same level. I would give ROTJ a slight edge, because it has less dragging in the middle.

ANH 10/10

ESB 9/10

ROTJ 7/10

TPM 6/10

ATOC 3/10

ROTS 5/10

It is really to tough to rate ANH and ESB. ESB is my favorite movie of the series and I think its plot, production values, directing, acting, effects etc. are all better, but ANH had a much higher impact on me, so I rate it higher.

I also like TPM for the most part. It has many flaws, but to me is about the level of ROTJ.

I would appreciate the links as well. Thanks!

dark_jedi said:

corellian77 said:

I'm appreciating your detailed reviews The Aluminum Falcon.  They're certainly making me anxious to see the Project Blu editions myself once they become available to the rest of us.  Any thoughts yet, from d_j or others, on how these might be disseminated (PIF? Torrent? Newsgroups? Rapidshare?)

I still have NO idea how or when these will get shared, but I can say that there will be no rapidshit upload(hate rapidshare) and definitely NO PIF, these never work, I have been around here for a long time and I have NEVER seen this work the way it was supposed to, there were ALWAYS broken links(probably the same hit and runner Fucks on torrents!)

What the hell is a PIF?

raphael said:

I have a German copy of the special edition in German...well, kind of German.

I bought a knock-off copy of Star Wars on DVD in Moscow from the infamous Gorbushka (Russia thrived on black market products).

I couldn't believe it at the time because Star Wars hadn't been released on DVD yet (it was officially released in 2004 and I bought my Russian copy in 2003...and it isn't a VHS or laserdisc rip).

I couldn't work out how they got a copy!

Anyway, when I watched it I found that the title crawl was in German and the movie has the German title 'Krieg de Sterne'.

weird!

 

dR

 

It is very likely that this from the same source as the GKar DVDs. These are made from a german digital broadcast of the 1997 SE trilogy on pay-tv in 2002. The broadcast was dual audio, but with german text and subtitles. German 5.1 and english 2.0 audio.

These were sold on ebay for quite some time until the official dvd set was released.

Harmy said:

Talking about scan lines, check this out:

It's taken from DJ's GOUT upscale. I sharpened it and tweaked the contrast a bit to make it more apparent, but the vertical scan lines are apparently there in the original, only they get lost because of low resolution.

AFAIK all of the holograms scenes were filmed of a TV-screen to get the scan-lines effect, so it makes sense that you can see the rgb-pattern as well, if the resolution and contrast is good enough.

With rgb-pattern i mean this:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Grisan,

is the color of your silver screen pink-shifted? Is the aspect ratio about 2.2:1? Is the picture noisy?

If so, I'm quite sure that the french "pyramid" and german silver screen collection share the same master...

But it will be better to have the captures from both, to average noise and drop-outs... would you borrow me your copies, or exchange them with other laserdiscs? ;-)

The next step is coming: stay tuned!

Yes, it is pink-shifted, but some scenes look blue-shifted.

Aspect ratio is 2.18 : 1 if you consider non-square pixels in PAL (size of frame is about 720x352).

The picture is noisy as hell and the colors are washed out.

Here is a sample image:

Here is a clip that shows that there are missing framed when compared to GOUT. You can also see that there is a blueish tint.

http://www.multiupload.com/H3F877O9W9

Hi,

the 1993 german Star Wars Laserdisc release also known as "SilverScreen" Edition seems to be very similar to the french Pyramid Editions. It is quite possible these come from the same master.

I am talking about these:

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/33866/1130-05/Star-Wars:-Krieg-der-Sterne-%281977%29

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/34926/1425-05/Star-Wars:-Das-Imperium-schl%C3%A4gt-zur%C3%BCck-%281980%29

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/34893/1478-05/Star-Wars:-Die-R%C3%BCckkehr-der-Jedi-Ritter-%281983%29

These Laserdiscs are definitaly DVNR-free and don't seem to suffer from white clipping or crushed blacks as much as the 1995 THX versions.

However the transfer is really noisy, has washed out colors and some missing frames. It has about 352 lines of vertical resolution and was released around same time as the french Laserdiscs.

I am planing to capture these Laserdiscs for preservation and release DVDs and/or MKVs but I am still in an early phase testing and trying a few things.

You can found some info here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Preserving-German-Original-Trilogy/topic/5765/page/5/

Can I get a PM for the HD versions please?

The 3rd frame of ANH was too dark to see anything in my capture. I haven't captured ESB and ROTJ yet. These LDs seem to be free of DVNR smear and overblown whites in some scenes, but the noise, colors and slightly cropped frames are pretty bad. It might be from the same master as the french Pyramid editon from 1993 which is supposed to be pretty bad as well.

I am on a business trip and won't be home till sunday. I will check the scenes then. The 93 LDs don't appear to have DVNR issues, but also don't have a lot of detail and washed out colors.

I would have used TooT, but can't find the dll anywhere, so your script was a good alternative. Although 3 captures are probably enough in most cases.

It seems like you are really willing to go the extra mile :-)  . I recently captured the opening crawl from the 1993 german "SilverScreen" laserdisc. I also had a few drop-outs and wanted to eliminate them. I couldn't find the TooT.dll anywhere (btw: it would be greatly appreciated if you can PM me a link that dll) so I ended up using a Median function that was posted by G-Force to the doom9 forums a while ago (http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-140282.html). This function required 5 captures, but the results were pretty good and it removed every drop-out I could find.

I also experimented with an average function that used the interleave/temporalsoften/selectevery approach with 3 captures and the avisytn native merge function. I found the results weren't as good, and this didn't remove all of the drop-outs.

The captures may be a lttle too dark, but skyjedi2005 is right. It really looks like crap. The transfer is blurry and noisy as hell, there are scratches and dirt marks, the colors are washed out and some scenes have a blue-ish or red-ish tint.

These LDs also have lot of missing frames compared to the GOUT or even THX LDs.

The THX LDs also a few missing frames, but this version is really bad. It already amounts to about 2 seconds and the end of the first LD side.

Here is a 25 second comparison clip from the very beginning of the movie. The LD is in sync with GOUT when it starts but differs 4 frames at the end of the clip.

http://www.multiupload.com/H3F877O9W9

Honestly I don't know if this is really worth preserving at all. Quality is a lot worse than all the other Laserdisc transfers and because of the missing frames the audio is out of sync to the GOUT.

The only interesting parts are the opening crawl and the end credit.

All german star wars  releases prior to the 1995 THX versions had the theatrical crawl without the "Episode IV" headline as far as I know.

I remember that I was very confused about the episode number when I watched ESB for the first time on VHS. That was in 1989. Also the title "Neue Hoffnung" (translation of "A new hope") was never mentioned anywhere before 1995.

I just checked the 1995 THX LD of ANH. These contain the english Lucasfilm Logo, a good quality german opening text (a long long time ago ..), a horribly recreated opening crawl in german with the episode number and the title "Neue Hoffnung" and the english end credits.

The 1993 LD contains all of this in german, probably just like it was in the theatre (I was born in 1979 so I never watched the originals in a theatre until the special editions came out).

In the last few days I tried to clean up the german theatrical opening crawl and sync it with the GOUT DVDs.

I made 5 captures of the opening from the 1993 Laserdisc and another 5 from a 1990 fullscreen VHS tape that has the crawl in squeezed format.

I used a great median filter by G-Force to eliminate all random dropouts from the different captures and resized and aligned the VHS and LD picture.

Then I averaged the VHS and LD picture into one clip, adjusted the brightness and overlayed the opening crawl over a starfield still taken from the GOUT.

Here is my current result. This is the german opening crawl edited into the GOUT and upscaled to anamorphic for PAL DVD.

http://www.multiupload.com/4LF6LUITTS

Comparison pictures:

Really impressive result. There is virtually no noise in this picture.

What avisynth filter did you use? I found a Median function that G-Force posted on doom9 in 2008 that seems to do a similar job.

R2D2 said:

Moth3r said:

Just use your ears; if you listen to the first few bars of the Star Wars theme music from each release it will be obvious if they are at different pitches. 

The 24fps version plays the music/effects audio track at original speed, while the 25fps version plays the music/effects audio track with 104% speed.

Both of them get the dialogs mixed in at the specified timestamps, but the dialog track is always played at original speed!

Compare the german audio of any movie dvd with its bluray edition. Music/effects play faster but the voices are at the same frequencies!

This would only make sense if a new dubbed audio track is created specificly for a new PAL-based home video release (such as the 1995 THX release).

The normal case was to create a german dubbed audio track for a cinematic release that plays at 24fps. A few month/years later this track is used for a PAL video/DVD release and is usually just sped up to 25fps.

At least that is the way it used to be.

Nowadays, creating a pitch corrected audio track for a bluray or DVD release would be very easy, so this might actually be the case.

There also seems to be a lot of disagreement about the number of pitch corrected PAL DVDs. I found an older thread were people discuss this:

http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/index.php/t-525742.html

Yeah, your last picture ist oversharpenend and it looks a bit desaturated.

I think the best looking pictures you posted are #4 and #6.

The BT878 is a pretty dated chip, do you have another capture card? Years ago I replaced my BT878 card with an SAA7134 based card and the difference in picture quality was pretty big.

This is getting complicated :-).

BTW the german untouched GOUT DVDs will be available on a.b.starwars soon.