Dear Sir,
I wish to complain about the number of complaints on this site. They are clearly not written by the general public, and are merely included for a cheap laugh.
Yours Sincerely,
William Knickers
Well, basically I'm redoing pretty much all the edits for the sake of improving the sound quality and making it blend together more seamlessly, but the improvements will be subtle and probably only noticeable to people like me who have spent a lot of time listening to these things really closely. Most of the track is going to sound exactly the same as it did before, and the rest will still be really close.
Earlier msycamore pointed out a remnant of an added sound effect that could still be heard, which I have already fixed, and there are a couple other little things I plan on addressing, such as improving the LFE a bit more. There's some distortion in the opening Star Destroyer flyby that I noticed recently, which I think I introduced into the track accidentally, and that is going to be eliminated.
I've also given a bit of thought to making an alternate version that leaves in some of the less intrusive '93 additions and adds some elements of the mono mix, for people who miss those refinements, but this is only an idea and I'm not at all sure whether it's actually going to happen.
As I've indicated elsewhere, the idea of re-doing the 70mm recreation track is something I've been giving more consideration lately, and finally I decided to go for it. The existing version sounds quite good already, and I'm very glad that so many people have enjoyed hearing it, but since it does have a few small errors (some of which have been pointed out here, while others have escaped all notice except mine), it has become worthwhile for me to make the effort.
The main shortcoming of this project has always been the unavoidable necessity of replacing sections of the 1993 mix that contain added sound effects, and that these replacement sections are noticeably inferior in quality. The only reason this works as well as it does is because the 35mm stereo and 70mm mixes were so similar on the whole, having apparently come from a common source for the most part. The 35mm version's vastly restricted dynamic range makes the replacements stand out, and each time I make such an edit a part of me cringes a little bit at having to put up with this for the sake of eliminating the extra sounds. I can partially compensate for this reduction with selective volume adjustment, but it can never be as good as the real thing.
Imaging is another concern. The real 70mm mix had discrete channels, yielding excellent separation and clarity, while I am limited to upmixing of matrixed stereo tracks. While this provides a convincing facsimile of the original, there is unavoidable crosstalk between channels, so it isn't really ideal. Upmixers also tend to send too much information to the centre speaker, because they can't differentiate between information that was actually centrally located in the source and things that were phantom-centred in the left and right channels (which tends to include large room filling sounds that are more than what one speaker ought to articulate alone). This also has the effect of making the replacement sections stand out even more, because with the 35mm mix having a considerably narrower stereo image than the 1993, more sound is being panned in and rather less sent to the sides and surrounds during those intervals.
This change in imaging is not really a major problem, but it is there nonetheless, and has been something I've wished I could improve. By using the 1985 mix for the replacements instead of the '77 stereo, I can now reduce or eliminate this issue, since the '85 has a wider stereo separation. This allows me to edit more precisely than I could before, and because of that I've been able to keep them to a shorter length and retain more of the dynamic range from the '93 mix, allowing it to more closely emulate the sound of the real thing.
My source is Darth Mallwalker's 44.1 khz rip of the 1985 mix, first converted to 48 khz using the high quality iZotope resampler and then synched to the 1993 version in small segments. (I'd considered trying to synch the entire thing, but it quickly became clear that this would be more trouble than it was worth for my purposes.)
Improvements to sound quality and imaging will be the main benefits to this new version, but while I'm at it I will also be correcting the small errors that I made the first time around. I've made quite a bit of progress with it in the past few days; most of the time I can simply duplicate my earlier work using the new source, but in some places I want to try to do things differently; again, for the sake of retaining more '93 dynamics. Some of these ideas may not actually work, though, since there are limits to my skill and I don't have any professional equipment or training. There will be some minor adjustment of the LFE channel as well, but nearly everything will sound just like it did before.
I do have to wonder exactly where the '85 mix came from. Given its high level of similarity to the original stereo, it is most probably a derivation from that mix, but the wider imaging mystifies me. I'm pretty certain that the theatrical version was narrowed in order to reduce crosstalk in the surrounds, but I guess they dispensed with that practise as Dolby improved their upmixing technology. Was there an earlier generation copy that had the dynamic reduction but hadn't been panned in? Or did they make a new downmix of the 4-track master, taking great care to match the EQ and dynamics of the theatrical stereo? Or did they simply use some kind of processing to widen the existing stereo master? I can't say, but its separation does seem to match up with the '93 mix pretty well. Hmm . . .
Amusingly enough, as I've worked on this I've had the song "That's How You Know" from the movie Enchanted stuck in my head. An odd juxtapositioning to be sure, but I do like me some Amy Adams. ;)
And I think saying that is an insult to the Three Stooges.
Other film transfers might be done from internegatives made from the interpositive, or from low-contrast prints . . .
The thing is, nowhere in that quote does it specifically say that they are talking about previous releases of the SW movies. "Other film transfers" simply sounds as though he is referring to practises used on home video transfers of other movies altogether, and not the SW films at all. So there's really nothing solid that can be inferred from this about where the previous releases came from, or why some were missing the burn marks or any of that.
Well one thing's for sure, they weren't lying when they said that existing prints are in poor condition. If they were this bad in the 80's and 90's, just picture them these days . . .
Still, with folks like Robert Harris doing the work, and with the kind of restoration tools available now, it's not at all insurmountable. They just can't be bothered.
I dunno. While I personally would never have been that rude if I were actually trying to communicate with her, the 'hypocritical, insufferable cunt' remark made me laugh quite a bit, because it's not so far from the truth.
The 'raped my childhood' type of comments are a pretty poor choice of words, of course, but it does seem like the defenders are the ones who are actually using them the most.
The blue saber fix in the training on the falcon scene has some black flicker towards the hilt in several shots.
I noticed this black flickering near the bottom of the blade during the Falcon training scene a few years ago while watching the 2004 dvd. If you look at the same scene in the GOUT, you'll see that the original effects did not have this error; it's a screwup caused by glitchy digital re-composites. Accordingly, I think it would be a good idea to fix it for the new version.
What is absolutely in need of fixing, though, is that the colours of the interior of Vader's TIE fighter cockpit are wildly inconsistent. In the original every shot had the lighting as a strong red with the same saturation level, but in the 2004 version about half these shots have become pink, and some of them are so desaturated that they're almost colourless. Usually this is just for the Vader shots, but sometimes it happens to his wingman also. I would very much like to see these corrected for the new version.
By the way, I'm considering making a new version of the 70mm mix, so assuming that it turns out to be a worthwhile improvement, it would be cool to have it included on the next release. ;)
Erikstormtrooper said:
For those who watched the prequel BDs, did you find the sound for ROTS to be flat compared to the other 2?
I don't have the Blurays, but I've always found this to be the case. Episodes 1 and 2 have enormous dynamic range and thunderous bass response throughout, which 3 is utterly flat and dull in comparison. There seems to be only a few places in the movie where the LFE channel is even used at all, let along with any degree of strength, and nothing that even comes close to the other two.
I believe this is because Gary Rydstrom was the re-recording mixer on the first two, but was not involved with the third. Superb dynamics and bass seem to be a hallmark of his film mixes.
TV's Frink said:
Vader was in the prequels.
He certainly was not.
Leonardo said:
"as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced"
I wonder if I'm the first to notice this, or if my ears are playing tricks on me or what... In Star Wars, when the Death Star blows up Alderaan, pay attention to the sound just before the explosion. Doesn't it sound like a scream, cut off in mid just as the planet explodes?
I first noticed it when listening to the mono mix, and I'm pretty sure it's in all the others, too.
Is this real or is it just me? Has anyone pointed it out before?
There is definitely a screaming sound just before the planet explodes. I first noticed it several months ago when listening to the mono mix and thought it to be unique to that version, only to later realise that it is present in the stereo and 70mm mixes also. It is easier to hear it for the first time in the mono since it is mixed more prominently, while in the others it is only faintly audible.
It's also there in the SE mixes, but it seems even more faint, particularly in the 2004 version.
To clarify my earlier comments, I most certainly do not want a version with recomps and other little 'fixes' to be released and passed off as the original. I just meant that, like Gary Kurtz, I don't find that kind of thing to be on the same objectionable level as the inserts that actually change the effect of the story. As such, in the somewhat unlikely case that a version like that actually was put out—and it became clear that this was as close to the real thing as we were ever going to get—I would purchase it gladly, and enjoy it similarly to Harmy's editions.
If that was all the SE's had ever sought to do to the movies, I don't think it would inspire anywhere near this kind of outrage; certainly from me they wouldn't have. But with the changed versions being so vastly altered, I do think it would be best to go straight back to the original and release it untouched. Even with minor errors present, I never found anything to be remotely lacking about them before the SE's came along, and in the end I still don't. Indeed, I actually find the original effects to be a superior presentation in some aspects. For example the lightsabers looked fantastic and have only ever been altered for the worse; and in a way the recomps actually work against some shots, because going back to the sources prior to any optical compositing exposes a certain 'fakeness' that was previously masked by generation loss and layers of grain and so forth.
I don't have a link to it, but I recall reading an interview with Gary Kurtz in which he said that while he disapproved of the way the special editions turned out because of the unnecessary additions and changes and so forth, he was fine with the digital recomposites because they helped make the effects more convincing while remaining faithful to the original intent and look.
Ultimately, I tend to agree with this on the whole. If a version like that were released, I'd watch it and be happy, as long as the colour and sound were also presented properly. Still, I very much understand the need to preserve them exactly as they were, and I would really like to see them that way too (seamless branching of a version with matte lines and without might be a good way to go).
Still, given LFL's track record with technical issues, it would not be a very good idea to let them get it into their heads that this would be acceptable, because the more things there are to be 'fixed', the more chance there is for them to screw it up somehow. An exact restoration and transfer of the originals without any alteration whatsoever offers the least chance of error, and the most chance of being what we'd all want to see.
I'm more picky about the authenticity of the sound. I would want all the original mixes to be included exactly as they were; most importantly the 70mm versions because they sounded so much better than the 35's, but they should all be there as options. In the case of Empire this would present a bit of a problem in that the actual edit of the movie differed in a few places, so ideally these image differences would be included as well through branching, but if this proved impractical then minor remixing in those parts for the sake of maintaining synch would have to do.
It's just another example of people tossing out meaningless hyperbolic catch-phrases and terminology they don't understand to make things sound scary or bad. I unwittingly get enough of that just walking by when someone is watching the 'news', and I'd really appreciate it if it would stop being done here.
Also, some of our more perspective-lacking members might want to seriously think about getting some kind of counseling or treatment. Willful failure to restore and release a series of films <<<<<<<<< war crimes. Seriously—stow it with the depressive crap already.
My bad, I guess I just remember the 77 effects being worse than they actually were.
If even the gushers are having second thoughts and cancelling their orders, you know something's seriously wrong.
Part of me wonders if this will be the impetus needed to cause them to sit up and taken notice of the fact that things have finally gone too far. Might some good actually come of it? The pessimist in me really doesn't think so, but who can tell?
@adywan:
Exactly as I predicted earlier. They haven't remixed the entire movie from scratch as they claimed, they simply re-used the elements from the 2004 version and made a few tweaks to sort out the worst of the things we'd been complaining about. So the music channels are fixed and the X-wing dive fanfare is back in, the dialogue might be a little less harsh . . . so what? It's still the same muffled, distorted garbage as before, with a little polishing to try to shut us up. But you know what they say about the things that can't be polished . . .
I'll have to hear it myself to say for sure, of course, but I'm quite certain of this already.
Holy shast. These new changes have to be a joke, right? RIGHT?!
When I saw that R2 pic I was quite literally speechless, capable only of inarticulate sputtering for an entire minute. How the hell did he even get in there in the first place??? Gaffer's theory of using those o-so-fanciful rocket boosters (gee, wouldn't those have been helpful when he fell into the Dagobah swamp in ESB?) and coming down from above is the only explanation, and that makes me ill just thinking about it.
The not-at-all-childhood-DNA-ruining Krayt Dragon revision made me burst out laughing so hard I thought I'd gone insane. What a bunch of crackpot tomfoolery . . . I mean good grief, even the piece of crap sound from the 2004 version was better than that! In fact, I now pine for the 2004 version because at least it didn't have this utter bollocks in there! Vader's big exclamation when he turns on the Emperor: likewise one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.
I think it's safe to say that we've at last without a doubt reached the point where Star Wars has ceased to be anything special or meaningful, and has instead become a complete joke. A pathetic excuse for a has-been director to try to stay 'relevant' because he has nothing new to say and can only revamp his old work over and over again, obsessed with thinking it wasn't good enough and needs to be constantly remade for no real reason. Had he never felt the need to revise the movies, he would have gone into history as the creator of one of the most universally beloved film series of all time, but now he just looks like a fool out of touch with reality. And as for Matthew Wood . . . well, my opinion of that guy cannot remotely be expressed with language acceptable for use in civilised conversation, so I'll just sum it up with, "Who's the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?"
Would it help if I said it was for educational purposes only?
Didn't mean to stir anything up here.
Ah yes, I suppose it would be; I didn't really think of that as I typed it . . .
Okay then, any such thing should be confined to PM's, and names shall not be revealed. ;)
I don't have HD yet, so I couldn't get the Blurays even if I wanted to. If I'm to offer informed commentary on the new mixes, someone's going to have to rip the audio and send it to me—preferably the core DTS 1509 kbps portion so I can send it to my receiver from the computer via S/PDIF. Though listening to it will probably make me ill rather quickly, I'd be happy to perform a full analysis of exactly how it sucks. ;) Just putting that out there in case anyone feels like doing that.
It does seem likely that it will be at least somewhat better than the 2004 version, but I seriously doubt it will come anywhere near the 70mm mix for dynamics or sound quality, or any of the other things that make that version as good as it is.
msycamore said:
hairy_hen, I have forgotten to ask you about this, in the cantina around the 45:16 mark, some creature vocalization was added in the Mono mix, (also added to the THX re-mix) I noticed that you got rid of some of it in your re-creation but not all. Any particular reason behind that decision or was part of it really heard in the six-track? I can't say I hear it in the in-theatre reference I have.
Oh, carp. That's not supposed to be there, I evidently made a mistake and didn't listen carefully enough when I was choosing where to edit in and out of the 35mm stereo mix. To tell the truth, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the edit at that point anyway, as I never found it to be completely seamless, but I guess I only heard the beginning part of the addition and missed the rest. Blast . . .
I've given some vague contemplation to making another version that would correct this and a few other minor errors, but I'm not sure if it would actually be worth it. If I do end up going to the trouble of doing so, I'd probably want to use the '85 mix in place of the '77 stereo as it may possibly have slightly better imaging and fidelity, so first I'd have to obtain a PCM copy of that and synch the relevant portions to the '93 mix.
Would have replied earlier, but I've been away and not looked at the site for a while.
I haven't been on the site in a while. Looks like a bunch of stuff about the Blurays has finally surfaced, and really none of it has been unexpected. I'm pleasantly surprised that they've acknowledged a few mistakes and corrected them, but the re-use of the 2004 masters with a few changes added on top rather than going to the trouble of a new scan shows the general laziness and complacency we've come to expect from LFL.
As far as the audio is concerned, I'm quite convinced that the new mix has followed exactly the same path as the video: it's just the 2004 version with a few edits and tweaks piled on top of it. Sure, some of the most obvious defects have apparently been taken care of, such as the flipped music imaging in the rear channels and the missing score during the X-wing dive and so forth, but that doesn't change the fact that it sounds like garbage on the whole. The sound in the ANH clips linked to in this thread all seems to be identical to the 2004 version as far as I can tell. What tips me off? Sound effects which originally were smoothly and unobtrusively integrated stand out and call too much attention to themselves, the dialogue has this weird over-processed sound that doesn't blend in with any of the other elements, the music tends to be buried in the mix, and the general feel of it is just "wrong" in the same way as the dvd version.
I can tell you right now that Matthew Wood is full of crap, and that he actually hasn't a clue what the movies ought to sound like. He loves the fact that the R2 canyon scene is now completely quiet, where the original was brittle and full of hiss? Well, what that actually means is that he noise-reduced the living hell out of every single sound effect in the movie in order to get it that silent. None of the sound effects in the 2004 mix have any high frequency response whatsoever! To compensate for this, they pumped up the mid-bass to extreme levels, and this leaves the entire movie sounding muffled and distorted, even the parts that managed to avoid more severe screw-ups. The whole thing is an unlistenable mess, and I am quite certain that the Bluray version is going to be almost exactly the same, despite their claims of having done it over again.
Actually, I don't think Wood has ever even heard the 70mm version, because I listened to them all after reading that interview and his comment about the canyon rings utterly false. Sure, the mono track is harsh and full of noise, because let's face it, the Academy mono system is ancient and low fidelity. The stereo mix is better but still pretty hissy. But in the 1993 mix, which as we know was sourced directly from the 70mm printmaster, there is barely a hiss to be heard in this scene. Just a little bit, completely natural for an older analogue recording, but nothing obtrusive or objectionable. His other comments about them lacking channel separation and so forth also lead me to think that he didn't bother to listen to the 70mm version, because his obvious disdain for the original mixes comes off as extremely uninformed and insulting to say the least. He's evidently completely unaware that the 70mm mix had far superior dynamic range and fidelity, not only to the 35mm mixes but also to his supposedly wonderful remixed rubbish.
Even though I despise the SE's and would not buy these Blurays myself, it still infuriates me that the only legally obtainable version of the movie will be one that sounds so execrably awful. "He knows the soundtrack so well he can instantly tell when something doesn't sound right?" Puh-lease! Don't make me laugh. I've never even been inside a recording studio and I know a damn sight more about what this film ought to sound like, and that's just sad. I guess the acoustics of Lucas' anal cavity are such that he can't hear how he's actually a completely tone-deaf buffoon, monkeying around with things that were already near-perfect in the first place. Whatever . . .
This master was the LCRS (Left-Center-Right-Surround) mix for Dolby Stereo, recorded on magnetic tape.
Given the overall similarity to the stereo versions, I'd suspected something like this to be the case. Unaltered portions of the 1997 mix do sound very similar to the original.
Finally, an Aphex Dominator II limiter was employed to reduce harshness in the sound caused by sharp transients.
Is this why the dynamic range of the 1997 mix is so noticeably reduced compared to the 70mm and 1993 versions? I strongly suspect this limiter to be the culprit. Extremely high level transient peaks are one of the biggest reasons the 70mm version sounds so powerful: the brief impacts right at the beginning of loud sound effects really 'snap' with great strength, and no other version duplicates this effect. Of course, the '97 version wasn't derived from the 70mm directly as the '93 mix was, so it's possible that this 4-track master had lower dynamic range to begin with, but the use of a peak limiter makes me suspicious. I guess you could describe the transients as 'harsh' from a certain perspective, but I don't find them objectionable the way the remixers evidently did. (The 4-track may not have held up as well as the 70mm printmaster in sound quality; though if that were the case, why not just use it to begin with?)
Because the surround channel in the original master was monaural, stereo surround was created by running the mono surround through a home theatre THX® processor, which splits the single channel into left and right, and then scrambles their relative phase.
Makes sense. All the original surround effects are present in the unaltered scenes, and with the same balance relative to the front channels. Shifting the phase would help spread them around the room by avoiding specific imaging, but by THX's own guidelines it seems unnecessary, since using dipole surround speakers would achieve the same effect without needing to alter the mix itself. The phase shift would also cause them to be diverted to the central rear speakers in a Dolby-EX setup, though since that format wouldn't come into existence until two years later, it wasn't yet a consideration.
In many scenes, "opening up" the ambient soundfield through stereo surrounds was apparent. One is the desert landscape on Tatooine, where the sound of the wind sweeps between the front and back. The opening scenes aboard the rebel ship and the final attack sequences on the surface of the Death Star exhibited similar enhanced depth in the surround field. And, some left-right rear effects were noticed, as in Tie Fighter scenes, though they seemed to be more subtle compared to current digital soundtracks.
I never noticed any particular expansion of the sound field on Tatooine; to me the wind in the surrounds sounded exactly the same as the original, but it's possible I missed it. I did notice other places where the original suround effects were given stereo panning, however. Quite a number of stereo surround effects were added to the spaceship scenes and elsewhere, though to me they usually stand out as objectionable: not always because they are new per se, but because they are not particularly well-integrated into the rest of the mix. The volume level of most new sound effects in the surround channels is far too loud relative to everything else that's going on, placing too much emphasis on being 'flashy' rather than balanced. The SE mixes for Empire and Jedi have this same problem with overly-loud surrounds to an even greater degree.
The LFE was present in the explosions of Alderaan and the Death Star, and from the Millennium Falcon, though again the intensity of the effects was less pronounced than what would be encountered in a contemporary movie.
The Alderaan and Death Star explosions are the strongest uses of bass in the '97 mix. Both of them correspond to the addition of CGI shockwaves into the visuals. There are a few other bass-heavy moments, but most of the usage is surprisingly subdued throughout the film.
Notice how they don't even mention the use of LFE for the opening scene with the Star Destroyer . . . which isn't actually surprising, because the '97 mix barely contains any bass at all in this iconic scene, so fondly remembered by many who saw the original 70mm version. The '93 stereo track seems to have more bass here than the '97 mix even without an LFE channel being present, and there's just something not right about that! It may reflect the dynamic reduction in the main channels, but it's still very strange.
New mixes were necessary for the added scenes, which were created in the 5.1-channel format. These mixes were meticulously blended into the four-track master, plus original dialog, music and effects elements to create a new 35mm Dolby SR (Spectral Recording) noise-reduction-encoded, six-channel master.
I think they must have remixed some original scenes from scratch as well. Similar to the mono mix, the level of the music can be noticeably more prominent than in the original stereo versions; this is particularly noticeable in the opening scene of the film.
The one aspect of this new edition that was controversial was the dialogue. While there were no problems with intelligibility, it was almost impossible to overlook the dialogue's bright and strident characteristics.
Every time C-3PO speaks, the hiss level is unbelievable. I have no explanation for this other than the tape quality having degraded over time. This hissing is also detectable in the original mixes, but to a much lesser degree. With the '93 mix being made just a few years earlier and the noise being less an issue, it again makes me wonder why they didn't use the 70mm printmaster as their source this time.
Other characters' dialogue has always been of somewhat inconsistent quality (probably why they re-recorded some lines for the mono mix), but I've heard it said that this mainly applies to the lines recorded on set rather than in the studio.
captainsolo said:
This would completely explain why the 97SE 5.1 has a more tinny and airy quality when compared to the 93 and 70mm audio.
This may be true. The characteristics of the EQ and dynamics could be due to the different masters used in addition to mixing choices made for the SE. But exactly where this mysterious 4-track fits into the history of it is something I can't definitively state with certainty. The general similarity of the multichannel versions to each other makes it likely that it served as a basis for all of them, but whether it was actually used as it was or simply as a guideline for the release versions to follow . . . who knows?
Nonetheless, the dramatic improvements to the sonics for this seminal film have prompted many film sound experts and enthusiasts to offer high praise for the achievements at Lucasfilm.
Leaving aside whatever one might think of the additions and changes, the '97 mix is indeed a significant improvement to the auditory experience of the film when comparing it to the sonic limitations of the 35mm versions. But when using the 70mm mix as a reference point, it seems like a step backwards in several respects.
It still mostly retains that authentic 'Star Wars' sound, though, which is more than can be said for the abominable 2004 remix . . .
captainsolo said:
SW V3 with surround engaged for 70mm mix.
Awesome. 70mm balls.
:D
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
What an incredible film! Like Part 1, it took everything about the book that was good and made it even better, and took everything that was not so good and either removed it or rearranged it so that it didn't suck anymore. And talk about an emotional experience. Sheesh . . .
Amazing, amazing. Snape's balls.