Thanks for posting these! I guess I'll play around with it a bit and see what gives the best results. I'm no AviSynth expert, I've only ever implemented basic functions when running scripts that weren't designed by someone else, but I like the results it can give when used properly.
The DropSub function looks interesting.
As long as the three paragraphs of text and the reveal of the planet synch with the music cues as they did in the '77 crawl, I'm cool. ;)
BTW, I'd be interested in seeing the workprint as well to offer input about the colouring and such.
I'm still going to get you those subtitles, as well.
Neil Gaiman is the best thing that's ever happened to Doctor Who, and that's a fact.
Sure, I've seen stuff like that before in fanfic and immediately thought 'worst idea ever!' and hit the back button as quickly as I could. But when one of the greatest fantasy writers around tells the story, by god it's done right. As soon as she said "Where's my thief?" I knew who she was, and it was quite thrilling and engaging. Loved the notion that she 'stole' him every bit as much as he did. And here's to having emotional and contextual continuity with previous years of the show, eh?
Loved seeing more of the TARDIS interior than just the control room, too: first time that has happened since the old days. Only been clamouring for that for at least three years now. And did anybody notice how the console they built looked like the one from the classic series?
Personally I don't give much of a damn about these movies in any way because the things they changed from the books completely screwed up the story in a lot of cases, especially from a character and 'world-building' continuity standpoint. For the sake of those who do like them, I'm glad the DVNR nonsense is being dispensed with, but I can't be arsed about caring for anything else that's going on. ;)
Dude, the music when Luke defeats Vader is one of the most awesomely epic things I've ever heard!
So much so that in my 5.1 version I deliberately made it stand out more than it does in the '93 mix, replacing it from the 35mm version and boosting it a bit. Now the music carries the scene even more, rather than being slightly edged out by the lightsabre crashes. ;)
I was about to call rubbish on the dismissal of the mono mix, but several others have already done it for me, so I can tone down my reflexive outburst. ;)
As has been said, the mono mix sounds nothing at all like the other versions. It contains numerous differences in ADR, sound effects, and general balance that give it a completely different vibe than any of the others. The music is mixed much more prominently throughout the movie, and in some respects it seems more 'polished' and refined, since they had more time to work on it and to correct things that were perceived to be lacking before.
It will never be my favourite version, as I became quite attached to the sound of the Dolby Stereo as a kid and because the 70mm version is amazing and leaves everything else in the dust; and also because some of the things I didn't like about the SE mixes were actually things that first appeared in the mono mix, but I didn't know that yet at the time.
However, as a '77 original, considered 'definitive' when it was made (stereo and surround were still thought of as 'gimmicky' back then before they caught on), and being what many people would have heard in theatres at the time, the mono mix is completely worthy of preservation. It was never released on any home video format, only appearing on rare television broadcasts from the 80's and then never again. I am very grateful to Belbucus for restoring it so well for use in fan projects, so that it will live on even if, as seems likely, it never officially sees the light of day again.
There was a brief period when I was around 10 or so that RotJ was actually my favourite, but that didn't really last. These days, I easily perceive that it's not at all on the same level as the first two movies, but I could never hate it. It's still a solid film that I enjoy watching a great deal, even if its flaws are more pronounced.
The anamorphic thing isn't even the real issue, because it would still look almost as bad even if they'd resized it. The failure to do even a half-decent transfer from a moderately abused but still watchable film print with some minimal touchup, let alone an actual restoration, is the problem.
I love what G-force's AviSynth script does for the GOUT, but the low resolution, DVNR smear, and the worst instances of jaggies can't be corrected by any means, and we're pretty much stuck with them.
I started out responding to Moth3r's post in the thread about what constitutes an acceptable restoration, but moved it here instead since this is the more appropriate place, really.
Moth3r said:
Unfortunately the 70mm Dolby 6-track mix cannot be simply ported over, as the "4.2" Baby Boom configuration is not compatible with modern 5.1 (or 6.1, 7.1) speaker arrangements. The most authentic solution would be to remaster the audio track from the original elements, by merging the two sub channels into one and using a mono surround channel.
I believe this is how the Blade Runner 70mm mix was presented.
Quite so, the 70mm version can't be duplicated exactly as it was on modern home video; it needs a bit of remastering to adapt to the format. The two LFE channels would need to be added together and merged into one, and the mono surround channel either duped into two rears at -3db each for 5.1, or simply presented as-is in a 4.1 layout and let the receiver distribute it among the appropriate number of speakers.
There is an additional difficulty in that the bass tracks were originally mastered with content going up to 250 hz, whereas Dolby Digital only allows for a 120 hz upper limit on frequency response, so something would need to be done about this additional bass. It could possibly be level-corrected and put back into the main channels, or it might actually have to be discarded altogether, since there are some reports that the initial use of separate bass tracks may have been to duplicate/augment what was already in the mains in addition to the separate baby booms, which would be problematic if it contained music or dialogue. In making the 1993 mix, THX chose to use only the main channels of the 70mm version while taking the bass from a separate sounds effects master, in order to avoid any potential bass 'bloat' that could have arisen from using the boom tracks directly.
So, any theoretical future transfer of the 70mm audio would have to be careful about how it handled the bass for best results. Depending on exactly how it sounded, taking a similar approach to the '93 mix and mastering a new LFE channel from the separate sound effects master might actually be the most practical option. If in the course of doing so some parts were to be augmented or added, it might be acceptable as long as it didn't stray too far from the aesthetic of the source; though of course the idea of allowing some changes opens the door for the slippery slope of others. The LFE upper limit was soon changed to 125 hz for 70mm, so ESB and RotJ probably wouldn't have this issue, but with SW it would need to be taken into consideration.
The Bluray releases of Alien and Aliens have 4.1 transfers of their 70mm soundtracks, I believe, which I haven't heard but would dearly like to. I've never seen Apocalypse Now, but I have read about it in some detail since it was another pioneering 70mm mix, one of the first to use stereo surround channels. The home video transfers have all used a close adaptation of the original--the 70mm solution for stereo surrounds was to place everything over 500 hz in the same tracks as the LFE, with the lower portions coming from the sixth channel which was still the traditional mono surround (for theatres that didn't have stereo rears). So that film had to be remastered somewhat for home video as well, though reportedly it is still very close to the way it sounded back then.
Without being able to hear the real thing, it's hard to know exactly how much bass Star Wars actually had. On the one hand, it is often reported to have been very strong, but on the other, most movie theatres didn't actually have subwoofers installed when it was first released (though its aural success prompted them to upgrade quickly), and the mixers may have assumed that the bass would have been reproduced from standard loudspeakers instead. Add in the fact that impressions of this kind of thing can be fairly subjective anyway, and that the '93 mix and the two SE's all employ their bass response differently, and the relative obscurity of the topic is made plain. I think I made a pretty good guess of what it ought to be (certainly it sounds wonderful to my ear), but sometimes I almost dread that hearing the real thing would prove me wrong. ;)
You'll probably have to matte out the most problematic portions of each shot and colour-correct them separately. I think Mike Verta had to resort to doing that in some places for his Legacy Edition, since the '04 colours are so screwed up. Heck, I wish he hadn't stopped updating his website, so we could see more screenshots of how his work ended up, because the parts he did post came out inspired.
I would definitely err on the side of not recompositing anything, since as has been said, it guarantees the result to be the actual original without letting even any minute changes slip through. And as Baronlando points out, there are times when the effects actually don't seem to hold up with the digital re-composites, because they are too clean and too shiny to seem real, and their inherent imperfections become even easier to see. But then there are others where it is a definite improvement, so I'm pretty torn about it. And given the success achieved with adywan's ESB reconstruction and Harmy's despecialized versions, it seems generally worthwhile to be able to use them while just eliminating the actual changes. I read an interview with Gary Kurtz where he commented on being pleased with the digital compositing while deploring the CGI inserts at the same time, so clearly it's a hot topic among people who actually worked on the movies as well.
Most of the work was done a few years back by a fellow called Belbucus, who is a professional audio engineer. It is a composite of a few different sources, the main ones being a bootleg video tape telecine of a 35mm print and the other a copy of a 1985 television broadcast. Small sections were also filled in using a mono fold-down of the Dolby Stereo mix, and the music for the main and end titles came from cd releases, dubbed to audio tape and back to digital so their increased clarity compared to the rest of the mix would not be so obvious. Selective noise reduction was applied to reduce the hiss from old and relatively low fidelity sources, and carefully matched in EQ to blend together as one seamless track. And of course it was synched to the GOUT video for ease of use on fan-made dvd projects.
The result is very impressive, particularly considering the source materials available to work with. For a good number of people, the mono mix is their preferred audio for the film, and so this project is a dream come true in that regard.
I doubt he even looked at it or listened to it back then.
As for differences between the versions of the GOUT, I don't really understand them, because the PAL version did not use its own source; it's just converted from the NTSC. This is particularly puzzling when we consider that the PAL RotJ is considerably more detailed than the NTSC, but the other two are not.
Very interesting. I always knew there was something seriously wrong with the way Yoda talks in the prequels, but never really went to the trouble of thinking about it in depth before. My understanding of grammatical principles is based much more on how they sound than the specific terminology of sentence structure (I can convincingly write in different speech modes without necessarily being able to describe exactly why it should sound a certain way). These results definitely fit with the sense of wrongness previously perceived, and I agree that Yoda's speech was much less convoluted and more intelligible originally.
I seem to recall hearing or reading an interview with Lawrence Kasdan at one point where he said that he was very careful and deliberate in choosing exactly how Yoda would phrase things, and what sort of sentence structure he would use. Since he was not involved with the prequels, obviously this did not carry over to those films.
The mono and stereo mixes are important, since they are what most people would have heard back then, but the real prize would be the 70mm audio, which could be presented as a 4.1 mix with minimal remastering. With its innovative use of surround sound and superb dynamic range, not to mention the first ever use of separate LFE channels for enhanced bass response, it is the best sounding mix the film has ever had, and is entirely worthy of preservation. None of the other mixes can really compare to it, and it can be pretty much guaranteed that any subsequent remix would fail to capture its nuances and overall 'vibe'. With the original sounding so good already, there would be absolutely no point in doing so unless it was done very carefully and used the existing 70mm mix as its basis.
Strictly speaking I would want to see the film represented exactly as it was visually back then, but I'd be okay with having certain effects shots recomposited to eliminate highly visible errors and so forth.
Hard to say for sure, but I would say it should resemble the Technicolor shot as closely as reasonably possible, taking into account the limitations of photographing a projection screen.
As promised, here is the mono mix in FLAC, this time on megaupload so it'll stay up longer.
That's incorrect, the DVNR is not on the film they scanned. It was applied as a temporal filter during the mastering process, so there are presumably no digital copies without the smearing, but there's no way it would be on the film print; that doesn't make any sense.
Welcome, S_Matt!
Excellent post, I completely agree on the ways that the SE's detract from the movie experience that used to be just right. Changing the originals to 'fit' with the prequels was a very bad idea, and with all his retconning the story loses even more coherence every time. As you say, the CGI inserts are very distracting and unnecessary and call attention to themselves and their own shortcomings far more than any of the limitations present originally.
If you get a chance, I recommend checking out dark_jedi's version 3 dvd releases. These are the result of a collaborative effort from many forum members and present a significant improvement on the official retail versions, most notably by resizing the image to 16:9, stabilising the image shake, smoothing out jagged edges, giving reasonable strengthening to the gamma and saturation, recreating the original subtitles; and perhaps most significantly, providing many audio options, including the theatrical stereo and mono mixes, 5.1 mixes approximating the 70mm versions, and isolated score tracks. If you find the retail dvd's satisfactory, you'll love these, because they are similar and yet so much better. :)
My links from a few months ago have expired, but I'll put it up again as soon as I get a chance.
Do the other tracks have DialNorm applied? In putting it together I was using Belbucus' level-adjusted 35mm version which has the average level approximately the same as the '93 mix, so if that was the source for that mix on the dvd then it shouldn't have needed any further reduction. The mono mix certainly would have, since it was only released with the peaks at 0, leaving its RMS level nearly five decibels higher. Flipping between the tracks on the dvd, it sounds to me as if the average levels are in the same vicinity, and that the difference in loudness is solely due to the 70mm and 1993 versions having greater dynamics. But I didn't really listen to the other ones that much, so I could be mistaken about that. This sort of thing can be hard to judge accurately, which is why there is a lot of general confusion about it.
But the dynamics are a big part of the reason the 70mm version sounded so much better (in addition to having bass and discrete channels), so with the average level the same as the other mixes, it seems appropriate that it would come off as being louder, since that's how it would have been in the theatres back then.
Whoa. That hangar bay shot is seriously impressive.
Did anyone send you a greenscreen rendition of msycamore's subtitles yet? If not, I'll see if I can do that myself.
Mal: You want to run this ship?!
Jayne: Yes.
Mal: Well . . . you can't . . .
Damn those ReDead in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are creepy as all hell.
My girlfriend has been playing a game called Zombie Farm on her new iPhone. It's pretty funny.
These tracks don't use DRC or Dialnorm, so there's no level adjustment being made at any point. This might not always play nicely with non-5.1 setups, unfortunately, but I don't really approve of compromising a mix for the sake to hearing it through television speakers, as commercial AC3 tracks often seem to do. What recent Disney dvd's have done--and what all dvd releases should have always been doing from the start--is to include a dedicated 2.0 mix as the default track, so that people without home theatre systems can simply 'plug and play' and get an appropriate audio track, and have the 5.1 mix selectable for those who can take advantage of it.
With non-defeatable DRC applied to 5.1, and lacking the option for a stereo or DTS track on many discs, there is often no way for users with powerful stereo systems (such as myself for a long time before I could complete the surround setup) to hear the full dynamic range, which can be rather frustrating for those who enjoy that sort of thing. I don't know exactly what kind of equipment corellian77 has, so I can't comment with any greater specificity on the issues he is hearing. Though of course, it could be that he simply doesn't like the way it sounds, which is another issue altogether. ;)