Personally, I’d love to see just a frame of the restoration. It would be a good way to give people an idea of what it’ll look like, without doing an ENTIRE clip.
Actually, scratch that. I was confusing these with the text only commentaries done for the prequels. I did some researching and as far as I’m able to tell Pablo only did audio commentaries for episodes IV and V. If I’m wrong please let me know but I’m pretty sure that’s the case.
Also I’m not convinced these were released in 2004. Pablo talks abut episode III was if it’s already been released. I’m guessing these came out in 2005.
He mentions LEGO Star Wars II in the SW commentary as if it’s something new, so I’m thinking it was actually released in 2006.
Also, did Harmy get Pablo’s TESB commentary? It’s not on the despecialized version I have (2.0)
I really liked the “2004 starwars.com” audio commentary in this version. Did Pablo make more of these commentaries for the rest of the films?
Also, that Movie Mezzanine article mentions that “A promotional reel from the digital restoration company features cleaned-up footage from Star Wars that looks nothing like the official Blu-ray release”. Does anyone have a link to this video?
UPDATE: Found it! https://vimeo.com/95919913
Then you’ll have fun reading this thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/4K-restoration-on-Star-Wars/id/16857
Thanks! And I think I’ll stop talking about this here, since the thread is starting to slip a little off-topic…
Also, that Movie Mezzanine article mentions that “A promotional reel from the digital restoration company features cleaned-up footage from Star Wars that looks nothing like the official Blu-ray release”. Does anyone have a link to this video?
UPDATE: Found it! https://vimeo.com/95919913
Question to Harmy: Around the internet, I keep seeing people claim that they saw the deleted Tosche Station scenes in the theatre back in 1977. Based on your research into the original theatrical release of SW, is it possible that some prints may have included deleted scenes?
EDIT: It’s possible that they may be remembering extra material (like the novelization) which included these scenes, but I’ve seen people claim they never saw this other material.
Impressive job guys! Love the way the shadows look in the tunnel on the first post, and I really like how the colours pop in some of these shots. Can’t wait to see more!
Has Harmy ever considered trying to recreate the original 70MM cut of Empire?
This is an interesting thread for me as a huge Pixar fan like myself.
First, I suggest you soften the image just a bit. Toy Story was originally rendered at a resolution of 1536x922, and this lower image size actually hid fuzzy textures that are seen in the 1080p version.
Second, I think I’ve got frames from the letterboxed Laserdisc version since some of the bonus features from that release (I think) made it into the DVD and Blu-ray releases. Here they are:
Image #1
Image #2
Image #3
Third, you can get answers from actual Pixar employees online. Craig Good, who worked for 30 years at the studio since its Lucasfilm division days, frequently answers questions about many topics through the site Quora, including ones about Pixar. I can’t guarantee a reply, but you might get an interesting answer from him. Just don’t be too pushy about it, he doesn’t take too kindly to troll/useless questions.
“The Backstroke of the West” was easily the best (and funniest) thing to come out of Revenge of the Sith, so I’m glad you guys made this thread. I wonder if someone here can release a fully mistranslated subtitle file for at least one of the movies.
Here’s something cool I noticed: The Rocket Jump Film School YouTube channel has been using the Despecialized Edition in their videos whenever they use a clip from Star Wars. Here are all the videos I could find where they use it:
Intro to Storyboarding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQsvhq28sOI (Clips are at 0:13-16 and 1:36-39)
Luke Asks Questions Supercut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZScxFO5kOxE
Why CGI Sucks (Except It Doesn’t): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL6hp8BKB24 (Clip is at 6:10-16)
Speaking of YouTube videos, internet reviewer Oliver Harper used the Despecialized Editions of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back for his retrospective/reviews of them:
Star Wars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERSi9dtrqY4
The Empire Strikes Back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDlnOsWu27E
Could you please read the first post?
Just did, thanks. Now editing my post.
REPORT-ESB-v2.0
00:37:46-00:37:49
00:38:20-00:38:21
00:38:37-00:38:38
00:38:42-00:38:46
00:40:01-00:40:02
00:40:21-00:40:24
All the shots in these timeframes have a fuzzy look to them, and probably need to be replaced with 35mm print scans. I think they’re taken from the 1993 laserdisc, although I’m not 100% sure.
So, after watching the whole Despecialized trilogy this week, I saw that ROTJ and ESB v2.0 are already far ahead of SW v2.5, which has a lot of issues in comparison.
What issues did you notice in the 2.5 version?
What I mean is that from what I've observed of you guys, the reaction to most TFA news seems to be more "Oh, that looks cool, still got some issues though." and less "WOAH this is gonna be the bestest best Star Wars ever made and gross a bazillion dollars!" like I've seen elsewhere
I'm impressed that you guys have held on to looking at this film fairly critically, without going into "OMG PRACTICAL EFFECTS" territory like some other fans.
Correction for version 2.5: The commentary by the content manager of starwars.com says it's the "2004 star wars.com Audio Commentary". I think it might actually be from 2006, since he briefly mentions Revenge of the Sith as if it's come out already, and brings up Lego Star Wars II.
(For Harmy) Did you see Joshua274's thread? This user's dad worked on the handling of the original film elements on all three films, and he has some interesting opinions on the various fan edits, including yours. Here's what he said about your despecialized edition:
Harmy
The whites on the Tantive IV no longer look as pink. However, they now look more yellow. Harmy commented about how the blacks look more crushed (sandcrawler scenes). If this is because they don’t pop out as much for the blu-ray release, my dad said that this was natural for a high-def format. What’s more if you’re only point of reference for blacks is an SD/analog release, then you don’t know what blacks are supposed to look like. What’s worse is that, in fixing the blacks, lighter elements now look more yellow.
Something else Harmy commented on was that the sand scenes just after the droids land looked artificial due to a clean up process for the blu-ray release. With the exception of the noise in the overall picture, my dad couldn’t figure out what looked artificial about it. However, Harmy’s tweaks make it look more washed out now.
Thinking back to your despecailized edition, I can see what his dad is talking about, specifically during the scene where Obi-Wan scares off the Sand People. That scene looked almost unnaturally yellow.
Here's the rest of the post if you want to see more of his thoughts: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Opinions-of-fan-preservation-projects-from-an-individual-who-saw-the-original-film-elements/topic/17753/
Dude, seriously? You're really unnecessarily being a dick here.
When reading the book "Star Wars: Year by Year", I noticed a bit about Spike TV airing all six Star Wars movies in HD back in 2008. Was that airing where the HD version of the 2004 dvd versions came from?
