i551

Hi everyone,

Though I greatly appreciate and respect Jay’s work on the site, like others, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the new(ish) layout.

So I wrote a css style that reduces a lot of the padding around elements, shrinks a few things, stretches a few things, etc. The aim was to fit as much as reasonably possible on the page without sacrificing clarity or aesthetics. I originally only had myself (and my own tastes) in mind, so no guarantees, but I thought I’d share it just in case anyone would be interested:

https://userstyles.org/styles/128935/originaltrilogy-tweaks
(screenshots within)

I’m pretty much satisfied with it, so I may not be in the most urgent hurry to adopt suggestions, though I’d be happy to listen.

(BTW For those who don’t already know, Firefox/Chrome/Safari have an addon called “Stylish” with which one can write and install “styles” to customize the appearance and layout of a site.)

Doctor M said:

Can anyone confirm that the censorship was a hoax?  Word was lawyers were involved to get an uncut version released.

 The censorship was definitely not a hoax.  The confusion is probably due to the fact that some of the censorship was part of the plot, but some of it, like the bleeping of the entire ending speech, was completely against the creators' will.  Where did you hear about lawyers working towards an uncut release?  I'm pretty sure the recently leaked content wasn't part of anything official...

The blog was set up a while ago.  It was eventually archived and closed once it seemed that most of the significant developments had already happened.

Eh, I still prefer ambiguous news to no news.  I had entertained the same thoughts as You_Too as well, but that sounds a little too good to be true. 

Also, btw, I keep meaning to ask.  Neg1, I know you've said that you're only in as far as sw, but it's been quite convenient having a direct liaison to the restoration process.  Are there any plans to keep people here in the loop as things continue to progress?

I'm not sure if this is at all feasible, but one thought I've just had, for the sake of those of us that don't want to wait, but are interested in the eventual blu ray, is there any way to provide the blu ray files minus the video, and then just add it back in from the mkv?

Very nice menu concept.  Given the option I would definitely advocate a little more subtlety, maybe make the movement a bit slower, more consistent, maybe without reversing direction at the end, but that's just personal preference, it certainly looks quite impressive to me as is.

I'm also curious what program you used to make this?

Oops, I completely misread the question here, my apologies.

The NO is poorly executed and very difficult to take seriously, and because of this its nearly universally reviled.  It seems petty to include it, because Lucas surely must know the degree to which it was disliked in ROTS.   It's as if he was forcing it on fans simply because they had rejected it.

But much more importantly, it destroys the drama of a very powerful and important moment.  In the wordless version, it seems so much more raw and emotional, he simply lets his choice speak for him.  Adding the scream was just like replacing the venomous "Bring my shuttle" line with the lifeless "Alert the star destroyer to prepare for my arrival." line, in that it was destroying the subtly of the scene to needlessly spell out something mundane everyone already knew.

It's too bad the lpp print isn't available yet.  I wonder, how do the known theatrical bootlegs treat those shots?  I'm rather skeptical of this simply because we've never noticed it before, as far as I know, anyways. Perhaps it was just on ib prints?

If it was on all/most prints I would vote to keep it, but if it was both ways theatrically, I think there's no reason to choose the worse looking theatrical version.

It was posted on his blog just before he closed it.

Looks flawless to me, excellent work!

Very nice looking clip.   One miniscule thing I noticed was that if you compare the first and second frames of the third shot, certain elements shift a little.  The things that first caught my eye were the right side of the droid, the window to the right of the dome, and the legs of the guy furthest to the left.  I don't think it matters, as it was only noticeable going through it frame by frame, but I thought I would mention it just in case.

Hmm.  I had been referring to the wide shot of the hangar.  In quicktime, it seems to go from this to this, though I've no idea why.  I've just discovered that it doesn't seem to do it in any other player though, so I suppose it's nothing.  My mistake.

Very nice looking clip! I actually didn't realize that the alternate shot of Luke walking came from gout. Was there a reason, though, that it suddenly gets darker during the hangar shot?  Perhaps it's a comparison with 1.0?

Oops, sorry about that, here it is more plainly:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/93945

;-)

Btw Harmy, as it was brought up on that thread, do you have an official stance on how vocal/quiet you'd like people to be about your work?

eiyosus said:

A while ago Ady posted a comparison shot between the Bluray and.......DVD maybe? of the rebels on Hoth fleeing from the AT-ATs showing how blurry the new transfer is.  Does anybody have a link to that pic?  Thankee!

I believe this was the picture you're referring to, it wasn't the dvd version, but a scan of an actual film cell vs the blu ray.  Pretty startling.

 I really wish I had space to rip and test fotr, because it still seems to me that the tint is there all throughout the film.  If it were deliberate or intermittent, I wouldn't expect it to affect the title cards or the fading to "white" sequence, yet it does.  I'll have to give it and TT another look.   Nonetheless I definitely agree that the overall quality is quite good.

As I understand it, only the optical effects like phasors, transporters, lights on the ship, etc. needed to be redone.  Everything else seems to be taken from the negatives.

I don't think that's completely true, you watched the extended version, right?   From what I understand, it wasn't bringing it up to the same level as the others so much as adding a single, constant tint throughout the entire film, on top of the pre existing color correction.  I thought I heard speculation somewhere that perhaps it was a technical error because it would be such a bizarre choice to make.  I certainly hope it won't be in the hobbit, though luckily I don't think its very likely.

One other minor thing I though I might note is that in the mixes where Lando's "in the middle of it" line is not audible, they left in the "now," seemingly inexplicably. 

One audio change I've been wondering about for a while was Lando's line  "We're sure in the middle of it now" in ROTJ.   The only version I remember seeing it in is the 97, though I may have missed it elsewhere.

I hope you'll excuse the bump, but did anything ever happen towards uploading tb?  I was rather interested in checking that out.

I would also be interested in this.

That's horrifying.

Also, perhaps one of you guys can clarify, it seemed to me that they declined to accept a 97 print, but this thread title says otherwise...So did the NFR take the 97 print or leave it?

Btw early in the article, it says "a professional film restorationists." ;-)

The page looks very nice, though I noticed a typo in the audio changes, it says "you were luck to get out of there" ;-)