kk650

@ZaneFlare92: Thanks for the kind words, always nice when your work is appreciated 😃 Agreed that Episode 1 is a big step up from the DNRed blu-ray, adding grain brings back a lot of its filmic qualities. Episode 1 is my favourite prequel so I wanted to do everything possible to improve the waxy look of the blu-ray.

I’ve never put a password on any of my releases so the issue you’re having with ROTJ must be related to a part that has been corrupted during download. Have you tried comparing the size of the different parts? They should all be the same size apart from the last part. If you find one that’s not the same size, thats most likely the part thats giving you the problem. You should try redownloading it with the site you used before, whether uploaded or 1fichier, and if you have the same problem again try downloading that part with the site you haven’t used, that should fix the problem.

@yotsuya: You feel that my Star Wars regrades are just as ‘unnatural’ and therefore just as bad as the colours of the official blu-rays. You are of course free to your opinion, but that comes across to me as total BS, no offense. You might want to consider using IMHO a bit as well so you don’t come across as one of those types constantly declaring their own very subjective opinion as objective fact, which gets kind of tiring to read after a while.

The saturation of the TFA regrade is exactly the same as saturation of the blu-ray, I always maintain the saturation levels of the film i’m regrading to respect the intentions of the filmmakers (unless its clearly undersaturated which is not the case here), only the fleshtones were shifted to remove the overly reddish sunburnt fleshtones of the blu-ray yet it is my TFA regrade that is oversaturated and ‘particularly bad’ according to you, not the blu-ray its matched the saturation of? Are you for real? I don’t know if you’re trolling here or not.

Assuming you’re not trolling, the issue that many here have with the first Leia shot in the comparisons is actually an issue of saturation, not an issue of how much yellow or red there is in the fleshtones. The saturation in the Star Wars official blu-ray is constantly changing from shot to shot, which is why I selectively regraded the vast majority of the Tarkin shots because they were far too saturated and beyond the acceptable saturation variation threshold I was willing to accept. The first Leia shot was not beyond this acceptable saturation variation threshold for me. I can clearly see from the reaction of a few here on this site that it was for you guys. Fair enough but we’ll have to agree to disagree there. If a consensus was required on how every shot of Star Wars was meant to look, I don’t think there would be a single Star Wars release to this day.

Not everybody is going to be happy with the colour choices you make, that is a fact that every regrader has no choice but to accept at some point if they want to be able to actually release something instead of endlessly debating about what Star Wars or indeed any film ‘should’ look like.

Considering the projection bulbs were very warm and yellow in the 70’s, I don’t have any problem accepting that Leia in that shot is a little more yellow than she would have been on set, in fact I would expect it and regraded the Original Trilogy as much as possible to take the warmer projection bulbs of the times into account. I also maintained a higher than strictly necessary saturation level to recreate the punchier colors of the technicolor print frames of Star Wars that i’ve had access to and really like the look of.

@Deloreanhunter12: Appreciate that! I never created 8gb versions of the V2 Star Wars releases, it is something that I have been planning to do for a while and haven’t got round to it yet. If you don’t want to wait though you can always download the larger versions and create 8gb versions from those.

The Empire Strikes Back is actually the one that I felt had the largest room for improvement of the two. Go figure. The Star Wars Original Trilogy has and has always had a real way of dividing opinion when it comes to how it should look. I think ten years from now we’ll still be debating what these films should look like.

Honestly i’m so glad to have finished working on the Star Wars Original Trilogy films. All those years working on them definately did drain my enthusiasm for the OT, its only slowly starting to come back now. I’ve done enough obsessing over the colours of the OT to last me a lifetime, i’m very happy to leave it to DrDre and others now.

yoda-sama said:

kk650 said:

Do you have any plans to work on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi Despecialized Editions?

Do you have specific problems with those colors that warrants it?

When I checked them out last, which was admitedly many months back, I had the general impression that they could be improved colourwise. It’s tough to nail down specifics, expecially after not seen both for so long, but I just had a feeling that there was potential to improve on the colours further.

towne32’s done a great job here IMHO so I think he should have a look at those two as well, two eyes working on a regrade are always better than one, I think that’s been clearly demonstrated here with v2.7. I think any potential margin for improvement with those two would be much less than with Star Wars but it would be very interesting to see what he could do with them.

Just had a chance to check out the new v2.7 and it is a BIG improvement on v2.5 colourwise. Some of the fleshtones in certain scenes are still too red for my liking but the overall improvement is pretty staggering. Great job towne32!

Do you have any plans to work on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi Despecialized Editions?

Darth Lucas said:

I mean, what I’ve noticed about real life is that (with Caucasians at least) skintone can really vary. Sometimes it’s a little more peachy/orange like your corrections, and other times it’s slightly more pink/red like the original. Neither look unnatural to me, which is why I say it doesn’t seem like it makes much difference. But hey if it makes that difference to you, that’s all that matters.

Yes I know, sometimes you come across young people with very reddish faces, almost looking sunburnt but its just their natural complection, nothing to do with staying in the sun too long. Where I live it’s common to see older people with more reddish complections. With the TFA regrade the main aim was just to maintain fleshtone continuety with the other Star Wars regrades i’ve done, not make any commentary on what is natural looking fleshtones.

Here are some shots of Harrison Ford though on set that suggest his face wasn’t as red as suggested on the blu-ray (the first shot can be directly compared to some of the TFA screencaps i’ve put up, its taken from the same scene):

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/hNFJyY

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/ZJLkOS

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/IrHUpo

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/BbZVoG

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/fp56G0

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/v25Mgq

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/2HBBl1

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/hltf0u

http://www.moviestillsdb.com/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-i2488496/q2qmc4

Dreamaster said:

Wow… well why I’m not necessarily sold that the TFA changes are “better” they are definitely very visible to me, even though they are much more subtle than say his Jedi regrade, he’s shifted all the reds in the skin tones towards orange/peach hues and it creates a very gentle orange push in the other shots as well.

To know whether or not Harrison’s face was really that red, we need to ask the most important question…

“What was his blood pressure during shooting?”

Because high blood pressure can give bright red hues to real people in real life. 😃

I find the fleshtones of the TFA regrade more pleasing to my eyes but I wouldn’t say they are ‘better’ because of course colour grading is completely subjective, everybody will have a different opinion on what looks ‘better’. I’ve had look at production stills of The Force Awakens and Harrison Ford’s face doesn’t look anywhere near as red as the blu-ray so I do personally believe that the filmmakers made a conscious decision to make the fleshtones on the TFA blu-ray more red to more closely match the IMHO reddish/sunburnt fleshtones of the other six Star Wars films on blu-ray.

With that in mind, the main aim of the TFA regrade really was to create a version of TFA that maintains fleshtone continuety with my other Star Wars regrades that corrected the overly reddish/sunburnt fleshtones on their respective blu-rays.

clutchins said:

I hold the same opinion, DL. And I don’t mean to sound rude either. It’s really a matter of opinion and you can grade your works however you like, but I see no practical differences besides the skin tones. That said, I enjoy your other works like Blade Runner and LOTR and Mad Max.

Like I said to DL, I perfectly understand where you’re coming from because I used to feel the same way. I’m very glad to hear that you like Blade Runner, LOTR and Mad Max, the first two are actually two of the three main reasons I started creating regrades three years ago, the last of course being fixing the colours of the Star Wars Original Trilogy and editing out the bad Special Edition changes. The plan was actually to stop after those three but I got kinda sidetracked and here I am three years later haha

Darth Lucas said:

I’m gonna come across as a bit of a dick here so I apologize in advance.

I see very little difference between the TFA shots. Actually at first glance, I thought you had accidentally posted the same pictures twice. Wasn’t until I looked really closely that I could see the very slight change in the skintones. I guess if that minuscule difference is something that really bothers you then more power to you, I just don’t see how it’s a difference anyone could notice or care about on casual viewing.

No worries, you don’t last long as a regrader without developing thick skin haha. I don’t see anything dickish about what you wrote there though to be honest, until a couple of years ago I was exactly like you, I didn’t really notice or care whether fleshtones looked too red/green/blue, all I cared about was removing blanket tints, it was creating the V2 Star Wars Semi-Specialised Editions that really opened my eyes in that regard and made me a lot more sensitive to fleshtones. Now its the first thing I look at when regrading because fleshtones are actually really important. When a viewer is watching a film he/she actually spends the majority of the film focused on the faces of the characters which is completely normal, like our eyes gravitate towards a person’s face in a photograph, our brains are hardwired to lock onto faces. I completely understand where you’re coming from because I used to be exactly the same, that’s why i’ve been so surprised that the regrade for The Force Awakens has been as popular as it has been.

TheHutt said:

What has been definitely identified on the Cinefacts.de forum are the changes in the audio mix, as this has been reduced dynamically compared to the theatrical experience.

According to information there (http://cinefacts-forum.kino.de/243067-star-wars-das-erwachen-der-macht-26.html#post8393023), the center channel of the BluRay has been “brickwall-limited” (i.e. dynamically compressed), therefore lacking pressure.

Yes, I felt that the opening sequence with the Stormtroopers storming the village lacked something audiowise on the blu-ray, the blaster shots didn’t have the punch I was expecting. Is there any way to get hold of the theatrical audio mix, some Cinema DTS-HD mix out there?

@towne32: What i’m really interested in seeing is how The Empire Strikes Back print looks after the red fade is properly removed, see what the overall colour scheme and fleshtones look like.

All you guys interested in The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2 with Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor, I just finished putting it together. Sorry for the delay, I know some of you have been waiting for this release for a while. It’s now up on tehparadox and i’ll also have it up on myspleen in the next few days.

For those interested, a regraded version of The Force Awakens that fits on a bd-50 (the maximum bitrate release is a bit too large) has also been requested a couple of times so I should have that up on tehparadox as well very soon.

Here are screencap comparisons for all seven Star Wars regrades:

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2L:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised Edition V2.15:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Regraded Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Regrained Edition V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 3:

Regraded Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Regraded Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Regraded Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded IMAX 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Blu-ray 7:

Regraded 7:

Blu-ray 8:

Regraded 8:

Williarob said:

The Blue tint has been greatly reduced for v1.5:

That is a big improvement. Nice job!

towne32 said:

I think the only thing we’re all going to be able to agree on when it comes to the colours of Star Wars is that we’ll never be able to agree

Agreed! 😃

haha indeed! 😉

I just feel bad for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, there’s so little discussion about how they’re meant to look in comparison to Star Wars, they should be shown a little love as well.

towne32 said:

bromeo said:

Has anyone checked out the regraded TFA yet? I stumbled upon it in “teh place” about 10 minutes ago. The screencaps looked pretty nice (the skin tone comparisons).

Looks like it was deleted. Makes sense.

Edit: Managed to find some screencaps, though. It’s standard KK type color preferences, where the red tones are taken out of skin. Ends up looking too yellow or desaturated for my personal preference, but it’s very consistent with his normal corrections so I’m sure a lot of people will like it.

I think the only thing we’re all going to be able to agree on when it comes to the colours of Star Wars is that we’ll never be able to agree haha red sunburnt fleshtones to me and bromeo look great for others here, DrDre’s latest screencaps for example look too red to me with sunburnt fleshtones but some here love how it looks. That reddish look is not for me, I would personally never grade fleshtones to look like that (unless of course there is a reddish lightsource nearby that justifies it).

There are so many colour schemes for the original film out there that everybody will have the choice to go with whatever colour scheme they prefer. The first film for whatever reason really divides opinion when it comes to how people think it should look. My main aim with these regrades has been to maintain a consistant look in terms of fleshtones across all seven films.

I have also added a 22gb release of The Force Awakens on tehparadox, with a maxed out bitrate version of 49gb coming out very soon.

Don’t worry guys, I have not forgotten about the Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2 with Ian McDiarmid in the Emperor scene, I’v just had a lot on my plate lately. It will be the next release after the maxed out bitrate version of The Force Awakens.

Here are screencap comparisons for all seven Star Wars regrades:

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2L:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised Edition V2.15:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Regraded Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Regrained Edition V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 3:

Regraded Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Regraded Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Regraded Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded IMAX 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Blu-ray 7:

Regraded 7:

Blu-ray 8:

Regraded 8:

MrToad883 said:

Agreed. Don’t understand why there was such an issue, its not like anyone is making money off of any of this so there’s no reason not to help and respect one another. Well your versions are still my go to versions and thanks again for all your hard work you put into them over the years!

My pleasure! Very glad you’re enjoying them. The Battle of Yavin is so much better with the updated x-wings and special effects IMHO, those changes alone made all the work that went into creating the Semi-Specialised Editions worthwhile.

MrToad883 said:

Well said kk650 and great to hear from you again. Hope all is well!

Everything is great! Hope things are good with you as well. Sorry about not being around these last 2 months, spent the whole of December leading up to The Force Awakens working on creating those Cinema DTS-HD 5.1 tracks. I made it with a few days to spare, but I really needed a break from everything Star Wars afterwards.

Just a little disappointed coming back here after two months to find this site so disunited, the back and forth sniping going on. Mike Verta and team negative 1 have both done fantastic work with the sources and equipment that they’ve had to work with. We all want the same thing, an official release of the unaltered Star Wars Original Trilogy, this he said/she said is not helpful to that cause and makes the whole community look bad, I felt I should say something to try to bring back some calm.

Damn, just been catching up on all the posts relating to team negative1 being banned. Don’t know what to say. Can’t say I really understand what happened in terms of who owned the prints/who had the right to use them. I do kinda agree with those like Frink that felt that the team would all too often abuse the use of their team account to post controversial/inflamatory opinions in non-team negative1 related topics, especially relating to whether there would ever be an official release of the OUT. I remember reading those posts and shaking my head, thinking that they weren’t appropriate to post from a team account. A bannable offense? On its own probably not, but I think many could kinda see it coming, it was certainly a factor here I think, regardless of what happened with the prints, the prints were just the last straw it seems.

That said, I’ve seen their Silver Screen Edition of Star Wars and I think team negative1 did a great job and they deserve respect for that from everybody here. To me it is the best version of the theatrical release of Star Wars out there, certainly what I would recommend to anybody wanting to watch the original theatrical release of Star Wars. I really hope that they continue, even if they can’t use the team account anymore, because they were doing great work and it would be a big loss to everyone otherwise.

I think the sooner this whole team negative1/mike verta print business and everybody feeling like they have to choose sides is put to bed the better. I saw mentions of team negative1 having been banned here in The Force Awakens blu-ray thread on blu-ray.com, I have been on a break from everything Star Wars related after finishing the Cinema DTS tracks in December but that’s what brought me back, so keep in mind that many more people are going to lurking here, reading everything and all this squabbling doesn’t look good. This site’s greatest strength has always been its unified front in getting the unaltered Original Trilogy released officially, we look closer than ever to getting that, so now is not the time to be divided. We all want the same thing.

@Spoofy4567: It’s not something i’m considering for the time being, this whole business of using parts taken from 35mm prints has got a lot more risky lately. I’ve seen numerous articles about the Silver Screen Edition now being the best way to watch the original Star Wars, no doubt fueled by the massive success of The Force Awakens. So much publicity about these 35mm Star Wars prints out in the wild is not great. I’ll wait to see how things develop before considering using any parts taken from 35mm prints as a source. I’m very happy with how Yub Nub and Lapti Nek looks on the latest Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised Editions.

@nafroe: They can be downloaded as seperate tracks on tehparadox. If there’s interest I can put them up on myspleen as well.

@towne32: I think I should be able to get it up on tehparadox this weekend.

@Spoofy4567: Thanks, appreciate that! I should be able to have that up by this weekend. The seperate Cinema DTS 5.1 tracks can be found on tehparadox.

@daileyxplanet: Just checked and I see there are more seeds now. Thank you everybody that helped out there!

@HelpYou’reMyOnlyHope: Not much I can do there, the size is what it is to keep the quality as high as possible. I know that there are 2gb versions of the Semi-Specialised Edtions available on kick ass torrents if you’re interested in those.

@Dek Rollins: Exactly.

@kitt1987: It would probably be easier to download the seperate Cinema DTS tracks from tehparadox.

@MalàStrana: Thanks! Yes, the colour grading is different from what people are used to from watching the reddish sunburnt looking fleshtones of the GOUT release, it shares the most similarity with the colours/fleshtones of the Japanese Laserdisc which I really like but are a bit too yellow for my liking. I remember being very happy with the colour grading of the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2L but i’ll definately give it another look when I get the chance.

@EmEl: There’s no public tracker that i’m aware of that has the full 22gb releases, they’re out on myspleen but of course that is not a public tracker. They can also be found on tehparadox, if you’re a free user you can use the 1fichier links, they’re pretty fast to download from.

@ZaneFlare92: Yeah as MrToad883 said, they all use the blu-ray cuts, primarily to be able to use the dts-hd audio tracks on the blu-ray.

@efraga: Invite sent 😃

DominicCobb said:

Well, I feel Rey is believable but even if she weren’t I think it’s ridiculous that it has to be because of a PC agenda. Most blockbusters feature unbelievable male protagonists. Don’t see people complaining about gender politics there.

I can’t think of a single male character that could magically pick up so many unlearned skills like Rey does in TFA, i’d be the first to criticise him if I could, regardless of gender.

DominicCobb said:

kk650 said:

Unfortunately the overly competent nature of Rey in the film and her behaviour towards Finn early on does come across like JJ is pushing a PC feminist agenda, I find it disappointing because the last thing anybody want to be reminded of when watching an escapist sci-fi fantasy is the modern world with political correctness and gender politics, it takes you right out of the film IMHO. I’m all for feminism, equality and girl power, but I don’t think this sort of gender politics has any place in Star Wars films that are meant to be universal timeless stories, adding this sort of thing just ties the film down to a certain period in modern history and takes away from that timeless quality that the Original Trilogy had. I don’t want to start a feminism/political correctness debate here, this thread is not the place, it was something that I felt coming across quite strongly in TFA so I felt I should mention it.

Would you feel the same way if you were female? I think if I were female, the last thing I’d want in my escapism is more misogynistic portrayals of women who can’t do anything and who constantly need men to save them.

I don’t think its relevant whether you’re male or female, all that matters is that the character is believable and that the story is worth telling. There have been widely loved female action characters in movie history like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner, their being female has never been a problem because they are believable and their stories were worth telling. Rey is not believable to me personally, she is too good at too many things, especially things that she had no previous experience in, that has nothing to do with wanting more misogynistic portrayals of women. I’m not going to say any more about this aspect of TFA because I’m not really interested in getting into a heated discussion about current gender politics and PC in Hollywood.

Anchorhead said:

towne32 said:

No need to get all anti-agenda-y, though I certainly don’t mind feminism in film. It was showing her lonerism and distrust

I agree. It was a perfect representation of someone who lives a truly solitary existence. I thought her dislike of the hand-grab showed the level at which she has adjusted to being singular in the universe. She’s become so desensitized to bad, danger, terrible, etc that in the midst of an attack, someone handling her is what bothers her the most. I thought it was one of her better moments.

Interesting way to look at it. Hopefully i’ll warm to Rey and Daisy Ridley’s performance in future viewings, the sooner I get used to her the better because she’s not going anywhere, it looks like she’s going to be the Luke of this trilogy.

Daisy Ridley’s performance I felt was a little bland, she’s charming but I didn’t feel much depth in her performance, didn’t like how she got so offended by Boyega grabbing her hand to get her away from the first order, overreaction much? Its bits like that that add fuel to the flames of those accusing JJ of pushing a femenist agenda in this film with Rey.

No need to get all anti-agenda-y, though I certainly don’t mind feminism in film. It was showing her lonerism and distrust, which is also the reason for the long hug when she realizes someone actually came back for her for once.

Unfortunately the overly competent nature of Rey in the film and her behaviour towards Finn early on does come across like JJ is pushing a PC feminist agenda, I find it disappointing because the last thing anybody want to be reminded of when watching an escapist sci-fi fantasy is the modern world with political correctness and gender politics, it takes you right out of the film IMHO. I’m all for feminism, equality and girl power, but I don’t think this sort of gender politics has any place in Star Wars films that are meant to be universal timeless stories, adding this sort of thing just ties the film down to a certain period in modern history and takes away from that timeless quality that the Original Trilogy had. I don’t want to start a feminism/political correctness debate here, this thread is not the place, it was something that I felt coming across quite strongly in TFA so I felt I should mention it. I never felt it with Leia in Star Wars, even though she is a strong, independent and competent like Rey, because she is believable. I felt JJ went too far with Rey being too good at too many things too quickly and being strong in the force is not a good enough explanation, at least for me.

Just saw TFA awakens today. Definately an entertaining film overall with particularly strong performances from Adam Driver as Kylo Ren and Harrison Ford (was surprised by just how good his performance was in this, the best acting i’ve seen from him in a good long while), that scene between the two of them was dynamite, could not pull my eyes away, I think that scene is destined to be considered one of the most iconic scenes of all the Star Wars films, alongside Vader’s reveal to Luke in ESB. I thought Boyega and Carrie Fisher did great jobs as well with what they had to work with.

I felt Oscar Isaac could have used more screen time outside of the x-wing to make me more invested in his character during the final battle. I felt the whole aerial battle and trench run bit at the end in general felt a bit flat, wouldn’t have been bothered if it was cut to be honest. Not a fan of the CG X-Wing Tie Fighter battles, it all felt like a very long game cutscene, the OT ships felt far more real so it felt that there was a lot more at stake, the deaths of the x-wing pilots like Biggs felt far more real, I found myself fazing out a bit during the trench run scene in this film when the trench run in Star Wars is so brilliantly done.

Like many here have pointed out, too many scenes in this film felt like homages/rehashes of scenes from the OT, especially Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. These scenes kept on pulling me out of the film and I had to focus again to get back into it. I hope that they’ve now got all this out of their systems with this film so episode VIII can focus on doing its own thing in terms of story instead of constantly referencing iconic scenes and moments of the Original Trilogy like this film does.

Daisy Ridley’s performance I felt was a little bland, she’s charming but I didn’t feel much depth in her performance, didn’t like how she got so offended by Boyega grabbing her hand to get her away from the first order, overreaction much? Its bits like that that add fuel to the flames of those accusing JJ of pushing a femenist agenda in this film with the character of Rey. Many online have also been saying that her character is a bit of a Mary Sue and after having seen the film, its kinda difficult to disagree. She seemed to be so good at everything, piloting, engineering, fighting with pole, fighting with lightsaber she’d never used before, using the force for mind control etc etc especially when she was showing up Han Solo on his own ship, not at all believable. And of course her holding her own in the lightsaber battle with kylo ren with no training at all is another thing that has been mentioned here and elsewhere many times. They don’t seem to have left much space for her character to grow, she already seems incredibly competent at everything, it’ll be interesting to see where they go with her and what is left for Luke to teach her.

Probably the most important thing for me when it comes to a film is the music and this is personally where I feel TFA really stumbles. The music didn’t do much for me, nothing really stood out, unlike the music from the Original Trilogy which is brilliant. The Phantom Menace at least had Duel of the Fates that was brilliant but I can’t remember any piece of music jumping out at me in this. The lack of memorable pieces of music is probably my biggest issue with TFA right now, hopefully that will change with future viewings. A good musically score is the heart and soul of a film, without one, the film feels kinda hollow, at least to me.

Still digesting what i’ve seen but right now i’d currently give TFA a rating of 7.5/10, very entertaining and easily better than all the prequels but not as good as any of the Original Trilogy.

Just saw TFA awakens today. An entertaining film but very much a modern film in terms of editing and pacing, definately prefer the less hyperactive pacing of the Original Trilogy and how characters and scenes were given more time to breath. The cinematography of the Original Trilogy was also far more iconic for me, the shot composition more carefully chosen.

The music didn’t do much for me in this film either, nothing really stood out, unlike the music from the Original Trilogy which is brilliant. The Phantom Menace at least had Duel of the Fates that was brilliant but I can’t remember any piece of music jumping out at me in this. The lack of memorable pieces of music is probably my biggest issue with TFA right now, hopefully that will change with future viewings.

So definately better than the prequels for me but not a classic like the three films of the Original Trilogy, bit confused by the current imdb and rotten tomatoes ratings to be honest, I imagine when the hype had calmed down a bit a lot of people will reassess whether this film really is the equal of ROTJ or even better like some are saying!

Here are my ratings of all the Star Wars films (in terms of which I personally enjoy most, not which are technically the best):

TPM: 6/10
AOTC: 3/10
ROTS: 4/10
SW: 10/10
ESB: 8.5/10
ROTJ: 9/10
TFA: 7.5/10

MrToad883 said:

Kk650 did you know your PCM tracks up mixed to pseudo 5.1 surround when played through a receiver?

No I did not, I don’t have a surround sound system connected to my tv so i’ve never been able to test it. I am not at all surprised that the PCM tracks sound good when upmixed though, they’ve always sounded great on my surround sound headphones. The PCM track is still my prefered track for Star Wars, I really like the balance between the music, dialogue level and sound effects. I haven’t finished creating the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi dts-hd 5.1 tracks so I haven’t had a chance to compare those to the PCM tracks yet.

Looks like from the lack of replies to my question its probably safe to assume that most are happy with the PCM tracks like you and me and there’s no particular rush in getting those new 5.1 tracks up.

I should mention that I plan to release The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialized Edition V2.2 with Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in the next 2-3 days. I remember that somebody requested a release like that and I’m happy to oblige.

I’ll also put the screencap comparisons back up here as well so people don’t have go through the pages looking for the ones for the latest releases.

Here are screencap comparisons for all six Star Wars regrades:

Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2L:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised Edition V2.15:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Regraded The Phantom Menace Regrained Edition V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 3:

Regraded Attack of the Clones V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Regraded Revenge of the Sith V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

Here’s another interpretation of this Star Wars frame inspired by the frame piota posted recently of one of his prints.

Bluray:

kk650:

DrDre:

Yes, I prefer the third one. One reason I am making my own set. KK650, I think you’ve over corrected for reds and taken out too much. Everything looks good except the skin tones. They aren’t lobsters, but they are kind of lifeless. And newborn babies are very red - they are lobsters. Not to my taste, but definitely less annoying and more watchable than the BR.

That third shot looks too dark to me, there’s a lot of black crush going on there. The colours also look a bit weird to my eyes, not exactly sure what’s been changed there, my shot looks better IMHO.

The thing you have to remember is that the fleshtones and saturation aren’t 100% consistant on Star Wars, they fluctuate a fair deal on the blu-ray. Yes, leia’s fleshtones may be a bit more yellow than what would be considered 100% ‘natural’ here, but in another part of the film, like when they first enter the command center with obi wan on the death star, the fleshtones are pretty red, especially luke’s in certain shots, so if I add red to leia’s fleshtones here, I turn luke and han in some of those shots into lobsters. It’s all about striking the best balance across the whole film and I personally think that the warm feeling that the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2 has works and closely reflects the feel that the film would have had projected in the cinemas at the time of the original theatrical release.

I am personally very happy with how the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2 looks but I respect the opinions of everybody that disagrees, Star Wars is one of those films where everybody has their own views on exactly how it should look and people rarely if ever agree. All anybody can do is just go with what feels right to them, myself included.