Thanks for the info Moth3r, but I knew this already. I don't think Mallwalker has ESB and ROTJ because in the newsgroup alt.binaries.starwars thread he wrote "Ep. IV only." So I guess he doesn't have them, that't why he won't post them.
So again, does anybody have Eraser's ESB and ROTJ to make this edition complete, please?
Does anybody have them (ANH, Empire, ROTJ) and could make them available on the newsgroups, please?
I think they haven’t been around for a couple of years now and thus are hard to find.
When and where is this "Theater Performance Preservations Set" available?
dark_jedi you have a PM.
Hey Darth Mallwalker, thanks again for uploading these. You're awesome, dude.
Thanks Darth Mallwalker for your awesome uploads. I was wondering if you would please consider uploading the whole "The Dark/Sega Special Collection", i.e. the missing parts 4 and 6 as well, to make the complete set available. Thanks again, you seem to have a very vast collection of these early preservations which are now so hard to find anywhere.
Thanks, that would be great. So which ones exactly do you have? When will you be uploading them to usenet?
Hi, I am missing a PCM preservation on DVD of the Definitive Collection Laserdiscs. I think Cowclops did a great one with fully uncompressed PCM from the laserdiscs. My question is, does anybody have them and could upload them, maybe to usenet, please? It’s been a while since they have been available and now I cannot find them anywhere online.
Yes, that's what I meant. But in the SE, they were later changed to yellow for the home releases if I am not mistaken. That's what originally confused me.
DJ could you make your finished V3 ESB and ROTJ available now, since they are obviously done. Also you have a PM.
Ok, sorry if this caused any confusion. I just looked it up, and I think you're right, white is the correct way to go. Of course... they were changed yellow later for the SE, how could I have forgotten that... But better to have talked about it now before your V3 is getting released than after its release when it may be too late.
By the way, dark_jedi, when will you be able to release, at least maybe the first movie of your great work - your V3?
DJ, what's the latest in terms of progress? Thanks.
Dark_Jedi, in the GOUT image stabilization thread you posted a picture of your hard encoded subs of ANH. Also here's what you said there:
So just out of curiosity did you get upset when I changed them in SW? because I surely did not like my yellow subs anymore and the white ones down in the black border kind of suck to, because that is not how it was shown in the Theater and I thought that is what we are trying to accomplish here, but I could be wrong, I have been known for that at times.
My question is why are your subs white instead of yellow? In the theater they were yellow, that's what all the resources (bootlegs, pictures, memories...) say?! So if you want to recreate the original SW, as seen in 77 in movie theaters, are you planning to change the subs to yellow, as they were back then? I mean since all the efforts was already put into finding the correct font, one might think the coloring should be correct too?
So will the be yellow in your V3?
Correct, I agree. That's what I was talking about in my post above. They showed the 77 version from a Technicolor dye print which is - considering the age - in excellent shape. Also, I am well aware of the brightness issue but I mean for the color timing of the original movie as shown upon its original release in 77, it's THE best source out there today - certainly better than the known bootleg tape where one cannot see the real color timing since the bootleg tape is a x times generation copy which suffers from noise and color bleeding also.
Guys, this is the real thing - a Technicolor dye print from the first generation, namely 77.
As far as I know, all later releases (including home video) are from the 85 cleaned up telecine which used a new generation transfer from the original 77 negative. But of course, when printing from the original negative, the original color timing is lost and it has to be done again for the new interpositive, of course the result is not 100% equal. So since 1985 those new transfers with the replicated color timing from the original negative have been used for home and TV releases and also as a basic source for the 1993 THX laserdisc release. So again, this recently shown Technicolor dye print is the real and best thing that's out there, of course apart from the original negatives that might be available somewhere, savely stored away at Lucasfilm.
And again guys, I am not talking about brightness so much as color timing in general. When you see the colors it looks somehow 1970ish and relatively warm - my impression.
And remember, dark jedi's definitive v3 is supposed to look like it was shown on its original release in 77. So this Techicolor dye print is THE reference.
Please also note, I am mostly refering to this section of the article:
It seems to have green in it in most shots to varying degrees, and blue in other shots, with poor consistency. You can tell it is on the print and not from the camera by the consistency and naturalness in skintones, which look far superior than any home video telecine. This is similar to the 70mm cells collection, which also was very green, and occassionally blue. In their book, The Movie Brats, from 1979, the authors refer to the Death Star as a "grey-green" world similar to the Nazis. Coincidence? Not likely. The 1977 telecine bootleg has a similar look. The balance of light, balance on the film stock, and timing of individual shots produced an environment that, even if it were actually painted pure grey (some colour photos from the set look suspiciously grey-green as well, which becomes blue under certain lighting conditions) is tinged. This should be considered a valid element of the film's original cinematography. I confirmed this by taking the 2006 DVD/1993/5LD and pumping up the saturation to the Technicolor levels and then dialing out the pink shift (which means adding green and some yellow) until skin tones looked natural as they do in the Technicolor print--the result was identical color balances. Below are examples of the blue and green tinting on the Technicolor print. You can see that the print and camera is responsible for some of it, but by the natural colour of the skin tones you can tell that it could not possible account for the entirety of the tint.
What about the color timing seen in the little movie segment on that page and the green-greyish style described in the article? I know, I know, I keep repeating myself...
three things are apparent from this screening.
1) The R2 canyon scene with the Jawas is supposed to be dusk. There was some debate about this since earlier home videos had the scene in bright day, as it was filmed. In 1993, it was re-timed to be dim and sunset-tinted, which was then greatly embellished in the Special Edition. It was reported that the earlier video versions were mis-timed. While the 1993 telecine might seem to exaggerate the sunset hue a bit, the scene in 1977 is definitely as dark as it is in current versions. There is a tiny green shift in the I.B. print, indicating it is actually slightly warmer.
2) There has also been much debate about how the binary sunset scene should look. Earlier home video versions had the scene very bright, and more subdued in its coloring. From 1993 onward, it has gotten significantly darker and more colourful. Based on the photographs here, it appears to have been actually in between the two extremes. It is fairly bright--which makes sense since it is a sunset, lit by direct light, not twilight--and colored a moderate amount of pink/orange. The 1993 transfer darkened it to twilight levels and introduced blue into the timing, providing lots of blue and purple gradients in shots, which the Special Editions have embellished. This 1977 print is basically consistent with the 1977 telecine bootleg, which wasn't reliable because of colour and contrast degradation over the generations of copying.
3) Also, there has been some debate over what colour the Death Star interiors should be. Most fan preservations try to get it grey; Adywan was famously a stickler to get totally neutral colours. The 2006 DVD and 1993/5 Laserdiscs sports this, but the 1985 print used is so washed out and pink-shifted from fading it would have undone any mild colouration that was originally there. This Technicolor transfer is interesting however. While there is always some discolouration or tinting in prints, and the white balance of the camera photographing the screen may shift things further, there is a consistency here in that the Death Star is rarely a neutral grey. It seems to have green in it in most shots to varying degrees, and blue in other shots, with poor consistency. You can tell it is on the print and not from the camera by the consistency and naturalness in skintones, which look far superior than any home video telecine. This is similar to the 70mm cells collection, which also was very green, and occassionally blue. In their book, The Movie Brats, from 1979, the authors refer to the Death Star as a "grey-green" world similar to the Nazis. Coincidence? Not likely. The 1977 telecine bootleg has a similar look. The balance of light, balance on the film stock, and timing of individual shots produced an environment that, even if it were actually painted pure grey (some colour photos from the set look suspiciously grey-green as well, which becomes blue under certain lighting conditions) is tinged. This should be considered a valid element of the film's original cinematography. I confirmed this by taking the 2006 DVD/1993/5LD and pumping up the saturation to the Technicolor levels and then dialing out the pink shift (which means adding green and some yellow) until skin tones looked natural as they do in the Technicolor print--the result was identical color balances. Below are examples of the blue and green tinting on the Technicolor print. You can see that the print and camera is responsible for some of it, but by the natural colour of the skin tones you can tell that it could not possible account for the entirety of the tint.
Yes, well in the article they actually talk about the color timing of some key scenes. What fascinates me is the greenish-greyish almost tank-like (if that's a word?) look throughout the whole movie and especially the Death Star interior. Also, the author tried to tweak the gout color timing to match the color timing seen in that very theater. Obviously, he succeeded according to the article. I.e., the color timing seen there didn't suffer any degradation but a very, very mild pink shift at the beginning of the movie. I think, the link is the best reference to the original color timing from 1977 as it was shown in theaters then, since this is one of THE original prints, only with a spliced in beginning for the 1981 re-release. Also, the little video segment on that page is very interesting and the theater owner also briefly discusses the Technicolor dye print and its excellent shape. In my opinion invaluable information for your ultimate v3.
Hi everybody, this is my first post. Thanks dark jedi and all contributers for the hard work. I was wondering if the following is known and has been incorporated in your v3 in terms of coloring:
http://savestarwars.com/technicoloribscreening.html
Has anybody here attended that screening of the 1977 version?
Have you incorporated the information about color timing and the coloring of the pictures you can find at this link in your v3? They talk about a green-greyish Death Star coloring? Also the scene with Luke and the two moons at dusk is much lighter in the original 1977 version than in the 1993 gout.