Harmy said:
But hopefully soon, someone will post some screens of the highest bit rate 4K stream from D+, so we can see properly.
The best comparison will come if/when the DRM gets cracked and the original source streams become available.
I’d be very interesting in viewing a UAR version! Keep us updated as you make progress
Just came back from seeing the movie again. I absolutely loved it, more so than the first time. Also, I completely missed the implication that Maz banged the master codebreaker the first time around.
I loved TLJ. I can’t wait to go see it again.
The casino planet actually added quite a bit to the story and for what is to come. Little threads in the film that lead up to the ending and also showed that not everything is black and white (the resistance is dealing with the same people who deal with the first order). The resistance has now become the rebellion and is all but gone at the end of the film. Something that was said earlier on (and again later). “We are the spark that will light the fire that will burn the first order down”.
Canto Bight is a planet where the rich and elite congregate in luxurious overindulgence while the rest of the inhabitants live in extreme poverty and slavery, including the children. Finn and Roses interactions with those inhabitants is a major factor here. they show the willingness to fight for freedom. At the end we see the children telling their story and then a single child use the force to grab the broom, he has the rebellion ring. The seeds of rebellion are planted. So Finn and Rose are that spark that will light the fire that will burn the first order down.
There are so many little details that are easily missed on a single viewing. I’ll write a proper review once i have seen it again. So far i liked it.
It is nice that they added this moral grey area for the fipm, but wasn’t that the whole point of Rogue One, showing how imperfect both sides are? It makes sense (and honestly I think they did this whole idea a bit better than R1), it just was the weakest link in terms of the overall story and pacing.
Speaking of which, thought this movie was great, guess I’m going with the public opinion as this is my new favorite Star Wars movie. I just really liked the fact it took so many risks. Even the scene with Leia, while pretty cheesy, still made me cry and felt completely unpredictable for me. The writing and structure of this film is something to be disired, but it is made up for, in my eyes, with the many risks in trying to stay unpredictable and add lore to the saga. This film is probably the best directed in my opinion, clearly everyone was 100% when they were trying to bring their A game to this.
The one thing I’m on and off about is the cinematography. Unlike The Force Awakens which had some really great framing, so moments felt a bit off in terms of lighting. It is really good lighting, it just felt way too exagerated. Also anyone else who saw this in IMAX 3D, where the hell was the expanding aspect ratio. Saw this in a li-MAX theater, but they still opened it up in Force Awakens. I thought for sure the Crait battle was going to be it or Snoke’s death scene. Idk, if someone could get back to me on that, that would be fantastic.
Anywho, really loved it. Had a bunch of problems (most have already been addressed), but it didn’t detract from the movie for me at all. Definetly needs a second viewing and can’t wait to discuss further with the peeps here.
Chris Stuckmann was totally right about fans are going to mixed. Exhibit A…
Jedit: I forgot to ask, anyone else worried they might be setting up some weird love square between Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose? The way they ended those specific characters moments felt like they where setting up something…
Re: IMAX, the aspect ratio didn’t open up. I was a little upset about this, but maybe it was Johnson’s creative choice? Any idea if he likes shifting AR’s?
It’s late and I’ll flesh out my thoughts later, but I really liked the film. Not perfect, and it takes the series in a different direction, but I had fun with it.
Rogue One has earned the #3 spot on my list, right between ANH and TFA. This movie is making me think about what it would take to remove TESB and ANH from my 1 and 2 spots. The nostalgia factor definitely plays a role.
So here I am in the spoiler thread, without having seen the movie. Why? I’ve decided I’m not going to watch it at all, ever. Or any spin off. I think I’m just “getting too old for this sort of thing.” I saw ANH in the cinema in 1977. I hope the movie is a success though. I will be watching the main releases. I just hope these spin offs don’t dilute the main movies for folk.
You might as well watch it, at least when it comes out on home media. In my opinion, they could’ve called this movie “Episode 3.9”. It’s important to the main story.
I’ve seen the film twice now. I loved it the first time, and I loved it even more the second time.
The first act was a bit iffy when they threw us on five or so planets rapidly, but once we got to Jedha, I thought it was smooth sailing.
The way they handled the cold opening/title was incredibly jarring the first time I saw it, a bit less so the second time. I still think it’s ugly.
I thought CGI Tarkin and Leia looked fine. To the average person who doesn’t realize that Peter Cushing is dead and Carrie Fisher is older, they’d look perfect.
I was fine with the Dr. Evazan/Ponda Baba cameos although I wish they would handle these cameos with more subtlety. Perhaps just have them bump shoulders with Cassian on the Ring of Kafrene and be done with it? R2 and 3PO was bleh. They can’t seem to come up with any new or interesting dialogue for 3PO.
Once they got to Scarif, the movie was absolutely amazing. The ground battle with the team looked great, the space battle looked great. We get to see Red and Gold Leaders!! The way they took down the shield gate was unique and breaks the rule of “shoot it until it explodes”.
Loved all of the ties to the Prequel trilogy/Rebels - Bail, the Clone Turbo Tank, the Ghost, Chopper, Courscant (for a moment), Mustafar, the actress who played Mon Mothma in the RotS deleted scene, and Saw himself. This movie did a fantastic job of bridging the PT with the OT, which I think is very important in making the whole saga feel like one galaxy.
I won’t say too much about the last five minutes because everyone’s talking about it, other than that I think it’s watching the whole movie just for this scene.
It’s wayyyy too early for me to be doing this, but this is what my ranking looks like at the moment:
TESB
ANH
RO
TFA
RotJ
RotS
TPM
AotC
All in all, Edwards did an amazing job. I hope Episode VIII turns out like this.
I’ve decided to create a new thread about the possibility of a TFA IMAX edition because we now have the sources to make this possible available to us. I’ll break this down into a few sections to outline what needs to be done to make this possible.
Premise:
One sequence in The Force Awakens, Escape from Jakku, was filmed in the IMAX format - on beautiful 70mm film with a very square (1.43) aspect ratio. The rest of the movie was shot in the standard 2.39 AR. When watched in a true IMAX theater, the picture “opened up” for this one sequence. This sequence was shot with the square AR in mind and takes advantage of it, as seen in the image below.
In non-IMAX theaters, the IMAX sequence was cropped 1.43 -> 2.39 so that the AR remains consistent throughout the film. Lucasfilm decided to use this version for the Blu-ray release. Typically when a movie contains IMAX scenes, they are cropped 1.43 -> 1.78 on the Blu-ray release to fill in the entirety of the TV screen. The Dark Knight is a good example of this. A consistent AR release is the version of the film that most people saw and is perfectly acceptable for the majority of people. However, there are others (including myself!) who prefer to see the film as close to its original intended presentation as possible. To see the effect of cropping on the picture, refer to this image:
Goal:
The goal of this project is to faithfully recreate the IMAX experience of The Force Awakens by inserting a 1.43 -> 1.78 crop of the IMAX sequence into the film while retaining the highest picture quality possible.
Sources:
Luckily, a 1.43 -> 1.78 cropped IMAX sequence has been made available to the public. The Starz HDTV broadcast and stream of the film has been cropped throughout the entire film. Most of the film has been cropped 2.39 -> 1.78 and zoomed. This is a bad practice and has no use to this project. However, the IMAX sequence has instead been cropped 1.43 -> 1.78, and therefore contains more picture than any other home media release. Adywan has created a reconstruction of the sequence by overlaying Blu-ray footage (to retain quality) on top of an HDTV capture produced by PDB, so a huge thank you to both of them. The recreation has a few minor issues. First, in some shots, the color of the blu-ray source does not match the color from the HDTV source. This is only noticeable in some shots that have a clear blue sky. Second, a few shots contain minor pixelation from the HDTV source.
A second source is available, although its usefulness is debatable. It is a full capture of the Starz version of the film, but it is low quality. It may be useful for reference and perhaps masking pixelation.
Issues:
As mentioned earlier, Ady’s recreation has just a few issues with color and pixelation. If Ady would be gracious enough to share the project, it would makes this project infinitely easier. I understand that he had to match the blu-ray footage to the HDTV source frame-by-frame, which is a huge pain.
Three shots from the IMAX sequence in the Starz broadcast have been identified as having been inexplicably cropped 2.39 -> 1.78 instead of 1.43 -> 1.78. Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about this unless a new source for these shots with correct cropping becomes available. This would be the only inaccuracy of this project.
To-do:
Conclusion:
I need your help! While I will try to work on this project, I don’t have the skills to do it in a professional manner. I hope I don’t come off as begging for free work, but this board is full of people with amazing talent and I would be overjoyed if someone was willing to provide a guiding hand. Otherwise, I will take the time learn as much as I can and give it my best effort. I’ll update this thread if/when new developments occur. If you’re interested in helping out, please let me know!
Is it possible to color correct individual frames from an AVC file? Or, more specifically, parts of individual frames? I’m most familiar with Premiere, but I’ll try my hand at other programs if necessary. It might go without saying, but I’d like to lose a little quality as possible when doing this.
Ah sorry, didn’t catch that.
Is it possible the STARZ streaming version also has the scenes expanded?
I can confirm that the streaming version has the IMAX scene intact (aside from the weirdly edited shots already pointed out).
Why is STARZ’s streaming garbage? I’m on a wired gigabit connection and it’s still very pixelated.
I would like to thank Adywan and PDB for their work on this. Adywan’s video looks fantastic.
Ditto. I’m very happy about this 😃 According to the STARZ website, TFA will be on tomorrow at 12:40 PM EST. Does anyone have the ability for a higher quality capture?
I assume there’s no known camrip of the IMAX version that we can compare this to?
It’s fantastic to hear this news 😃 A reconstruction will be a pleasure to see.
I give TESB an F in base 16.
Well, according to this site: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/081116_1430
The 3D blu-ray will have a consistent AR of 2.4:1
This kills the dream.
Thank you for this! I asked this in another thread, but is there a list of changes between '77 audio mixes and these '97 mixes?
Has anyone tried the [AUDIO FILE] Star Wars (1977): SE ’97 mix for TN1’s SSE v1.6 and Harmy’s DE 2.7 off the spleen. Just trying to decide if it’s worth getting/what opinions are on it.
I just muxed it into DeEd 2.7. It sounds nice but I’m not very well versed on the differences between this audio mix and the others. Is there a list somewhere?
The Force Awakens - I really wish I could extend most shots in this movie by a second or two. It has the cinematographic equivalent of ADHD.
I take it this is the only big budget film you’ve seen in the last 10 years.
Honestly, that’s not too far off. Most movies I watch are the established “classics”. The only time I typically watch new “big budget” movies are when I’m going to see them with friends or family. So yes, I’m relatively unexposed to ADHD-cam.
I’ve already posted my list in this thread once or twice, but I figured I could give my thoughts on the films as I rewatch them. I’ve been watching in them in no particular order so that I can (hopefully) view them as individual movies and not just parts of a larger series. So far…:
Star Wars - The more I watch, the more I see “low budget 70’s sci-fi”. That’s not a bad thing, I find it endearing.
The Phantom Menace - I think the only reason I don’t hate this movie more is because it was shot using film and has a fair amount of practical set pieces. This is the only prequel that even remotely resembles the visual style of the OT and that makes a difference to me.
The Force Awakens - I really wish I could extend most shots in this movie by a second or two. It has the cinematographic equivalent of ADHD. Aside from that, TFA has definitely been accepted as a part of Star Wars in my mind.
Attack of the Clones - This movie was a mistake.
Is there a copy of the original Backstroke Of The West still floating around? (The one with timecode and subtitles, not the professionally dubbed version.)
This is hilarious, I’ve never heard of it before. I’d love to find a copy somewhere, but it seems that the original version isn’t as common.
Neat, I’m glad to see it’s being worked on! How is the quality of the HDTV rip compared to the blu-ray?
What shortened “No”?
A few change lists claim that Vader’s “noooo” was shortened. Although this might be just a case of “Luke throwing the grappling hook twice”.