msycamore

doubleofive, I noticed you got this wrong again:

SW comparison 3: "While the font is the same in all versions, the preface was rendered thinner with wider spacing in 1997 (middle) and yet again in 2004 (bottom)."

correction:
The preface was rendered thinner with wider spacing in 1997 (middle) and yet again in a different font in 2004 (bottom).

I guess they changed the font in the 2004 DVD to match the preface of the prequels, the '97 looks almost identical to the '77 original but if you look closely you can see it's a different rendering, closer in appearance to the sequels, that's why I think they didn't change the preface for Empire and Jedi in '97 but I may be wrong.

1977 original - this wasn't simply reused in '80 and '83, it was slightly differently rendered for every sequel

1997 SE - slightly thinner with different spacing, very close, probably a modern digitized version of the same font

doubleofive, can you check if the preface was slightly different in the '97 Empire and Jedi than in '80 and '83?

Darth Mallwalker said:

 

I'm not set up for capturing video, but I could capture individual frames directly from my own laserdiscs if it might help. No MPEG2 artefacts that way. I don't have any of the time-compressed LDs, but I've got most all the others.

That would be great, I find this scanline compositing very hard to capture on a single frame but in motion you can really see the differences between these versions, one of the reasons I wanted to double check the '86/'92 transfers is that the interlacing artifacts and missing/blended frames makes it hard to be 100% sure and the other reason is that I still cannot understand that so many video variations really exists.

Darth Mallwalker said: 

dark_jedi's 1425-80 posting now...

You really have a vast digital library :) and dark_jedi have done a damn good job preserving all of these. :)

That's great! :) you and Leonardo's help will become unvaluable for this project.

erri_wan said:

They did a test in Africa and apparently a trained pigeon was a faster of transferring 2GB than fast internet connections. LOL

(they attached a 2GB memory card to the pigeon's claw)

That's a cool story :) Nature beats technology!

Okay, SilverWook, I'll send you a PM soon...

zombie84 said:

So, trying to keep up here but it seems like in order of completeness it goes like this:

-70mm via 8mm commercial

-1993 GOUT (/1995 US LD/ 2006 DVD) -->Edited according to 35mm version with fading-in Emperor

-1985 US LD -->adds Emperor scanlines

-1986 JSC(/1992 US LD) -->adds (and in some cases replaces) horizontal scanlines to all screens and holograms

-1997 SE (/2004 DVD) --> adds further elements plus the original pre-1986 dot screen 

That's a good breakdown of all releases. :) 

It seems the '93-master also introduces the scanlines to the Vader hologram in the AT-AT

The '85 LD is the first release with a "finished" shield generator shot

I really have to double check the '86/'92 releases again, the dot pattern on the '85 LD was hard to notice due to the low quality

The '97 SE is actually identical to the '85 LD in content minus the scanlines on Vader's hologram in the AT-AT and of course all the other SE alterations. ;)

zombie84 said:

So, it looks like "chronologically", the GOUT is just a bit less completed than the 1985 LD. Now I am really curious about how "early" it is, and whether there is a transfer from 1984 that is more complete than the GOUT. Because it seems to be the "earliest" or least completed version available on home video. What is interesting is that until the GOUT comes along it also seems like the transfers are progressively being "completed" on home video in 1985 and then 1986. It could just be coincidence, of course, and if it is it makes it all the more bewildering how many different 35mm print masters with varying levels of work seem to exist for the film.

The first Laserdisc release of Empire was in 1984 according to the Laserdisc Database, don't know if it has been preserved by someone here?

Great work on the comparisons, doubleofive! a few minor corrections and suggestions for you...

SW comparison 3: "The preface was rendered in a different font with wider spacing in 1997 (middle) and yet again in 2004 (bottom)." the '97 preface uses the same font as the original, it's just a little thinner with wider spacing.

SW comparison 9: "The camera also panned down too fast to miss its original musical cue in 1981." this is also the case with the '97/'04 SE

SW comparison 10: "The entire first shot was recomposited for the 1997 Special Edition." this is also the case with the '81 opening, you could also add "1981 change, 1997 redo" to comparisons 4-10

SilverWook said:

DSL went bye bye before I could put in a bid. I'll keep an eye on the seller in case another copy pops up.

I'm sorry to hear that. :(

Ok, I'd like to start syncing the English subtitle stream of mine to THX 1138 - original cut and I am wondering if you could please upload your captured audio track to the film my way, SilverWook? not necessarily uncompressed, just so I have something to sync to, thanks.

And with that sub-stream as a base, it should hopefully be easier to rework it to fit, erri_wan's "Italian cut", with the help of you Italian guys I hope. :) It could be very difficult but I'm willing to give it a try, if not someone else do. I don't know how different this cut are in the dialogue, besides the additional lines, some lines will of course be impossible to get exactly right due to some things that get lost in translation etc. we'll have to go by the original cut dialogue and script to compare and so forth if there is similar lines in it.

IMO it would also be great if we could have that cut of the film converted to NTSC, I'm not that fond of PAL-speedup. What do you guys say?

LeeThorogood said:

Even better however is whats on its way to me, the French 1995 THX LaserDisc English language box-set. :D :D :D

Great news! Looking forward to see what quality you can squeeze out from it. :)

doubleofive said:

...and it looks like the crawl is positioned different. Not sure what to make of it. The Tattooine matte seems to go farther to the right of frame of either version. The Star Wars logo is MUCH bigger than the other comparisons. Go ahead and play with them, see what you guys can figure out.

If I shrink the aspect ratio of the main logo down to the standard of the other two, it is definitely squished. I'll have to play with it more later.

Well, the whole opening shot was remade so it isn't that strange that it doesn't match and no transfer is framed/cropped the same. Maybe these will help http://aptirrelevance.com/otscreenshots/screenshots.php?shot=1 if you're going to adjust the slightly streched images.

Ok, the ESB-scanline-madness continues...

I just went through the standard-play Laserdisc of Empire which, Darth Mallwalker was kind to upload. This pan & scan US LD transfer from 1985 have another odd mix of scanlines in it. :) It have the same dot-pattern on Vader's viewscreen and vertical scanlines on the Executor - holograms like the GOUT & SE but it also have the horizontal scanlines on the Emperor which the GOUT doesn't have... how many video masters were made for Empire!? Oh, I almost forgot, the Hoth shield generator shot is like the other transfers, scanlines & green displays, which makes that glitch/or early version of the shot unique to the GOUT transfer. I can post pictures of them later if you want me to.

doubleofive said:

Playing around with the images, I found that the aspect ratio in those images is much taller than the other two...

Yes, I've noticed the aspect ratio on this transfer is a little bit streched by a few pixels, if that is an issue with the laserdisc itself I don't know. (the screen-caps are taken from arnie.d's superb preservation "V8")

It has nothing to do with an alteration done to the '81-version of some sort though ;) just modify them a little.

According to IMDB, the audio for the original film was 4-track Stereo, just remixed in Dolby for the re-release. (but I'm beginning to think this info is incorrect, I think Walter Murch have said that Apocalypse Now was the first film he worked on in Stereo)

In the original release, John Milner is listed as having been killed by a drunk driver in June of 1964 in the closing segment just before the final credits. When the movie was reedited in 1978, the date of his death was changed to December of 1964, most likely in anticipation of the release of its sequel, More American Graffiti.

The '78 cut should be easy to restore though with the help of Laserdisc footage, the documentary footage is not enough as it don't have the complete opening titles.

doubleofive said:

I like how many different names the sets have had (Saga, Quadrilogy, Anthology). And that the newest one makes the most sense, with "quadrilogy" not even close to being a real word.

Saga? I know the '99 release was "Alien Legacy."

Thanks, for the screen-caps dark_jedi, I wanted to see them mostly to have it re-confirmed that it was a tweak so what I did remember wasn't wrong, IMDB have been wrong before and it's been a long time since I saw the DC. Yes, those tweaks are kinda nice, the starfield for the second pic looks a bit weird though...I'm drooling over the detail in those images!

ImperialFighter, don't think you're alone in noticing the shift in color-timing, the net is full of forums discussing this same topic at the moment. Me myself have never had the fortune to see this masterpiece in it's original form in the cinema, so I really can't tell what is right or wrong and I doubt anyone of us can but imo. and that's what all this comes down to, it doesn't look like the Alien I know, from the moment I saw screen caps from the Directors Cut DVD in '03 I thought it looked unnatural even though it's a subtle shift in hue, you don't need a bulldozer-George Lucas change or Bladerunner - Final cut change in color to find it distracting if you are attached to a certain look in a film. Subtleties in colors sets a mood.

Well, maybe it's all nitpicking, all three releases are after all damn fine releases with a video standard that all of us would be very happy to have of a certain other set of movies. ;) To me the '99 DVD will be fine until I go HD and waiting isn't a problem d_j, that is something that we Star Wars fans are experts on. :)

ChainsawAsh said:

Do you know if that re-edit is present in both versions, or only the extended cut?  If it's the latter, I have no problem with it.  If it's both, that bothers me.

Good question, I really don't know. If the theatrical cut is left alone it's certainly better but it's still annoying. For example, if there was a preserved '73 original theatrical cut of American Graffiti it would still bother me if I couldn't have the '78 re-release "Lucas restored Cut" untweaked. We now only have the tweaked '78 cut made for the 25th anniversary.

Here you go, unfortunately the quality isn't that good,

the logo is the only one of them that is matched up in frame count with your GOUT picture.

The Stardestroyer and/or mattepainting is also slightly repositioned in this '81 recomposite, notice how the ship is closer to the planet when compared to your other pics. I noticed the JSC laserdisc is missing the last frame of this opening shot when I compared it with the '93 laserdisc footage. (this is the last frame of the JSC)

As I understand it, they have cleaned up the hangar matte painting, fixed a continuity error:

Near the end when Ripley is on the dropship, she is seen arming herself. We see her grab a flamethrower from the weapons rack. She then lays a pulse rifle on the deck. Next she pulls a pulse rifle from the rack, and lays down a flamethrower. (The 2010 Blu-ray is slightly re-edited to remove this error.)

Who knows what else...

doubleofive said:

The crawls on the Comp are already by appearance, not by frames. Sorry, I didn't mark them.

Ah, that explains it, I was thinking the difference in the timing was a little too much. ;)

doubleofive, the '81 crawl is completely different in terms of timing to both the original and the SE, for example if I match it up by frames to your comparison pic 5, the '81 crawls' "Episode IV" haven't even entered the frame yet. So, how do you want me to capture them, by an exact match in frame counts or just by the appearance?

Cameron have fixed continuity errors and a few effects on the blu-ray release such as covering up the hole were Lance Henriksen's body are revealed when rescuing Newt in the end of the film. Completely unnecessary, imo a change is a change no matter how minor it is, if it is so minor why bother to fix it in the first place?!

doubleofive said:

This I don't. The scanlines are going in the complete opposite direction!

Yeah, it's a bit weird, they are also vertical for the '97/'04 Leia hologram in SW.

I've not had the time to get the '81 caps for you yet, I'll post them later tonight...

Thanks for uploading the Standard Play LD, Mallwalker. I'll take a look. :)

Ok, I'll get them for you.

I was thinking, if you are going to include pre-SE changes made to Empire, you will also have to include the 1981 opening to Star Wars. Let me know if you want specific screen caps of it.

Your description of this one is wrong, the top image is a 8mm-cap (the source is probably the 70mm cut) showing the "unfinished" hologram and it seems to match the '04 DVD holo pretty close. All other versions (probably final version) have the scanlines as seen in the middle pic. It's all a little messy cause the Special Editions also have a mix of "final" and "unfinished" versions of the holograms and screens like the GOUT of EMPIRE. Either it was never set in stone how they should look or they didn't bother to composite the scanlines or they simply forgot it, like they did with several other composites.

:)

Darth Mallwalker said:

Without reading back the whole thread, are the pre-86 video releases represented?
msycamore did show a pan/scan shield generator shot . . . from what source?

No, any examples from earlier video releases are very welcomed. :) 

Yes, the shield generator shot was from dark_jedi's time-compressed pan&scan LD from '92 and I had to be a little careful when I checked it so I didn't confuse blended frames with scanlines. ;) 

Alright. ;)

Edit: it sounded rude. ;)

You don't need to have 5 pics of the Emperor, as the '97 SE is identical how it appear in the JSC/Pan&Scan LD's, I don't know if it's really necessary to have even four of them as you cannot really see the differences in them, (not at that size, anyway) it should be enough with just two holograms, one with scanlines and one without plus the '04 version making it three images in total ;) and just a description for the variations of the remaining one.

I would remove the top two images of the Emperor and just make a description of the 70mm version or show the unfading, using the pics in the thread I linked to, just a thought.