Comparison pic 10: the Stardestroyer with the different engine glow was a '97 recomp, that is also the case with the whole opening shot. ;)
zombie84 said:
What is interesting about the 1977 vs 1981 matte painting is that in the 1977 version for some unclear reason the painting was stretched vertically. Which is why the moons are slightly eliptical. The 1981 composited the matte normally, and slightly more blue shifted from the video transfers.
This caused some people to think it was a whole new painting, because the moon looked different. But its just because it was stretched, slighly re-coloured (the 1977 composite has it green shifted), and the composite was moved ever so slightly so its not a perfect alignment. In fact, in either the 1977 or 1981 composite the moons were isolated and re-positioned slightly.
I remember doing a really detailed analysis of this back when the GOUT came up. Then I found the original matte painting and realized how much it had been manipulated. So, for 1977, they stretched it, and then I think moved around the moons and printed them slightly greenish. Probably this was for compositional reasons.
Yeah, I remember that thread but I cannot seem to find it now. In the comparison pictures I posted in your thread, http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Save-Star-Wars-Dot-Com/topic/11771/page/7/ you can clearly see the different '81 composite with a slightly smaller second moon and the Stardestroyer's slightly different position.
About the faster receding SW logo, it was an alteration made in '97 for the SE and is still that way in the '04 DVD. I keep hearing people think it was a DVD change when it's clearly not. The '97 opening crawl is unchanged on the DVD.
The musical crash that reveals Tatooine have been out of sync since the introduction of the '81 version, I'll try to check the timings for the pan down in the '81 for you, doubleofive.
EDIT: Also there was never a third moon on the '81 opening shot.
Is there any good simple methods to degrade video quality/resolution? For example, I have anamorphic DVD footage of an old warner bros logo I want to restore to an Laserdisc transfer without any noticable change in quality between the two sources, any suggestions on how I'm going to do that in the best way? Thanks.
I didn't, I just picked it up on several forums but it seems to be real information, there is probably a few more changes done, stop-motion fx and the matted moon shot. Sam Raimi have gone Lucas-mad.
SilverWook said:
Initial impressions. It's the same print but might be a new transfer. The white fleck is still there. (Burned into the print source?) Color seems a bit more vivid in places. Will try a transfer and some A/B comparisons when the heatwave lets up.
That damned white dirt. (probably burned in, if it's not something that comes from the telecine process? but this seems to be the only widescreen telecine made for this film.) It's good to hear it might be a better transfer though, looking forward to some comparisons.
SilverWook said:
In spite of what the LDDB has to say, there is no trailer on the disc.
msycamore, have you tinkered with with the old Warner/Kinney logo yet?
No, I haven't find any time to do that yet, I'm gonna ask about it in the how to section as I don't know any good way to do it. But we should definitely restore it imo. I got the trailer and short so it could also be included.
In addition to the removal of Mr. Tapert on the new blu-ray:
Several background lights have been digitally erased in the shot of Cheryl collapsing on discovery of the destroyed bridge.
The shot of Linda’s screaming face (in close-up) during the ankle attack has been horizontally mirrored.
A fade has been applied to the jump-cut of Ash when Scotty emerges from the floor as a demon.
See No Evil said:
Just to mention that I'm aware that DVDCompare.net has the Italian CDE Eagle Pictures 2-disc DVD as having an English 1.0 mono audio track, but having actually checked this, it's actually 2.0 AC3, which could mean that the mono audio was just copied to both the left & right channels to make a 'fake' stereo track, or maybe it's just a listing error. Besides this, the Italian 2.0 audio seems to have a slight high pitched tone/wine when it's played at full volume, so I'll stick with the old laserdisc track.
Many mono mixes are presented as a 2.0 dual mono track, it doesn't have to mean it's a fake stereo. I think that many mono mixes were actually heard through several speakers in the cinema sometimes. Anyway, the LD track seems to be the best way to go, as you can also decide the bitrate on it. :)
I just wanted to say thank you to See No Evil and Moth3r for the beautiful original Treasures Collection DVD, one of the finest fan preservations I've ever seen. Looking forward to your new edit. It would be great though to have the original film with the improved transfer from the Blu-ray with original audio mix and color timing, but I can understand your decision. It's funny, there was a time when I never would have thought to have this film on home video in better quality than Star Wars.
Here's a few suggestions for you.
Comparison pic 81: When the Falcon takes off from Mos Eisely, they erased some wires or lines from the weird antenna or whatever it is and also added some traffic to the sky.
Comparison pic 123: I don't think the original engine glow was an actual error as you describe it. The original Falcon showed the engine with a full thrust even when it backs out of the docking bay, the SE changed it so it only have a full glow when finally taking off. I'm not sure but I think it's a digital Millennium Falcon in that shot.
I also think you can mention the different starfield in the '81 version opening crawl even though you don't show a pic of it. Otherwise I think you have covered all changes, maybe the Chess pieces were also recomposited in '97, I'm not sure.
Keep up the good work. :)
His pan & scan set was posted on usenet some time ago.
edit: Does the Faces set even exist in fullscreen or pan & scan?
Yeah, you are right. I will definitely contact him.
hairy_hen said:
Now obviously I would prefer the subtitles not to be cropped by overscan, but I am prepared to accept that if need be, if complete authenticity requires it. (It's not like I don't know what the lines are, anyway.) I can't remember whether the current subtitles have been horizontally adjusted or not.
I tried to compromise the first time around to not have them appear outside the frame. But when I updated them to make them as close as possible to the real thing I noticed that the two most problematic lines were still inside the safe overscan area, at least on my old Sony Trinitron CRT TV. So, there shouldn't be any problem, hairy_hen. :)
Have you checked the transfer yet, SilverWook?
Yeah ;)
It's great that he had a video camera, damn I would love to see the binary sunset scene filmed by someone... it's weird that no more footage has surfaced of this screening.
Thanks for following up on this, zombie. This was posted recently in d_j thread. :)
timdiggerm said:
Concerning subtitles:
I just got an email reply from my friend who was with me at the Star Wars screening at The Senator in Baltimore. He actually has video of the Greedo scene (he'll probably post that online soon), but he confirms that the subtitles are white, not yellow as I remembered.
Thanks, timdiggerm. A video capture of them, that's great! :)
d_j, I noticed when doing the subs that the PAL version of Jedi have a different frame count, the PAL Jedi seems to be missing 26 frames at the end of the film compared to the NTSC version.
I've updated the first page with my Return of the Jedi sub script if anyone is interested. I also managed to improve it a little bit since I posted my video clips. Hope you like it.
The photos of that Baltimore screening shows that the print had a slight color shift but nothing major that would make white subtitles to appear yellow. What I read from his statement is that they were clearly yellow nothing in between, it would be nice to hear from timdiggerm about this again, who knows maybe the guy he knew who posted those earlier photos have a picture of them. It's been a while since that screening in Baltimore now, strange things can happen with the memory as we all know. I think they were white but I'd love to be proven wrong, but until then my best sources for the subs are the bootleg and Puggo Grande.
zombie84 said:
Has there ever been other footage of the original greedo scene based off 1977 material other than the telecine bootleg and 16mm prints?
Not to my knowledge, the Greedo subs have never showed up in any documentary footage either. The theatrical subtitles for Return of the Jedi should also be on some 16mm prints and is believed to have appeared on an early UK TV-airing in the eighties. Moth3r had it at one point but got rid of it by accident, I think.
Cool. ;)
I hope it's another transfer, cross my fingers!
Doctor M said:
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/External_filters#Transitions
DissolveAGG might be best since it provides a wipe with a soft edge.
Set one side as the default color balance, and the other clip with the altered colored balance and try to match the wipe speed.
Fiddly to pull off, but do-able.
Thanks, Doctor M!
Sounds very hard to pull off, will check it out.
zombie84 said:
Could be true, but without something more than the word of one man I would say there's little merit to this claim. Could you quote his statements?
timdiggerm said:
Just wanted to take this moment to say that on the 1977-1981 technicolor dye print that I saw in Baltimore this year, Greedo's subs were yellow.
One statement, nothing more. Yeah, it could be true but I'm also skeptical about it, just wanted your opinion. Thanks.
Maybe, timdiggerm will chime in here with more info about it.
Zombie, maybe I should ask Moth3r about this but do you remember what the source is for the VHS widescreen bootleg telecine? If I remember it correctly, it was believed to have been recorded from a projection booth in '77...
the reason I am asking this is there has been discussions about the color of the original theatrical subtitles being yellow in the cinema in dark_jedi's Gout V3 thread, and one of the members here who attended the Baltimore screening recently said they were actually yellow on that print. When they have clearly been white on both the prequels and the SE prints and also white on this bootleg, Puggo Grande and various Jedi footage it makes me doubt it a little without actual photos to back it up, but I'm also ready to believe him as his memories are still fresh, any ideas? Could they have made different subs on different prints, this sounds very unusual and an odd thing to do.
Hey, dark_jedi if you're fond of the sequel, the same kind of alterations has been made to that films audiotrack as well if you didn't know about that already.
And about SilverWooks' THX 1138 capture, are you still willing to help out with that? maybe you guys have spoken about it already... it would be great.