SilverWook said:
msycamore!!! Where the heck have you been! I was worried about you!
Right behind you. ;)
Where is Baronlando's new HD release updates?
AntcuFaalb said:
Are you sure you're seeing actual drop-outs from laser-rot? The IP used for the JSC is infamously dirty.
It's not saying much but the JSC source is actually the most clean source they ever used for SW, despite the ugly glue job, if you want to see something dirty, see Technidisc source - hence severe DVNR: DC, FACES, GOUT.
I'm sure Moth3r or Mallwalker will chime in, but as I understand it, laser rot is mostly displayed as colored dots not white or black.
csd79 said:
The two sources I'm using is msycamore's Technidisc and Harmy's Despecialized Edition 2.0. The Technidisc is my absolute favourite version of Star Wars on video, and a great LD rip. IMO it has the best color palette and generally the best distribution of lightness levels, even though at some places it is inconsistent. Aliasing is less prominent than in the GOUT (thanks to the overall softness of the image). Light sources don't bloom (no fat lightsaber blades). The plan is to borrow detail from the DeEd2 and try to fix some of the problems in the Technidisc.
Interesting experiment! Must admit that I don't grasp the technical bits behind this. Seeing your comment about my Tech-DVD makes me happy and makes me feel very bad at the same time... as I feel very sorry you don't have better material to work with... every time I see or hear someone like the DVD I uploaded I don't feel well, I really need to upload a better version of it...
zombie84 said:
Irvin Kershner turned down directing Empire Strikes Back. Lucas had to twist his arm to get him to do it; they had to have a second meeting where Lucas basically begged him to make the film. It turned out...pretty good, to put it lightly. To make things worse, the film he did right before Empire, Eyes of Laura Mars, sucked. Even Kershner apologized for it. And the rest of his films up until then were fairly obscure. I've seen "Hoodlum Priest," but have you? If the internet was around in 1978 we'd all be crucifying him.
A lot of people are looking for things to nail Abrams on but honestly none of us has any idea how well he will work out. I give him the benefit of the doubt until I see the movie, as he is not a bad director by any means.
I think it's quite amusing that after all these years, people are still waiting for that new "The Empire Strikes Back" but it's never going to happen, without lens flares or not ( "The Phantom Menace" had quite a good portion of artificial lens flares IIRC, so JJ will fit nicely)
To draw parallels with how things went down when the legendary sequel was made in the past to how things are proceeding now is quite pointless. The differences are quite big, not in the MO and not what you Zombie tried to say, the times and in what climate this new film is made in, is a very different scenario from Empire 30 years ago.
Is this a movie, that really needs to be made? Is this a story, that really needs to be told? Why are these new movies made? Is there someone with the passion behind this? Dollars of course!! Of course it's dollars, back when Empire was made it was all about money as well and more importantly the building of a new movie facility and planned franchise, it just happened to be a genuine interest on all fronts to make a great follow-up to one of the biggest surprise hits in movie history behind it. The last gasps of the golden 70's US independent era behind this kind of a blockbuster, it will never happen again.
Will be interesting to see how they are marketing these new movies, I recall Episode I was promoted basicallly as a sequel to The Empire Strikes Back from all the trailers I saw, which means 10 to 30 year olds are the primary demographic, it ultimately proved to be aimed at 3 to 10 year olds.
I know that I sound bitter, but it's because I am bitter, Star Wars have been reduced to a fuzzy old little DVNR'ed LD transfer, that's all we have left today of this little legendary film. THANK YOU LUCASFILM!!! :)
Ever since the 70's we have all been hoping for to see Han Solo as a 70 year old man...
Hi Silver and Antcu!
Thanks for your concern, I'm OK. Sorry for the radio silence, my internet has been down for a few weeks and I have been very busy with the boring "real life." Had been telling you in advance if I knew what was coming...
As for the question on our THX project, I'm sorry to say I haven't had the time or the motivation lately to continue where I left off, just thinkin about it gives me a headache, due to all the roadblocks along the way, I have gone through this film frame-by-frame now for an insane number of times. I imagine this may sound like I have given up, but no way. I'm gonna do this bad boy justice. It's just that lack of time and motivation that gets in the way.
But like I've said earlier, when the project has taken me this long, I am of course also willing to do what you guys think are necessary, (send Silverwook's captures to someone that can make a DVD out of it faster than I have been able to do) I'm only saying this because as an observer I would probably have suggested this.
mverta said:
You_Too said:
mverta said:
In 1977, the flashes were a pale amber/yellow. At the outermost edges of the flashes, where the yellowish flash combines with the blue-ish walls, it creates a pale sort of green, but it's subtle.
Interesting. But what about that cyan flash frame I posted?
Well, first of all, the saber colors themselves have been grossly up-saturated. The original saber colors were no where near that colorful. They were more photographic; tinted glows. Vader's in particular was always a sort of pink with a slightly-more-reddish-outer edge.
Since you can't globally push the blues and reds that high to get that look without corrupting the rest of the scene, these elements were treated separately, and the impact flashes were, as well. That particular flash is easily the "whitest" of the flashes, which again highlights the blueish tint to the walls at its edges, but again the whole thing has been super-saturated way beyond what's on the negative.
This is all part of the cartoon-i-fication of Star Wars which began with Empire, where suddenly we see the droids are all shiny and repainted, and Vader's all clean and showroom new instead of interesting, historied, and weathered. It's just been a steady downhill trend of "bigger, brighter, shinier, more colorful," since then. Gritty realism more or less ended with the first film.
_Mike
The biggest reason the sabers and impact flashes looks so different is the recompositing done, not only have Obi-Wan borrowed someones lipstick but the whole thing is amateurish and looks ridiculous just in order to get rid of some generation loss in the original duel. It's impossible to know if everything is down to Lucas' poor taste or if the digital "artists" working on these were just some summer substitutes. To me it looks like the impact flashes in the original film have more often than not an orange-reddish outer edge.
As for the bluish flash, there's at least one other instance where it happens; the last one before Ben throws in the towel. There's also one particular impact flash somewhere in the beginning of the duel which looks like it was "burned" into the picture for several successive frames, can easily be mistaken for DVNR-artifacts if the 2006 bonus DVD is what you're looking at but that's actually how it appears in the original film.
OmegaMattman said:
Could it be from the widescreen to pan-n-scan conversion?
I don't think it's video related, the scrape lines are also seen on actual 35mm release prints. Being white my guess is that they were either introduced on the camera negative or internegative.
Maybe someone with more knowledge about film could chime in and help explain why this early 80's print used for Star Wars home video looks like it does (large glue marks on almost every single cut) Does Star Wars being an A-B cut negative have something to do with it? It sort of looks like a 16mm film where they didn't use the "checkerboard" pattern, where you're alternating scenes back and forth on the A and B roll in order to make invisible splices.
SilverWook said:
Nice finds, Leo! The second one is from the '81 reissue, IIRC. I got a giant poster of that from the old fan club for renewing my membership back in the day. I think mine has a silvery border or something. I really should frame that big sucker some day before I'm old!
It's the '82 reissue poster, the '81 is very similar and used the same Tom Jung artwork but the logo is different between them. I recall sending you guys a collection of SW-poster scans, both of these are among them and are in very nice quality to make a great looking cover, I can reupload them for you Puggo if there's need for it.
It's not video related, some sort of damage that is visible on both this print and also in the same way for the one they used for ESB, I've seen the same thing on -1's prints. It's a good indicator you're seeing too much of the frame when it's visible.
none said:
I think your interpretation of this article's title is wrong. The Library of Congress did not have it's Copyright application prints replaced. The original prints given in the year of the films release are still there.
I know that many have misinterpreted this article in the past but my interpretation of this story is in order, I was bumping it because the more people that sees it and knows about it the better.
Sorry, accidentally bumping into it when I was on my way out...
He has been a damn nice roadblock for everything this site stands for. And he has often taken the time to respond to the fans of his films in the media:
1997
"On your special edition, do you expect any backlash from fans who might resent your tampering with a classic?
"I don't know. It's my classic. On the one hand, I'm doing this, while on the other hand I'm on the Artists Rights Board, a foundation that's trying to protect films from being changed--which I feel very strongly about, because with the technology we have today, anybody can go back and do this kind of thing. I can sort of see the future, and I want to protect films as they are and as they should be. I don't want to see them colorized, I don't want to see their formats changed, I don't want to see them re-edited, and I don't want to see what I'm able to do now, which is add more characters and do all kinds of things that nobody even contemplated before."
"There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rought cut', it'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.' What ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version. I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's, to go back and reinvent a movie."
2004
"The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there... the other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it... to me, it doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be."
2006
Jim Ward, President of LucasArts and Senior Vice President of Lucasfilm Ltd: "We returned to the Lucasfilm Archives to search exhaustively for source material that could be presented on DVD. This is something that we're very excited to be able to give to fans in response to their continuing enthusiasm for Star Wars."
Lucasfilm's PR Response Regarding the 2006 DVD Box Set:
I wanted you to know how much we appreciate the passion and enthusiasm you have for Star Wars, and thank you for sharing your concerns about our upcoming DVD release.
The DVDs being released in September will contain two versions of Star Wars: Episodes IV, V and VI—the Special Editions (which represent George's vision of the movies) and the first versions, which will be included as bonus material. We hoped that releasing those "original" movies on a bonus disc would be a way to have some additional fun with the debut of the movies as individual DVDs. We certainly did not want it to become a source of concern or frustration for any of our fans.
As you may know, an enormous amount of effort was put into digitally restoring the negatives for the Special Editions. In one scene alone, nearly 1 million pieces of dirt had to be removed, and the Special Editions were created through a frame-by-frame digital restoration. The negatives of the movies were permanently altered for the creation of the Special Editions, and existing prints of the first versions are in poor condition.
So many fans have requested the original movies, we wanted to find a way to bring them to you. But since these movies do not represent George's artistic vision, we could not put the extraordinary time and resources into this project as we did with the Special Editions. The 1993 Laserdisc masters represented the best source for providing the original versions as DVD bonus material. Although these are non-anamorphic versions, they do preserve the original widescreen composition of the movies.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
We hope you will understand our decision and, again, want to let you know how much we appreciate your interest and enthusiasm.
Sincerely,
Lynne Hale
Lucas: "It's just the original versions, as they were. We didn't do anything to it at all. But we're not sure how many people want that... Now we'll find out whether they really wanted the original or whether they wanted the improved versions. It'll all come out in the end."
2010
Mr. Lucas said that to release the original versions of these films on Blu-ray was; "kind of an oxymoron because the quality of the original is not very good. You have to go through and do a whole restoration on it, and you have to do that digitally. It’s a very, very expensive process to do it. So when we did the transfer to digital, we only transferred really the upgraded version."
2012
"Changes are not unusual — I mean, most movies when they release them they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it’s the end of the world."
"The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down."
"If you look at Blade Runner, it’s been cut sixteen ways from Sunday and there are all kinds of different versions of it. Star Wars, there’s basically one version — it just keeps getting improved a little bit as we move forward. All art is technology and it improves every year. Whether it’s on the stage or in music or in painting, there are technological answers that happen, and because movies are so technological, the advances become more obvious."
Very much agree with you, Fang Zei. Fucking hate what Raimi did to Evil Dead, this is real revisionism as most people get that Star Wars has been tinkered with by now, but most people doesn't know these other invisible Special Editions are out there unless you seek the information on the internet and on various forums.
Most people don't care but there's always those who would find this unacceptable if they knew what they bought wasn't exactly the original film that was shot. And this disturbs me as much as the alterations themselves, people don't know what they are buying, I doubt it says on the case what tweaks that's been done, it started with no mentioning at all that the soundtracks had been re-mixed on DVD releases, now they have taken this further with picture content, love this trend...
As for Aliens - Special Edition, the pulse rifle/ flamethrower edit mixup on the dropship, had apparently been corrected already in '92 for the broadcast version of the Special Edition, only for the DVD transfers to bring back the continuity error, not sure if it's true or not, I guess you'll have to check the old LD's.
The Special Edition has actually evolved somewhat since its broadcast debut in '89. As long as the original theatrical cut is just that, I'm fine but I don't know if some of the blu-ray fixes are seen in both cuts as I don't own it. See some of the digital alterations here: http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=294598
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
In June I saw 35mm/mono three times in a relatively small theater in Utah. My memory was the movie being fantastic and the image being marvelous.
In July I saw 70mm in a large theater in California. My memory was that the image was better, but that could have been excitement, or just a better projector.
Late in the year I saw it again - I'm not sure the format, and I don't remember any particular thought of whether it was better or worse. I believe it was probably 35mm and stereo mix.
In 1985 I saw a marathon of all three films in a small late night theater. The image quality was atrocious and I was sad to see the film(s) in such a damaged state.
I do have two memories that don't jive with historical record - like being quite certain that in Utah I saw the Biggs hangar scene all three times, and NOT seeing Vader survive and fly off. Before everyone assumes I'm crazy, I would also like to point out that I also remembered "close the blast doors" despite wondering where it went in every subsequent viewing. It wasn't until joining this group that I learned that my memory was actually correct in that case, despite the lack of any intervening confirmation. Regarding the Biggs scene, upon seeing it in the SE, my mind was able to fill-in the removed chunk of dialog from memory. And no, I didn't see it in the documentary because I only saw that for the first time very recently. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!! :)
Is it possible you saw one of the many SE clips or documentaries around that time? the Biggs hangar scene is present in both the '77 MoSW-documentary but it also appeared frequently in '97 SE promo material. That these differences were in some early cut of the film would be crazy but being that this or these mono mix prints of Utah featured an early cut of the film sounds really crazy. When prints with the Academy mono mix finally arrived the film had run for almost a month, it's one thing if Vader wasn't shown regaining control of his ship, Biggs talking to Luke in the Hangar in some of the early Dolby Stereo prints.
As the anal retentive guy I am I have discovered a very subtle visual difference in the '77 film besides the two variations on the end credits roll, see here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Print-variations-in-77-Star-Wars/topic/14705/
We now know that at one point a revision of the end credits roll and the Yavin X-wing & Y-wing takeoff took place, the latter being located on the last reel as well. Being so minor, these two revisions are actually in some ways more crazy to me than taking out/adding the Biggs hangar scene and taking out/adding a glimpse of Vader at the end, both of these would conveniently be located on the last reel as well. I cannot change your memories and I don't say you are wrong but I do find it very hard to believe that several of these revisions at different stages took place and especially being screened as late in its run... an early cut with the late mono mix and even some UK prints showing this early cut.
DuracellEnergizer said:
I just noticed a big fail that's bringing this thread down: too many attempts to answer my question using in-universe explanations.
I don't want those, people! You can explain anything in-universe. I want out-of-universe, real world behind-the-scenes answers.
Good question and something I have never given any deeper thought. But I would guess it was an easy way to show the audience who is shooting who in space battles and perhaps an aesthetic reason, looks quite good. But it doesn't answer your question why the regular gun fire is always red on both sides. Maybe the different colors was a very late addition in post which only was applied to space fx shots due to time limit?
I recall the walkers in Empire had blue lasers originally, seen in one of the teaser trailers, probably changed because of the blue sky and the snowy environment just like Luke's saber was made green in Jedi due to the blue sky making it not stand out so well.
AntcuFaalb said:
Merry Christmas, msycamore and everyone else with bionic eyes and a love for Star Wars minutia (myself included).
Happy Holidays to all!
AntcuFaalb said:
Is the Japan LD of THX 1138 better than the US LD? Is it a different transfer?
The same master was used for both. The black level is different on the Japanese LD compared to the US counterpart and based on SilverWooks' captures, the US is superior, much less chroma noise for example but if that's just down to a different setting when they were captured or not I don't know. But I think Silver captured them with the exact same setting.
AntcuFaalb said:
bkev said:
I was referring to OmegaMattman's re-upload of Molly's theatrical version of Beauty and the Beast. It's a laserdisc rip and the only OAR version available. Plus, there's a few special edition add-ons that still managed to make it into the "theatrical" cut on each release. Minor changes, but still there.
To be fair though that's less strange than msycamore's video-only 97SE being removed.What's weird is that I can't find the MySpleen log entry for the deletion of msycamore's 97SE.
I guess I'll need to ask them to know the exact reason behind the deletion. I did never ask them if an upload such as this one was allowed on their site. Thanks for going through the trouble to make it available AntcuFaalb!
AntcuFaalb said:
Nice! This might just make me a P&S fan.
Why wasn't this transfer used for the '82 LDs?
No idea why they made two different transfers that same year:
'82 CED / LD / HBO broadcast (time compressed)
'82 betamax / VHS / '85 LD
It is a little weird, they are also made from the same film elements. I actually like some aspects of the time compressed transfer as well, just unfortunate that it is time compressed. A good preservation of both these historical video transfers would be nice.
bkev said:
That's the second unusual removal I've heard of recently from myspleen. I wonder if they're getting stricter with uploads.
Which one was the first?
AntcuFaalb said:
I can upload a copy of it somewhere on the WWW if someone needs it.
Thanks, please do if there's desire for it. Teeceezy, otherwise I would recommend that you just wait for some of the other '97 projects going on around here.
AntcuFaalb said:
Are the colors the same?
The colors in retardedted's preservation are wonderful.
Yes, it is the exact same transfer. They are nice and vibrant, it is a little red tinted but not much was really done with the actual hues in these old video releases, it is the brigtness, contrast and gamma that was fiddled with but that greatly affects how the colors look of course.
AntcuFaalb said:
ilovewaterslides said:
Alright.... hopefully the guy who won this bidding is a member of OT.com and will give us the nicest transfer ever. It's impressive how a 30 year old VHS can actually look better than some DVDs out there.
I own a copy and plan to do a transfer of it soon with my Panasonic AG-1980.
If you really like this transfer, I can recommend the 1985 CAV standard play LD, uses the same transfer.
Oh, my bad, so that was the region 1 release, didn't know it had such a shitty transfer! Sorry, my screenshots weren't taken from the 1998 Collector's Edition DVD, they were actually taken from the 2004 Drive-In Double Feature DVD, didn't realize that it used a superior transfer to the '98 DVD.
^^ Looks like the ugly old PAL release. Here's how the '98 NTSC DVD 2004 Drive-In Double Feature DVD looks like in that shot:
Quite cold color timing. A little tighter framing on the epilogue in the '04 DVD:
Spaced Ranger said:
I was thinking about that. If the blue tint was removed (using "Manual Color Correction" of a paint program to set the off-kilter RGB value of the B&W portraits back to it's R=G=B value, applied to the entire image), what would be revealed? Well, what do you know? Really close to my previous "quick & dirty" color correction.
msycamore said:
Nice catch Spaced Ranger! The always satisfied Lucas...
Thanks, but only because I remembered that jingle from Brazil:
Lucas Films! You do the buy, we do revising!
;) Nice demonstration, not that I doubted it but it also clearly show us that the sepia in the portraits was removed deliberately.
Edit: On the other hand, it could be the result of a re-composite, altered nevertheless.