msycamore

Yes, those are outtakes. Not sure where they first appeared but I think it was in the documentary Empire of Dreams.

Yes, Puggo is the man and SilverWook is the owner of the print, I only have some footage of it that he sent me and I actually think it's a cool thing to get preserved despite its condition. If Puggo can get it to look somewhat similar to what Spaced Ranger did with his example it will be a great grindhouse version. :)

I'm currently adjusting the aspect ratio on the UK LD footage then finally on to audio syncing...

Yes, I did my own set of subs in AviSynth based on the theatrical ones. If you're interested in the placement and timings you can check out this thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Greedo-Jabba-subtitles-theatrical-placement-and-fonts/topic/11463/

Thanks g-force. Compared to my original DVD it looks quite good.

g-force said:

it sounded to me like the colors/brightness/contrast issues were on the original, and may have been compounded by his settings, but not DUE to his post-processing.

Yes, you are correct about that.

AntcuFaalb said:

I know everything is somewhat off, but what's the most accurate pre-97 ANH home video release to use for color matching?

I'd like to take my ColourLike experiments a little further tonight.

All of them, both '82 NTSC transfers, GOUT and Technidisc have their own little color quirks but if I had to choose one of them I would say GOUT for its overall consistency in timing. Sometimes the GOUT is correct where the Technidisc is way off and vice versa but overall I have to say GOUT even though I prefer the Technidisc transfer for various reasons. Just to give you an example on how the timing on various releases can vary, this shot appear just before the X-wing armada sequence:

Technidisc

GOUT

'97 SE

2004 DVD

The green hues on the GOUT and the '97 SE is how it should appear, differences like this is quite common between releases, you need to be a detective to track down what's right, sometimes on a shot-by-shot basis.

AntcuFaalb said:

The problem with the Technidisc SWE is that the colors are inconsistent due to a post-processing issue (msycamore's working on correcting this ATM).

I have a pretty good grasp on what color oddities there is in the Technidisc but I actually intend to preserve them, just correct my own mistakes with the first upload and maybe remove the red tint. Chewtobacca wanted me to make a hybrid of some sort where I would correct all the issues and splice in the original crawl etc. but that have to wait as I'm working on other things at the moment.

They are placed in the bottom black border.

Harmy said:

Well, I'd like to know which they are (I did fix some that aren't in 005's list but most of those don't really quite qualify as changes by the standards of the list).

Here's a few I noticed isn't on the list: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Complete-Comparison-of-Special-Edition-Visual-Changes/post/541928/#TopicPost541928

 http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Complete-Comparison-of-Special-Edition-Visual-Changes/post/579914/#TopicPost579914

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Complete-Comparison-of-Special-Edition-Visual-Changes/post/580798/#TopicPost580798

The artificial camera shake I mentioned in some of those posts is tough for 005 to make a picture comparison of though.

All of these are very minor and subtle changes that you may already know about and are not going to bother with, I just thought it would be unfortunate if you didn't know about them until after you were done with your edit.

I also noticed your comment regarding this one:

And it is indeed a 2004 change, look at it again against the original and you will clearly see it, the effect shot of Alderaan appear two times, there's also a slight difference between the two shots in the original IIRC, maybe the same effect sequence in both shots, just different in its duration.

Harmy said:

I finished marking the despecialized shots. It comes to about 280 shots.

Just make sure you don't miss any easily corrected ones as not all of the documented changes have been added to 005's list yet.

Thanks for posting, none. Excellent article, I found this interesting;

Beyond droids and speeders, Stears would further lend his skills to the films many impressive laser battle pyrotechnics and was most noteworthily responsible for the epic blast that launched the Imperial Stormtroopers into the Rebel Blockade Runner at its start-an explosion so big and loud, though mis-timed apparently, spectators recalled it shook and almost demolished the lime green corridor set around them (as well as almost ending Stears life and career indefinitely!), and would be well remembered by the actors and stuntmen playing friend and foe. Just watch the final film and see for yourself how big that on-screen blast actually is: the debris that shoots past the camera and the shock on the Rebel soldiers faces as it goes off. No fear acting required - this was the real thing!

The lime green is something you definitely see traces of in the Technidisc LD as well, haven't really given it a thought before but it's seen in various behind the scenes pics of the corridor set, but this lime green quote is interesting as I was actually under the impression it was a pale blue, the wall panels and doorframes are clearly white but the rest is in a different shade as you can see. How all this appeared when photographed and ultimately timed is something different though.

Mavimao said:

Ha! Sorry, I'm jetlagged and got confused with ROTJ. Not to mention the other craptastic posts I've been making lately. I meant to say 80 stereo mix.

Back to the topic, isn't there a lossless file somewhere? Who even made this in the first place? DJ?

In any case I think HH's purist mix would be awesome. Same as the stereo mix but with a lot of umph to it, but I would understand if people want the real deal and in the end it's Puggo's call.

Ah ok, I suspected you meant the original stereo mix but I just wanted to be sure what you meant, no problem.

As mentioned earlier, Darth Mallwalker's rip of the digital stereo is avaliable on the newsgroup, so if you want to go with the original stereo mix that's my suggestion or one of the LD audio captures SilverWook apparently sent you if I understand it correctly.

The audio was never remixed in '85, more of a remastering took place if anything was done at all. In preparation for the '93 LD (GOUT) they went back to the 4-track master mix which was supplemented with bass from a sound effects master, the result is a fantastic Dolby Surround track which is largely authentic to the original 35mm stereo mix but with a much greater dynamic range and additional low frequency enhancement, one sound effect accompanying one of the crashing snowspeeders is oddly enough not present in this track though.

My vote goes to the original stereo mix even if the mono track on the prints is a fold down of it, but as Mavimao said, in the end it's your call Puggo. IMO the mono track on the prints will be fine and interesting to hear and whatever alternate track you ultimately choose will just be a nice bonus.

Some audio trivia from in70mm Michael Coate's article, "Empire was released in at least five different formats in its original release: (1) 35mm with optical mono soundtrack, (2) 35mm with optical Stereo Variable Area (Dolby) soundtrack, (3) 35mm with mag-optical soundtrack (magnetic 4-track + optical mono), (4) 70mm six-track Dolby-encoded magnetic, (5) 70mm six-track non-Dolby-encoded magnetic."

thxita said:

It would be the first time in the history of Italian dubbing to have a re-dub after only two years from the first release, but then again this film did have a peculiar story on its Italian distribution.

 

What I meant wasn't necessarily a complete re-dub, but if the re-release in Italy was the same cut as in the rest of the world, quite much added audio content had to be recorded.

thxita said:

About the SEN scene, I find it very nice... playing with the kids and everything. It shows that he's not a villain, I never considered him to be one but that scene surely adds more humanity to the character.

I agree, but I think the scene as it now stands also conveys that idea, but the additional dialogue there is nice.

Spaced Ranger said:

It's very hard to twiddle dials and eye-ball it. Every adjustment affects everything else, and the mind's eye further interferes with the perception of the results. We need something more definitive ... like a fade-fingerprint™ of a film's present state of deterioration to calculate a counter-fade self-correction. But until then ... cheat! :)

Yeah, it was just sort of a quick fix to see what could be done with it, I've also little experience in color correction and with such filters in VirtualDub so any help is appreciated. I don't know if the fading is consistent to this in the rest of the print but I guess so, but what we come up with can be of great help when/if Puggo is about to work on it.

I have not posted a raw clip of this. Don't recall what codec is needed for the avi at the moment but I believe you need a DV codec istalled, the video is 29.970fps so it will require pulldown and the audio is captured separately. The size of the file is just 724 MB. I'll see if I can PM you the links later today.

Mavimao said:

What about the 83 stereo mix on Harmy's project? It's synced to the gout and must be pretty complete.

What's the 83 stereo mix?

I also believe Puggo don't want to work and make his editing based on AC-3 tracks.

none said:

The frankenprint concept doesn't help nail anything down.

No, but at the moment nothing does, we can only speculate until we get a definitive answer. It's just that we shouldn't be so quick to rule out the revised credits as a possible '81 revision, it is after all a time when Lucasfilm bothered to revise the opening shot of the film. We cannot narrow it down to a '77 revision based on one bootleg and one Swedish 16mm print.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

I will have to sync the audio manually regardless of the source... the 16mm film has lots of little issues, some splices, etc. and so the frames don't align exactly with any other source.

So I'm more interested in hearing which audio would be most desired.  Preferably something not overly compressed, and close to what would have originally been heard when the film was first released, in a nice theater.

The rip by Mallwalker is the original 35mm Dolby Stereo in lossless PCM, but there's many missing frames on the source that comes from, so you'll probably need to patch some audio from the remastered '93 LD track which is more complete.

The 70mm audio would've been great but in order to get the 70mm in theatre audio in sync you'll need to completely re-edit the ending of the film which no one wants or keep it silent for the places were it doesn't sync up. There's also a short missing segment in the recording which occurs in the wampa cave.

Is the audio on the print in mono?

Morgan's ESB 70mm in theater recording won't sync without additional video editing due to the different cut that the 70mm version is though, maybe Mallwalker's LD rip of the 35mm stereo posted on the newsgroup could be of use?

Looking forward to this one, you and Jaxxon are doing the sw-community a great service by preserving these gems! :)

Well, the guy you talked to who worked in that book store, said there was the '76 release (I assume this is what we have preserved) and an Italian re-release in '78 or '79, I just thought it would be interesting if it is the re-release version, and if it is, I would guess it was treated with a new dub with all the additional scenes and audio work needed for that cut?

That your 16mm print contains "the lost SEN scene" is still a big mystery to me when everything else in that print match the regular home video version. But when it comes to the tinkerer Lucas it wouldn't actually surprise me if he cut that scene differently when it was time for the video release in '82. It wouldn't be that weird if people didn't take notice or document it if he shortened that little scene a few years after its '78 re-release. I like it but the longer conversation is not exactly an necessary inclusion, in the end it must have been Lucas himself who decided to cut it for some reason as it was probably left in by WB in '71 and as we know, it was also in the Italian release.

thxita said:

msycamore did you ever check out the Italian tape in the end?

No, I haven't. But I'll let you know as soon as I've checked it out and we know for sure what cut it is. Hope it differs from your broadcasted version.

No, sorry. I haven't had much time for this lately.

But here's some samples for you.

Hologram: http://www.sendspace.com/file/6sjs3c

Greedo: http://www.sendspace.com/file/u2851z

^ to demonstrate the sudden shift in aspect ratio at the end of the scene. (corrected)

Duel: http://www.sendspace.com/file/7vsmgi

^ Vader vs. Obi-Wan, just to once again demonstrate how badly affected my original DVD was by the poor contrast and saturation adjustments.

The settings on these aren't final though, the brightness is almost as inconsistent as the contrast on this transfer, haven't decided how I will deal with all of this and when.

Also, if you Spaced Ranger or anyone else is willing to give the 16mm footage a shot with your methods, let me know and I'll send it to you, all help is appreciated. The work on the LD is taking all my time at the moment.

^ Very nice results.

The approach was just me playing around with colormill in VirtualDub, but yes the results in my sample wasn't that good, as you could see, the whites had still too much green and the skintones were still unnatural, your example is a great improvement, I plan to give this another shot and also fix the audio when I have the patience and time for it, I guess it was something to do with the pulldown applied. Thanks for the suggestions and feedback, I think this could be of great use for Puggo if he ever attempt a color correction.

Yeah, but there's still the possibility of mixed up reels or is there something I've missed? Ironically I noticed that I had mentioned earlier in the thread that the Dolby System logo would perhaps been a Dolby Stereo logo if it was done for the '81 release but you never know...

Anyway, hopefully we can get an definitive answer to this little mystery, none is also working on mailing Richard Edlund.

1990osu said:

Let's see what 1970s George Lucas has to say about grain....

 

Lucas in American Cinematographer, October 1971:

"I was well aware that there would be those in the audience who would be shocked by the graininess at first, but I was sure that after the first minute or two they would get used to the grain and simply accept it as part of the stylistic concept, the documentary approach."

That really don't apply to Star Wars though, as Star Wars is a Panavision film and THX 1138 is a Techniscope film. It's a big difference in grain structure between the formats. But that doesn't mean Star Wars looked like the blu-ray, far from it.

Also, this may sound weird. But can you, none, or someone else for that matter remind me why we ruled out the possibility of this revised credit roll being an '81 update.

none said:

Still a little confused what was shown opening day in the theaters which couldn't play the 35mm or 70mm Dolby Stereo version...

The mono engagements on opening day would just have been 35mm Dolby Stereo prints played back in mono, Dolby Stereo was and is mono compatible. Apparently 12 of the original 32 engagements on the 25th of May were presented that way.

Agree, it's a nice format. And fitted this films style perfectly. I envy you captainsolo, who have had the pleasure of seeing some of the Leone films on the big screen. Must've been great.

Also with a consistantly grainy movie, after a short while the grain disappears. The mind becomes used to it and filters it out. But the texture and detail is still there.