msycamore

The Aluminum Falcon said:

You can also put the early teaser of The Empire Strikes Back, with just concept art; sure the movie came out in 1980, but the teaser may have been out in 1979.

There was actually two teasers of Empire in theaters back in '79, the one with McQuarrie concept art and the one featuring the Harrison Ford? narration.

Jonno said:

Actually, I was planning on going one better than that...

Not bad, how cool isn't that, that's how you geek out! It can't be the real thing can it? Anyway, everything looks extremely well made. :)

retartedted said:

Also, if anybody wants to do some screenshot comparisons with the other preservation's I think they will find that the 1982 laserdisc actually has a different pan&scan edit as well as a slightly more zoomed in framing.

Yes, the transfer used for this VHS was later recycled for the 1985 LD, the '82 LD/CED and the HBO broadcast was a different transfer.

That's pretty cool. Don't forget to wear your typical seventies clothes! :)

Thanks for the review, captainsolo. Sad to hear that the audio was disappointing on that screening, hopefully it will sound better on the Blu.

Last year there was a radio interview with Frank Marshall:

"Frank Marshall, the producer of all 4 films, was on "Geek Time" and said the transfers for the blu-rays are done and approved by Spielberg with modifications. All he said was changed was the brightness during the jungle chase at the beginning of the film. Spielberg felt it was too dark. He gave no release date..."

Your notes on the overly bright and red orange tinted transfer makes me a little nervous, I've heard this same thing from several people who have seen it. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things turn out.

Bobby Jay said:

Better late than never, but thanks for the link msycamore. Still not had the chance to listen to the tracks yet but will try and get round to it at some point.

You're welcome, that's why it's great that Jonno did this, more easily accessible rather than just to have the raw audio.

I was planning to post all the differences I have noticed in the track but haven't had the time to do so yet. A bitperfect rip of both the 2.0 PCM and 5.1 AC-3 is planned as soon as I have the gear for it, but this is great to have in the meantime, thanks again Jonno!

You're correct SilverWook, if I keep it as a PCM track it will be two channels, so it takes up an excessive amount of space no matter what but you just need to force your receiver to play it through ProLogic, then it plays out of your Center speaker just as it should, dual mono have a tendency to sound very distant from the action on screen.

If I do an AC-3 1.0 encode, it will play correctly out of the Center speaker by default. I doubt you'll hear a difference between a 448kbps AC-3 encode and the PCM but there's a possibility you'll see a difference in the video.

Great idea, Baronlando. So are anyone of us on Twitter?

Baronlando said:

That's pretty cool. I like it better. (Even though the change is harmless enough, it's interesting the things GL fixates on. I mean listen that audience, it's not like the scenes didn't play just fine as is)

Yeah, I agree, it plays much better to me, the establishing shot of the fleet which ends on the Falcon became kind of odd in the revised cut with the two additional shots added, at least those two were unnecessary in my opinion, they break the pace.

TServo2049 said:

Why do people always say that's Harrison's voice? It really doesn't sound like him to me.

I always thought it was him who channeled the kind of voiceover work that they usually had in the old adventure serials. Haven't this been officially confirmed to be Harrison?

TServo2049 said:

I still can't figure out why/how the Reel 1 used for the film cells was the revised version, but the Reel 6 was the original. (For those who don't know, I sighted a 70mm cell on eBay where Luke was about to fall off the weathervane, and it was the version seen in the Super 8 with Luke in the center and no radar dish.)

Maybe the reels had been mixed up over the years.

Some people may say that a 448kbps for a mono DD track is overkill but I agree with you Silver, Walter Murch's groundbreaking sound design is half the experience of this film. I might even do an encode with the uncompressed PCM for you and those who want that.

I'm not really sure about stills, the trailer and the "lost" SEN scene, it sure would've been nice with an additional disc of extras but right now I feel that I want this as uncomplicated as possible so we can get this film out to people as soon as possible with all the time this have taken me. I actually lost most of my additional THX material I had in my HD crash, think I still have the radio spots though.

The SEN scene Puggo sent me is safe, I don't know, maybe his planned transfer will do? I hope my answer doesn't disappoint you too much, but I just want this done as soon as possible even though it was me who originally suggested many of those extras. Maybe someone else could help make a bonus feature DVD to accompany the main feature disc? that would certainly make things easier for me.

Nice idea about the '78 trailer, although I think I still would like to have the original as well even though the quality leaves a lot to be desired.

"The bacta tank scene starts on a close-up of Two-One-Bee and pans right to a closeup of Luke in the tank. It then cuts to FX-7 extending it's arm to the tank. There is no cut to Leia, Han and Threepio observing."

This might be part of that footage that was replaced with Leia, Han and Threepio observing that Mike Matessino described in FSM:

^ This unique footage appeared in the '79 teaser trailer, the one with the Harrison Ford narration.

The original ending of Empire as seen on the 70mm prints: http://www.sendspace.com/file/4e8899

It's just a quick and dirty sync and editing job I did for fun way back when morgands1 posted his recording, but it's kind of nice to see how it played than just hear it.

THEOBOEMAN said:

The reason I think this would be interesting is that it was around 15 gig in size, so should have less compression than the vesion that was released on blu ray which shared a disc with 2 other cuts.

It was done through seamless branching, so it's not like there's 6 hours of film on the disc.

I've heard that it was considered quite unique for Empire to be a 6 reel film due to its length, it stayed that way even with the SE. Jedi is a bit longer though so it could probably be on 7 reels.

As this is on hiatus until I get a new machine, it's cool thxita.

I would like to know how you guys want me to treat the audio, it's Dolby 1.0 mono and that's how it's going to be (you can encode it as 2.0 dual-mono but after some searching around on this matter it's not the way to go). Anyway, what I wondered is, do you want me to have it as uncompressed PCM audio and sacrifice precious video bitrate or will an AC-3 encode suffice?

^ That's pretty cool.

Thanks Darth Hade, for the encouraging words, hope I can live up to your expectations. ;)

Haven't been able to start working on the audio yet, have a borrowed laptop at the moment and I don't want to install all the software needed for this on this computer.

SilverWook said:

Bluemilk has it slightly wrong. The regular monthly issues had the redrawn Yoda, and the paperback had the purple, as it went to press early. (At least that what's I read about the whole thing back in the 80's.)

My swedish copy of the paperback has the redrawn Yoda, most likely because it was released a few months later than the english original.

captainsolo said:

I'm going to see the new Raiders 4K restoration this weekend at my local arthouse, but it's being advertised as a new 35mm print. I had been curious as to what sound mix would be present with the restoration should I ever get to see it, but was under the impression that this was shown in digital screenings only.

Lucky you!

I've heard reports that the newly restored prints should've the same mix as on the DVD's, no newly added content. The reflection that was removed back in 2003 is apparently removed this time as well but the reflections on the shots of Marion is still there, and the odd CGI cliff-shot is not included.

Since the DVD release I've heard some say that a guide-track for the boulder was removed and that some mattelines were cleaned up, is this bullshit or what? Would be nice to get this straightened out.

captainsolo said:

I'm actually hoping that the repertory dept. just shipped an original 35mm print with Dolby Stereo. I quite liked the DVD's mix, but wished that the Stereo surround had been included somehow.

Except the superior format, in terms of content there wasn't any differences on Raiders like with Star Wars between the 35mm Dolby Stereo and 70mm 6-track. Also, if it was originally mixed with split surrounds in mind, the 5.1 DVD mix might be even more faithful to the makers intent than the original presentations in '81 (if it now was only with mono surrounds back then). But I understand your thoughts on it, even if the 2003 re-mix is faithful.

captainsolo said:

And the LD mix is some kind of home video version like the '85 Star Wars mix, correct?

It depends which Laserdisc you're talking about, the old pan & scan CAV should have the original 35mm Dolby Stereo in analog which would be kind of nice to preserve. I have never seen or heard the widescreen release myself, but it was apparently a re-mix, a different sound effect for when Indy dropped the staff into the map room is one thing I have heard mentioned by several people.

captainsolo said:

Speaking of Dolby Stereo, Batman sounds like crud on DVD/Blu-ray. Very confined and almost tinny in places. The LD features the original Dolby Stereo with really exceptional split surrounds, that in my rig (5.1 setup playing ProLogic) almost sounds like 5.1 in places. I really enjoy the film more this way, and have made excuses to watch my LD many times in the past few months.

I have noticed that several Dolby 2.0 surround tracks sound incredibly good through ProLogic II, The Empire Strikes Back is one of them, but I have also noticed that some sound a little weird in places, Star Wars is one of them, I usually force my receiver to regular ProLogic on that one. Was Batman ever re-mixed for the DVD/Blu-ray? I have both the old and new DVD release, maybe I should compare them.

OmegaMattman said:

Thanks!  And, if you spot anymore color problems, please let me know.  I'd love to fix all of this stuff.

I think I have covered all the major ones, you have these three shots of Vader where the green lights in his belt turned pink but they are pretty minor.

^ Nice results, is the scripting complicated for this sort of thing? Here's another color screw up in the GOUT if there's interest, the binocular shot at the moisture farm:

Here the green colored displays turned to red/pink.

SWE Technidisc LD:

There's a possibility that it was mixed for the process but no Format 43 prints were made. What are Mangini's exact words on this?

The reason being an answer I got from two projectionists I asked over at Film-Tech Forum, both said that it was in format 42 and that only Last Crusade was in format 43 - Split Surround. I still find it kind of odd (if this is truly the case) that Lucas didn't want to take advantage of this format for either the SW-sequels nor Indy, when Last Crusade came along the format had been around for 10 years.

The Griff said:

AFAIK, the 5.1 remix has been the only available English-language option on all DVD and BD releases. The LDs were mono.

If you wanna sample the difference, perhaps try playing one of the other languages for the first five minutes (until the credits finish) and during the rooftop shoot-out (under the 'Jesus Saves' sign). That should give you an idea of the overall differences between the original and remixed tracks.

I see, modern gun shots sound effects I presume, I actually own it on LD and haven't upgraded yet, so I haven't been exposed to the re-mix. But I can imagine how unfitting the new sound effects may be. I absolutely don't care if they make these unnecessary re-mixes, it's when they replace the original mix it becomes a rewriting of film history. There's no single reason why they cannot include the original mixes alongside the re-mix, are the guys who do the re-mixes afraid to get their work compared with the originals or what!? It's damn tiring.

About the mix on Raiders of the Lost Ark, everything point towards the 70mm blowups being originally in Dolby format 42, which means; no split surrounds. So a 4.1 configuration seems actually more appropriate for it, but I cannot complain on the DVD audio, it sounds great IMO. It will be interesting to see how they treat the audio on the Blu-ray release.

Another re-mix to be aware of; the New Line Reg 1 DVD of Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me only provided a 5.1 re-mix. In the partyland "Welcome to Canada" sequence, the Center dialogue is about 8-10 db louder than in the original Dolby Stereo mix, in the re-mix you can hear the dialogue so clearly that the subtitles become completely unnecessary. In the scene where Cooper is introduced at Philadelphia, a cymbal hit is missing, and the scene at the end where the monkey says "Judy", it's mixed approximately 6 db louder than in the Dolby Stereo mix. Really need to rip the Dolby Stereo from the LD sometime.

Great, keep them coming! Didn't know they had done that to Dirty Harry. So have the original mix been absent since the LD format?

Raiders and Blade Runner were treated right in the audio department as far as I know, not that familiar with the mix on CE3K, some info from Michael Thau regarding the audio on the 2000 restoration of Superman:

Going back to the original mix, we were shocked when we heard it. We grabbed the original 70mm full-coat that actually had the label from the Pinewood stage on it; it had a date of November 1978. We put it up in a dubbing stage. We had Dolby down there a couple times verifying that the set up on the Dolby units, the decoding, was correct. Superman was the first film that was originally recorded in a 70mm 6-track split surround but here's the rub that no one knows about but it's the truth. They mixed in split surrounds but they did not use the surrounds very much, especially in a stereo way because it was very new and they were very scared of it. At the last second, here in America, they brought it over to do some final mastering on the 70mm and they chickened out and the film was only released with mono surround in the 70mm format. So they mixed it for stereo surround, but it was never released that way and the fact is that there wasn't much difference anyway.

In 1978, Dolby was just beginning to become prominent and on their recording dubber they could put a 6-track head up, a 4-track head up, a 3-track head or a 1-track. The 4-track would be for the standard Dolby mix: left, center, right, surround and the Dolby system had an crossover, where anything below a certain frequency would go to a subwoofer. The 6-track would be the same except they would have two added channels of baby-boom (low frequency bass) with more volume. The 3-track would be for the mono stems: dialog, music and effects, and the single-track would be for the mono mix. But they didn't have three recorders; they only had one at the time, the same here in the U.S. as well. So they could not record simultaneous 4-track dialog, music and sound effects stems (left, center, right, and surround.) You do a whole mix, and then you do another mix. They recorded first, the 6-track mix, then the four, then the mono mix, then the mono stems. They tried to make them one after another so they would sound the same. There really isn't much of a difference in the 6-track or 4, except in volume and bass. But you weren't preserving your stereo stems at that point. So, what came off the stage was the full mix or mono stems, which is one reason why we couldn't even reconstruct anything. We only had the mono stems. With dialog it doesn't really matter that much because you normally put the dialog down in the center channel anyway. Superman was different; they actually draped it across the whole front three speakers, which really prevented us from using any of the original mix. It doesn't work that well and sounds strange. Stereo was kind of a new gadget and I think they were just playing with the new toy. Dialog is best kept in the center channel for clarity.

A demo reel where Burtt shows an early version of Boba Fett's costume with all his gadgets with Duwayne Dunham behind the mask:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOoxIegtNws

Had actually never seen this clip before, only photos of it since the eighties, but I seldom visit the official site. Was this included on the Blu-ray extras?