msycamore

none said:

This next group falls into the significant recoloring of 2004.  The Bacta tank is well just too cyan for me to not consider this a deliberate recoloring/change.

Well, that can basically be said of all the scenes on Hoth, every shot have this difference.

Hoth in the original film had various shades of blue, the '04 is a constant cyan or teal mess.

lpd said:

msycamore thankyou so much for sharing this. Really enjoyed seeing this as I have the vhs version and was going to see if I could do something with it but dont have to now as the picture you've come up with looks really great.

Was watching with my kids and they couldnt believe how much deatail was in the dark areas and shadows, they and myself prefer this to any other realese at the mo.

Thanks, glad you liked it, and it makes me even more happy to hear that your kids enjoyed it. :)

hairy_hen said:

Interesting . . .

Sort of makes me wonder if the 1993 mix of ESB could actually be an exact reflection of a possible 'revised' 70mm version.  It is said to have been taken from a 4-track master with non-limited dynamic range, and since it matches up with the 35mm edit of the film it seems possible that this is where that might have come from.  This 4-track master cannot be an earlier version of the 35mm mix itself, because there are a few minor differences from that, most noticeably the missing snowspeeder crash sound, and also a few changes in blaster and explosion levels during the battle.

You read my mind, that was exactly my thoughts as well, for those interested in the making of those Definitive Collection LD audio tracks, this is a must read: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/DC-amp-Faces-Original-audio-sources/post/220622/#TopicPost220622

none said:

This next one i'm not 100% sure, but it looks like there is falling snow in 2004.  You can see some flakes in the pic over the hind quarters.

In 1997, clean up of film glue occurred. (Exit)  In 2004, falling snow was added.
https://picasaweb.google.com/102542760950977079734/EmpireSpecialEditionChangesHD#5672809717898301810

 

Yes there is definitely snow falling there but it's there in the original film as well, much easier to see on DVNR-free transfers and old pan & scan videos. The DVNR on Empire is so horrible that I have seen trails from 5-6 frames earlier sometimes. The "frostbite" I would say is just a horrible colortiming issue but you never know with Lucas these days. :)

About those glue marks and splices, I know that you want to cover everything none, but then you may as well start to cover all the specs of dirt, optical grain, film grain and so forth, but that's just my opinion no offense, you have lots of those glue marks on the old IP the earlier releases of the first film was made from, check out the JSC of ANH, the IP they used for the GOUT was much cleaner in this regard. You also have all the missing frames around reel changes, NTSC GOUT-Empire lacks at least two frames for example.

I find this very fascinating, also makes you wonder how the audio mixes were treated, I have always thought of this first cut as The 70mm version instead of just an early cut of the film.

If this was the case, it must mean that a total of four audio tracks were produced for Empire albeit all of them very similar in content, a 70mm six-track and a regular Dolby Stereo for the few 35mm prints that were made of the original release cut, and the same procedure for the "Final cut".

none said:

^ The timing of Han (carbonite), Imperial Officer and Boba Fett is also shifted a frame or two.  Easier to see when they enter Slave-1.

Yeah, everything from the blinking light to the movement of the clouds and live footage have a slightly different timing, that seems to almost always be the case with all recomped elements in the trilogy, something you don't see unless you study the shots like us obsessive guys. ;)

none said:

All the changes i've identified are in the shot spreadsheet.  The screen captures are made (except for the Luke/Vader duel).  Need to go through the cropping and renaming process and upp'ng them to the Visual Guide.  Started yesterday, but it's a slow process and after a few phuck ups, I decided to wait until a clearer mind could prevail.  And for whatever reason, the one's i've posted show up in the middle.

Ok, will check it out.

Yeah, the mattepaintings look more fake without the optical grain, I noticed that they also added some detail on the building in the right corner.

None, in case you miss it, this matte shot was digitally recomposited in '97, when doing so they also added two blinking lights on the building to the left. For some reason the bright red blinking light seen on the building to the right on the original is barely seen in the special editions.

GOUT

DVD

Where the original composite with its extra layer of grain and mattelines around the live footage was beautiful and had atmosphere, the new bright and clean one looks fake in comparison. They knew what they did back then.

I'll take it to this thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/70-mm-print-of-the-Empire-Strikes-Back-Differences/post/550362/#TopicPost550362 if you don't mind, so I don't derail this thread.

Recently discussed here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Humdinger-Analysis-Thread-Glitch-Cryptography-or-Steganography/post/550182/#TopicPost550182 decided to move it here where it's more appropriate.

msycamore said:

msycamore said:

Harmy said:

Not true, when you look at these 70mm cell scans, there's actually more picture information on the sides than there is in the 2004 SE, which is the least cropped transfer to date.

It seems to me that those could be 35mm, the reason behind my thinking is that this shot wasn't in the 70mm version:

Baronlando said:

It could have been in the 1981 or 82 releases though, right?

Yeah, I have always wondered if the early cut of Empire was on all 70mm prints, even when screened as late as 1985, but to make new 70mm prints for the re-releases just to have the film updated with the late changes seen in the 35mm- version were probably to costly and it would also have been necessary to create a new six-track mix, so I very much doubt it.

I also find this interesting, "The Empire Strikes Back" opened with a modest number of initial wave engagements, reportedly 127, it appears that with the exception of a few drive-in bookings, all of the first-wave engagements were in the deluxe 70mm format. Additional 70mm engagements were added during the "expansion wave" releases throughout the summer of 1980.

from: http://www.in70mm.com/news/2003/empire/index.htm

Does that mean that a few 35mm prints were produced of the early cut, or was it perhaps 16mm prints on those drive-ins?

TServo2049 said:

16mm at drive-ins? No way. They would have been 35mm, just like any other regular cinema.

I have no idea if those 35mm prints were of the early cut, or if all 35mm prints were of the more familiar version. Didn't 70mm prints have a longer lead time due to the extra work? (The first Star Wars would have been an exception; I've heard Ben Burtt talk about how the Dolby Stereo mix had to be rushed out so that it could be tested for the wide rollout of the system, so I'm guessing that the 35mm prints were made first in that case.)

I'm not sure how we'd be able to conclusively figure it out. On TrekBBS, I once asked a similar question, if any early 35mm prints of Star Trek II just said "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" like the 70mm prints did; I never got an answer on that.

Very interesting, those drive-in prints should definitely have been the early cut, the film was already in theaters when ILM started to work on the revised final shots.

TServo2049 said:

As for that frame, I think it's 70mm. My guess would be that the later prints made in summer '80 were of the revised version. There's no reason why this second wave couldn't have been derived from the "fixed" version.

Yeah now when I think about it, I agree that it must have been the logical thing to do, it's unfortunate that so little information exists on this matter.

A sequence in Empire which doesn't look quite the same since the '93 THX transfer is the interiors of Cloud City when Han & company arrives, where the color pallette originally was warm with lots of orange. The bootleg source of Fritz is pretty rough and can often not be used for color reference but the colors in this particular part of the film is suprisingly stable and gives you an general idea of how it looked.

Bootleg

JSC/SWE LD's

DC/Faces/GOUT

Bootleg

JSC/SWE LD's

DC/Faces/GOUT

msycamore said:

Harmy said:

Not true, when you look at these 70mm cell scans, there's actually more picture information on the sides than there is in the 2004 SE, which is the least cropped transfer to date.

It seems to me that those could be 35mm, the reason behind my thinking is that this shot wasn't in the 70mm version:

Baronlando said:

It could have been in the 1981 or 82 releases though, right?

Yeah, I have always wondered if the early cut of Empire was on all 70mm prints, even when screened as late as 1985, but to make new 70mm prints for the re-releases just to have the film updated with the late changes seen in the 35mm- version were probably to costly and it would also have been necessary to create a new six-track mix, so I very much doubt it.

I also find this interesting, "The Empire Strikes Back" opened with a modest number of initial wave engagements, reportedly 127, it appears that with the exception of a few drive-in bookings, all of the first-wave engagements were in the deluxe 70mm format. Additional 70mm engagements were added during the "expansion wave" releases throughout the summer of 1980.

from: http://www.in70mm.com/news/2003/empire/index.htm

Does that mean that a few 35mm prints were produced of the early cut, or was it perhaps 16mm prints on those drive-ins?

none said:

I'm working my way thru ESB at the moment, up to the Luke/Vader duel.  The first two shots look like 2004 changes to me, curious why none of the duel lightsabers are in the Comparison guide.  Was a conclusion drawn about them or no one's gotten to it yet? 

Just make sure to compare with other transfers than the GOUT, its heavy use of DVNR and clipped white level often makes the sabers look quite different.

This is an odd one, always thought the bright spot that is seen under one of the Star Destroyers in this shot for a couple of frames was dirt, but it is actually engine-glow for a Star Destroyer that made it into the composite for some reason.

It was still there in '97 but they cleaned it up for the DVD.

Cool, that is very nice! :)

This shot is still exactly the same original composite, nothing has been done, (if not on the blu-ray, haven't seen it) I suggest you remove it. The one doing the official list back in 2004 clearly didn't know what he was talking about... or maybe he did, it was a great opportunity to demonstrate how awful the old effects were. ;)

The same frame taken from the original film without DVNR applied:

Oh sorry, many of those I pointed out doesn't have any descriptions and I can't see any reason to delete/correct those that do have, other than the year of change, and as all are under the same category - digital re-compositing, I didn't think it was necessary.

Ok, that's great. :)

Just wanted to point it out as I noticed that some of these are still not labeled or incorrectly marked, these are all 2004 alterations:

And these are 1997 alterations:

Yeah, at one point we talked about maybe take use of the 16mm print to restore the opening titles but I don't think that will be needed, as degraded DVD footage will be a better alternative. By the way, how is the titles handled on the print, are they cropped or squeezed?

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

I finished scanning the print of thx.  So now the question is, what do I do with the scans?  Msycamore, which exact scenes do you need? 

Nice, that's great! I'll only need the complete scene involving the character SEN (Donald Pleasence) talking to a couple of kids. If you're not sure and familiar with the scene I'm talking about, it starts approximately around the 71 minute mark.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Audio is grabbed separately, so they will require careful sync. It will also require heavy red reduction. I'm assuming you'd prefer to do all of the above yourself.

I'm willing to give it a shot. :)

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

After that, I'll probably put together a dvd-5 of the whole film.  It won't be great, but I might as well.

Even if it's almost in unwatchable quality, I will be happy if you do. :)

I have to come back to you with an answer... but we're talking large files.

Well, it's not that weird you thought it was a composite, when the jitter is that bad, there is many places in the GOUT where elements in the frame shaking completely independent of each other, g-force superb stabilizing script couldn't fix those though, that transfer really is the source of all evil. ;)

Harmy said:

 

The temples were recomposited (they have separate gate weave visible even in the GOUT which is gone in the SE).

 

Those temples weren't a composite, they were filmed on location in Tikal, Guatemala:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikal

The GOUT transfer have that shaking going on even on elements in the frame that were not opticals.

thxita, I don't own a VCR myself anylonger, so I'll not find out what condition it is in until I am able to borrow one for the eventual capturing. But that is something I won't tackle until this current project is done.

Thanks, that's good to know, in worst case scenario I can of course send all the files for someone else to help finish it, but hopefully things will work out.