poita

Oh gawd, I feel old. I was a young lad when I saw SW at the theatre in 1977!

adywan said:

The "Lost Cut" still exists in its complete form in the Lucasfilm archives. It was documented in one issue of Star Wars insider a number of years back. It's only in black and white and silent (although the audio track is also probably buried in the vaults somewhere because we see a section of the lost cut in the deleted cantina scene). Containing 30-40% different footage and David West Reynolds was lucky enough to view it in its entirety. If the missing grappling hook scene ever existed then it would have been in the Lost Cut and he would be the person who could once and for all clear this myth up

I've sent him a letter to ask, it can't hurt.

darth_ender said:

I don't mind whatever quirks it has to it.  I'm interested in seeing a rough cut.  I love every second of additional footage, alternate takes, and all that stuff.  I'm not looking to justify fictional memories; I just want to see something new.

Oh I agree, I'd love to see it for interest's sake, but I was just pointing out that it is highly unlikely that it still existed even back in 1978 let alone later.

It would have been cut up for subsequent edits and lots of it thrown away.

I had a memory of Luke saying to Han, "She's Beautiful" and Han replying "So's life kid", before Luke tries "She's Rich..."

but I reckon it has to be my memory playing tricks, the line would be in one of the bootlegs if it existed.

'The Lost Cut' is nothing more than the initial rough cut screened in the dailies room to see how the film is hanging together. It will typically be a mix of completed scenes, B&W dailies with just on-set audio, frames with 'insert shot XX here' and so on. These are never really kept or shown to anyone, they are just part of the standard production process. You will never see anything like this anywhere as it would have only existed briefly as a spliced together mess of a thing on 35mm, and then would have been cut back up for the next run-through etc.

The only way this would exist would be if someone stole it on the day.

On people's memories of seeing the biggs scene, seeing Luke throw twice etc. I think with all the bootleg tapes surfacing, we can write those off as memory playing tricks after all these years.

I find it hard to believe (even though I have my own memories of the "She's Beautiful" line being in there, I have to concede that it most likely a manufactured memory) if for no other reason than it would be on one of the bootleg audio recordings or video tapes, and that some of those scenes would require a different score to be cut.

Blurays are extremely robust, more so than CED or VHD, even though they are caddied.

The coating on Blurays I have owned so far is phenomenal, my HD-DVDs are mostly unplayable now, but my blurays all clean up to be completely pristine, even the ones the kids have strewn all over the floor.

Baby teeth and slobber have so far proved no problem for the BDs. I do remember my youngest sticking cake in the VHS slot of the player though. It didn't handle that very well...

yoda-sama said:

Quick response to your topic derail:  With my old 720p projector I expected to see pixels fairly easily at the size I was throwing, so I overlooked them easily enough, but when I got my 1080p projector I'd really hoped at my usual distance that it would be comparatively smooth as silk, but as improved as things are on this projector, pixels are still pretty obvious (though smaller) yet in some ways worse since I both expect not to see them (so they stick out when I do) and they're inherently sharper.  I'm taking the bad with the good on it, but do think that, for projectors at least, higher resolution [hardware] would be very beneficial regardless of content (meaning 720p, 1080p, etc. will look however they'll look, just not hindered further by visible pixels, but badly compressed 4K video is certainly not something that'd be welcome).  Displays should improve (even HDTV's, since if they're used as large monitors, 1920x1080 isn't all that great to be stuck at), but content standards should be more carefully thought out than this gimmick-driving hamfisted approach of late.

On topic, I may need to double check this when I next get a chance, but in the opening battle when the Star Destroyer is approaching the camera (chasing and firing on the Tantive IV), I believe I saw a slightly darker circular patch in it as it moved, possibly a compositing anomaly, maybe a color issue...  If that isn't enough to go on, I can watch it again when I get home and be more specific.

I'd say it is an issue with your projector. Pixels are not visible at 1080P at recommended seating distances unless the projector in question has screen-door issues. We use a 3metre wide screen and pixel structure is not discernible at THX seating distance even with my 20/12 vision. with a 7ft (2m) wide screen the pixels would be around 7/160th of an inch (1.1mm square) Some projectors have larger black borders around pixels that make things worse though.

However the compression macro-blocking and 4:2:0 colour compression can make things much worse. Uncompressed 1080P looks much much better than BD25 movies.

Avatar is the movie with the least compression problems I have ever seen, but then they did dedicate the entire disc to just the movie, no extras or fancy menus, and it looks great (2D version)

Just agreeing with you from the other thread Harmy. I would much rather see 1080P in 10bit per channel @ 4:4:4 with lossless compression rather than 4K screens.

I do wish the brightside technology had taken off. THe huge dynamic range allowed by that tech was way, way, way more impressive than the 4K screens.

This is something I have actually been planning for years, I thought of doing it as an alernate video track for a release.

I have been collecting as many storyboard and art images as I can over the last 8 years, if anyone knows of any, please let me know. It takes a ridiculous amount to make something like this work.

I wish Lucasfilm would release a storyboard book with all the storyboards for each film, I would pay almost anything for something like that!

I think the ESB art is the best of all of them as well, thanks for putting this together an re-motivating me!

Excellent, I'm keen to see how this looks.

I saw HoD not that long ago at a charity screening. The colour was actually closer to the Bluray than to the DVD version. The DVD is artificially warm, and very red, even in those comparison shots the whites are all pinky.

It did look less subdued at the screening though. I think part of the problem is the colour temp of carbon-arc light vs scanner light sources.

Films used to be timed for Carbon Arc projection, and will look much bluer if projected with modern Xenon or similar equipment. This could lead to colorists believing the print when viewed using the incorrect light source is the way the print was intended to be. I'm guessing but I reckon this is why so many BDs are coming out leaning towards Blue/Green, they are viewing the old master prints with the wrong colour temp light source and matching to that.

I found a MUSE test disc in Japan going for about $150, which is actually fairly cheap. Such a shame there was never a Star Wars release on MUSE.

You could use a signal generator and record the colour bars to the VHS deck you will be using for captures.

I had a look at a 35mm print of ESB last year that had only been screened 3 times and had been kept in climate controlled storage. It had very little fade, you can tell from the opening logos in most cases.

We watched it on a steenbeck in a light controlled room, I only wish the owner would consent to having it scanned. What I can say is that Hoth is indeed somewhat blue, it looks very much like they colour timed the release prints to be blue to emphasize the cold, a pretty standard technique. It is considerably more blue than the on-set photographs etc. but nowhere near as blue as the SE.

I will download PSB if I can find it and take a look at it, I can probably organise another viewing of the print, so can compare and let you know how close it is.

yoda-sama said:

ilovewaterslides said:

Teeceezy said:

All jokes aside, I do have a VCR and it would be fun to transfer to VHS and see what it looks like on the old format. Although I'm not sure whether letterbox or fullscan would be better.

Believe it or not, i am actually making this right now!

I converted the movie to PAL 25fps with a 4% speed up. French audio/French crawl. But it's still quite interesting. I've created a DVD and i'm capturing it on a VHS. I will upload a sample here as soon as possible ;)

Edit: I'm using the V2.0 and i'm doing it in letterbox.

It would be funny if you could convince someone that your tape was dubbed straight from a pre-SE official widescreen VHS release.  (And to further the joke, starting at the beginning of the credits see if you can explain and get them to believe the true source of the video before the custom credits at the very end come up.)

And be kind, rewind.

That is just too awesome. And makes me want to do a Sweded version of Star Wars now...

I'm amazed at the balance that has been achieved by using an all-for-one script. I wouldn't have thought it possible.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Empire looks.

You_Too said:

@poita: Actually that's pretty much how the scene should look. Like I said before I've been through these settings about 30 times or maybe even more, back when I did the color correction and in the end I've gotten very sure I got the best result I possibly could.

Even though it looks green at first glance, it's actually how it should look when all colors are brought back the way we did. Considering the downsides of the GOUT of course.

Just check the scan of that scene on jedi1: http://www.jedi1.net/images/1600/ANH-Galactic_Empire-02144-1600.jpg

Even Vader has a green tone there.

I appreciate that everybody is trying to help but it's way too late for that, and I'm very confident that the color correction got the best possible result so I'm not even considering going back to that point again. I hope everybody understands this.

I didn't realise it wasn't a scene by scene process, and I fully understand you not wanting to revisit the colour any more after putting so much work in and getting a far better result than the original GOUT. I think it looks fantastic in comparison.

I have no doubt that the scans are a bit green tinged either, it is a common problem with scanners and with aging film and film duplication.

I just wanted to share that I have looked at that actual scene from a variety of original film sources, rather than scans, and it shouldn't be quite as green as it is in the scans. I am only talking a few per cent and it would only be achieved by doing a full primary and secondary colour correction, which isn't the goal of this project anyway. I have also seen the original costumes quite a few times, and spent an awful, awful amount of my life colour correcting, so I know your pain!

I'm looking forward to this release more than any other, so I hope you don't mind us all nitpicking and over-analysing, or misinterpret it as disappointment in any way.I enjoy the discussion and the feedback for my own projects as well.

The bottom of those two images is big improvement, but is has too much green to my eye. It is immediately evident in the skin-tones and in the hair, but most tellingly in Vader.

Taking a look at the values in the image, Vader's grey/black areas sample as green shifted (e.g. 22:34:24). It also shows in their red-badges/medals, these should be pretty close to red, but they are also green tinted (eg. 76:27:12) and in the blacks of the orb in the middle of the table (6:9:3)

The 'grey' walls are correctly trending towards green as has been mentioned before, but Vader should be fairly colour neutral, this image has an overall colour-cast that is shifted a little too far towards green.

Be careful using scans as colour references, where possible, stick the film or cel on a calibrated light box and view it by eye. Different scanners introduce colour shifts, many towards green.

animemaakuo said:

What's the best way for me to calibrate my TV for movies, anime, and what not? I want to be able to put a disc in and watch it the way it was intended.

Get a reliable colorimeter and a test disc set like AVIA.

The colormunki is cheap and works great, for something more then the i1 Display Pro is a good choice.

I just reversed them in Photoshop now to take a look.

The last shot is pretty good, there is a subtle depth change in the back wall and inhis hand at the front, it looks fairly natural.

The first shot is wonky, the laser bolts in the middle foreground are off, the red and the white one are only in one eye each, so the image doesn't work.

The depth seems off all over the place in that shot actually.

The middle shot works fairly well, but the framing of his shoulder cutting into the frame makes it difficult.

I'd love to see some moving footage to get a better idea. If you just do a side by side render anyone can see it in 3D by just going a little crosseyed.

Can you post those same images left/right swapped? I spent years viewing 3D that way in production and my eyeballs nearly fall out viewing it the opposite way.

I'm keen to see them in 3D.

The video is very dark on my system, I'm going to burn a disc and pop it in the PS3 to see if it still looks dark there.

Nearly everything looks pretty seamless so far, I haven't been popped out of the viewing experience by anything jarring due to SD sources or anything. It's all very well done.

As a total nit-pick, the comped in Dewback outside the cantina looks a little video-green in tone, it is the only thing that jumped out at me as an obvious comp. I had a play with it and pulled the green secondaries down a bit and it seemed to blend into the plate a little better.

This is the shot I mean

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37624864@N08/8562447974/in/photostream/lightbox/

SilverWook said:

I don't suppose someone on here won the 35mm print?

In the past when someone has won something I had an interest in I have contacted the seller and asked if they will pass my email address onto the buyer.

About 50% of the time, I hear from the buyer, it might be worth a shot.

I don't think there is a commentary.

I really enjoyed watching this on the big screen again!

Harmy do you want feedback in this forum, or do you have another feedback/suggestions-only thread that isn't as busy?