towne32

Density said:

Lolwat

Indeed.

To further expand on this, the reason the thread is confusing is that you’re describing the very goals of many people here. You will find that most people here are morally okay with digitally distributing old versions of Star Wars so long as they are no longer being sold in that format. Based on your other posts today, I think you might differ on that opinion. If it is only original official releases you want in hard format, you want the Memorabilia Discussion and Buying/Selling/Trading section of the forum.

Oh, you were serious. I think Jay’s two posts in this thread now summarize everything that is important. It’s not a legal issue, despite the fact that we all have legal concerns in this community.

FrankT said:

towne32 said:

FrankT said:

We shouldn’t have riffed on team accounts so much. It’s our fault.

Nothing to do with that.

Negative-1 said it was! Wait a minute… oh no, it’s something to do…

Oh, you’re joking. I think you should stop and edit your post.

FrankT said:

We shouldn’t have riffed on team accounts so much. It’s our fault.

Nothing to do with that.

crissrudd4554 said:

While agreed that this is sad news, part of me is not stunned. No matter how we view it, this is piracy and for the most part it’s illegal. I praise all the hardworking TN1 and Harmy have done with their respective reconstructions but they as well as everyone, including myself, having been walking a tight rope legal wise for a few years now, all for the purpose of preserving that which is no longer available. I in no way will call Harmy or TN1 or those who have followed their works ‘thieves’ per se as long as it was all done within context. Harmy stressed that those who view the DeSpecialed Editions should already own the official BDs and so is not trying to take ownership of someone else’s property. Sure it doesn’t make what he’s done all the less illegal but I won’t call him a theif for it. People trying to claim ownership over what doesn’t belong to them I will call thieves. IMO that is not the purpose of this site or what those involved have done. That being said its a shame about TN1 since 3 years of restoring something historical has been shut down but again they like everyone else who delve in piracy were in troubled waters.

This (a crackdown due to legal concerns) is not what’s happening and it is an internal issue in question among preservationists. Yes, we should always keep legal issues in mind. But the sky is not falling right now.

I guess this is what I’m doing this afternoon.

Jetrell Fo said:

Molly said:

Sure. I’d buy 'em if I could - even though I have no way to play them because to date I have refused to spend a penny on BluRay anything.

There is no “I can” with these three movies, because everyone involved has spent the last 20 years trying to bury them. That’s why piracy happens. But let’s not kid ourselves - “ethical” piracy, so much as one can define such a thing, is piracy. (I’m preaching to the choir, I know.)

I can only hope that what we (I’ve been involved in this kind of matter for over a decade now myself) have been doing will result in the RIGHT thing happening, which is something similar to what we’re aiming for being released, not by fans, but by Fox and/or the Rat.

I just read this and am still totally confused about the entire matter at hand. Molly’s post says what we all know to be true.

[snip}

None of this is what’s happening, though. This isn’t about re-thinking the morality of preservations. It’s about one specific thing that might have happened within the community.

That said, I agree with everything you’re saying and I see how the topic suggests this. I hope things are clarified in whatever delicate way they can be so that everyone doesn’t tear their hair out thinking this.

The other reason that I hope this is clarified is that, as we know, press publicity has been relatively high for us lately. I don’t think any of us want our members or the public thinking that the reason for the ban is some sort of oceans 11 film print heist rather than an internal issue between OT members.

TV’s Frink said:

towne32 said:

TV’s Frink said:

Shane Rollins said:

Harmy has had permission from the studios to do this since day one.

Show your proof or stop posting. I don’t recall a single instance where Harmy even hinted at this.

What a completely baffling brand new account. I think he severely misunderstands many things.

You got that right.

http://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/909776

It’s times like this that I need to remind myself of a modified Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to trolling that which can adequetly be explained by ignorance.

I think there is real merit in doing more reading than writing when first joining a community. The vast majority of people have so much that they can learn and relatively little that they can teach on day one.

TV’s Frink said:

Shane Rollins said:

Harmy has had permission from the studios to do this since day one.

Show your proof or stop posting. I don’t recall a single instance where Harmy even hinted at this.

What a completely baffling brand new account. I think he severely misunderstands many things.

As I suggested before, this was not about releasing 35mm preservations in general or Fox owning prints. That’s not speculation but it is not my place to go into detail. And indeed some people may not want to.

I think a lot of you guys are focusing on this being about 35mm prints in general, and their already released stuff, which is not a ban-able offense around here, rather than previews of something yet to come. There are ethics within the community that are in question here, rather than just the general ethics of fan preservations which, I believe, are something we know where we stand on.

Lasz said:

Density said:

Mukluk said:

Your best option is Usenet. The newsgroup is a.b.starwars and the password is negative1
Your download speed will be full strength unlike the slowness of a torrent. I had a solid 23mps and got it in a few hours. The restoration is remarkable and it was so hypnotic to watch something unaltered by Lucas’ psycho additions. This group is without a doubt, Extraordinary.

*was

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/02/19/Team-Negative1-has-disbanded

well, that escalated quickly…

sorry.

Quickly enough that their website is down. What did it say besides the headline?

moyermason92 said:

Like I said, I’m having a hard time. There are many bogus links on Google. Be useful, not sarcastic.

It is against the rules to share links here. There may be bad links around, I don’t know, but good ones are indeed found easily through Google as the files are on public torrent trackers.

Okay, I didn’t know the OT relevance, but even that was based on the ‘long cat is long’ et al. phrasing.

Williarob said:

Darth Lucas said:

I don’t see the publicity as a problem at all. Either lucasfilm continues not to care, they see it’s cutting into their profits and decide to do their own OOT release, or they C&D anyways and piss off the fans. Given that since the sale to Disney, they seem to be focusing the whole company around fan relations, I doubt they’d do something that so publicly foresakes them.

Now I’ve heard from what I consider to be a pretty reliable source from Disney (not lucasfilm so take it with a grain of salt but still) that an OOT release is part of the plan to be released within the next couple years, probably alongside another release. So my guess is that they’re going to turn a blind eye to this stuff in the meantime, especially since the publicity helps fuel demand for an official release, then when they release their oot, they’ll probably start cracking down on fan releases a bit more.

I agree. Star Wars hasn’t been this popular since 1977 and at this point keeping the fans happy keeps their cash cow profitable. What’s more, I don’t see this as bad publicity for them at all. It’s not Disney’s fault that we don’t have the original Star Wars on Blu-ray.

And Besides, if they do release Mike Verta’s Legacy Edition - or allow him to supervise an official restoration - we could all pack up and go home happy. (Not that I believe for one second that the Legacy Edition will please everybody here or even meet everyone’s expectations of what Star Wars should be, but it would make a fantastic resource for everyone to build on, to create their own “ideal version” of Star Wars. Within a year of its release, after everyone has made their little tweaks and shared them here, this site might be deserted… I doubt there would be any need at that point for them to start cracking down. I know I’d be done.)

You’re right that Mike’s version would probably not satisfy everyone. But if it came out, I would probably stop reading anything on this forum regarding it. It would just be too good to have an era again of watching Star Wars without the flaws of some sort or another popping out at you. It would be so close to perfection, I would take the ignorance is bliss route rather than become educated on its imperfections. 😃

Hell, I might do that for any Disney OOT release, if it’s ‘good enough’.

Darth Lucas said:

Now I’ve heard from what I consider to be a pretty reliable source from Disney (not lucasfilm so take it with a grain of salt but still) that an OOT release is part of the plan to be released within the next couple years, probably alongside another release. So my guess is that they’re going to turn a blind eye to this stuff in the meantime, especially since the publicity helps fuel demand for an official release, then when they release their oot, they’ll probably start cracking down on fan releases a bit more.

And at that point these sorts of releases (i.e., improvements on whatever OOT ends up coming out, or just GOUT syncing stuff etc) will then be just another of the minor projects here. Similar to the upscales and color corrections and transfers of non-SW work that is probably only of interest to a few dozen of us, and has literally zero impact on sales.

Everyone outside of this forum and myspleen will be 100% satisfied with a OOT BD unless they completely botch it. Harmy and TN1’s versions will become awesome historical media artifacts the way Doctor Who reconstructions are for previously missing episodes that were recently found in Africa. Labors of love but of no concern financially.

poita said:

I am going to be withdrawing from the forums here, the equipment destruction has given me reason to pause, and to be honest, the current media noise re Star Wars and fan restoration has me concerned as well.
My work has always been about preservation, both helping people with resources and technique to learn how to do it themselves, and to undertake my own preservation projects to help ensure the films I love are not lost forever. I have no interest in distributing restorations, my only goal is preservation of films that have not already been preserved.

I have thought a lot about my resources, and have decided not to make any scans I have done myself available to anyone that is not working directly in the preservation field, but feel free to contact me if you have an educational or study use, or anything else that would fall under fair usage laws. Harmy has access to the same resources that I do, and I am sure he will continue to do great work with them.

I will continue my own preservation work and rebuild my gear, and will probably setup a simple preservation website or join an existing one soon, so I am not becoming a hermit or anything, but won’t be spnding as much time online.

A big thanks to everyone on the OT forums, I have had a great time and learned so much from everyone here, and to everyone that helped me out with HDDs and resources, you will not be forgotten, I’ll keep you all in the loop as my work progresses.

This wasn’t an easy decision, I do spend an inordinate amount of time in these forums, but life has also been getting increasingly difficult, my main employer hit hard times and has let most staff go, including me, and as many of you know, one of my four daughters is physically and mentally disabled, and as she hits puberty, she has become far more difficult to look after, imagine someone who is mentally an 18 month old, that is 5 foot tall, and incredibly strong, that is simultaneously going through the both the tantrum phase of ‘the terrible twos’ and the throws of hormones and mood swings of a teenager, coupled with random violent outbursts, and you can see how it puts a lot of stress on the family, especially when you also have a three year old daughter, safety is also a real concern.

So I have decided that I probably should spend more time on family stuff, and less time online, so this seems as good a time as any to start doing exactly that.

Thanks again to everyone here that has enriched my knowledge and life in so many ways, it has been a joy and priveledge to call you my friends, even though I never met a single one of you in the real world 😃

Cheers, and goodbye

-Peter

Sorry to hear you’re leaving, Peter, but it sounds like a wise choice. I know you’ve had health, family, and now technical problems that are all quite big in their respective ways.

Also I think if I were any of the main players in the great restorations here, I would definitely be considering a period of semi-hibernation (it seems that most here are between major projects anyway). It simply isn’t worth the risk. TN1’s public website makes it much easier for the press, who are already probably primed to amplify this kind of thing due to TFA.

Best of luck Peter. See you around someday, hopefully.

I think the decision to make a TN1 website is really fueling the continued press for this. Having it centralized in that sense makes their jobs much easier. As do the videos. But honestly, the videos might be a good thing. No one who watches them will think it’s competing with official sales. And the many fans who don’t mind the SE will dismiss them instantaneously as inferior quality in their eyes.

I don’t normally worry about popular press articles about SW restorations. But this is getting to be a bit too much this time. Hope it cools down soon.

joefavs said:

I actually don’t hate the color in the official release of Empire. Sure, Harmy’s 2.0 blows it out of the water, but it doesn’t scream “THIS IS POORLY DONE” like Star Wars. There are a few places where it even creates an interesting look, albeit one that isn’t accurate to any sort of reference.

I agree. And RoTJ strayed blue a bit at times even in the 83 LPP and 97 SE. Some parts in the 04 master go too far for sure. Especially on Endor and for some reason the Death Star internals during the attack on the core. As you say with ESB, the 04 master isn’t true to anything, but it is not for the most part a completely unreasonable looking film. ANH on the other hand… I wonder if proper color correction was just so far out of reach in the limited time they had, that they cranked the settings up to 11 to try to mask all sorts of problems at once.

The comparison really highlights how absolutely absurd the BD grading is. There are plenty of films discussed around here where I think people are actually a bit sensitive about slightly incorrect color timing. But the blu-ray looks as if they were trying to make it look as wrong as possible short of actually inverting the image.

If my memory is correct, the color timing for V and VI, while still blue and dark, is no where near as bad.

rockps3avchd said:

Ok, then I will upload it to usenet and post the link in this thread.

You cannot do the latter. Just name it something obvious and people will be able to find it themselves.

You’ve redeemed yourself with “mysterious mysteries”.

Darth Mallwalker said:

Stinky-Dinkins said:

The -1 release is very much like watching an actual projected 35mm presentation (complete with the occasional pops, specks, flecks, and stuff you’d see inherent to older celluloid) but it is very much an absolutely “pure” presentation of the original film (and the aforementioned “flaws” add to authentic filmic feel of the presentation), complete with one original theatrical stereo English track.

It certainly looks authentic filmic; however, the sound is GOUT.
Lazy team, was lazy . . . or rushed, as the case may be.

Cue Towne to scold my bad attitude, but I couldn’t resist using that meme

I can’t decide whether to scold you for that or for using a circa 2008 internet speak. Or for calling it a meme.

It’s in the blu-ray set as well I believe.

Yeah, the skin tones in the IB Tech look amazing. If there’s a way (short of maybe Dre’s tool) to get any other available version looking like that, it’s well beyond my abilities.

Sorry, I haven’t actually had a chance to look at your upload, and was just commenting on the TN1 release itself. But yes, I am definitely familiar with the Technicolor sample. And it looks great, as do other good technicolor scans. The SSE LPP was a dupe print and the scanning (while very impressive for what it is) was done on homemade equipment, while the Technicolor is an original print scanned very professionally. Harmy was mimicking a set of technicolor scans. But they were raw scans and not yet corrected (a fact he was unaware of at the time).

You’ll probably learn a lot about the Tech prints from Mike’s thread. But you might want to skip the early years of the thread, since it’s mostly just forum members being a dick towards him. Work your way backwards instead. 😃

edit: yes, his vimeo channel is great.

And Harmy’s color was based on raw scans of the Tech from Mike. And IIRC, Mike speaks favorably of Harmy’s color scheme, overall. Even if it could use a few tweaks, he seems to like it better than the alternatives.