yotsuya

Ronster said:
Caliberate a monitor to somone elses monitor is nonsense. I even read a forum on why companies do not calibrate before sending out to customers and how depending on the light in the room all this bollocks. You also have specification to contend with now like HDR color depth resolution and so on.

So, you are calling the most professional people and their recommendation nonsense. Interesting. You are telling us that Lucasfilm and THX made this whole monitor calibration process that is nonsense. You are telling us that Microsoft built this feature into Windows because it is nonsense.

RUBBISH!!!

Your view is nonsense. Every monitor needs to be calibrated so that reds are true red and blues are true blue. They need to be calibrated out of the box to correct for any oddities in manufacturing. They need to be periodically recalibrated to account for flaws that develop with age.

You calibrate to match for a purpose but in an environment where everyone has a different make / model and specification or type OLEd / LED / LCD / Plasma / projector whatever utterly pointless it is the content that needs to be tailored.

No you calibrate monitors and projectors so that the image is consistent and everyone sees the same thing. Otherwise you will get complaints that it is too yellow, too washed out, too blue, or the blacks are too crushed. While it is true modern monitors come close to an ideal calibration, it is still close. Anyone who works with colors professionally will tell you that a monitor must be calibrated. Why? Video is not the only area. Print is another. If you have a properly calibrated monitor, you can be assured that the color you pick in your office with match (within the known margin of error when switching between computer RGB and Print inks) that billboard and add campaign you were paid a million to do.

The content is not ever tailored. The content is supposed to be consistent. The content is the color master and the display is the end product. You don’t change your color master for a particular venue. Technicolor made a business out of consistent and accurate color reproduction. If they were given a mis-colored master to work from, all the prints would be wrong. You have your process ass-backwards.

you try calibrating an anti aircraft gun to be more like a machine gun never ever through calibration will you get the 2 things to match.

Ah, guns. You calibrate the gun not the bullets. Just as you calibrate the Monitor not what it displays. All guns should fire to hit the target. It doesn’t matter if it is a pistol, a machine gun, a sniper rifle, and anti-aircraft gun, a tank, a canon, or a big battleship gun. They are all calibrated so that the shell put in hits the target you aim at. Just the same way all monitors should hit the color that the source material is aimed at. Film makers don’t make their film and guess how the people will see it. They make their film with the expectation that when their characters talk about red, gold, green, purple, etc, that that is the color that shows on the screen. Lucas setup THX with picture and sound in mind so that when you experience a THX showing that it will always be the right sounds and the right colors. That is why you calibrate your damned monitor and not the source material The monitor is just a tool to show you what the filmmaker intended. You never calbirate the source to the type of screen it is shown on. Home theaters have had CRT’s, RBB projection, LCD projection, Plasma, florescent backlit LCD, fluorescent backlit LED, and true LED and in each case the makers of the product are striving to calibrate to produce the most lifelike colors. Good ones get close, bad ones are really bad. We took back one TV because the reds were too red and we could not reduced the glaring colors. I currently have a Samsung that I did a lot of tweaking on and it is the first TV I’ve had where I didn’t have to tweak the colors a lot.

So if you have been using uncalibrated monitors, you have been doing it wrong for years. You need to change what you are doing and calibrate your monitor to be sure it is producing accurate colors. If you don’t, not one of your color correction attempts is going to come out right.

You need to be sure that when you see these colors, these are the colors you are getting:

If you aren’t calibrating your monitor, it won’t help. Out of curiosity, what brand, model, and resolution is your monitor?

If you think Star Wars/A New Hope looks different from the other films, even in the home video transfers, you might want to consider that it is SUPPOSED to look different because of how it was made. It might be deliberate. But the red you are seeing is not something that seems any different in the GOUT transfer or the prveious transfers, or even the SE transfer. I only noticed a big difference with the DVD/HD/BR transfer and what I did to fix it was to color balance the RGB channels by pushing the yellow/blue channel to the yellow and the cyan/red channel to the cyan, leaving the magenta/green channel alone. All of my previous attempts involved messing with the magenta/green channel and none of them worked. That channel is the one least impacted by fading on film stock and is the one to balance the others too.

If you lack any other tool, pick up the 2004/2006 Star Wars dvd and in the special features is a THX tool for color correcting your screen. Use it. Pick of Star Trek II on Blu-ray. Watch it. Pay attention to the skin tones. I find some to be a bit yellow, but most are a nicely balanced. It is also a good movie to check out how ILM special effects transfers over on a non Star Wars film. Also check out American Graffiti on Blu-ray. Also by Lucas but no special effects and the film is in better condition. Neither one needs any color correction and they will help you judge if your work on Star Wars is off or on target. But for goodness sake, stop saying you don’t need to calibrate your monitor. You do. That is color correction step 1. If your monitor isn’t calibrated none of your work will turn out right. It will all be crap.

So, how do you plan on playing back this finished color correction? Do you have a theater quality projector? If not, your aim is without merit. You will have to convert and then convert it back to RGB to do anything with it so what is the point in converting it in the first place? If you start with an RGB source (GOUT, DVD, and BR) and you are going to watch it on an RGB device (Any color television ever made) with an RGB file type (as DVD and BR require), I really don’t see the point of your exercise. You are trying to recreate the wheel and there is no reason to. Calibrate your monitor first. Then stick to RGB (what your source and end viewing will be in). That is the colors our eyes see after all. Unless you have calibrated professional equipment designed for theatrical projection, there is no reason to change the color space. If it starts out RGB and ends up RGB and gets to your eyes in RGB, then … it is an exercise in uselessness. Especially without a calibrated monitor. Yours is obviously way off.

I wonder if this has anything to do with certain movie plans in the works. CBS did the same thing right before Discovery.

I don’t for a moment think all the trolling, or even half, was Russians but I can see that in a political down time they might jump in and amplify the negative comments about the film. They might just be disgruntled Star Wars fans as well. I don’t really think it matters. You can tell from this thread that the negative opinions are very genuine. We could argue the percentage, but does that really matter. TLJ is devisive. I don’t think a Star Wars film has been this devisive since TESB. When it came out few found it as good as the original. Now we love it. Who knows what 10 years will do to everyone’s feelings about TLJ.

Ronster said:

DrDre said:

Ronster said:

basically Laserschwerts special edition trailer is the same color for special effects in 97 broadcast version although pan & scanned.

If the print special effects shots does not resemble exactly laserschwerts trailer then we have something unique.

Does the special edition Laserdisc resemble 97 broadcast version?

Look in the Archive…

Yes, they are from the same source.

Ok So basically I want to re-create 97 (broadcast?) version without crap horrible stuff at mos eisley but in yprbr colorspace.

Did anyone ever capture 97 pal laserdisc?

Yes. That is available.

So, one issue I have with what you are saying, Ronster, is that you really haven’t researched between the generation of the new interpositive the DE/Faces/Gout transfer was made from and how it ended up on the DVD/HD/Blu-ray digital print.

Here is what happened. Between when that interpostive was struck and 1993, the original negative of Star Wars faded terribly. Now, if you watch all the OOT home video widescreen versions, you will see some interesting differences in the color that could be the result of early fading, but overall they are very similar. For the Special Edition in 1997, they were working with a negative that had to be retimed. IN addition, they replaced a number of effects shots, added some effects, added some new shots. When you look at color timing, it is the process where each shot is timed when generating the interpositive. From there the prints are struck. So what you are seeing in both the GOUT and SE home video and broadcast is the telecine of a correctly colortimed interpositive. When it was scanned in 2003, it was not color timed during the scan, but was digitally color timed post scan. This resulted in all the original color timing to be lost. Not only that, but different batches of film faded at different rates so some shots are really badly faded while others aren’t. Some of the film had gone to Tunesia and back. Some to London and back, and some had never left California. This was taken into account in the color timing for the SE, but it seems not for the 2003 scan (which was done at Lucasfilm). Reportedly both the SE and the 2003 scan were timed to the Technicolor print Lucas has, but the results of both are questionable. It doesn’t appear that TESB or ROTJ suffered from the same fading as Star Wars.

To find what the colors should be we do have the telecines of the pre SE version of the film. But we are not just reliant on those telecines to find the original colors. Star Wars was one of the last films to have Technicolor prints struck. We not only have scans of Technicolor prints, but of other prints. When you put the Japanese Special Collection, Special Widescreen Edition, Definitive Edition/Faces/GOUT, foreign widescreen editions, the 16 mm prints, the 35 mm prints, and compare them to reference photos, photos of props, models, costumes, sets (or the occasions when people have been able to actually see some of those such as the costume exhibit that has been going around the country), we can arrive at a very good estimation of what the original colors were. We can see how well or bad the 2003 scan/color correction/cleanup was done on a shot by shot basis. Some are easy to recover. Some are not. Some are the result of the digital noise reduction, which removed not only actual dirt, but smoke as well.

So constantly saying the effects shots are the problem is not accurate. A lot of the effects shots have more accurate color than the no effects shots. A big reason was that the original negative of the elements were not as overused as the fully edited original negative. Some effects shots were never touched and are the same now as in 1977. Some were replaced in 1996 and some in 2003. I’ve noticed a mixed bag as to the quality of the special effects. For instance you have all these shots of Vader or an imperial pilot in the Tie fighter cockpit set that were filmed under similar circumstances and yet the red lights surrounding them come out different. A lot of those are original and not SE.

Now the inserted SE footage has been noted, even in the 1997 telecines, to be off. A bit too red and not quite matching the surrounding footage. I never noticed how bad the 1997 version was in the theater, but I think it is fair to say that the telecine is pretty accurate. We should soon have a good scan of a 35 mm print of the 97 SE to really see how it was in theaters.

So it isn’t the effects not fitting or the new footage not fitting, it is that there are so many sources and the SE just added to the number. The blu-ray really has to be cleaned up one shot at a time. It is a lot of work. The only reason I tried to do a global correction was to find the best way to fix the major issues and have a basis to take those fixes further in the necessary scenes. Some need more contrast, some less, some more color, some less, some need to be brighter and some darker. About the only thing I haven’t needed to mess with is the darks. When I compare it to the film scans, it is comparable. But the hue is not something that needs to be changed. I tried that and the results were not good enough. I wasn’t happy until I scrapped that and focused on balancing the colors. What you are seeing is that the yellows are not well represented in the blu-ray and pushing the hue one direction changes the reds to yellows and looks like it fixes the problem, but it doesn’t. It just creates other problems. You have not found the magic fix. There is no magic fix. You have to fix nearly everything. Especially in reels 1, 2, 3 and 6.

fmalover said:

yotsuya said:

Going back to Jakku would let them explore who Rey’s parents were. Are they really dead? Really nobodies? But I think Jedha would make more sense in terms of the saga. If Rey isn’t a Skywalker, her parentage is of no importance.

I was perfectly happy with the reveal of Rey’s parents being nobody case closed, move along. If they keep insisting with this nonsense then fuck this movie.

Kylo could be lying. But my guess is if they do anything, they will be revealed to be no-one connected to any family previously in the saga (aka nobodies) but they might be significant in other ways and in any case, they were significant to Rey as they were her parents. But to assume Kylo was not lying in some way (the best Sith lies have been shrouded in truth but used to forward their own agenda) is a mistake.

So… the correct color space is not RGB? Why? Do you know how colors are recorded on film? Are you aware that both color film and the old 3 strip technicolor process filter by Red, Green, and Blue light. Technicolor used actual filters, but color film uses chemicals sensitive to red, green, and blue light. So why wouldn’t RBG work when that is what is on the film? CYM is just the mirror image of RBG. The technicolor process filtered by RBG and then printed in CYM. It’s not like this is a new process.

And its not like what you are doing is actually fixing it. It is making it worse, just in a different way.

Going back to Jakku would let them explore who Rey’s parents were. Are they really dead? Really nobodies? But I think Jedha would make more sense in terms of the saga. If Rey isn’t a Skywalker, her parentage is of no importance.

Possessed said:

Okay you win we lose.

/thread

That’s too bad, I rather like the discussion. I really don’t consider this something to win.

And as I’ve thought about what the best classification for Star Wars as a film should be, I don’t think it is science fiction. I think Star Wars is an epic. It has more in common with all the great epic films - Gone With the Wind, Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Spartacus, Cleopatra, and that type of film than it does with anything else. It should be a space epic. I realize that is making up a new sub-genre, but it fits in the overall genre. And I think that is where the similarity to LOTR comes in as well. It also is an epic type story. The historical epic was big in the 50’s and Star Wars has that same feel, but set in space. It even has its own chariot race. This is a uniquely movie genre. It isn’t in print. In print they are just historical fiction, epic fantasy, or space opera, but in movies, it fits better calling them all epics. Historical epics, space epics, and fantasy epics. Long movies with huge casts (modern ones use a lot of CG rather than extras) and grand stories of pivotal times.

I still maintain that Star Wars is science fiction, especially in book form. The novelizations read like science fiction and the old and new EU books have been written mostly by science fiction authors. But if the purpose of genres is to group films with like films, it fits better with the other epics. From wikipedia: Epic films are a style of filmmaking with large scale, sweeping scope, and spectacle. The usage of the term has shifted over time, sometimes designating a film genre and at other times simply synonymous with big budget filmmaking. Like epics in the classical literary sense it is often focused on a heroic character. An epic’s ambitious nature helps to set it apart from other types of film such as the period piece or adventure film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_film

snooker said:

All genres are made up.

They exist for marketing so they kind of are, but they also tend to be well defined, except on the edges.

I am baffled why you think changing the hue is a good idea. Especially by how much you are doing it. By doing that you aren’t just removing red and moving it to yellow. You are rotating all the colors. You make the blues more purple, the greens more blue, and the yellows more green, etc. The results you are getting prove you don’t really understand all of what it is doing. The results are not pleasing but disturbing.

No, I’m trying to figure out why people put George’s made up genre higher than established genres. Why people are stuck on a definition for all SF that only applies to hard SF. For me to ever apply the word fantasy to it, someone is going to have to find something about it that is uniquely fantasy and not found in SF. So far no one has managed to point out a single thing that is not commonly found in science fiction.

The proper term for what Jedi do is psychokinesis. It is labeled psudoscience, not magic and is common to SF. It is not really something found in fantasy without referencing spells, wands, or a talisman. Lucas based Star Wars on Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, both science fiction. You don’t have to go very far in science fiction before you encounter force-like powers (I have given many many examples).

Star Wars specifically belongs to the Space Opera subgenre and here is what Wikipedia has to say about it:
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes space warfare, melodramatic adventure, interplanetary battles, chivalric romance, and risk-taking. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, it usually involves conflict between opponents possessing advanced abilities, futuristic weapons, and other sophisticated technology. The term has no relation to music, but is instead a play on the terms “soap opera” and “horse opera”, the latter of which was coined during the 1930s to indicate clichéd and formulaic Western movies. Space operas emerged in the 1930s and continue to be produced in literature, film, comics, television and video games.

An early film which was based on space opera comic strips was Flash Gordon (1936) created by Alex Raymond. In the late 1970s, the Star Wars franchise (1977–present) created by George Lucas brought a great deal of attention to the subgenre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera

There was a leaked copy that came out just before the film hit theaters. It lacks end credits, but is otherwise a good representation of the film in its original release. It is the same as the DVD/HD version except that one wipe (Which we have in the Blu-ray. So the only value in ROTS on 35 mm would be to see the colors and and have the grain.

First you say it is lovely, then you say there is a problem. Make up your mind. You could be doing some fun things, but you do need to take advice. That is what this site is for. Handle it right and the people around here will listen to you. Keep up the way you are an no one will.

I have no idea what tools you are using or what color shift you keep talking about. And it isn’t shift so much as balance. The GOUT, and I think all the other pre-dvd editions, were done from interpositives. If you aren’t familiar with them, that is an orange tinted positive print from which an internegative (an orange tinted negative print) is made which is used to make the distribution prints. How well a telecine removed that orange tint varies a lot. We were used to those methods as most movies on TV and home video were that. But to find the true colors, you have to take it a step further than the GOUT or JSC. They are nearly as bad as the DVD/BR, but in a different way. All those garbage mattes and other flaws that you don’t see in the DVD/BR or the film scans (and we have three of those - old and faded, Technicolor, and a low fade print). So I would say we have a pretty good idea what the original colors were (on the prints seen in most theaters there would be some variation depending on the quality of the duplication). When Pleasantville came out with all its B&W sections, they went to a lot of effort to make sure that each copy of the film that went out had a similar bias in the colors on each reel. So even if what you remember was more yellow and if your memory is accurate, it may not be the correct colors coming off the negative. We have a lot of copies of the film that we can back track how they were done and come up with a very good guess of the colors. What you are coming up with does not look even remotely accurate and looks as bad in a different way from the blu-ray. You are shifting the colors too much when 90% of what you need it to fix the blanance. Turn the yellow/blue channel more to the yellow and the cyan/red channel more to the cyan. Stop messing with the tint. The most you should have to nudge that setting is 1-2%. And for select scenes only. The setting you are calling color shift is one that you have to be very careful with because the moment you go too far, the results look horrible. Other settings can be done with a heavier hand, but that one you must be light with or the results look terrible.

pleasehello said:

Kersh sets the record straight. All the proof I need 😉

https://youtu.be/YeB-uXGGaEU?t=1142

While some science fiction (like a lot of Star Trek episodes) does have technobabble, a lot doesn’t. A lot of books leave the technobabble to the descriptions and out of the character’s dialog. That is what Star Wars does. And it isn’t like Lucas got one of the new stars in science fiction to ghost write the novelization and it isn’t like he got the biggest science fiction imprint to publish it. The story in written format, which doesn’t really vary from the script, reads like science fiction.

The special effects shots will look different because they are composited. The goal of most of us is to get the entire film to look as good as it can while staying true to the original look. That includes the flaws in the special effects shots. Unless the shots have been recomposited to a better standard, we are stuck with the original and SE composites. The shot in question of Luke does not appear to have been touched since the May 1977 release so we are dealing with 1977 compositing done on Vistavision film (60 mm on its side) and then transferred to 35 mm negative to splice into the O-neg. This clip appears to be in much better shape and the colors on the blu-ray are very close to what all the other sources have so it really isn’t in that bad a shape, but it does suffer from reduced yellow like most of ANH on blu-ray does. But the clip as it appears in the Technicolor print scan shows higher contrast than most of the other sources. Between the sources, there is no evidence for a color shift.

Windows and Mac computers have calibration tools built in. https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-calibrate-your-monitor/

Ronster said:

I have used those calibration sensors before, but only when I have had to put up a video walls to make all the screen match up as say 9 screens (3x3) make a whole image and it is important that every screen match. If you say have dual projection it is again important you have matching images (especially if you are blending which I don’t really get involved in but I might put the projectors in) I understand you are trying to tell me that calibrating my monitor may change things slightly about my screen but that it is not that important unless you have the same screen as me as different screens will display an image differently. Even if I Calibrate my display it will still look different on yours to mine unless you have a very similar panel.

There is a bit of a futility to such things as my monitor is not part of your image nor is your monitor part of my image.

Seriously? If you don’t make sure the rbg balance on your monitor is accurate, how do you know your monitor isn’t lying to you? Calibration is important. No, it might not get us 100% in agreement, but it gets us 98%. And you shouldn’t just be using one monitor or screen. I use 6; 2 computer monitors (both ACER), 2 TV’s (1 Samsung and 1 Sony), 1 tablet (a Kindle Fire), and my HTC Phone (which has a known red slant). I know the Samsung is a bit dark, the Sony a tiny bit yellow, the tablet too bright, etc. You have to know these things and check the color on multiple sources so you know how it is coming out. What we are telling you is that on our monitors your work isn’t looking too good. It is far too yellow and dark, likely meaning your monitor is too red and bright. This will skew what you think looks right. So that is why you calibrate your monitor. Even if you can’t fix it perfectly, if you know what sort of bias your monitor has, you can correct for it. If you don’t calibrate your monitor you can’t correct for it and your results will be … less that perfect.

But don’t stop there. Play other movies on your computer. Check out what professionally graded movies look like. Particularly some of the well done classics. I can vouch for Blade Runner and American Graffiti. Because if you are slanting your corrections a given way, you will notice that they don’t match well done home videos. If you find that everything is too red on your monitor, it is probably your monitor, not the material you are watching.

OutboundFlight said:

yotsuya said:

Creox said:

yotsuya said:

It is interesting how I answer your point and yet you quote something else. I specifically mentioned Plato’s Stepchildren which has no more explanation of the mysterious powers within the episode than Star Wars has. The episode mentioned the mysterious and undefined chemical compound kironide. It never explains how that chemical results in the psychokinetic powers the Platonians exhibit. Ben’s description of the Force as an energy filed created by all living things that surrounds and binds is a more detailed description than Plato’s Stepchildren ever gives. Such psychokinentic powers can not be proven to exist in our world, yet the Platonians have them and the Q have them to an even greater extent. Gary Mitchell was developing them, as was Dr. Dehner. None of these are ever given any detailed description. Isaac Asimov had his character of The Mule who could reprogram people’s minds. He didn’t have to touch them and could do a whole room full of people at once with the aid of a special musical instrument. He could even kill with his mind. He later (post ROTJ) expanded that to an entire planet with The Mule being an escapee. He had a robot initially learn the skill and teach another robot who in turn established the planet. Asimov is one of the three greats of science fiction and he didn’t hesitate to have characters with mental powers that defy science and logic.

So the argument that the Force makes Star Wars a fantasy does not hold up to comparison to established science fiction content.

I see SW as having fantasy elements due to several things. The force being just one of them. The robes, the mystical elements that give nods to supernatural reasoning for things happening the way they do. The classic knight in shining armour trope with the (not so) damsel in distress etc.

The old wise man who is obviously a nod to the wizard type of character you would see in a typical Tolkienesque fantasy. The swords being used as a “elegant weapon of a more civilized age” definitely suggests a King Arthur and knights of the round table. The classic good and evil sides doing battle…that they take place in space is incidental in a lot of cases.

But those things don’t qualify for distinguishing genre. The robes came from Samurai films. So did the swords. Old wise men are found in all genres. What distinguishes Science Fiction from Fantasy is the nature of the story, not the characters. Star Wars, for all its use of the Force and Space Opera tropes, is a very grounded story about good and evil and rebellion against oppression. And it is the sort of good and evil we find in every day lives. Anger, fear, lust, passion, vs. calm, instincts, thoughtfulness, wisdom. The force is more about morality than it is about magic.

I think a “grounded story about good and evil and rebellion against oppression” fits the war genre more than science fiction, which is usually a warning about the dangers of technology.

By your logic, one could also argue the Lord of the Rings is science fiction. It’s quite grounded (there are good people who make poor decisions when under pressure, and bad people who have been tormented by a specific thing) and concern a rebellion (last alliance) against oppression (Sauron’s empire). And I haven’t seen GROND anywhere, so it could take place in the future for all we know.

LOTR lacks any science or technology in its world so it could not be science fiction. Besides, the entire story hinges on the ring - a magical device that gives Sauron life. Tolkien filled his world with magic and magical beings. Lucas filled his with science and technology with just a tiny hint of mysticism (what is considered reasonable for science fiction).

I think what Star Wars is even more than a space opera, is a space epic. It has more of Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments about it than it does The Lord of the Rings.

Creox said:

yotsuya said:

It is interesting how I answer your point and yet you quote something else. I specifically mentioned Plato’s Stepchildren which has no more explanation of the mysterious powers within the episode than Star Wars has. The episode mentioned the mysterious and undefined chemical compound kironide. It never explains how that chemical results in the psychokinetic powers the Platonians exhibit. Ben’s description of the Force as an energy filed created by all living things that surrounds and binds is a more detailed description than Plato’s Stepchildren ever gives. Such psychokinentic powers can not be proven to exist in our world, yet the Platonians have them and the Q have them to an even greater extent. Gary Mitchell was developing them, as was Dr. Dehner. None of these are ever given any detailed description. Isaac Asimov had his character of The Mule who could reprogram people’s minds. He didn’t have to touch them and could do a whole room full of people at once with the aid of a special musical instrument. He could even kill with his mind. He later (post ROTJ) expanded that to an entire planet with The Mule being an escapee. He had a robot initially learn the skill and teach another robot who in turn established the planet. Asimov is one of the three greats of science fiction and he didn’t hesitate to have characters with mental powers that defy science and logic.

So the argument that the Force makes Star Wars a fantasy does not hold up to comparison to established science fiction content.

I see SW as having fantasy elements due to several things. The force being just one of them. The robes, the mystical elements that give nods to supernatural reasoning for things happening the way they do. The classic knight in shining armour trope with the (not so) damsel in distress etc.

The old wise man who is obviously a nod to the wizard type of character you would see in a typical Tolkienesque fantasy. The swords being used as a “elegant weapon of a more civilized age” definitely suggests a King Arthur and knights of the round table. The classic good and evil sides doing battle…that they take place in space is incidental in a lot of cases.

But those things don’t qualify for distinguishing genre. The robes came from Samurai films. So did the swords. Old wise men are found in all genres. What distinguishes Science Fiction from Fantasy is the nature of the story, not the characters. Star Wars, for all its use of the Force and Space Opera tropes, is a very grounded story about good and evil and rebellion against oppression. And it is the sort of good and evil we find in every day lives. Anger, fear, lust, passion, vs. calm, instincts, thoughtfulness, wisdom. The force is more about morality than it is about magic.

Creox said:

yotsuya said:

Yeah, a creative person can call their creation whatever they like, that does not mean it does not fit nicely in an existing genre.

He can and he did…That being said I would add a little more emphasis to his decision to call his creation that then some anonymous guy on the internet defines it. He wasn’t a rookie when he made SW and had been immersed in movie making and its history for some time. IOW he certainly knew what he wanted to call it.

Not some guy on the internet. We are talking an entire slice of the publishing industry (publishers, writers, reviewers, etc.). People can makeup whatever name they like for something they create and then it gets pigeonholed into whatever genre it fits in. Star Wars gets filed under Science Fiction/Space Opera.