yotsuya

Nandi said:

I am possibly the only person on planet that loves 1997 version of Jabba more then bluray version. I am aware that it lacks details, and has a more crude shape, but to me it lightning and its shape felt more realistic, blu ray version seams more cartoony. I have to defend myself by saying I am artist, aka not visually illiterate: http://i.imgur.com/KFCkWxq.jpg and 3d artist http://i.imgur.com/vorw9DN.jpg

Well… I was there, but the more I look at it the worse the 97 version looks. It has better colors, better alignment to the scene, but it is an inferior CG model. The replacement is closer to the original puppet… except in color. My ultimate solution is to rotoscope Jabba and color correct him separately.

ZodaEX said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Released on laser and VHS only. Harmy has a 720p recreation, I think.

That is not true because they were also released on VCD.

VCD’s are SD only. As far as I know, G’kar and TB (and Revivax for ANH) are only in widescreen SD… 480p, and even then not full DVD quality. Upscaling them doesn’t do much. I’ve tried. You can coax a little more out of them, but not 720p (though presenting in at that resolution does produce the best results, it still isn’t DVD quality).

TV’s Frink said:

You can only make one change to each and those are the ones you pick?

Yes. As much as I hate Greedo shotting and Hayden as Anakin’s ghost, I hate the rock and the door more. So needless… so pointless. But on the BR, the Greedo scene is at least closer to the original and far less offensive than the 97 version. And over time the changes to ROTJ have become less offensive to me. And unlike many, I like the ANH Jabba scene (I’d been waiting for it since I read the comic and the script back in the 70’s). Same with the lone Biggs scene added. And for TESB, I think the changes only made it better, except for that one stupid line. GL likes comic relief so much and yet he pulled a very funny line that had charm. Even the change to Boba Fett’s voice is less annoying now that it was at first. If I can only change one, I’ll make it the one that annoys me the most.

But given the chance to make my own edit… a lot of the SE changes will go away. The extended troopers in the desert, only Han shoots, A lot of the SE shots in the Yavin battle, back to the original Wampa, apply continuity rules to the Bespin windows (some need to go away) and other SE shots, back to Lapti Nek… but maybe keep Oola’s new scene, back to Sebastian (though now that I think about it, maybe a morph so that he looks younger… Shaw was too old for the role - he was supposed to be younger than Kenobi). A lot of the SE changes I haven’t thought much about yet. I need a copy of the Original cut and the SE that match in quality and color.

My understanding is that they used GL’s copy of the Tech IB to match to when they were working with the faded negative for the 97 SE. So it is not surprising that the 97 SE has some color similarities to the Tech IB. If only they had used it again when they scanned the negative for the DVD…

My ideal always seems to lie halfway between.

To fix or not to fix? I figured out how to patch some of the worst DNR issues of the GOUT, but do I fix them or not? I think yes. The ones I identified that really stick out to me are the starfiled in the port of the Escape Pod, R2 in the Canyon (except when the Jawas shoot him), when the 2nd stormtrooper stands up, the flyover into Mos Eisley, the drive by in Mos Eisley, and when Han gets up and meets Greedo. There are others, but they don’t really stand out as much. Other stars that flicker, other motion ghosting, but those are the ones I’ve identified as the worst. I haven’t seen any that bad in TESB or ROTJ.

I’ve also decided to completely dump the 77 crawl that came out with the GOUT in favor of the 35 mm scan that Williarob shared with me. I used it for the 81 crawl and find that it looks far better with the rest of the GOUT than what got tacked on in 2006.

I have completed my syncing of the 97 SE and PT DTS audio, as well as syncing the LD audio and patching the reel changes and disc divisions. I started LD audio syncing with the US and UK GOUT audio. I compiled the full version of each film (inserting the missing frames as needed while comparing to the 93 DE LD sources). ANH and TESB were matched to the UK GOUT (which has inferior audio) and I stretched ROTJ to fill the missing frame (comparing both GOUT versions indicated that the audio was complete even though frames were missing). Then I used that as my master track to sync the 93 faces LD audio (fewer splices so it creates a more accurate audio track and I could not tell any major difference between it and the DE audio). I patched the splices as necessary with the GOUT audio. Then I used that master track to fill the splices of the theatrical audio and the 85 ANH audio. Just finished that yesterday. I still need to work on the mono. Next, I will be running all those mixes through a surround processor to pull out the surround tracks, making a 6 track flac, then fixing as needed and exporting to ac3.

I believe I am done with my color correcting except for ANH SE. That is a problem child. It does not want to get fixed. The early part of it is very inconsistent and there are some major color changes in different sections. Often where an SE change was inserted. I’m going to finish the GOUT and then return to it.

thelonius said:

Give the guy a break, he aged at least four decades on only 19 years.

When you look at the ages of the actors who played him and consider that people’s skin age faster under harsh sun, the discrepancy shrinks. If you make the Clone Wars longer (three years is too short for such an epic, galaxy spanning, Republic destroying conflict) Owen and Beru’s ages make more sense in the PT and their apparent age in Ep 4 no longer is off at all.

Boy, a lot of people here have simple family relationships. Siblings do not have to have the same last name. Names can change between birth and later life. Lots of people and cultures use the terms Uncle and Aunt quite liberally without the need for a genetic relationship.

The question of Beru and Owen’s last name was set back in 1977. It has been Lars since the beginning. So the question of Lars vs. Skywalker has always been there. Luke calls them aunt and uncle. That is meaningless. That is what he calls them. Giving Anakin a step-brother in the prequels just answered that longstanding question of how is Owen his uncle. There were many theories floating around before AOTC answered the question. The extent of all we got in the OT was some vague hint that Owen was upset that Anakin went off following Kenobi.

Just a few items that I have in my own family history. A couple adopt a baby. It is actually her nephew, but they give the child their name and raise him as their own. He knows his full siblings, but thinks they are cousins and doesn’t find out until he is in his 80’s that they are his siblings. A man has 5 daughters, his wife dies shortly after and the youngest daughter is taken by the wife’s family and raise in another state. He remarries and about a decade later his daughter marries his 2nd wife’s next to youngest brother. That creates some interesting relationships, and the step mother shuns the being called grandmother and instead is called aunt. Another, a man accuses his wife of having an affair because she hid her second pregnancy and subsequently divorces her. She changes both her children’s names. As an adult, her son marries a businessman’s daughter and his father-in-law takes him under his wing and endows him with a title that can be used as a name. Consequently his daughter has a different name on her birth certificate and her driver’s license. Trying to figure out genetics or family relationships from names is often hopeless.

I the old days before the PT, we knew nothing of Luke’s mother. Before ROTJ, we didn’t even know he had a sister who had vague memories of their mother (which only makes sense after the PT if Leia is considerably stronger in the force in the non-Jedi areas than Luke). Before that, we don’t know if Owen or Beru are related to Luke’s father or mother. But the mother must not have been from Tatooine if Leia ended up the adopted daughter of Bail Organa and with the title of Princess. So that kind of cut off any relation through their mother to either Owen or Beru. And Lucas never answered that until he scripted AOTC. Whether he had decided that before that is open to debate. The link to Kenobi was always rumored, but that doesn’t help figuring out the family relationships with Luke.

nightstalkerpoet said:

Any updates on an ANH crawl version?

I’m getting close to being done with my 1080p remaster of the 81 crawl. The LD versions would be of noticeably lower quality, but they are an option as well.

Something seems off about the text of the crawl… too much space. And it would flow smoother if the pan went up to the shot of the shuttle flying by the ring instead of inserting a new shot.

yotsuya said:

Well, after some tweaks, here is what I have. Opinions?

https://vimeo.com/224665998
password: 81crawlhd

I updated the video file. I had noticed that the crawl was cut off (where the BR letterboxing cut it off) and I tried to add it in from the 35 mm. But it doesn’t work and I will be removing it. But the rest of the crawl has been improved.

Yes. The same number of unique frames. In the 35 mm scan of the 81 crawl/flyover that came with the SSE 1.0, as the Star Destroyer comes into frame, at 2:26, as the Blockade Runner fires on the Star Destroyer, one of the laser bolts is frozen along with all the action and the grain for a single frame. For its accurate length, you have to cut that extra frame. It is an error scanning the film. Outside of that one instance, when it was an obvious mistake, the flyover progresses frame for frame the same way - all the lasers line up, the flashes, the timing of everything. Even though they used a different Star Destroyer plate for 77 and 81, they still line up perfectly. Every version I have checked, 82 PAL, JSC, SWE, DE TR47, US GOUT, UK GOUT, SSE, Williarob’s current proejct, the 97 SE TB copy, the DVD, and the Blu-ray, all are the same length. the 35 mm is only one frame longer because it has a duplicate that you need to remove for it to be an accurate representation of the 81 crawl (one fo its many flaws). Now, I found an almost consistent inconsistency in the warping of the image. Only the 35 mm scans and the DVD/Blu-ray are somewhat alike (enough to be able to identify and align the crawl as being identical to the Blu-ray and line it up… I step I need to redo), with the SWE being a the closest of the others. And the levels vary considerably. In some home video version, you can clearly see the entire matte of the moons and planets. In others they are black. I have been attempting to match the DE and the 35 mm as much as possible, with the SWE and the 82 PAL version providing the best starfields to compare to.

Yes, when I’m done I’ll put it up on spleen… right now I am trying to clean up the crawl that I’m pulling from the blue-ray. My previous attempt didn’t keep enough of the text as it faded out and has some pesky stars that are too close in color to the text.

In any case, the key points of alignment are the lasers, flashes, and the final frame. That is how I found out that the 81 35 mm scan had an extra frame in it.

In what way are you having trouble? This is the exact file I use to replace the 77 crawl in my GOUT project (though I do run it through one additional step to replicate the unique warping of the GOUT image on the left side). It runs the exact same length. Same number of frames precisely. I’ve compared it to the 77 35 mm, the 81 35 mm, the JSC, the DE LD, the US and UK GOUT, the 97 SE, the DVD and the Blu-ray, and a few other older home video versions. You do have to make sure you are using 23.976 fps. I did leave the cropping a bit odd to maximize the picture data, so it does need to be cropped to suit your project. I also am revisiting the crawl text to try and bring out some of the letter strokes that partially vanish and remove the unwanted stars from the Blu-ray, so this is not a finished item. yet. Close.

Nope. The 97 SE is really lacking in quality and attention. It is part of my project, but there is only so much that can be done with them. English subtitles are on my to do list, both SRT and SUP.

1080p. That is the resolution of all the source material.

I think Lucas had the idea of what sort of shot he wanted, but Jabba wasn’t designed until Jedi. For the SE he went back and had to use a shot that didn’t quite match the creature.

sergejames said:

Are some frames missing at the start of the logo? Other than that, I think it looks great!

No, it is the exact same length as the 77 crawl, the 81 35 mm scan, and the blu-ray, not to mention all the LD preservations. I timed the fade out to match the 81 35 mm scan, so any difference is inherent to the 1981 version.

All they have to do is go back to the Samurai origins of the Jedi. Set it a couple of thousand years ago and you can have different schools of thought, different schools of style, groups working for smaller governments, and you can have plenty of conflict and great stories without resorting to Galaxy wide war. Or smaller scale baddies like Xim and his robot army.

DrDre said:

…and another frame from the sequence where Luke meets Obi-Wan:

Nice!!! Can’t wait to see the entire film this way. I’m beginning to wonder what green tint Mike Verta was talking about. These have more red rather than green.

See… you get too close and you don’t notice things. I think I need to redo the crawl. I think this was my first attempt at extracting it. I came up with a better way, but I don’t think I saved it. At least I remember how I did it to redo it. That should fix the blinking stars (which are part of the crawl element).

Well, after some tweaks, here is what I have. Opinions?

https://vimeo.com/224665998
password: 81crawlhd

I’ll second that. I was really hoping to have a complete set.

I noticed that you hadn’t really done any color correcting so I thought you might like a version of the 81 opening that is more in tune with the original GOUT colors (by that I mean the LD version, not the 2006 GOUT DVD which has very strange colors for the 77 opening crawl). Let me know what you think.

https://vimeo.com/224664207
password: 81crawl

The further the EU got into the future from ROTJ, they less I liked it. I never objected to the past stories, but they were either just before ANH or thousands of years back. I think that is a time period Disney should push Star Wars to. More Jedi vs. Sith and more lightsaber battles, but do it right, unlike the PT.

I finally figured out how to deal with the Blockade Runner engines as they vanish behind the star Destroyer to match the 81 flyover. In the process I came to the conclusion that this segment has been completely redone in both 1981 and 1997. In 81 they used elements that nearly match the 77 (you can tell the SD is different if you overlay them, but the engine glow is identical). But for 1997, they did it again. The 81 titles are taken from the TESB element. The crawl remained the same from 81 to 97. In 97 they brought back the original starfield, but it is not placed the same. But the elements have all been recomposited in both instances. In 1997, they used a new engine glow effect and the lasers are desaturated. This is especially noticeable on the DVD and BR, but I’ve noticed a lot of effects shots were scanned with strange settings that reduced the brightness of effects.

I’m not sure I’m on the final version, but if not final, I am close. I redid the planets, cleaned up the starfield (with all the various pieces I used, there was some overlap that didn’t line up exactly. I also enhanced the brightness of the starsfield Poita recovered so the others are dimmer. Meaning that at the right settings, I should be able to degrade this version to nearly match the 35 mm scan. The Blockade Runner is fixed. I had to replace it from the moment it starts to disappear. I used a frame from just before that and forced Vegas to match the original. In the end, I placed that on top, used the lighten setting, and cut of the excess because in the 81 version, there is a flaw where the Blockade Runner engine glow (probably originally a separate element) overlaps the SD instead of fully vanishing behind it. They fixed this for the SE, making it more realistic. But I was going for a match to 81 so I had to match the error. The one part I’m not sure I’m happy with is where the SD passes in front of the large moon. I’m not sure I can get it much closer.

I’m rendering it out now in 1080p… it should take an hour because of the high quality. I have letterboxed it in a strange way… trying to emulate the framing without cutting anything so that it can be further cropped as needed. To match the GOUT it needs to be cropped a certain way. To match other versions it might need to be cropped differently.