yotsuya

I don’t think it was the worst possible format that was the key, I think it was the least amount of effort. It was kind of like “look how the fans are trying to archive the LD and improve on it. Well, we’ve got the master tape so why don’t we just release that and we just transfered the 77 crawl so let’s tack that on there.” We got something better than we had, but not as good as we could have had if they had just taken the interpostives and done a new transfer to DVD. Imagine what a blu-ray from those 1985 interpositives would look? What we want vs. what we got. GL didn’t want to put any effort into it so he just used what they had lying around.

Anchorhead said:

Lord Haseo said:

Anchorhead said:
Everything comes across as a bit too much.

The only thing that I can think of is the space slug but aside from that the story telling, character portrayals, themes etc. were elevated as any continuation should.

No arguments here. Fact is, I never wanted a continuation or any character growth. As I sat in the theater every week in 1977, Star Wars was perfect. It had a beginning, a middle , and an end. I never once gave any thought to a continuation of the story. It only makes sense that the continuation (eventually) disappointed me. It’s the same reason I’ve never seen the sequels to ALIEN, Jaws, or Back To The Future. Those weren’t stories that needed to be continued. They were closed when I walked out of the theater.

Rogue One, on the other hand, also works as a stand-alone. It’s familiar, but it doesn’t change the 1977 characters. When I’m watching it, I imagine Luke and Co showing up in the Death Star and Yavin only a couple of weeks later. I didn’t expect that emotion, but it’s been a really nice surprise. For me, the two films fit together perfectly.

In the interest of “getting it”, the disappointment you feel with Rogue One is the same disappointment I’ve been feeling for 37 years.

For TESB, there were three years since the previous film in real time and in story time. All the characters had changed int the process. Yes, Han had lost that edge, but perhaps that is what spending three years with Luke and Leia will do. As for Vader, he was always higher ranking than any starship commander. He was under Tarkin and answered to the Emperor, but in TESB, he is hunting rebels and is in command of a starfleet. There is an admiral, Vader is over the admiral. Pretty much where we see him in the opening of ANH before he joins Tarkin on the Death Star. I have never seen anything about TESB that made it not fit with Star Wars. The dialog even indicates that Hoth is not the first place they went after Yavin IV, providing for a lot of untold adventures. I can see if you find the story less enthralling than ANH and I really like how you find Rogue One to be the closest to the original, but your stated reasons for not liking TESB are pretty weak.

Thank you. Overall very good. But it does leave some of the purple that plagues this transfer. A key piece that I have found to identify if the purple has been cleaned up is Luke’s chair (the one he is sitting in why he plays with the Skyhopper model). It should be gray (per the LD sources, SSE, and Mike Verta’s samples) and in the BR it is quite purple. Your correction doesn’t correct for that. While it might seem like a single issue, I have found that it is indicative of the larger color issue that needs to be fixed. I have taken a pause in my attempts to color correct the BR to work on the GOUT - under the assumption that it holds the best example of the colors throughout the films. My attempts to correct GOUT ANH to Mike Verta’s samples has led me to settings that when applied to ROTJ GOUT, are almost identical to the Grindhouse LLP of ROTJ that Harmy released. I am completing my last tweaks and then I’m going to give the 97 SE a go before I return to the BR. But all attempts to do a single pass correction keep getting us close to something close to the original. I think you may have the best one I have seen so far.

Well, you have not provided enough information to duplicate your single pass correction. I’m not getting the same color results you are using Vegas. Some more detail would be helpful in giving you feedback on whether it solves some of the most egregious color problems that plague nearly every frame of the ANH BR.

Which specific Sony Video Event FX did you use for these settings?

Bingowings said:

flametitan said:

NeverarGreat said:

flametitan said:

NeverarGreat said:

Loved the trailer, basically confirms that Luke is abandoning the Jedi for a balance.

Not sure how I feel about that. I actually really disliked how Legends started to take “balance” literally, and that the Jedi and Sith were merely philosophical differences, rather than how the Dark side was a tumour on the Force originally.

There’s no denying that the ‘Light’ side of the Force has issues as well, which is why it was only by recognizing the Dark Side that Luke was able to prevail in Jedi. The Jedi’s prohibition against some emotions and the dogma that they are impossible to overcome once indulged in was shown absolutely to be false. I for one appreciate the new direction this is taking.

But the Jedi Dogmatism was supposed to represent corruption in the Jedi (If we are to believe Lucas, who has had issues representing what he actually meant in the Prequels). The default state of the Jedi was supposed to be much more benevolent, but at some point they literally forgot their connection to the Force to use it as little more than a tool. Using the RotS novelization as a reference, Obi-Wan points out how the Jedi council in ages past didn’t bicker, but rather let the Force guide them to an answer, hinting that the Jedi lost their way.

In Jedi, that sequence was anything but Luke prevailing by channelling the darkness. If you look beyond Luke kicking Vader’s ass, the set up is that Luke lost control of himself because of Vader’s words getting to him; the music turns ominous, representing Luke going against what he stood for; and finally, when the fight ends, Luke is absolutely horrified at what he did. It wasn’t a triumph by finding “balance” between light and dark, it’s despair as our hero verges on becoming the monster he fought.

It could be like the Exorcist. Luke could be having a crisis of faith. He knows that the Dark Side is on the rise again so maybe he will come round to restoring the order with adjustment. Seeing the cultural vandalism in Rogue One it would feel like a victory for Palpatine if the Jedi were to blink out of existence.

What I’m taking from it is that Luke things the Jedi teachings need to end. He will be the last of the old order of Jedi. They may call the new order Jedi, but he intends them to be far different from Kenobi, Yoda, and the PT Jedi.

When topics like this come up, I like to go back to the beginning. Yes, the PT can color things, but when you look at some of the oldest materials (the earlier drafts of the screenplay, the novelizations, etc.), I have found that Lucas has been remarkably consistent on some points. We’ve always known that Vader was consumed by the dark side. How was left to the PT, but the how is immaterial to the outcome of the OT. Vader was redeemed. He came back. In that one act Vader/Anakin proves that Yoda was not telling Luke the whole truth. Yoda did say the dark side would forever dominate your destiny, and we don’t get to see what the redeemed Anakin might have become, but that he came back from the power that had consumed him really proves that the dark side is not what the Jedi think it is. They avoid it. They have no training in it. They really don’t know what it is except that when someone is consumed by it they become evil. They are closed to any exploration of it. When you have a natural force and you block all study of a part of it, that part with be very tempting to some. And rather than train Jedi to avoid temptation, they are trained to avoid anything that could lead to temptation. That was inherent to the advice Yoda gave in TESB and more explicitly detailed in the PT.

To me bringing balance to the force meant the destruction of all who had slanted teachings. Rather than the polar opposites, the force seeks those who delve into its mysteries to tread wisely but explore it fully. Not the light or dark, but the gray.

flametitan said:

Lord Haseo said:

flametitan said:

Lord Haseo said:
You don’t think he can adopt a philosophy of “Use your inner darkness to best your enemies but don’t let it envelope you for too long”? Also what’s to say that Luke didn’t take bits and pieces of philosophy that Dark Siders hold dear and use them to bolster his new philosophy?

To me? No. Again, I still see the Dark Side as the malignant tumour on the energy field that life creates. It is not a difference in philosophy; it is the manifestation of the emotions behind bigotry and oppression. Being “A little dark” is akin to being “a little evil.”

We all harbor some amount of taint inside us. Luke would no doubt accept that and try to use his for the betterment of the Galaxy. The nature of these base feelings doesn’t matter so long as the outcome is good.

The Force is not a tool; it is not just a means to an end. It is the very thing that brings life together. Using the corruption of the energy created by life to protect life is hypocritical at best.

Ah, but is the energy created by life good or evil? I think not. It is neutral. It is what you do with it that is good or evil. So the force energy itself is not what corrupts. It is how you use it, which is why the Jedi can be corrupt users of the light side of the force. So Luke touching the dark side of the force is not Luke turning to evil. Yoda is quite correct that fear, anger, hate lead to the dark side, but we are presented with Jedi in the PT who are cut off from being complete beings. They are not to participate in the natural functions of life and this slants their perspective. They don’t want to train Anakin because he is too old and has fears. Rather than train him how to handle those fears they try to train him to have no fears. It didn’t work. Yoda’s training with Luke is very similar (and for OT purists, the only one that matters). But much of what is later expounded on in the PT has its origins in Yoda’s training of Luke. The dire warning of once you start down that path it will forever dominate your destiny is pretty much the basis for all the PT Jedi teachings. The Jedi were convinced that bringing balance to the force meant that the Jedi would prevail. From the outcome, that was not the case. The old ways - on both sides, needed to be cleansed and to do that the Jedi and Sith must be wiped out. I think the new Trilogy is going to further expound on that, much as Rebels has been. Lucas as much as admitted that when Luke brings Anakin back from the Dark Side in ROTJ and Anakin kills the Emperor, the he had indeed brought balance to the force. What we are left with at the end of ROTJ is no old style Jedi and no Sith. Only Luke. And we have already seen that Luke doesn’t follow the Jedi rules and is making his own way. I’m guessing that in TLJ we will find out that Luke attempted to raise up a new order of Jedi using the old ways and has found that the old Jedi ways do not work and in fact lead to the temptation to turn to the Dark Side. The old ways did not prepare Ben and left him susceptible to the Dark Side.

And whether Lucas intended it or not, the way he has written the Saga to this point very much has yin and yang at its heart. Anakin/Vader and Luke could not do what they did otherwise. If the Dark Side is truly all consuming then they could never have come back - Vader from being consumed and Luke from letting his anger fill him in that final duel. The inclusion of the Bogan in Rebels has been very interesting and enlightening.

flametitan said:

NeverarGreat said:
Again, that’s just my opinion of the scene. It’s certainly possible to read this as Luke conforming entirely to Jedi doctrine, but since he had already started down the dark path and was able to return, one of Yoda’s teachings at least was proven to be false.

That was already proven false with Vader himself. The big thing you see throughout RotJ is that Luke has a different outlook on things from his former masters and his peers. He’s shown to believe that you can come back from the darkness. His masters believe that Luke is the only thing that can defeat the Empire, but Luke trusts the rebellion to be able to succeed without him. That’s why he went with Vader instead of staying. He thought he did more damage to be with them than he could prevent by being an actual superhero. If he didn’t believe his friends could do it, he wouldn’t have gone.

Overall, he’s much more trusting of the Force to work in its mysterious ways. When he’s shown attacking the Emperor or Vader, it’s shown as him having doubts that his friends would succeed, fear that he’ll lose someone. Luke’s Light is different from the Prequel Jedi (who are again supposed to be corrupt Zealots). He’s not without emotion; he’s quite passionate even without it looking like he’s using the Dark Side.

Lord Haseo said:
You don’t think he can adopt a philosophy of “Use your inner darkness to best your enemies but don’t let it envelope you for too long”? Also what’s to say that Luke didn’t take bits and pieces of philosophy that Dark Siders hold dear and use them to bolster his new philosophy?

To me? No. Again, I still see the Dark Side as the malignant tumour on the energy field that life creates. It is not a difference in philosophy; it is the manifestation of the emotions behind bigotry and oppression. Being “A little dark” is akin to being “a little evil.”

Lucas pulled a lot from Eastern philosophy for Star Wars and the Jedi. Yin and yang. They are two halves of the whole. The dark side is not a cancer on the force. The Sith may be, but not the dark side. To achieve balance a force user must be able to draw on both sides without letting either consume them. The middle way is the path to enlightenment in Buddhism. Even in ANH and TESB, we see Lucas painting the Jedi as stodgy - unable to see the path to redemption because they see Anakin’s fall as permanent. Luke does not see it that way. I see in that moment in Jedi when the Emperor is talking and Luke looks at his mechanical hand and Vader’s stump with wires coming out and he found the middle path at that moment. Yin and yang in balance. How that pertains to the future of the Jedi and what Luke says in the new trailer will have to wait until we see these next two films.

Some changes have been minor improvements. Some changes just make things worse. Most of the 04 changes were minor compared to the Greedo shoots first of the 97 SE. Most of the rest don’t change the story. Most are just mildly annoying. I thought redoing the Emperor was a must as I always hated the original TESB Emperor. Though I don’t like how they did it, it is an improvement. I used to care that they change Boba Fett’s voice, now I don’t. I loved having Jabba, but redone Jabba is worse in so many ways. They got so much right the first time. They just needed to redo it with a better model and instead they used a superior model in so many inferior ways. But the rock in front of R2 is the single most stupid change made for any of the versions. There are so many other fixes that wouldn’t have been noticable. I’ve never heard anyone say that R2 couldn’t hide in the alcove and yet GL found the need to “fix” it. What about the moving restraining bold or the Jawa with Orangutan arms? GL seems to like to add continuity mistakes instead of fix them. I think all versions of the SE are flawed. The flaws in TESB are very minor compared to ROTJ and insignificant compared to ANH. As a result I don’t have any favorites of the SE releases. If forced to pick one, I’d pick 2004 as the least offensive editorially and 97 for color.

CatBus said:

FWIW, I felt TFA had too many PT tie-ins (haven’t seen R1). By “too many”, I mean they were:

1. not in any way necessary to advance the story or characters, and
2. more likely to cause a “WTF” reaction from moviegoers who have not committed the PT to memory, which I’d say is a sizeable contingent

As I understand it, there were a few PT references in the film that were just fine–I understand there were flags referencing the PT in one scene, and while those didn’t advance the story or plot, they did not trigger any WTF moments or trip up the viewer–so those are fine by me. On the other hand, needlessly mentioning the Sith (what the hell’s a Sith?) and Clones (weren’t they ancient history at the beginning of Star Wars? Why are they even relevant by the time Episode VII rolls around?)–those just needed to go.

Well, both really go back to 1977. If there was something called the Clone Wars, all references to clones after that is in universe. And back in 1977, when there was no Expanded Universe, just the novel and then the movie (yes, the novel came out first), and all the promotional materials, Vader was know as Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith (http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2014/07/11/Famous-Monsters-Star-Wars-Spectacular-1977). He was called that so many times that it is part of my earliest memories of Vader. It is how he is introduced in both the novel and the script published in The Art of Star Wars.

So I fail to see how either the word Clone or the word Sith could take out of of a 2015 movie when they both date from 1977. Both are very much OT in origin and were just more prominent in the PT.

You know, I see the same issue with this one as Star Wars. The contrast is all wrong in the Blu-ray. The darks and lights need to be compressed and the midtones expanded. It creates oversaturated skintones and too bright shadows.

Sir Ridley said:

Progress! Here’s the latest version of the Maz’s castle sequence. Thoughts?

https://youtu.be/TqZeT7FN0c0

Ah, 1000 times better. You have nicely fixed one of the most annoying gaffes in the movie. Where can I get a 1080 p copy?

The movie is dark, but from the corrections you posted, they just make the images look grayer, not more detailed.

With the division the PT have caused, my take is to accept the stories, but omit the details. Include the visual, but ignore the dialog. Basically the events happened, those places and species exist, but they shouldn’t refer back to them in any great detail. Coruscant, Naboo, Utapau, could be mentioned or revisitied. The Trade Federation could be a contender again in the ST. Some of those species and places were destroyed by the Empire so you probably want to omit those. Definitely don’t include any Gungans unless they are in the background of a crowd. One thing I was very disappointed in was that The Force Awakens featured so few of the OT or PT aliens. It was great to see new owes, but some of the old ones (other than Nien Nunb and Admiral Ackbar) would have been nice. It was nice to see a different group of Mon Calamari and Ponda Baba in Rogue One. Like in The Last Jedi, if Luke tells Rey what happened during the fall of Anakin and the Republic, it should follow the story of the PT. When you summarize the stories they are pretty good. My kids have the Little Golden Book editions and in those the PT are greatly improved by glossing over things. So at that level, they cease to have the objectionable content (except for Jar Jar - he should never be mentioned again).

towne32 said:

yotsuya said:

There is plenty of evidence that these changes happened during release and the DVD/BR is 100% faithful to one of the releases. I found multiple audio streams in the camera prints and all these changes can be found at that point.

Just to be clear, you’re saying that the issue is variability in the theatrical run?

Yes. I have more than one camera print and one has changes from what came out on home video and one did not. It may be domestic vs international English. I have no clue where the English language track for the camera prints came from. But I do have two completely different ones. Particularly that line by the women in black and white as she tells the large alien something. One has her line, one does not.

There is plenty of evidence that these changes happened during release and the DVD/BR is 100% faithful to one of the releases. I found multiple audio streams in the camera prints and all these changes can be found at that point.

Darth Lucas said:

RU.08 said:

They had already scanned and cleaned that shot for Empire of Dreams.

Isn’t there some debate as to whether or not the GOUT crawl was a recreation?

There might have been initially, but with the the availability of the 35 mm scans and the chance to directly compare them it reveals they are 100% identical so it is no recreation. It is 100% original.

SwissArmyTin said:

yotsuya said:

Lord Haseo said:

Also posting this because it still baffles me how some can see Rey and Finn escaping as being a problem when there were more ships in orbit during the Battle of Hoth that caused Luke no trouble and that’s fine. I really need someone to explain this to me.

“How quick the the Empire find the Falcon after it blasted off from Mos Eisley?”

The second they dropped out of hyperspace in the rubbled remains of Aldeeran since the Death Star was still right there.

Three Star Destroyers converged on them over Tatooine forcing Han to make the jump as soon as possible (from Tatooine to Alderaan). If they wouldn’t have jumped they would have been caught.

“The First Order should have known the moment the Tie Fighters were shot down and known exactly where they were on the surface. From there it is easy to track them down. Unless they are incompetent. They aren’t incompetent in the rest of the film.”

Okay…so…if the tie fighters chased them, yeah, the First Order would’ve known where they were on the planet. Alright, so they could’ve been able to track them on the planet. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve seen TFA, but after the dogfight with the TIE fighters, didn’t the Falcon leave the planet and jump to hyperspace? So, your previous argument was that the Falcon was able to escape every time they jumped to hyperspace, now you’re criticizing the First Order’s ability to not track the Falcon after jumping the hyperspace? I’m so confused right now.

No, they don’t jump to hyperspace. That is my point. The Falcon is seen majestically flying off in sublight (no trace of a hyperspace effect). The following dialog just confirms that they did not jump to hyperspace. Rey has never plotted a hyperspace jump before (she’s never been off planet before). She’s no dummy so she probably could have, but where to? It is a huge hole when you think about it. Part of it would be solved if the Falcon did go to hyperspace and then the engine malfunction made it drop out, but then Finn doesn’t need to mention getting out of the system because they would be already by the time he says that. So add in a hyperspace jump and remove a couple of lines and the scene would make a lot more sense.

TV’s Frink said:

dahmage said:

classy post. you know, people age.

And if everyone would just hold men and women to the same standard, women wouldn’t have to do that to themselves.

Damn you Frink. How dare you say something I agree with.

Lord Haseo said:

Also posting this because it still baffles me how some can see Rey and Finn escaping as being a problem when there were more ships in orbit during the Battle of Hoth that caused Luke no trouble and that’s fine. I really need someone to explain this to me.

How quick the the Empire find the Falcon after it blasted off from Mos Eisley? How did it get away? How quick did the Star Destroyers find the Falcon after it blasted off from Hoth? How did it get away? In both cases they knew precisely where on the planet they had been. When the Falcon escapes the space slug, the net has been woven well enough that a single Star Destroyer almost gets them except Han does the unexpected and attached to the Star Destroyer itself (in an out of the way place for sensors and patrolling ships). When they flee Cloud City, they are almost caught until they jumped to hyperspace. See a pattern here? If the hyperdrive is working they escape. If it isn’t they have to manage something else out of the ordinary. The First Order should have known the moment the Tie Fighters were shot down and known exactly where they were on the surface. From there it is easy to track them down. Unless they are incompetent. They aren’t incompetent in the rest of the film.

Lord Haseo said:

yotsuya said:
That the Falcon zooms away at sublight means it would be easy to track.

Do you have anything to substantiate this or just your own musings?

ANH and TESB. If the hyperdrive is working the Falcon can escape. If it isn’t or isn’t used, the Falcon is easy to track and catch. The Empire did it several times. And the First Order can’t do it once? They loose them because they fly away from the planet? Bad writing. And the Falcon just happens to then break down, and Han and Chewy stumble on it (and ask where they got it when if they were that close to Jakku it would be kind of obvious). There is just no tension there after you see the Star Destroyer just sitting in orbit. If the hyperdrive had worked for a few seconds and then quit, the rest of the story would make sense. Without something else, it just stretches things too far. Unless Inspector Clouseau was in charge of finding BB-8. It is that level of bumbling.

One of the key things to enjoying a movie is the suspension of belief. That is how they get away with huge science gaffes all the time. Armageddon is a good disaster movie with compelling characters in spite of the flawed science of its special effects. We tend to ignore fictional space ships that fly through space like planes through air, but it is harder when the ship is not supposed to be quite so fictional. Many movies get around this though bogus explanations. Lucas manages to do that quite well when needed. In TFA, Abrams didn’t even bother (or he cut key scenes that would have helped). I would assume that the First Order would be tracking their Tie Fighters and would know when they crashed. They would know where the Falcon was and immediately move to intercept. That the Falcon zooms away at sublight means it would be easy to track. And the Star Destroyer is just sitting there not giving chase. And then Han and Chewy just happenng across the ship as it randomly zooms away from Jakku… just a very hard scene make it through without thinking of everything wrong with it. Unlike Luke escaping Hot where, like the other rebel ships, zoomed passed disabled Imperial vessels and went to hyperspace immediately (Lucas frequenly forgets to show the ship in Hyperspace and has normal stars outside such as when the Falcon escapes the Death Star and the dialog even says they are in hyperspace).

The worst offender is when Starkiller fires. My science minded brain can only say “Seriously?” and leave it at that for the single worst instance of voilating physics in the entire saga. When you get taken out of a movie like that, it is hard to get back in. TFA is full of lots of great scenes, but it is marred by some of the worst offenses in story continuity and science violation in the entire saga. But not only is the science bad, but there is no explanation of what is going on. The details are completely skipped. Avoiding info dumps is a good thing in general, but providing no information is just confusing. That is something Lucas never did.

And I have great hope that TLJ will exceed the PT and TFA because Rian Johnson has a good track record, both in writing and directing. From the story leaks I’ve read about (same sources that give fairly good spoilers on TFA) it sounds like it is going to be pretty good. We will know in December. I’m hoping I can put it next to Rogue One as fourth or fifth in my ranking. The bar isn’t very high for it to be fifth. I will be very disappointed if a second ST film fails to exceed the PT in my ranking.

The Blockade Runner engines are giving me headaches. I’m going to have to do layers and replace the blockade runner with a static frame of the engines to get the fade out right Then trim the Star Destroyer so the engines line up right. Also, in examining the engines in such minute detail, I noticed that in the 77 crawl that the elements have gate weave. Williarob’s current 4K77 project has the stars stabilized, but the moon and planet plate as well as the ships move in relation to the stars. I also noticed that in the 77 version during the pan down that the stars and moon/planet elements move the same way they do in the 81 version. It just isn’t as obvious since there aren’t any starts close to them.

Contrast is one hard thing to get right when scanning film. You want the darks properly dark and the lights properly bright, but if you go too far it is too much and if you don’t go far enough it gets dull. As our number of sources increases I have noticed that the theatrical prints tend to have more contrast than what we are used to in scans and telecines from the negative and interpositives (the blu-ray and GOUT). I think the garbage mattes are a good key. If you see them, the contrast isn’t high enough and the darks are not dark enough. I think this amount of contrast is pretty close. I can’t wait to see the calibrated scans to see if they are any different.