zombie84

It's on the internet already, in a pretty decent capture.

Erikstormtrooper said:

If they shot Empire of Dreams on 16mm film, wouldn't an HD version be possible?

 It would be, but I can pretty much guarantee you they didn't shoot in 16mm. For one, it wouldn't be practical or cost-effective, and number two it really doesn't look like 16mm. Also, since a lot of the doc is not original footage (talking heads) but b-roll from other sources it would depend on the source quality of those (dailies, footage seen in other docs like Making of SW and never-before-seen clips, newsreel footage, miscellaneous, etc.).

Even if the raw footage of the interviews was shot in 16mm--which it likely wasn't--the master was probably a standard-def video one, probably on something like DVCPRO or Digibeta.

@Nicholas

Trust me, it was hard to find HD productions. Almost no one was shooting in HD in 2003, Lucas and Rodriguez were exceptional and experimental in this regard. Think of the preportion of the amount of theatrically distributed feature films that were shot HD to the amount shot on film from 2003 to 2005. 1:1000 maybe? You can practically count the HD ones on your hands. You have Lucas, Rodriguez, one-offs like Collatoral, and, uh...Lucas? I never even saw an HD camera until 2004, and I never used one until 2006. 2005 is around the time you finally saw them being used here and there, but it was still pretty unusual, the "new" thing. Documentarians began using them first--the Cinealta that Lucas used was not intended for feature filming--because of the long-format tapes, but the cameras were so incredibly expensive that most people just shot on stuff like Digibeta if they wanted to go video. Hell, into 2006 I was still working with Digibeta here and there. And then when the cameras started being adopted for feature use, no one wanted to use them, from the producers standpoint because they were costly and slowed down your post flow, and from the camera crew's standpoint because they were cumbersome, delicate, awkward and difficult to use. I protested the use of HD cameras until 2008 or so when they finally started getting their act together and designing models with feature filming in mind. The older ones that Lucas and Rodriguez were using were simply pieces of junk. It cost the production more money than film, it frustrated the camera crew because they were so bulky and tethered by wires, it frustrated the cinematographer because it restricted his shots and made him compromise his lighting, it frustrated the post people because it was sometimes difficult to work with and was often slower than with a film daily, it frustrated FX people because there was no detail or range to work with so they had to spend more time, and the results looked like shit on the screen at the end of the day. So there was absolutely no point in bothering when film was cheaper, easier, and looked beautiful.

Finally, as Harmy pointed out, DVD extras were usually made like corporate videos and promotional stuff, pretty low budget, small crew, small production, not intended for long-term viewing or high-end viewing. I don't think people started shooting extras in HD until HD formats like Blu Ray came along, and even then most the extras you see even today are not in high def.

I think it was leant out for the SW To Jedi doc in 1983 and it disappeared somehow.

SilverWook said:

Television shows and concerts have been regularly shot in HD video since the late 90's. I even have one of the few feature films shot in analog HD in the 80's in my Laserdisc collection. And lets not forget MUSE HiDef Laserdiscs in Japan!

The industry knew HD and widescreen sets were coming.

 I worked in the industry as a cinematographer and later camera assistant around the 2005-2008 changeover when HD started being widely adopted, and there was a massive shift in those years. In 2005 and most of 2006, I worked almost exclusively in the field of documentary and reality television, and the stuff I was on was either 16mm or standard-def video (and once in a while some 35mm). By 2008, there wasn't a single major production in town that was shooting docs in either of those formats, it was all being done in HD. There simply was no need to do HD in 2003, the hardware and software was simply so cumbersome and slow and expensive that it was easier to just shoot on film if you wanted the product to have a future-format shelf life (i.e. theatrical distribution or then-hypothetical high-def format). In most cities, you didn't even have access to an HD camera, you'd have to have it shipped in from L.A. or NYC or Toronto. For a tiny production intended for a DVD extra and a limited A&E broadcast, HD would not have even been thought of for EoD.

I find it weird to think that EoD could possibly be in HD--for the simple reason that it's almost guaranteed it was not filmed in HD. The interviews were conducted in late 2003 I believe, and at that time there was really no HD cameras, and HD editing was pretty much unheard of. High definition original content simply didn't exist, it was only IMAX documentaries and the like, not a documentary for a bonus disc and A&E. It wasn't really until around 2005 that HD started catching on for original documentary and feature work. So the EOD master is almost certainly in stardard def.

As to some of the footage--maybe it is new scans from a print or something. After all, they scanned all the raw dailies--and the quality of the dailies clips and the finished film clips is about the same. Maybe they had Lucasfilm scan some original clips from the film to use as well. Whatever the case, the footage isn't very good, looks like the quality of a Laserdisc to me, which is why some people guessed that this is where it came from.

I had never heard it was broadcast in HD. I wonder why it wasn't included on the BD were that the case. Does A&E even have an HD channel? And have they re-broadcast it since 2004?

Yes, you could potentally do a branching version, but it would depend on how much visual effects you are cleaning up, and this would be more complicated depending on whether you gave it the Lowry treatment in the enhanced version. But it's possible--Blade Runner put the theatrical cut, the international cut and the DC all on one disc with branching. Probably the total disc running time would be about 2 hours and 15 minutes with all of these extra shots, so it's doable. That would be an interesting scenario to imagine. I can't imagine anyone being upset with that, as the bitrate shouldn't really be affected by an extra 15 minutes or so.

The EOD documentary was basically outsourced to a bunch of documentary filmmakers. My guess, and one that others have made, is that they simply captured the Laserdiscs or used the GOUT master. The footage is actually not very amazing quality. Has anyone ever done a side by side with the GOUT?

The very word restore implies that you are returning something to the film. Digitally recomping things to eliminate visual information and visual characteristics that were there from the beginning is actually the opposite of what "restore" means.

The matte lines, the opacity compromises, the composite wobble, the misprinted colours were there, they are part of how the film existed (and actually when you understand how effects were done back then you realise that the composite was the effect). Taking them away is eliminating visual information from the original release and compromising the integrity of the film's history. And then you are adding a re-composited version of that effect (which looks different--let's not be in denial again here. The fact that it looks different is the whole reason why you are redoing the effects, otherwise there would be no point, you could just leave them).

So yes, you not only are suggesting the original visuals be eliminated, you are suggesting adding visual to the film. Sorry, that's what you are doing. That's why no one who knew anything about restorations would consider this a restoration. The replaced visuals are true to the spirit of the original yes, and use the same elements--but they aren't the original visuals. Especially from a historical standpoint it undermines the authenticity of the film and eliminates the painstakingly hard work that effects artists went to in order to create those visual elements (the composites--the end point to which all the other effects artists, from painters to the motion control techs, were working towards).

You're wrong because you're using the terminology incorrectly. You can't have things added to the film that never existed and could not have existed and still call it a restoration. It's a Special Edition, or an enhanced edition, or whatever.

CO, whenever you post I feel like me and you had a very similar childhood experience growing up. I was too young to see them in theatres and grew up in the 1980s watching them on video. My dad taped SW off television for me and then later ESB and I watched those over and over. At one point I taped over Star Wars, but then someone gave me a recording of ROTJ from HBO, but I didn't watch it much and even taped over parts of it with Super Dave Osbourne (ouch for ROTJ). Later I re-taped Star Wars but then lost ESB. I finally bought ESB on video when I was ten, my first video purchase ever. Then when the 1995 Faces tapes came out, I only bought SW and ROTJ because I already owned ESB. So 1997 was the first time I bought a boxset and it wasn't even the original versions. I never really thought of them as one big story, even though there is a logical progression that you get a sense of, but I mainly just enjoyed each film on its own merits.

I watched Jedi stoned the other night and it was the first time I have enjoyed the film that much. All it's bad qualities become virtues!

S_Matt said:

So, what you're saying is, there's only one opinion allowed on this forum?

I must say the strange double standards of the restorationalists puzzle me. Especially the notion that its fine to use tools that weren't available 35 years ago to clean and recolor a film but not okay to use the technology to fix compositing faults like matte lines and flickering boxes?

 The tools are meaningless. You don't see or hear the tools in the film. It is the effect that matters, the end result. Regardless of how you restore the film the ultimate goal is to get it to look and sound as it originally did. As long as it looks and sounds exactly as it did, it doesn't matter how you did it, the process doesn't matter, it's the result we are concerned with. If there was an audible difference between the original sound tapes in 1977 and a digitally restored version of the sound tapes in 2011, I would be concerned that it's not truely being restored to its original state--but there is no real auible difference. The result is the same. And that is what ultimately matters. If you could somehow make Star Wars look the same as it did in 1977 using a rock and hammer, that would amazing, because it looks the same as it did in 1977, so why would anyone care that you used a rock and hammer? It's restored, it looks and sounds identical to how it did when it was first made.

Furthermore, cleaning the film is the act of restoring it. The dirt is foreign. It's attached onto the surface of the film from handling, time, and storage. It wasn't originally there, thus in order to get the film to look as it originally did, you have to get rid of it. No one said anything about recolouring, except to get it to match the 1977 version. See the pattern? Matte lines and flickering boxes were there in 1977. That's why they don't get removed. See the difference?

That's why recompositing the effects digitally matters. It's not just that you are recomping them digitally--the end result takes on a different quality. It looks different--that is, after all, the whole point of doing a digital recomp, right? To make it look better, cleaner, more realistic, or whatever, than the original optical. And that's why it's not a restoration. You're changing how it looks and betraying the visual repercussions of the state of technology in the year the film was made.

I've made a lot of really salient points throughout this thread that you've not addressed. I don't know this is on purpose, but I've shot down pretty much every point you've raised.

Anyway, you're basically asking for a tasteful Special Edition, like Blade Runner Final Cut. Which is cool, I would enjoy that and so would a lot of people here probably. But let's not pretend it's anything but that. Once it ceases to resemble the original version, it's no longer a preservation or a restoration--again, the whole point of recomps and stuff is precisely so it can cease to resemble the original version exactly, to get rid of matte lines and mis-timings and opacity issues, and other stuff. So you basically answer your own issue here; your whole point is to create a version that isn't a preservation of exactly how the original was, one that has changed certain visual or audio elements to be technically better and have different characteristics and qualities (no matte lines, fully opaque, consistent colour, etc.). Because if it looked the same, you wouldn't need to re-do it so that it looked slightly different right? So your whole concept is predecated on altering the original content. How you could consider this a restoration or a preservation of the film is beyond me. You seem to think "restoration" means "improving" because restorationists erase scratches and dirt. But the reason they erase those things is because they were never there in the first place, they are foreign artifacts, so it's not actually improving anything, it's (get ready for this) restoring the film to how it originally existed.

This entire thread is basically the whole board here trying to convince one person he is wrong. If you can't see why you are wrong after 8 pages of nothing but rebuttals from dozens of people, some of whom actually do work in non-professional film restoration, then, well...

The "gate weave" would be eliminated. Nobody has really seen that in home video since the 1990s. It's not on the film itself. If a guy like G Force can do that himself at home using software that is available to anyone for free, it's no surprise that professionals have the same capability.

I will give S_Matt some credibility on the Blade Runner issue. The reason being, "restoration" sometimes refers to the creative process and not the historic process. For instance, Orson Wells' Touch of Evil was restored in the 1990s to the version which he originally had envisioned, I believe reconstructed from his extensive notes on how the edit should follow; this was not a version the public ever saw, but it has historical significance for giving a glimpse at the original director's version of the film, same with Lawrence of Arabia in 1990 I think. One may argue in the case of Blade Runner that if Ridley Scott could have made Blade Runner exactly the way he wanted in 1982, it would be very near what the Final Cut is--S_Matt is not totally correct, of course, because it would never have been possible to do the visual effects like that even if he wished and also because the original colour timing was under his control and the new is an actual creative change. Of course, Scott had more control than he might like to admit--it was he who originally wanted the voice over and he could have cut the poor one finally recorded but was paranoid to do so because of all the poor test screening and pressure from the studio; ditto for the unicorn and happy ending. While he was being pressured to include these things and of course he realized how studio politics work, as far as I know he ultimately did conceed to them voluntarily, as he also did on his next film Legend for the same reasons, so the film was never wrenched away totally, even if he later regretted this, hence the issue is a bit more complicated than simply saying Final Cut is how Scott wanted to make it.

But ANYWAY....

This has nothing to do with Star Wars. Forget about Blade Runner. In a worst case scenario, Scott is engaging in simply changing his original choices (colour timing) and enhancing effects no matter how tastefully beyond the capabilities of 1982 (recomposites). In a best case scenario, and this is the one S_Matt is arguing, he is restoring a vision of his that was taken away and/or never allowed to be fully realized. Fine. That's not what the preservation of Star Wars is about. Like Final Cut, we have the Special Edition, in which Lucas has mainly changed his original choices but also artistically restored some things which he would have liked to do but never was able to (sorta. maybe).

The preservation of Star Wars is a historical one. Blade Runner has its historical preservation as well--the 1982 theatrical cut is presented from its original interpositive in a 4K scan, cleaned of dirt and scratches and presented in high definition. Ditto the International Cut of home video fame and the 1992 Director's Cut which launched the film to the status of classic. And for the hell of it they threw in a Workprint which was screened a handful of times, sourced from the original 70mm reels from which it was shown. So, restoring Star Wars would be on similar lines--none of this recomposited stuff, in Blade Runner they call that The Final Cut, not the restored  "Archival Versions" (the term BR gave to its historical restorations of the previous versions).

The Final Cut of Blade Runner is not a historical preservation, it's an artistic one if anything, and even then that's a slightly flimsy concept. The preservation of Star Wars is of a historical nature. Either the film is precisely as it was in 1977 without foreign blemishes (dirt, scratches) or it's not a true restoration--just like they did with Blade Runner, and I'm not referring to the Final Cut but the restored archival versions. You can have a "halfway restoration" which includes some enhancements and inauthenticies, like Adywan's ESB Reconstruction and what S_Matt is proposing. But another word for halfway is halfassed. I'm not interested in anything halfassed. But if it comes from Lucasfilm this is probably what we'll get.

*(Not to knock Adywan--his ESB Reconstruction isn't halfassed, he simply didn't have the materials to make it totally complete, because he is working from the unrestored older versions. So it's a circular problem--the films aren't restored and because they aren't restored fans don't have the materials to do it themselves).

Exactly, CP3S. The restoration of the film is not very complex, and is not hard to please people expecting this--a restoration of the film. Just...restore it. Make it look exactly like it looked and sounded in 1977. If something wasn't there in 1977--then it doesn't belong in the film. You take the negatives, you take the sound masters, you clean them of foreign dirt on the surface of the film and clean out scratches where there are any and bam--there's your restoration.

The "hard to please" crowd is created out of the fact that people want something more than this or less than this, they either accept or actually want things tampered with, to become inauthentic to how the film existed previously and originally--doesn't matter if the sound is different or has a new mix, wants a new mix, wants re-done special effects, wants no re-done effects elements but re-done composites, wants it all the same as 1977 except one or two extra elements, wants deleted scenes put in, wants it the way George Lucas says he wanted it, wants the grain removed, wants the colours altered, wants the image sharpened, wants all of these things, wants all of these things except for one, wants some of them but not all of them. Etc. It goes on. Then, when someone says "I just want the original, nothing more or less"--we're hard to please. No, it's very simple--just present the film as it was. If that does not satisfy you: you want a Star Wars that never existed, that you've just created in your mind as an idealised version of the film.

Anything which "improves" on the film, or changes any sound or picture beyond what was seen on either the final negative or the answer print in 1977--is not a restoration. Because you aren't actually restoring anything, as in putting the film back to its original state. This is what would be called an enhanced version. It is, to describe it another way, a Special Edition. This is not necessarily bad. I for one will likely never watch the pre-Final Cut versions of Blade Runner because that version is the best viewing experience. It's nice to have a version of the film that is not necessarily 100% authentic to its original release but has slight modifications in order to make the viewing experience more pleasing from a technical standpoint. But, aside from the fact that this is secondary in my mind to the actual original, this would not be a preservation or a restoration. If you want to talk about a tastefully enhanced version then fine, but let's call it that, because tp talk about it as a restoration or preservation is a gross misunderstanding of terminology.

First reaction so far, from Demonoid:

I have been a member for a while and never commented on anything. This is the best version of what is my favorite SciFi film of all time that I have ever seen! THANK YOU, for this upload.

Pretty good endorsement! I'm curious what anyone else thinks.

S_Matt said:

xhonzi said:

Judge me how you will:

This whole conversation has made me realize that while I feel and understand the need to preserve these films as they were, I care MORE about my being able to enjoy them. 

 

I say, in a restoration, the goal is, improve whatever you can but stay true to the spirit of the piece.

That's not a restoration. If you are "improving" on the film then what are you restoring? You're adding aspects that were never there in the first place. Restoration means it had to exist in film in the first place.

The goal of an ideal enhancement is to improve on things where necessary while staying true to the spirit of the piece. You're still in denial about what you are actually wanting--a tasteful Special Edition. 

 

Star Wars reduced to a sterile technical excercise - that makes me feel even more ill than Lucas's over the top revisionism.

Sterile technical exercise? All I'm suggesting is presenting the original film. No changes, no enhancement, no de-graining, no nothing. Just clean the dirt and put it on a disc. What you are suggesting is re-doing many special effects shots, digitally filtering things, and changing stuff to look "better." That's the technical exercise. It's not in the preservation and restoration--it's in the enhancement.

I would prefer the films to be full of life and entertainment, not become the cinematic equivalent of Lenin's corpse.

 So you are saying the original versions is not full of life and entertainment, and is the cinematic equivalent of Lenin's corpse? I fail to see how presenting the original version as it was meets this criteria. The population of the year 1977 A.D. would disagree with you.

S_Matt said:

zombie84 said:

It is redoing. The effects weren't complete until the compositing was done; this was its own art, and until it was finished it was just a bunch of bluescreen elements.

 

Well you should apply that argument to the final release prints as well - photochemical colour timing too was an art but they'd definitely not be using it for a release to a digital medium. If you're completely logical and consistant in your arguments you *have* to decry the lack of a photochemical process in the final output of the restored film. Your arguments preclude the use of any digital restoration tools.

 No, because there is absolutely no visual difference in photochemical versus digital grading, the latter is just easier and gives you flexibility, but it would and is possible to mimic the chemical grading of Star Wars exactly in the digital realm. If I timed one chemically and one digitally and put them side by side, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You're going to be scanning it and then watching it digitally anyway, so if you want to be this strict then we'll all have to buy 35mm prints in order to get the "100% authentic" experience.

The original prints have faded anyway, so you literally can't have the "original" timing work--you have to do it again, you have to recreate it, so there is no point in doing it chemically when you can recreate the same effect much easier and at lesser cost digitally. Different argument than the visual effects. The original effects are still there, whereas the original timing has unfortunately been destroyed by the passage of time and will never be able to be recovered precisely as it was, and therefore must be recreated.

It is redoing. The effects weren't complete until the compositing was done; this was its own art, and until it was finished it was just a bunch of bluescreen elements. The composite is the effect. It was a hard job, and took many second, third, and fourth attempts. You had to film the bluescreen elements with the composite in mind. You had to take the time to make a proper matte--there was dedicated matte artists to just do the extractions, which is why some matte lines are better done than others. When you combined them, you had to make sure all the elements were aligned right in the composite, or else it would be all out of place. You had to make sure the opacity was correct, and you had to compromise where it was necessary. You had to print them with certain colours, because they never printed correctly--in fact, sometimes bluescreen elements would be painted "wrong" in order to come out "right" in the composite. You had to take into account the film stock, in order to get the right amount of contrast, knowing it would change, and you had to chose a specific format to account for generational degradation, which added its own aesthetic. They knew they would be compositing things on an optical printer, and it informed the very approach they took.

Once you start re-compositing things, you aren't dealing with the original visual effect. You are dealing with the original elements only. And once you start tossing aside the original effect and going back to the individual layers, you might as well start adding and deleting some--which is why in pretty much every edit where they have done digital re-comps, they have added in new elements as well.

I'll say it again: the original visual effect wasn't complete until it was composited. It wasn't some incidental thing, a final element to the effect that can just be polished up in the digital realm. It was the effect. If you want to have any pretense about "Restoration" or "Preservation" you have to present these as they were. Getting rid of the original composites is removing all the hard work those artists strove to do, to make seem believable and pleasant looking on the screen. And sometimes, it wasn't a total success--and that's an important facet to preserve. The struggle, the flaws, the failures--as well as the slight-of-hand, the successes, and the invisible work that they sometimes did.

The 1985 mix has much less dynamic range and the 1993 mix added new sound effects. That's the main difference from my memory.

If you saw garbage mattes, it might have been because the projection bulbs were too bright. Most theatre owners dim them down so that they last longer, but I guess some projections could be too bright. But under ideal settings my understanding is that garbage mattes should be not very visible (I guess not necessarily invisible--juts not like they were on older videos).

Actually, if a bright orange light is shining right in your face, your skin will look orange. Stand right in front of a sunset sometime, Harmy's example may not be perfect but I'm not sure I would characterize it as "spray on tan." The raw GOUT has a spray on tan look, if anything, because it has no highlights, but Harmy can't really change that. It's unfortunate that the source material will make any derivative look bad to one degree or another.

It's a matter of evidence. As you said, no one can know 100%--not even George Lucas and the DPs of the films. So you have to go external.

There is ample evidence to indicate the bolder colour choices are what the film looked like.

What is there backing up the muted colour? The GOUT? What else? We know the GOUT is desaturated, so that rules that out. In the end, we have a couple of odd 1980s home video releases that have a slew or problems, like being bright, soft, colour-shifted, etc., because they are 1980s analog home video sources. So if you want to go with this colour scheme--what is your reasoning?

It seems more and more like it's purely personal preference. Which is fine.

I have said it before: my favourite transfer of the GOUT is the 2010 Editdroid, which is the most muted and therefore least accurate transfer to date. But it looks the most pleasing, in part because the GOUT has a lot of colour popping problems. Just like the 2004 SE. But I realise its not what the film should look like.