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zombie84

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21-Nov-2005
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Post
#413069
Topic
Editdroid's SW 1977 DVD (Mysterious 720p Anamorphic LD Preservation?) (Released)
Time

A note about images: These are not 100% faithful to the clarity and sharpness of the actual product, however they represent a decent point of illustration.

So, a well connected friend of mine passed along something to me a few days ago. It was an unlabeled dual-layered DVD. He said it was the best home video release of Star Wars ever done. He said it was done by a professional editor, who restored the film himself from the LD using professional-grade tools. He said only five or six people have a copy of this right now, but that the editor said it is good to disseminate and that it would be appearing on the web sometime soon.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I watched the thing—he was damn right. I’ll admit it: the GOUT was better than any Laserdisc preservation, even Moth3r and the Editdroid/Mysterious Mysteries editions. Maybe the X/0 project could surpass it, but mainly because it is using some Black Magic effects so it’s not a strict LD preservation (and that project’s dead anyway), and G-Force’s scripting obviously is cleaner, but it isn’t without it’s own problems. This thing blows away the GOUT, and it blows away every previous pure capture. I wasn’t sure who did this or where it came from, (the title on the menu simply says 1977 Theatrical Version) but a note at the end of the technical description had aurebesh writing. I looked up the aurebesh dictionary and translated it as:

“—Editdroid”

Editdroid has taken a completely new pass at the film.

The menu is stunning, first off, opening with a full-motion montage of posters with music and sound effects, celebrating the original release. Professional grade, a very spiffy intro. So how does the film look and sound? Well, this is a dual-layered DVD, first off, which should tell you the high quality to expect. All the layers are used for the film, except for a technical explanation in onscreen text detailing the process Editdroid used this time around.  I’ll let him speak for himself:

"Picture

The DVD video was created using the 1993 non-anamorphic LaserDisc version upscaled to 720p to extract a 16:9 standard definition element. Great pains were taken to retain the look of the 1993 telecine, rather than trying to match the 2004 version. Outside of transferring an original 35mm print, this is the best available source of the 1977 version of Star Wars.
To achieve this, the 4:3 master was rendered out frame by frame and into Photoshop where it was cropped to 16:9 and blown up to 720p. From there, the contrast of the low spatial frequencies (i.e., fine detail) was increased by 75% to pull out existing detail and amplify the apparent sharpness of the image. To match the look of the 1993 master, shadows and highlights were lightly compressed, and mid-range contrast expanded. The white and black points were retained, to avoid cutting off any detail. The saturation was slightly decreased, and the resulting 120,000+ images were rendered out to create a Quicktime file, then the 7.2mbps DVD master.

Sound (5.1)

A new Dolby Digital 5.1 mix was created using Ben Burtt and Gary Summers’ 1993 remaster/mix as the inspiration. A six track capture of the 2004 Special Edition 5.1 and the two track decoded into four (LCRS) of the 1993 LaserDisc Dolby Stereo mix were done in Pro Tools at 16 bit 48kHz. The 2004 DVD mix was conformed to the 1977 length, and when there were picture/audio changes, the 1993 mix was used.
No pans or fades were changed from the original mixes, and EQ was used sparingly, only when absolutely necessary to smooth a transition from the 1993 to the 2004 mix. A new Dolby Digital AC3 file was created using the maximum 448kbps settings.

Sound (Mono)

The mono mix has many differences to the stereo and the 70mm mix, including alternate takes on some lines, and Shelagh Fraser’s readings for Aunt Beru, which were replaced by a different actress in subsequent mixes. The 1977 mono mix has never been released.
The main source for the 1977 mono theatrical mix came from “The Mono Mix Restoration Project” and would not have been possible here without their hard work. The track, while mostly complete, contained audio drop outs and some gaps, which were filled from a second mono source. All audio was cleaned up to minimize the optical track crackle and rumble. The original transfer was not speed locked, so varispeed and numerous edits were required to patch and slide audio back into sync."

Sound good? It also has the original crawl, taken from the GOUT.

Here is my review of what I like to call EditDroid2 (ED2–what else should we call it?). The main question is: is the picture better than the GOUT? The answer is yes, but no in some ways. In most shots, sharpness is equal, in some shots sharpness is even better, and in some shots I would say the GOUT is a smidge sharper. The difference is splitting hairs, really. I’ll post some comparisons.

One thing to look for is that this transfer is so detailed that you can see the grain—much like on the GOUT. This shows how sharp both of these transfers were—previous versions, while good, did not get detail so fine that the grain became apparent. Maybe this is due to the sharpening processing done in Photoshop. This transfer is slightly less grainy than the GOUT. While this may indicate that it would be slightly less sharp, such is not the case overall—it seems there is a bit of a threshold where actual picture detail does not increase, but spots and grain in the transfer become more noticeable, which this release avoids for the most part. But believe me, this is grainy, and that’s a good thing because that’s how the print is, and somehow it looks more suitable here than the GOUT, perhaps because it’s not quite so heavy and coarse, it seems more like an organic part of the emulsion rather than a mask of dirt overtop of it, and I like being able to have enough detail to see the faults of the emulsion like the density changing. So, in terms of pure detail, I would say GOUT and ED2 are on about equal ground, but ED2 has better grain issues. Some people may say GOUT is a hair sharper, some people may say ED2 is about a hair sharper. It changes from scene to scene in my opinion. But overall, this transfer just looks better than the GOUT and I’m not even sure what to attribute this to since the detail level is about equal—but it’s an improvement nonetheless if you ask me. Maybe it’s simply because it has been upscaled to 720p.

Other picture issues, however: the GOUT has better detail in the highlights. It is a small issue, but one I noticed. You can see this in the example of the escape pod, where the white lighting on the pod is burning out just a bit, but there are other examples (reflections, usually) where the hot spots that have a bit of detail in the 2004 and 2006 official transfers are more burned out. However, if you look at the caps, ED2 has much better shadow and mid-range detail than the GOUT (see the pic of Vader; the caps unfortunately lost a lot of the mid range info). On the other hand, because this is sourced from the LD while the GOUT came from the D1/2 master tape, there are some mild aliasing in a few shots. It’s too bad there wasn’t anti-aliasing filters applied to the shots in which this occurs, although they are only occassional. Below is an example:

As I suspected, the GOUT seems to have had its contrast upped and its saturation nudged by just a bit. ED2 seems a bit more pink shifted in skin tones as well (similar to the 2004 master, but not nearly as bad–see the pic of the rebel trooper). None of these are necessarily “correct”, it simply depends on your preference; I prefer the GOUT skin tonality, but I also prefer the lower contrast/extra mid-range detail that ED2 gives. But, because of some occasional aliasing and highlight blows, I would say the GOUT has a mild advantage here. ED2 has some very minor edge enhancement in a couple scenes, such as the Falcon’s entry into the Death Star, whereas the GOUT does not as far as I remember. It’s extremely mild, of course, and only in a few shots, but I have to mention it.

One of the great things about this is that the subtitles have been recreated to a T and are burned in. I appreciated this touch. Sorry, GOUT, you lose here.

Also, it appears that the frame shaking that the GOUT was plagued with is gone (“gate weave” in technical terms). Select shots have a bit of weave, but in general the entire transfer seems to have been stabilized. A subtle but important improvement over the GOUT.

But of course, the big one: ED2 is anamorphic! And in 720p no less. And it looks stunning. Even on my 4x3 computer screen I noticed a great boost in picture quality. Trust me, when you pop this into your set top player and watch it on you 40” 16x9 television—you will be impressed. None of this stretching or zooming nonsense. This will be the only version of Star Wars you will ever watch until Lucasfilm restores it from a 35mm source. I’ve seen the GOUT re-transferred to anamorphic and it doesn’t look this good. The only outstanding issue is the aliasing–maybe someone here can fix that.

On to audio. The 5.1 mix is really, really good. It sounds better than the 2004 mix–it seems more lively and immersive, but maybe that’s because I haven’t listened to the 2004 mix in a few years. Ben’s original Kryatt dragon call is in there, and I believe the audio swapping and dropping from 2004 has been fixed. One thing I did notice that kind of bugged me is that in the scene where the stormtroopers are knocking on the doors in Mos Eisely the sound of the floating patrol droid is still heard in the background. Meh. Since there was no 1977 5.1 mix this is a modern bonus in some ways anyway. I really enjoyed seeing the 1977 cut in a state of the art 5.1 mix.

The mono mix is most likely the previous version on the older ED disk. It sounds amazing, and I actually prefer this to the 5.1 mix. It’s more authentic anyway. I am disappointed the stereo DE mix was not included as this would have been my preferred way to view the film. I realize Editdroid wanted to save as much room for picture as possible, but it’s too bad this couldn’t be included.

So, overall: GOUT or ED2? If you have a small 4x3 television and you already paid money for the GOUT, you aren’t going to gain a whole lot, unless you want to enjoy the mono mix. For those with larger sets and especially anyone who has a 16x9 set, no question: ED2. Until X/0 releases their project, if they ever do, this is easily the best LD transfer of Star Wars possible without going to a 35mm print or the 2004 master. Scripts like g-Force’s are impressive in their own right, but IMO they still haven’t figured out how to preserve all the detail without scrubbing out every bit of grain.

While a color corrected 2004 master would yield much better detail, the crushed blacks mean that ED2 has better detail in some ways (better even than the GOUT for shadows and mid-range). However, there is a more important reason: it will never be possible to replicate the “look” of the 1977 release via the 2004 master. This is because Star Wars was deliberately shot soft—almost every scene was soft-filtered. There is a gauzy look to the film that the 2004 master eliminated by artificial sharpening, and also by grain reduction. While Star Wars’ raw negative probably isn’t as grainy as this is, it is much closer to the original look, and because it is less grainy than the GOUT, probably is what audiences would have actually seen in a 35mm or 70mm release print. Also, editing the 2004 master to include 1977 footage usually doesn’t work out because of this difference in grain and sharpness, although Adywan was pretty successful in his (limited) attempts (which often required treating the shots as visual effect composites). For these reasons, as nice as edited and color-corrected 2004 masters are, they still aren’t as good as this. THIS is what the original 1977 release would have looked like. Okay, so the coloring on the R2 canyon scene is debatable, the binary sunset shot might be oversaturated, and the cantina might be a bit darker. To me, these things matter less, and there is still ongoing debate about most of these “changes” anyway. For me, I’d rather see the shots a bit softer, see Luke ignite his lightsaber, have a noticeable jumpcut and see the grain level double, because that’s what the film would have looked like.

In short, this is currently the best release of the original Star Wars on home video so far. It is as sharp as the GOUT, has less grain, has image stabilization, has the original crawl, has a 5.1 mix and the original mono, and is anamorphically enhanced in 720p. I suspect that it will not be surpassed until either X/0 is resurrected, the GOUT scripts get improved, or we have new material to work with—which would mean newly transferred material from a print. Until that happens, I just thought everyone should know that after Lucasfilm outdid the LD preservations with the GOUT, Lucasfilm’s GOUT has now been outdone by a LD preservation. Fuck you, Lucasfilm!

EDIT

See post #67 for a breakdown of what this transfer actually is derived from…

(hint: it’s not a Laserdisc proper)

Post
#412778
Topic
OOT Letter Writing Campaign for Blu Ray release
Time

So I put my letter in the mail just now. This was what I wrote. If anyone has any suggestions or improvements for future letters, let me know, will be good to vary the content.

 "To whom it may concern,

My name is Michael Kaminski, author of The Secret History of Star Wars. It has come to my attention that Lucasfilm is currently preparing a Blu Ray release of the Star Wars films, which is very exciting to me as a lifelong fan. However, also as a lifelong fan, I cannot help feel a sense of frustration that the original theatrical versions have not yet been restored. I know the negative is conformed to the Special Edition edit, but I also know that there are interpositives, separation masters, and fine-grain masters that would be viable for a high definition presentation of the original cuts.

I love the Star Wars series with all my heart--it is the reason why I wrote a 600-page book on the subject. However, as both a historian and an archivist, not to mention a fan, I cannot help but be disgusted and disturbed at the manner in which the history-shaping original cuts have been treated, such as the Laserdisc re-release of 2006. I urge Lucasfilm to please include the original theatrical versions of the Star Wars trilogy in high definition on the upcoming Blu Ray. I'm afraid I will have no need to purchase the set when it arrives if this does not happen. I've spoken to many other people and they feel the same way. I hope Mr. Lucas gets a chance to present his directors cut in whatever way he wants, but I also hope he can overlook his own ego and give back to the world the films that not only granted him the empire in which such Special Editions were made possible, but that changed the world of cinema, touched the lives of hundreds of millions, and has a very important spot in the cultural heritage of the 20th century western world.


Sincerely,

Michael Kaminski"

Post
#412614
Topic
"The People Vs. George Lucas" documentary...
Time

Eh, as the reviewer says it does cater to fans. It's not something I would show my parents. But having said that, if you are a fan of the series it is something that is right up your alley, I suppose it helps that I saw it in a theatre of 800 Star Wars fans. The film isn't terribly "in depth" and philosophical (although I thought it had an appropriate balance), it's a comedy showing the absurdity and experience of Star Wars fans' relationship to the creator of the franchise over the decades, which is why it takes a chronological approach. A good comparison might be Trekkies. Topics of conversation are brought up, conflicting sides are presented, but for a lot of them there isn't some resolution because there can't be, it's just people's opinions and there are some wide disagreement even at that. I don't know, I'm not sure what people were expecting. The film uses footage from parodies in place of narrative footage and cutaways, which is quite extensive, and I thought this was part of what made the film so funny, so it's definitely not 90 minutes of talking heads. I would say it is true that a lot of people aren't introduced and aren't developed as characters aside from them recounting their various SW experiences, but only because that would be superfluous, I don't need to see cliched footage of Gary Kurtz and Dale Pollock walking around their gardens and taking their kids to school. I agree that there could have been more insight from professionals to perhaps frame the arguments of fans and admirers that are the focus--the film is already structured like this, they just could have featured them more. The filmmakers simply didn't want to--their interview of Dale Pollock went on for 4 hours, and even though Gary Kurtz has only a few lines in the film his interview was 90 minutes long. You start getting into the issue of covering too much, which I thought the film struggled with already. I look forward to see these interviews on the DVD though, which is what I am told is the plan right now.

Post
#412576
Topic
"The People Vs. George Lucas" documentary...
Time

They came to me over a year ago and we have been in contact since then. There was plans to have an interview with me as a DVD extra along with Dale Pollock and Gary Kurtz, but since they are pressed for time and don't have their equipment right now that might not happen.

These guys really did kill themselves for this film. They financed it out of their pocket. Alexandre is in the middle of a divorce because of the film. They might be sleeping on my couch this week because the Hot Docs festival only pays for the first four days. Troopers all the way, I have to say. Reminds me why I got out of the industry. :p

Post
#412561
Topic
"The People Vs. George Lucas" documentary...
Time

I saw this yesterday at its Canadian premiere and hung out with the director, producer and some distributor reps until the wee hours of the morning at a few pubs. Great guys, and Alexandre introduced me to a sold-out audience during the intro before the film as well, which was flattering.

This is a terrific, terrific--HILARIOUS--film. OT.com will be proud--I guarantee it. These guys are one of us. OT.com gets a lot of coverage, as do fan edits, and Jay is in the film. The movie is divided into chapters and a whole chapter is devoted to the OOT preservation issue and the SE nonesense. They have Lucas' "I'm concerned with preserving our heritage" quotes, the National Film Registry issue, the 2006 GOUT debacle, the stupid Lyn Hale "all the prints are gone" e-mail, they have the Blade Runner 5-disk set example, and when they showed the clip of Hayden in ROTJ to demonstrate how absurd the SE was the whole theatre groaned! During the Q and A after the screening, Alexandre talked at length about what a travesty it is to have lost the original versions of the film, and I gave a talk to him and some people after about the particulars of the negative surviving (an issue the film brings up is whether the negative survives as Lucas say it doesn't--which is a language trick!).

I hope everyone see this when it comes to DVD. The guys at TF.N will probably not like it. This is the documentary OT.com would make--thank Christ someone's doing it!

Post
#412167
Topic
Star Wars coming to Blu Ray (UPDATE: August 30 2011, No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!)
Time

I think if you have 100GB of space, the movie would just be less compressed. Usually the space taken by the film just expands to fill whatever new ceilings are offered. You could technically fit three versions of Star Wars on a DVD, it just wouldn't look very good. And you could do the same with Blu Ray now. While a 100GB disk would present pretty good quality even with three versions, next to other 100GB releases that don't need to fit three films on one disk it would look poorer, so you'd want to increase the file size of the film to fit the expanded ceiling.

Post
#412003
Topic
OOT Letter Writing Campaign for Blu Ray release
Time

This is something I mentioned in another thread but I really do feel it is important.

Now, we always knew that there would be a Star Wars Blu Ray. And we always ask, "will the OOT be on it?" Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Now, however, we know that the Blu Ray is in production. It's being worked on right now and LFL representatives are publically admitting to this. And if rumors are correct, it is set for release in late 2011. We have right now the opportunity to give a big push and let them know--WE WANT THE ORIGINAL VERSIONS OF THE FILMS PROPERLY RESTORED. We have only a limited window in which to do this--they could easily change their plans and the make the OOT included in the set as late as spring 2011. After the thing is done, however, who knows how long it will be until another release. Five more years? Maybe more. We have to be aggressive and the time to do it is now.

So let's do what this site was created to do. I know we have the petition going. But let's actually start writing to Lucasfilm and letting them know how much we want it. Write them an e-mail, mail them a letter. I personally vow to send Lucasfilm a letter a month for the next 6 months asking for this to be done, and I'm going to match each letter with two e-mails. Maybe it's a bit of a long-shot. But we all know that our protests and the existance of this site had a lot to do with the decision to release the films in 2006. The problem is, we started writing them letters after it had been announced that the DVD was the 1993 DE. Let's pre-empt a disappointing announcement by helping shape what that announcement could be. There are an awful lot of us on this site and I know that our combined voices will be heard if we shout loud enough. Tell your friends, contact other websites, let's try to actually organize and do  this.

Who is with me?

EDIT

The mailing address for Lucasfilm is P.O. Box 29901, San Francisco, CA 94129.

Post
#411940
Topic
DVD Active's The Ten (things that SW Blu-Ray should include)
Time

none said:

I'd rather pay for a Star Wars dedicated TV or on-demand channel.  There's too many miscellaneous things which I would like to see, but they are not the content which these BluRay's are targeting.  With a channel, you can give people the quality presentation of the main features which drives the market (ie these BluRays), but also satiate the less marketable material, which could become marketable as people realize it exists.

 That's actually a really cool idea! My only problem is that on-demand stuff is so over-compressed.

Post
#410948
Topic
Star Wars coming to Blu Ray (UPDATE: August 30 2011, No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!)
Time
When we lose theatrical cuts it all becomes a confusing mess.

I think it's a mistake to think of theatrical cuts as "the" cut. Our particular group has been conditioned to think that way because of Star Wars and the relatively unique situation of revisionism; most people would say the theatrical version is of arbitrary importance, what's normally considered important is usually the "director's cut". But it really comes down to audience demand. If an early cut is crappy and of no historical relevance or radical difference, then no one really cares if they can see it or not. I mean, many horror films of significance were widely shown in R-rated versions, but because these versions are not preferred they are never preserved on DVD, because no one cares.

The thing is movies are shown in different ways in different formats and with different characteristics and differences and you can't always have every single minor detail accounted for in its own release, you have to sort of split the odds and single out the one or two most significant and in-demand versions. This is not a new phenomena, though, it's been there since the birth of the medium. Especially for non-contemporary films, there might be two or three versions of the film throughout its original "release" because releases were staggered in waves and the films were tweaked in response to these evolving "tests", like in the case of Heaven's Gate, and it also gave filmmakers to simply change their mind, like in the case of the sound mixes on Star Wars. You have to sort of accept that you aren't going to be able to have official releases of each and every version, or that said releases might only be rare; and in many cases, the tweaking done is so minor that there almost is no point in having two home video versions. Maybe this will happen to Avatar, because at a measily six minutes for a film that is almost 3 hours I doubt many people will really even notice a difference, unlike the extended cuts of Aliens, T2 and The Abyss, which were all 20 minutes longer and of significantly different character. Its the norm to simply let the studio or filmmaker decided on the one version of the film they think is the best or that the audience will enjoy the most, and then if there is audience demand for alternatives they will release those as necessary. I guess we'll have to see if people really can't do without the six minutes of extra footage, because that's really all it comes down to.

Avatar is a strange case though since it was shown in different formats (1.78 and 2.35), and in different mediums (2D film and 3D digital), and in different versions (original theatrical release and second-wave extended version), and home video is its own can of worms since many people can't--or won't want to--view the 3D version, so you sort of have to expect that you might not be able to view every single difference or see the film exactly as it was in the particular theatre you saw it in. I mean, most people probably saw Lawrence of Arabia in the 35mm ratio, but that ratio never has been and likely never will be seen on home video because people are fine with the 70mm ratio, which is what David Lean wanted anyway.

Post
#410925
Topic
Star Wars coming to Blu Ray (UPDATE: August 30 2011, No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!)
Time

Also, Cameron was referring to films being products of their time. Like how he isn't putting in CG to the crappy effects of 1984's Terminator. The film is what it is. Lucas putting CG and radically re-working Star Wars is making something from the distant past something it's not. That's what he was referring to.

Post
#410894
Topic
Star Wars coming to Blu Ray (UPDATE: August 30 2011, No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!)
Time

Well, I suppose it's inconvenient, but its not really fragile compared to the others. It's actually the most durable, longest-lasting format ever invented. Celluloid preserves for generations and generations, depending on the type, I mean we have original technicolor film from the 1930s still in remarkable shape. Optical disks will rot in ten years, and most forms of tape will be severely deteriorated after twenty. Star Wars was shot on a very unstable film stock, but that's an exceptional circumstance in the format's history due to laziness/cheapness at the time of manufacture. And even then, the information is still there, you just have to play around with it in post to get the colors to read correctly, and it will continue to uphold such quality for another ten years at least. At about a fifty year lifespan for Eastman color film and at seventy and counting for Technicolor film, the format is a godsend.