zombie84

You can see there that the Japanese version is perhaps a tad too bright, but that the levels are more accurate. You can tell because of the luminance. In the second R2 shot on the DE, the image has been dialed down electronically, you can tell because the sun-exposed rocks are really dim and dull, whereas the Japanese version has them at (more or less) what they would have exposed as. The Japanese version is also normal color, whereas the DE has been tinted (you can tell because R2 is red, whereas he looks as he would under normal sun in the Japanese version). Same with the other shots, the DE's hot-spots are dulled down, whereas in the Japanese they are as they would photograph, even if the image is perhaps a bit overbrightened. Again, the Japanese version is neutral in color, whereas the DE has been tweaked, perhaps to better match the shots (the last Luke shot has lighting mis-match in the Japanese version).

Now, the argument here could be made that the Japanese version was based off a foreign print that didn't have the correct coloring in the first place, or that the telecine was done by a foreign company that didn't have access to how it ought to have looked, which the DE corrects. But I'm not sure how much merit that has. I have a 1984 VHS sitting on my shelf beside me, but no VHS player. Since this version pre-dates the 1985 IP that was used for every home video release since, it might be very useful, if only I could run it.

There was a telecine (I think) made in 1977 from a theatrical print that was recorded onto VHS as a street bootleg. I saw it on Demonoid years ago. There was a widescreen and a fullscreen version, I'm not sure if they are two different recordings or not. I think it was made in the projection room. The color and exposure is all wonky because it has been duped on VHS a million times. But it might give indication if the actual release version was close to the photo--and what is shown in the Making of book as well--or if the Japanes or the GOUT (read: more vibrant color) is how the scene looked, if there is any color left on the VHS for that shot.

I would say that the SE from 1997 might make for a good comparison since it was color-timed to match the 1977 technicolor print, but certain scenes were tweaked to look a bit different, so it's impossible to say if that wasn't another instance. The R2 canyon scene, for example, is colored differently in the SE, and may have been a development based on tweaking from 1993, if in fact it was tweaked in 1993.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Which is what you are doing now, with your "Vaderisnothayden's view is incorrect and zombie84's view is correct and any view of art the disagrees with zombie's is that of "deluded elitists convinced they know better than others just because they don't enjoy certain things"". People regularly feel their views are correct and opposing ones are incorrect. If they didn't they couldn't believe in their opinions. Get used to it.

This is the pot calling the kettle black. My stance is that everyone is entitled to their opinion, your stance is:everyone is really wrong and I am not. That's what is absurd, what is offensive. Of course I disagree with that. Can you not see why this would piss people off? Holding yourself as Knower of Truth, and everyone's elses feelings and views as misguided falsities? Maybe you shouldn't be totally invalidating everyone else while situating yourself as the only valid opinion if you don't want any flak. I am not stating every view I hold is the absolute truth but simply indicating that this particular view of your is quite arrogant and presumptuous on your part, aside from its demonstratable inaccuracy. I know when people debate movies, people assume they are "correct" in as much as they hold certain beliefs and argue for the merit of them, but most people have the grace to admit that this is their opinion and yours is yours and it all depends on the viewer, most people don't have the gall to look down and say "well, your opinon is your own, but there is actually only one truth and I am the one who knows it." That's the difference you have made. People debating the merit of their beliefs for being "correct" itself demonstrates the subjectivity of perception, which you deny exists in the first place.

Again you attribute to me views I do not hold and assume I'm arguing things I'm not arguing.

If you are going to write off all historical stylizations while exempting the previous moment from this, it certainly is what your attitude has suggested and indicated.

Well you seem to think the critic industry is pointless anyway. There is only The One Truth of Zombie84 and the critics are all "deluded elitists" or whatever.

This is patently different from your view, which doesn't even leave room for debate because everyone can simply be "Wrong" if you say they are, in the end. I think the critic industry is a very interesting and important one, in fact I work in the Cinema Studies department at University of Toronto, I just don't think any one view is inherantly True, beyond our own views. If one view was true, we wouldn't need critics, just this one Art Jesus to lead the way and tell us why we are all mistaken, despite our actual preferences and feelings that disagree. This reminds me of a very Stalinist stance actually.

Actually, what you're arguing is that everybody is wrong except for zombie84. Everybody who thinks any work of art is better or worse and that it's not all subjective (which includes most critics and academics dealing with the arts, plus a whole host of other people) -all those people- are wrong and zombie84 is right, and because of that they're probably all "deluded elitists" and immature idiot egomaniacs.

I don't think all art is equal, I just recognize that it's my opinion and that others may have a different view, and that I'm not inherantly better than them simply because we disagree. That's the fatal flaw that you've failed to realise. You conflate opinion with fact, but it's only a fact if it is your opinion, and that's the true mark of arrogance. But nice try to turn it around and make it about me and my "narrow-mindedness." It's the equivalent to saying people who don't accept Neo-Nazi's are narrow-minded haters. Come on. In as much as I oppose a view that dismisses everyone else as really being wrong and yourself as the only one with the self-appointed capability to dictate the truth of what is personal taste, then yes, I suppose you could say that this is discriminatory.

All I've done is dared to have my own view, dared to have confidence in my own view, dared to hold to my view when an individual or individuals have told me my view is wrong, and dared to hold to to my view despite the fact that the majority among a certain group disagree with me

What you've dared to do, actually, is present your opinion as fact, while writing off everyone else as having "just opinions," misguided views of the real truth of the matter that only you or an imagined elite is privy to.

From that I deduce that you must be very much a the-individual-must-submit-to-the-majority/independent-thought-is-bad type of person

Because that was totally what my point was. You really don't get it.

 In the past I have noted to myself some faults in the thinking in The Secret History of Star Wars, such a tendency to overly quickly dismiss opposing evidence and to build theories on insufficient evidence, but I kept quiet about it, because the book is a great store of Star Wars info despite those problems

I am not above criticism, if you think my work has faults I am more than open to constructive criticism.

On the other hand, this argument started because you didn't feel Wrath of Khan was very good. Fine. But since you believe in One Truth when it comes to art, that means that you must be correct, or else you are wrong. When it was pointed out that there is wide preference against your view, you must therefore defend your ego, because as far as you are concerned it's not just an opinion, it's fact:

-When it was pointed out that most people feel that WOK is the best and STV the worst you accused that they are just herd-thinkers, without qualifying this. Since it's unfalsifiable in the first place, it becomes unfounded paranoia since you can subject any popular work you disagree with as herd-thinkers without having to qualify it.

-When it was pointed out that STIV is considered better than STV, you accused that it was because 80s trends were crappy and that if it was re-shown today it wouldn't be successful, indicating that people at the time didn't really have valid opinions, but now would. Which writes off historical trends in art. Which makes sense if you don't believe in subjectivity. Aside from the fact that people have been re-watching it and maintaining more or less the same view.

-When you made the same accusation to STII, it was pointed out that a great many fans weren't even alive when it was released because of its age, and therefore the movie wasn't acccepted "at the time" because they weren't there, but accepted it in relatively modern times. This tied into the fact that there was no re-evaluation going on in the first place, as you surmised there ought to be. Which is again unfounded paranoia--people would really hate the film if only they could watch it outside of 1982, even though two generations since then have been born and doing the same thing. This is the "nostalgia" argument that prequel people use against OT fans, even though there are a million films people love as a kid that they think are crappy when they grow up.

-This would then feed back into the herd-thinking mentality, I must assume, they like the film because it's popular, bringing us in a nice circular loop to your first point. You know they only like it because its popular because you say you do. You have to, because it's the only way you can be Correct, and you must be Correct because you don't believe in relative views.

You leave us only with a convoluted maze of unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations passed off as material fact. Whatever you say becomes objective fact, simply because you believe it to be, and even if you can't prove it. And your opinions become fact while others remain just opinions, because you believe that only you are correct.

Or it could have gone like this:

-I think STV is better than STII. Just didn't do anything for me, never understood why people think it is so great. But to each his own.

Because in the end, that's all your argument came down to anyway!

There is a VHS bootleg from the theatre from 1977. The generational degradation makes anything too specific impossible to pin down, but it might be possible to tell if the shot is more desaturated like the photo, more middle ground like the Japanese release, or more saturated like the 1993 DE and subsequent releases. I wish I had it, I got rid of it years ago because I didn't think it would be useful.

I would be a little cautious regarding the stills in the Making of book--they look like they are from a low-res video source. My guess is that they are simply taken from a Laserdisk, and that is certainly what it appears to be, which is why the screenshots are always small on the page, the few big ones have clear video noise, muddy detail and soft edges that give it away as an old analog video transfer. The binary sunset scene screen they have looks very similar to the cap above strangely, but maybe they just used the oldest video source they could get because they knew colors had been tweaked for the GOUT.

Also, older editions were slightly brighter because of home video practices of the time. Any transfer of any film from the 80s was artificially brightened a little so that it was more visible when viewing it during the day, whereas by the 1990s this was less pronounced (which is why the garbage mattes are so apparent on early home video and broadcast transfers, but less obvious on later releases).

My opinion is that the film has become dimmer with each transfer through the 1990s, at least in select scenes, but it's a bit difficult to know exactly by how much. The 1993 GOUT seems pretty faithful from all the stills, 70mm frames, and other photo material not from home video, even if some of those sources are faded.

Also, the binary sunset shot, aside from the second sun, is not trick photography. It's a real sunset, taken at the end of the day, so there's not severe exposure manipulation going on, aside from perhaps a bit of compensation to get the sky to photograph. It looks like they were using either an amber or a violet gradient filter, IMO, because some of the grad in the top left corner looks weird, it goes dark like it is something in front of the lens, almost like a vignette, and not the natural sky grad.

That photo doesn't exhibit that though. In fact, it looks almost black and white, and it's too sharp to be from a video transfer from 1993. In fact, it almost looks like it is one of the black and white set photos that has been tinted to approximate the look of the scene. This makes sense when one considers that they were photographing a real sunset in the desert--there should be pretty pronounced color. Especially if they were enhancing it with a filter, which is sort of what it looks like. That the photo does not have the grad artifact on the top left, IMO makes me suspicious that it is not from the actual film negative.

The only solution is this: the photo is actually from the negative, from a camera negative, while the final print was graded in post with a filter to give it more color. This would explain why the 2004 version doesn't have the grad--it wasn't in-camera, as they went back to the negative. This would also explain how the book photo is so sharp, how it adheres to the framing of the film but actually reveals more vertical area (that would normally be masked in projection or video transfer), and why it has less color. It would still be very strange that there was so little color from an actual sunset. And of course all these reasons could also explain why it is a set photography.

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a bit sumped stumped. But IMO, it's not accurate to the final answer print of the film. The GOUT looks like it has had the saturation bumped up, but I don't think I've ever come across material that makes the scene look almost black and white. There was always a hint of some strong color there, even if it was way less pronounced. That's my impression, anyway.

If only he had written a manifesto we could have rendered the entire critic industry obsolete. There is only ONE truth!!!!! Watch out, RLM....

The novelization was actually released in 1976, before the film! Not 1978.

Kurgan, you're blowing your cover on my pay-off scheme! :p

Godfather Saga!

:P

I know, it's a mess too.

Vaderisnothayden said:

As for split screen stuff and form the story was told in, that adds nothing of value worth noting. Innovative form is useless without a good story, emotional depth or real content. The original film was overly sweetened and didn't ring fully true, but at least it had a certain degree of emotional depth. The sequel was just shallow dumb comedy.

Well, form in itself creates emotional or intellectual response. It's an interesting way of telling a story. That's what experimental and avant-garde cinema is about, it's not about identifiable characters and a 3-act narrative structured by Syd Fields, sometimes experiment in form is its own exercise. But personally, I found the performances and characters to be decent; mediocre maybe, but nothing terrible. I always thought this film was unfairly reviled. It's not great but it has a lot going for it. It's certainly a one-of-a-kind film. You are right about Toad though, they didn't have the guts to kill him off, which I thought was a total cop-out.

That's a good point about DePalma--he had used split screens before, but not like in MAG. It might be where Lucas got the idea from though, but then split screen use like in MAG had been seen in some of the 1960s avant-garde shorts, you can even see Lucas trying to experiment with fracturing form in this way in THX 1138 in some of the beginning montage.

The only film to replicate close to MAG that I've seen in a feature is maybe the 2003 Incredible Hulk, where it attempted to literalize comic book panels. But even then, my memory is that MAG did it much more extremely, especially with the parallel/simultaneous storylines.

You might be right about the digital mastering--now that I think about it, my 1993 VHS says "digitally mastered" on the side, I am pretty sure. I guess it's really just the THX process that makes it unique. Personally, though, the films looked sharper and cleaner, especially where dirt and grain were concerned. This could just be tricks in the telecine, I suppose.

As for why they didn't use a restored OOT built for the SE, the restored version of Star Wars wasn't quite so step-by-step. It wasn't like they restored the whole film from start to finish and then did the enhancements. The enhancements were being done at the same time the restoration was, as the pieces were ready, so there was never any moment where there was a full film of restored footage, it was always a piece here, a piece there. ESB and ROTJ were not even part of the plan in 1995, those SE's were only decided only around 1996, so the restoration of those was done after the THX videos were already on shelves.

Personally, I find Temple of Doom the best of all the films. I know the characters are a bit caricatured, and I know Raiders is much better made. But I can't resist the whole "Weird Tales" angle of the film. Sacrificial death cults in underground lairs brainwashing people with voodu and ripping people's hearts out in fire sacrifices. Count me in. Temple of Doom is the closest I have ever experienced to one of those Haunted House amusement park rides. And it has a really genuine intention to scare you. Spielberg is apologetic about it nowadays and tries to pass the buck onto Lucas, but you can tell he was firing on all cylinders to make it a the most terrifying thrill-ride he could. I can forgive the raft scene, and the monkey-brains scene, and the character of Willie on the basis of all this. It's part of the charm. Either you like horror-pulp or you don't, if you do you probably will find all of this is part of the genre, if you don't then you can always watch Raiders and its remake. :P

You know, the stupidest Indy moment for me was always the boat sequence at the start of Last Crusade. How does Indy get back to shore??? Temple of Doom, I can forgive any absurdity because its basically a comic book, but Last Crusade is more in the vein of a realistic family drama in a lot of ways, probably the most down to earth of all four, so this really stands out as unrealistic and convoluted.

Vaderisnothayden said:

So basically anybody who doesn't agree with your relativistic view of art is immature, egomaniacal, idiotic, etc? Nice to know. I won't bother discussing art with you in the future.

I wouldn't bother discussing it with anyone other than other deluded elitists convinced they know better than others just because they don't enjoy certain things. I doubt you could convince any reasonable person that their taste in things is somehow "incorrect."  "Sorry, sir, you may think that Star Wars is a good movie, but actually it's not. Trust me, I've thought about it a long time." At best, people will say they simply don't agree, and at worst you will offend them. "I'm sorry you don't agree. You're still wrong, however."

An absolutist view of any art, whether fashion, comics, cinema, or music, is pure lunacy. I don't know how any person can honestly convince themselves that this has any logical value. In order to do so you would have to believe that you are "correct" about certain opinions and others "incorrect", which is pretty self-absorbed. It also shows how people have absolutely no grasp of cultural and art history, otherwise the only explanation of why films from certain periods have similar characteristics and why people liked certain things during certain periods is "well, they're not as sophisticated as us now", while exempting the present moment from the same analysis. Except for the vintage material that you like yourself, of course, that stuff is "truely" good, not just illusionarily good because of herd-mentality. Because everyone is wrong except for you, right now.

Depends on whether you consider morphing CGI. It's a computer-generated image but only in the sense that digital compositing is as well. It's not really what comes to mind when people say CGI, IMO.

Vaderisnothayden said:

zombie84 said:

The point is that you attempted to invalidate that films success by asserting it wouldn't be recieved as such today, the implication being that the film isn't really as good as its reputation holds. Which is a circular argument--it wasn't released today, it was released in the 80s and was very successful in the 1980s, and if it was made today it would be quite different.

You are mistaken. I am not trying to invalidate the film's success, because I do not believe its success is proof of anything. I have no need to invalidate its success. I am merely trying to point out that it is not necessarily as universally loved as you seem to think it is, and I am doing that because you seem to believe this is an important point and because I am not so confident that everybody loves or would love it.

Yes, you were. I said the film was financially and critically very successful. You said it was because the films "artificial" characterization was in style at the time it was released, and if people could evaluate it again they might change their minds. This is what you said:

"Well, that's back in the early 80s. The sort of artificial character portrayal that the film goes in for would make it less popular if it were released now, because films go in for that sort of thing less nowadays. And some people developed their view of the film back in the 80s and never got around to revising their view in recent times. Plenty ordinary moviegoers, if shown that film, would think it was pretty lame."

This is essentially saying it was only popular because standards were poorer (read: different) back then. But regardless: the film was released in the 80s and was successful in the 80s, by both fans and non-fans. It wouldn't be as popular now because its not in sync with 2010 tastes and styles--but it WAS in sync with 1987 tastes and styles, as you admitted, which is why it was popular.

Again, this brings me back to judging films based on temporal styles. A lot of people in the 1980s would say the film is pretty good, and clever, with witty writing, sophisticated effects, and well-developed characters, with a very relevant socio-political message. Today, they might not, because tastes have evolved and now people have different criteria, standards, and expectations of films in general. But this is like complaining a film from the 1920s has no color and sound. Its a reminder that evaluating the worth of anything in art and entertainment is strictly temporal to the context you are living in.

You're gettting me wrong again. My point in the paragraph of mine you put in quotation marks was that just because people back then liked the film didn't mean people now would like it. The point of that was not invalidate its success back in the 80s but rather to simply argue whether people out there (non-Trek fans) would like it nowadays, seeing as you seem to convinced it would appeal to everybody.

But since there is almost no bad press/reviews about the film, what makes you say that? If you presented the film to people today as though it were a contemporary film, then yes they would probably find it's conventions dated. However, as any film from the 1980s is as dated as STIV is, and as many films from the 1980s are enjoyed by viewers today (who expect the films to abide by 80's conventions), there's little reason to think that there would be a massive re-evaluation. There hasn't been one, as far as any evidence suggests. As for Wrath of Khan, I think a decent amount of its fanbase wasn't even alive when it was released, considering how old it is, which seems to go against a theory that the film was liked in 1982 but would be re-evaluated as poor today. There isn't any wide re-evaluation going on, and hence no reason why we should be asking the question in the first place.

The problem is there are some pretty mistaken ideas about art and what's of artistic value.

See, there you go again. Artistic merit in cinema is based on the following criteria: if it's a movie, then it's pretty much art. There's never been a major motion picture made without some amount of skill in it somewhere, whether lighting technicians, camera assistants, dolly grips, or actors, even if its only miniscule skill or a poor effort. The medium defines it as such, and whether it's "good art" (read: real art, as you might define it) or "bad art" (read: not art, as you would define it), is entirely subjective to the tastes, criteria and personal preferences and opinions of the person qualifying it as such. People in the 1930s would never call a comic book "art." Which is bullshit--there's clearly artistry there, even if the artists skills are poor, calling it "Art" with a capital A just depends on whether or not you enjoy comic books.

Oh there are other criteria for evaluating movies, sure, but artistic value and emotional depth is the big one.

According to who? You?

How do you define "artistic merit"? If I say a film is artistic because the lighting is beautiful but you disagree because the lighting is not beautiful, why is one of us right and one of us wrong? If everyone defines artistry according to their own definition and terms, based on their own preferences and response to specific works, then there can be no objective definition.

How do you measure emotional depth? If the film speaks to you, moves you, or entertains you in some way. Ergo, there is no objective measurement. Teenage girls are 100% valid in saying that Twilight is the most emotionally deep film they've ever seen, because for them it is, it created an emotional response; I am also 100% valid to say it has no emotional depth whatsoever, because for me the film failed to stir any emotion or intellectual stimulation.  Basically: if "emotional depth" is a criteria, then that means we are measuring a personal feeling, a personal emotional response to a film. Whose response do we measure? Yours? And how the hell would be measure it anyway? Emotional depth is a personal judgement based on our perception of what consistutes emotion in the first place, and depth in the second place. This means that its 100% subjective. Emotional depth is created inside a person, not outside, which means there is no correct or incorrect answer.

Well I would argue that you should have come back when you were an adult and tried to assess it anew. I am constantly reviewing and testing my views and assessing things anew, giving myself the chance to form different views if it's warranted. I don't give my views an easy time.

A view you had when you were young won't always be the same as when you are older, but that doesn't make it any more or any less valid. To the person you were when you are young, a film stirred something in you--now that you are a different person, a film might be more effective or less effective. And in 20 years you will be a different person again--and you may find that you like a film more, or less. Appreciation is subjective, and based on who you are--which is why not only can two different people have two different experiences, but the same person can have a different experience with himself at a different stage in his life, where he has grown different tastes, criteria and expectations from his art and entertainment. See the pattern here....

Considerable odds that some such people could like a movie with no merit. Even highly intelligent people make mistakes and people like things for the oddest reasons. 

See, this is the same nonesense again. If they like the film, it has merit, by the very fact that it is liked. It doesn't have merit to you because you don't like the film, don't feel it has good writing, etc. But other people feel it does. This means that for them it has merit. There is no objective merit outside of what we think.

I know it's not just me with one view and everybody else with another, hence my not being so convinced by your and zombie's view that the non-Trek fans would all think the same of this film as the majority of Trek fans do.

This is a relative statement; enough people like one set and dislike another with regularity that it is a reasonable assesement to say it is a vast majority view, IMO. However, there are obvious exceptions, there are always minority views. Whenever you get a large enough pool of people--ST fans--the exceptions add up to equally large numbers. I don't doubt that you could find dozens of people who share your views--I mean, different people like different things, so they've got to be out there.

The problem is that your stance that people's views on films are invalid because they are "wrong" about a films merit is not only just plain crazy, it is incredibly insulting and very, very ego-maniacal. Because what it boils down to is that either you are the gate-keeper for what consistutes "art", which makes you the Ubermensch, or you are not, which makes you wrong like us. And if you are wrong, then first of all who are you to be judging, but more imporantly who is right? How do you know who would be the "correct" view, anyway? Especially if every "majority view" is just a poor, proletariat herd-thinker, according to you?

I'm sorry, but this is such an immature, idiotic view of art and of human pyschology, and it's quite insulting to everyone that's not you. We judge things based on our perferences and tastes, which are influenced by the time and place we live in, our life experiences, and our inborn biases for certain things. No one is right and wrong, people just respond to things in one way and another. About the only thing we view objectively is whether the filmmaker was successful in finding an audience, because this is basically just tallying the hands of his or her intended audience who liked and who didn't like the film. This is mathematic and not anything qualitative, and therefore about the only thing that can be intellectually analysed. But it has nothing to do with the content.

In your ponderous studying of art and cinema, you might want to re-consider your philosophy here. There are different films because there are different people, and people like films you dislike and you like films other people dislike because...gasp! They are all just opinions. My girlfriend thinks Blade Runner and Star Wars are two of the worst films she has ever seen. They do nothing for her, and she's something of a cineaste no less. For her, the films are failures: the characters unidentifiable, the themes uninteresting, the dialogue poor, the effects uninteresting. For me, they are two of my favourite films for total inverse of everything she holds about the films.

And she's right. For her, the films have bad characters, uninteresting plots, and no emotional or intellectual interest. Welcome to the world of art.

I thought More American Graffiti was very inventive in its use of split screens. I have never seen that done in a feature film at that point. It was a very intriguing experiment in form. The film itself wasn't great, but I thought it had some interesting elements in it that at least made it worth watching.

As for the film, it was made by Universal. They were going to make it with or without Lucas, so he reluctantly signed on to try to steer it somewhere. The problem is that the original was such a masterpiece the way it ended that nothing could be added without being superfluous. Toad's Vietnam storyline is sort of neat in itself, though--it's basically Lucas' version of Apocalypse Now. 16mm with a sort of comic-book like satire.

He also said that there is a third group of fans, who are little kids and only know the franchise through the Clone War cartoon. Scary thought. There's like four generations of Star Wars fans now, no wonder the fandom is so fractured.

As far as a Saga boxset, LFL people have been pretty explicit that they are holding that off until they can do some super-elaborate release thing. The trilogy boxsets are just barebones, discount-priced things to make some money in the meantime, I wouldn't read too much into that. I could see them releasing seperate trilogies on BR afterall, but I doubt the current existance of DVD trilogy sets is any indicator of that. I doubt Lucas even knows those exist--he stays out of company business except for special releases as far as I can tell.

Moth3r said:

xhonzi said:

???? Ewok Movie was made for TV, was it not?

True, but it had a theatrical release in Europe under the title Caravan of Courage. I saw it in the cinema here in the UK.

There is some debate about where the Ewok movies should be placed. I always thought they came after Jedi, and I think this is also stated in the essential character guide book I have, but in official canon they come before.

 Yeah, english Wicket really freaks me out. I had seen the film when I was five or six but forgotten most of it. Needless to say, when I re-watched it a couple years ago, the bug-eyed Wicket costume speaking really weird, distorted english to Wilfred Brimley and a little girl with an 80s perm was not something I was prepared for.

Honestly, the 2006 DVD release is the best presentation of the Laserdisk. Even the raw X0 captures weren't as good. The only thing that exceeds it is virtual OOT re-constructions which use the color-corrected SE as a base, which are fantastic but have some major problems cutting in the original footage sometimes, so it is a mixed bag. Personally, it's all so complicated with all the different attempts tha I am sticking to the GOUT. It sucks, but it blows away every LD rip ever attempted.

xhonzi said:

???? Ewok Movie was made for TV, was it not?

 They played theatrical in overseas territories.

Are the droids cartoons even canon anymore? I thought they were pre-empire. I don't remember any stormtroopers and stardestroyers in there.

Hm. So either they used the same technique and hence have the same problem, or it was the transfer to the tapes/disks that was THX supervised, not the actual master--but does that even work that way? I thought "mastered in THX" applies to the master, not the transfering process. If its the same as the DE, then a new master would have to be a copy of the DE master (which was a D1 tape, I believe), making it a generation removed.  Does this even make any sense? Something seems missing here.

It wouldn't be a big deal, Lucasfilm just uses that as an excuse. There would probably need to be some significant color correction done since it is probably faded quite a bit by now, but yeah, the 1985 IP is just one of many sources that are viable for a new, high-def release.

As for the original question, the 1995 THX release is the same print used for most other home video releases (all of them?), the reason it looks better was because the telecine was optimized by THX standards and it was the first time the films had been mastered digitally. As a result the films are crisper and cleaner and have better color and sound quality than the previous releases.

Does anyone know if it was the same master from the 1993 DE just re-mastered and re-transfered, or was it a whole new telecine from scratch? The DE had the ghosting issues from the dirt concealment, but is this on the THX sets as well? If not, my question is why LFL used the 1993 version for the GOUT, since there was a HQ master made for Laserdisk for the 1995 set as well.

C3PX said:

Oh man! All these years while I was watching Star Wars I have been watching people! Aw, I am gonna be sick!

 Not if you've been watching the PT. No people there.

He can also dictate whether taste is good or bad, apparently.