zombie84

Digital doesn't actually cost less. The rental price of a camera like the Genesis is way more than a Panaflex to start. Okay so you save on film stock and developing--but you have to have an HD tech on set at all times, sometimes more than one, and you are paying these guys over $30 an hour. Plus, your DP has to take more time in his lighting, so you will have 100 people standing around at scale wage for an extra hour a day, and then you will have post-production costs involving transfering from the HD tapes. In the end, maybe its cheaper, but just barely, and when you are spending $30 million for a run-of-the-mill movie and $200 million for a blockbuster movie what the hell is a measely $50,000 when it makes the whole film look so much nicer?

Hernalt said:

Interesting read.

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html

 I wrote that :D

The AOTC and ROTS camera "negatives" (the tapes, anyway) are 1080p. The ROTS model I didn't think improved the resolution, it just gave perks like uncompressed color space and user-oriented upgrades, though I could be wrong. So whatever the "master" of AOTC and ROTS is, resolution wise it is still just your standard HD. I have no idea what the master is, but especially at that time it was standard practice to do your FX at the same res as the camera, and I can't see why this should be an exception--possibly they were done at 2K res, but the difference is so negligable anyway, in any case many of them are integrated into 1080p resolution live-action plates.

It's kind of sad how the Star Wars saga has been perpetually downgrading in image quality--you'd think things would be improving with technology!

1977-1983 OT: Full 35mm anamorphic resolution --wOOt

1997 SE: Partial 35mm anamorphic resolution, with partial 2K res for anything with a special effect or new element in it --its not so bad, par for the course for the 1990s

1999 TPM: 2K resolution scan from 35mm anamorphic original --shame, but at least it came from film in the first place

2002 AOTC: primitive 1080p HD original --low-quality res of low-quality image

2004 SE V2: 1080p scan of 35mm original for home video use --wow, so now Star Wars can never be shown theatrically in a competetive quality

2005 ROTS: slightly less primitive 1080p HD original --is this really worth considering an "upgrade"?

skyjedi2005 said:

zombie84 said:

I think retrospective commentaries are more honest.

 

Except when Someone tries to rewrite history, replaces the original films and says the special editions were the way the films were always intended.

When The same person now claims that he always had Vader as Luke's Father. 

That the story was always about the downfall and redemption of anakin skywalker and a six movie saga.

The same guy who told the media there would be a sequel trilogy and now says they made it up even though they have his direct words in print.

I would rather Lucas be honest and tell us he made it all up a he went rather than playing this omniscient god like creator who had it all in mind from the beginning,lol.  Give me a break.

 

Honesty is never allowed unless you want to join those banned from the Ranch.  People who have worked with him and may work with him in the future have to dance around the issue and act businesslike, or if they are his employees they cannot badmouth their boss and remain on the payroll.

 

Hollywood types who are gods in their own minds and have legendary egos and tons of fanboy worship,and exert power over everyone around them.  You are not going to get an honest take on the making of one of their films.

Right, so do you think a commentary in 1983 would be any different though? There is always more pressure to be "diplomatic" when the film's are new and relationships still active. Time heals all wounds, so they say, so people have an easier time saying so and so made a bad decision 20 years ago than they do saying so and so made a bad decision the other day.

And Lucas' hegemony has pretty much been constant since Star Wars was released. It has increased, no doubt, but as far as the topic in question I don't know if it would really be a relevant one.

I think retrospective commentaries are more honest. You don't have to worry about whether it will effect the success of the movie, or how people view it, or if people will hire you, or if it will strain relations with this person or that. People can say how they really feel, unencumbered by politics that exist at the heat of the moment. Its great when Carrie Fisher boos the ROTJ romance and says "give me a break, it was better when they were fighting." She would have never been able to say such a thing if it was 1983. Personally, I find the OT commentaries very entertaining--though I agree: Why the fuck does Ben Burtt hog up so much space?? Argh. Personally, I always felt that Lucas should have had his own, and then everyone else on another, though it seems like Ben Burtt needs his own track too!

ChainsawAsh said:

But things that are done digitally are limited to the highest resolution that was worked with.  If I'm not mistaken, AOTC and ROTS were shot with 1080p digital cameras, so they'll never be able to look better than Blu-Ray.  Though I could be mistaken, as most/all digitally-shot films today are at least shot at 2K, and I don't think George is *that* big of an idiot.

 At the time AOTC and ROTS were made, there were no 2K cameras on the marketplace. So the "original (digital) negative" of Episodes II and III is 1080p resolution.  Very, very sadly. So what you see in the theatre, even IMAX, is basically just a projected Blu-Ray in some sense.

I don't know, ROTJ lacks the feeling of ANH to me, it often feels lazy, stilted and operating on auto-pilot. The plot is tired, the dialog is tired and the actors often look like they would rather be doing something else; the chemistry was lost. I think the big difference is that it was still featuring the same people we were already in love with (Luke/Hamill, Han/Ford, etc) and had a story with enough action, effects and occassionally good scenes (the throne room) and occassionally good dialog (Lawrence Kasdan) to get by. But it's basically a proto-prequel, IMO, when I allow myself to step back from my own nostalgia and look at it more objectively. It's definitely better than a prequel, but as I said for me this is mainly because I cared already about Luke and Han, but Anakin and Padme had to earn my love.

Personally, I find that TPM has the same combination of magic imagination and bored acting that ROTJ does.

skyjedi2005 said:

I don't know if i agree with that Kingdom of Heaven is one of the worst movies ever made.

Though i do like Legend and Blade Runner.  Though both of those films were considered somewhat of a disaster when originally released.

Gladiator and Alien are also good films imho.

To me and it is my own opinion KOH is as bad as alexander and troy.

 KOH theatrical cut--i agree. Horrible movie. Some good stuff here and there, but overall bad, misguided, disjointed.

Directors Cut Kingdom of Heaven--greatest epic since Lawrence of Arabia. No exaggeration--this thing is a masterpiece that I guarantee would have won, or at least been nominated for, Best Picture at the Oscars. Its a thrilling, beautiful, breathtaking, surprising masterpiece that ranks as one of Scott's finest achievements, and as one of the greatest historical films ever made. Skyjedi, i don't know if you've seen the 3.5 hour director's cut--i HOPE you haven't, to be saying it sucks--but it was made to be a roadshow style oldschool epic, with an overture and intermission and everything. This is how the film was concieved and shot. The theatrical cut is an arbitrary abortion. Please see the Director's Cut and enjoy its splendor.

CO said:

OK, this is just my theory, so I welcome any disagreements or agreements:) 

Many here (not all, I am generalizing), wonder why SW & ESB stick out as such classics and wonder why ROTJ & the PT couldn't harken back to the quality of those two movies.  Here is my theory:

Star Wars '77 is just a simple good vs evil story that is essentially told through the hero. It is a self contained movie, and  it is film 101 at its best.

ESB is a brand new start to the series, and really tells a whole NEW story, essentially with the same characters we fell in love with.  Now the movie isn't just about good vs evil, but about father vs son, and by doing this Lucas can take the movie WHEREVER he wants to go.  He doesn't have to tie up any loose ends, isn't held down to saying what happened to this guy and that guy, the movie just moves for 2 hours and this is the NEW story, as Episode IV was just a prologue.

ROTJ and the PT are essentially tied down now by all the plot points that have to be settled because of ESB.  In ROTJ, we have to have closure if this is the last movie, we have to see what happened to Yoda, we have to see what happens to Vader, we have to have Luke find out who this 'other' is.  Great plot points, but the plot points essentially dictate the story, rather then in ESB, the story dictates the plot points.

Lucas is even more tied down in the PT as he has to tell the WHOLE backstory.  He has to follow a plotline and address many of the plot points in the OT to keep the story linear.  He can't go from point A to point C like he did in ESB, he has to go from point A to point B and finally to point C, and that is why the last hour of ROTS is essentially a paint by numbers greatest hits. 

Just my theory, discuss!

Very good theory CO--I agree. Part of what often makes earlier entries better is that they aren't constrained in any sense, they can make whatever is best for the characters and story. As you reach the end of the story, you can't take it anywhere, you are up against a wall, and you have to deal with all the stuff that has gotten you there, shackled down by the weight of the past films. Because of this, you sometimes get pigeonholed.

If you plan things out in advance enough, you can often avoid it. Because when you work out an outline for the overall piece, you will realise, damn this doesn't work very well because I'm stuck here, that means I have to change the middle part to go along a different path, or else set things up differently so this still works.

The problem is that the OT was not planned out like this, and much of what was got changed around significantly. As a result, the free-wheeling creativity of the first films ran into a brick wall of resolution in the final chapter. It also doesn't help that Lucas isn't the best writer--a lot of these problems could have been handled more smoothly with a better writer at the helm. But the core issue would still be there, mind you. Good observation.

Very true. And, to be honest, I would prefer that cut--when I was re-watching American Graffiti for the first time in years a couple years ago, I remember thinking that one or two scenes really seemed out of place and draggy and pointless and probably could have been trimmed out; even though as scenes they were still pretty good, they just didn't flow with the pace of the film. Afterwords, I found out they were originally cut out of the film and then restored by Lucas. Normally, studio-imposed cuts aren't good but I have to agree with these ones.

skyjedi2005 said:

I would like a book that traced all Lucas films from his college days to now based on their thematic ideas and interconnecting threads, and also where Lucas fits in in the french new wave of cinema verite and auteur theory of filmaking. 

 I have been writing that for about a year now. ;)

To be fair, SkyJedi, Hidden Fortress was popular entertainment, too. Kurosawa made a lot of personal films, like Ikiru and Rashomon, but he had to sedate his financial backers by occassionally making a mass-audience mainstream hit. Hidden Fortress is the most blatantly popular of all his films. It was designed to be commercial. It's also probably why Star Wars was so suited to adapt it.

My first theory was that the solitary sentance was taken from a treatment made in preparation for the rough draft, for various reasons. But it was actually a 2-page treatment Lucas made before the May 1973 hidden-fortress-inspired treatment. He seems to have written it at the very end of January, 1973. This comes courtesy of Rinzler's Making of, which is the first actually validation of the treatment beyond the one sentence that existed beforehand. Annotated Screenplays nonetheless seems to have been written in ignorance to the document, so I assume Rinzler was the one who discovered it. He was probably tipped off because Lucas talks about its content in the "Lost Interviews" that form the basis of that book.

EDIT

See here:

http://www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/journalofthewhillspart2.html

Gaffer Tape said:

Did you read the appendices, or has the book changed since the draft I own?  As far as zombie concluded, the CJ Thorpe draft never existed outside of that one-line description of it.

I think you read the earliest version of the book, from March, 2007. It has changed quite drastically since then. It's still changing actually, since I'm doing a quiet revision that should be shipping out beginning in the middle of june.

As Chainsaw Ash said, there are two types of grain:

-dupe grain

-emulsion grain on the camera original

Dupe grain is bad. Its a foreign element that comes from replication, and resembles a mask of dirt over the image. Nearly all of the grain on the GOUT is dupe grain. Its basically like a photocopy of a photocopy--each time you replicate it, the image degrades, in the case of film you get extra grain added. This should be removed, or more importantly bypassed by going to an earlier print thats not so far generationally removed. Grain reduction software often just fuzzes it out by blurring the grain, which just degrades the image further.

However, film IS grain. This is emulsion grain thats on the camera negative. Its like saying "lets remove pixels from digital images." Its a nonsensical statement. Digital images are composed of pixels, and film is composed of tiny crystals that form an image, and are called grain. There are different types of grain, which vary by size and other factors. But this literally IS the film---the detail is made up of grain. Sometimes the grain is slightly bigger, sometimes its finer, and the grain size is deliberately chosen by the cinematographer--but its always there. This should not be removed.

However, people have this image of old movies being all grainy and shitty looking. They're not. Thats the dupe grain, because most old movies are made from old, generational prints. The 2004 SE is actually a very accurate reproduction of the camera negative. If you look at it you can see grain in the image, because the image is grain, but there shouldn't be a mask of dirtyness over it like in the GOUT, that is all foreign. I think the SE might have had a bit of sharpening done to it, but its basically a close approximation of the camera original. But this doesn't apply to all films--some films have much more noticeable grain structure, and some films actually use a visibly distracting heavy grain for purposeful effect.

Anyway, grain is good, its the image, its what the image is composed of, it has a texture, its like saying lets remove the brush stroke marking from oil paintings--well, sorry, thats what the image is composed of, its part of the aesthetic. However, I think the nastinest offenders are often dupe grain, and this is not part of the original image. Yet removing it just makes things worse, you just blur out the detail. Basically, you have to just get an original negative so that it doesn't have dupe grain, and if you can't well then you are shit out of luck. Such is the case with the GOUT. But people often still complain that Blu Ray brings out the grain in films--it sure does; thank god we can finally see films they way they actually look. Film has a texture; people just aren't accustomed to seeing it on their TVs because they've never actually seen this sort of STRUCTURAL TEXTURE, as opposed to dupe grain, before because home display has never been capable of displaying it.

As for the topic--you know, I've seen a million reasons of people trying to justify why the films are colored the way they are. The simple, painful answer is that its just shoddy workmanship and poor taste. I wish it were otherwise. Lucas wanted the films to be saturated, high contrast like the prequels, and with a more bolder color pallete, someone totally fucked up implementing this, Lucas was an idiot and said it looks good, everyone else was afraid to say it looks like shit and Vader has pink lightsaber, and voila, Lucasfilm just made half a billion dollars in video sales.

Actually, Lucas' first 1973 treatment was a literal remake of the film, and Lucas even copied entire passages from its summary in Donald Richie's famous book The Films of Akira Kursawa (probably because he didnt have home video and couldn't remember every plot detail). But yes, the final film deviated quite a bit, more than enough to constitute a unique entity in its own right. Still, the similarities were such that Gary Kurtz contemplated purchasing the rights from Toho just in case. I like to think of it as "inspired by" rather than a remake.

You know, if it weren't a Star Wars film, I'd have to say that TPM is a damn imaginative and sincerely made childrens fantasy thats utterly unique and quite fun for most of its duration. I enjoyed it on that level when it came out, and I still do. Its a very fun film if you can sort of disassociate it from its place as the first episode of the Star Wars saga, which it does a terrible and disrespectable job of existing as.

But theres some soul in the film in its genuine conviction to entertain as a kids adventure fantasy; I still don't think its a very good film even as this, the writing and acting is not superb and the storyline gets bogged down a lot, but its certainly worth watching, and more than once. In a lot of ways thats what it seems like Lucas was really interested in, and its shows--he was more interested in creating a unique children's fantasy adventure from scratch, which he mostly did, but he didn't have the guts to actually make one from scratch so he had to build it within the confines of the Star Wars franchise, and I think because of that its a failure because it gets weighted down by its obligations to said franchise in terms of storyline and characters. I think being couped up for 20 years without being able to tell a story and then having the ability to portray all the crazy things he had seen in his imagination, Lucas let his Star Wars prequel turn into a sort of personal pet project--its no surprise that the film is basically the plot of Hidden Fortress mixed with Dinotopia, but with references to and characters of the Star Wars series amongst the storyline. He basically made it as divorced from the world of Star Wars as he could get away with.

10 years later it still stinks as a Star Wars prequel and as a serious movie, yet I can't help but feel like theres too much imagination in it to write it off completely. It has a very strange identity.

Funny you should mention this. Last weekend I found an LP of Return of the Jedi. I put it on, not expecting much since I never thought ROTJ was as good as ESB for the score--but my god, it was amazing! The quality--I was hearing things I had never heard before, nuances that I never knew about! The sound had such ooomph to it, and clarity. In particular, the track where the rebels come out of hyperspace and run into the death star shield--the war drums and trumpets and everything here makes it sounds like something out of Holst's The Planets, or almost something Wagnerian. It was like hearing the soundtrack again for the first time. Lapti Nek still founds like the bad early 80s disco funk song that it is though, lol.

The older digital copies are essentially the same content, but the published version is cleaner, much better written and organized, has additional info, and also is a hell of a lot easier to read. Its also been edited better and has an index. Personally, for 27 bucks at amazon.com I'd say its a worthwhile purchase if you like what you see. Although you can read the first 100 pages of the final published version online--I'd start with that rather than the older version if I were you, at least for the first chapters.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Star Wars has turned into such a cash in. It always was a big merchandising thing, but it really ramped up in the 90s.

Not really. If you thought the 90s were bad I'd hate to see what you thought of 1978. Merchandising has been an integral part of Star Wars since its inception, the only difference is that it stopped having good movies to justify the fun commercial whoring.

Its probably just them walking across the set. It doesn't look like an actual scene to me.

The liner notes do give detail on the "Vader telepathically contacts Luke while he builds the lightsaber" section at the beginning of the film, which oddly enough has very little info on it considering that it was actually filmed and included in a sort-of final cut of the film.

I thoght the movie was lousy. I read the comic, and thought the comic worked, yet it still had the same problems--no relatable characters, bad dialog, pretentiousness and an un-remarkable plot by modern standards. Yet somehow the comic book seeemd to work. I guess its that certain elements come across as more engrossing as a comic than the immediate reality of a film. I was very disappointed, and I was really trying to like the film. Most of the Dr. Manhattan plot was interesting, but overall I found it profoundly mediocre.

I agree--logically, the ROTJ ending makes no sense; yet emotionally, it was always quite obvious to me that the message conveyed was that the Empire was defeated, and good guys won. I mean you practically could have had

"And they lived happily ever after"

when the iris closes on the final shot. Thats the point--thats the message you get. They can't live happily ever after if ROTJ just amounts to a strategic victory, the message throughout the entire movie, emotionally, is that "this is the final battle--it gets decided tonight", which is why all the sacrifice and basically putting your eggs in one basket approach (ie send the entire Alliance in a last-ditch battle to destroy the death star). 

Personally, i never considered that there was the Empire out there, and I never knew anyone that did either--the film says "the good guys won, the Empire is defeated." Certainly that is what Lucas was trying to convey, and I think it largely worked, even if it doesn't work in a real-life setting, but then Star Wars has always been full of logical holes like this. While we are contemplating why the Rebels are celebrating what is only a strategic victory, we might also be contemplating how they can be celebrating on a planet that should be having nuclear winter.

skyjedi2005 said:

As far as i know the HD Phantom Menace being shown on tv was put through a digital video noise reduction process by Lucas to look that way.  Not a lot to recommend there as it removes fine detail.

Then there are other considerations the way the film shot, the lighting and the grain level of the stock used.

It is entirely possible Lucas used a low grain stock and Lenses that give it that video look.

They did not use the same cameras or lenses or cinematographers on the new movies.

 

Phantom Menace will continue to look like shit because the digital intermediate used back in 1999 vs the kind of scan Lucas could now do of the original camera negative at 4k a joke.  They are claiming a 2k was done back then.  Then edited on video by computer.  one generation less than the original photography.

The Special Editions master was only 1080P according to Lowry.  Lucas never even comissioned a new scan.  1080P to Lucas is good enough for video.

 1080p is good enough for the theatre according to Lucas, since that is what the prequels were shot in. Thats probably why he was convinced that the for-all-times digital master of the new OT could be done as HD rather than 4K or even 2K, "hey it worked for the prequels", yes George it sure did. I guess that summarises why the SE stinks in general.