Just to make clear, my post was a list of all the arguments used from both sides, not my personal take on anything. You'll notice that the points from either side contradict each other.

The idea was to point out that the same arguments are being used over and over so people would stop posting them. I personally prefer the UOT, but recognize the fact that years of arguing the same points on various message boards do not really accomplish anything.

Yeah. If I were the Academy, I'd have been pretty miffed about the "workprint" garbage - "workprints" don't get nominated for Academy Awards. ;)

Thankfully he has stopped with that absurdity and is now referring to them as the "classic" editions.

That is correct. The original negatives were destroyed in the making of the SE, because there was not the digital scanning tech we have today. Basically, he should have done this SE thing now, and not fifteen years ago - the CGI, and digital scanning, simply were not advanced enough to do what he was trying to do. That's why it looks like cartoons inserted over film - because that's exactly what they were.

In fact, some frames of Star Wars in the original negative are lost - forever. In order to splice film (which is what they did, they literally cut it into pieces) you need to lose a frame on either side of the cut. So it might not be apparently noticeable, but each cut that was made lost a frame on either side. Those frames are lost forever now from the original print, no matter what.

There is an excellent article here about the current state of those negatives and the process that got them to where they are today :

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html

Really informative article, thanks!

Though it makes me worry how good the Blu-ray will look, even in its Special Edition incarnation...

It will look better than it ever did in the theatre in 1977,78',79',81' or 85'.

The degradation of the photochemichal/emulsion workflow that is involved in releasing prints to cinemas is the reason why Lucas shot digitally for the prequals.

You can see a video of a screening of an original 1977/81 IB technicolour print of Star Wars that was held at the Senator theater in Baltimore last summer.
Notice the amount of dirt specks and the pink shift of the colour(this could also be due to the film's age) .


This is roughly how audiences would have experienced the film in 1977.

I don't think that will be a problem afflicting the blu rays.

It was just the article/essay talking about the 1080p digital master being the one that's being worked from and the problems that can be associated with that. I don't know much about how Lucasfilm are going about creating the Blu-ray versions obviously, it just made it seem like it'd be more difficult/more room for error than lots of other BD releases.

Thanks for post Dannyboy:)

I think you misunderstood what I was implying.

Chemical degradation is inherent in the "printing process" i.e the transition from the original camera negative to the inteprositive to the internegative and finally to what is the interpositive that will be released to cinemas.

Each one of the above steps involves a loss of resolution.

Film theoretically has very good resolution capabilities. What is delivered to the theatre is another story. If we believe the ITU tests, then images captured at almost 2400 lines per picture height on the camera negative deliver significantly degraded on screen resolution through the projection system – in the range of 500 – 800 lines per picture height. 500 lines corresponds to about 9 line pairs per degree from 2 screen heights.

http://www.etconsult.com/papers/Tech...Resolution.pdf


This sums it up best:

Lucasfilm technical director Mike Blanchard says, "Almost all of the resolution that’s lost is through the printing process. It’s really funny about technology and the film business right now. People get caught up in these numbers games that are flat-out ridiculous. They say, ‘Film is 4k,’ but it’s not 4k. It’s 4k on the camera negative, but no one has ever seen a camera negative projected. Countless studies have shown that what is shown in U.S. theaters [via the interpositive/internegative photochemical printing process] is between 700 and 800 lines of resolution when you get to the release print. We get that easily(using 1080*1920 digital capture and projection).

http://mixonline.com/sound4picture/f...ars_episode_2/

No problem mate.

Digital 2k(be it 2048*1080 or 1920*1080) projection took care of 35mm:

So how is the quality of the digital image? During a press conference held on June 17 at the AMC Burbank 14 multiplex, a short clip was shown in a split screen: Half the image was from a new, high-quality film print, and the other half was from the digital "print." Once the two images were manually synchronized, the difference was remarkably clear: The digital image was much sharper, with much better color fidelity than the film print. For example, the Jedi council room has large windows through which the sky is visible. In the digital image, the sky and clouds were clearly delineated, but they were blurred into a bluish blob on the film side of the screen. Rick McCallum, one of the producers of The Phantom Menace and a press-conference panelist, said the digital version is a much more accurate representation of what they shot than the film version.
http://www.ultimateavmag.com/content...wntown-burbank

And it looks like the high and mighty 70mm has also been surpassed by the true 4k revolution.

The much-anticipated highlight of the Symposium was the 4K Barco DLP vs 70mm shootout held before a sizable audience of movie aficionados from museum, movie theatre and other major attraction businesses. The format of the shootout entailed simultaneous projection of both film and digital formats on a split-screen to enable experts to compare and contrast the two technologies. For the digital version, 70mm film was scanned at 11K resolution and converted to a 4K DCP. The content chosen for the main event were trailers from “Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey” and “Wild Ocean,” both large-format films produced for IMAX™ and other giant screen cinemas. The split-screen demonstration was revealing, accentuating the anomalies of film-based projection such as noticeable vibration and dirt, effectively lowering the perceived resolution of the image, while the digital version featured excellent color depth, a cleaner picture, and greater image stability.

“Film purists thought that we were years away from a day when digital would equal or surpass large-format film presentation. However, in an informal straw poll of roughly 120 industry veterans in attendance, an overwhelming majority favored Barco's 4K digital version, both in terms of image quality and overall presentation,” commented Andy Wood, Senior Vice President, D3D Cinema. “This is an incredible milestone for our industry, elevating digital as a viable giant screen exhibition solution among some of the world's finest cultural institutions.”
http://www.barco.com/pressrelease/2692

Man I LOVE the AT-ATs. That's always been my favorite SW vehicle since I first saw them at age 11.

The was the last show there before the new owners took over. Haven't been back since.

Thanks for that info, mate!

Interesting, isn't it!?

I'm planning on purchasing the standard complete collection when it arrives but I'm not going to pre-order it. I've been waitinig for this collection to be released on Blu-ray ever since I purchased my first Blu-ray title.

Was planning on buying the complete series on Blu-ray, so, might as well as purchase the complete series.

First, you are welcome :) It's a really well written piece that describes the process it went through beautifully.

As to the look on Blu, It shouldn't, because that article was written a few years ago and hopefully they went back and did this correctly. Personally, I have a feeling they have been cleaning up the original material in prep for the 3-D releases - the thing is, they know a lot of us don't/won't care about seeing these films in 3-D, and the PERFECT extra would be 1080p versions of the "classic" editions attached to each individual release (i.e. Star Wars 3-D would come with a disc of SW Classic edition in 1080p as an "extra") to get people like me, who wouldn't touch a 3-D version, to still buy the disc.

The interesting thing is, the OT I am not worried about on Blu. The PT, though - the last two films were done in 1080p. Sure, Blu is 1080p...but there is a reason they master film at 4K and 8K now. When stuff is done in 1080p for HD broadcast and put on a Blu people cry foul - it will be interesting to see what the microscopers thing of Ep II and III on Blu due to this.

4K resolution (as far as blu-ray is concerned) is more important for a film scan, since you get a more accurate analog-digital conversion. Stuff shot on super high-end digital cameras that are natively 1080p can look exceptionally detailed on BD (like Tron Legacy).

Sin City and Avatar used the same Sony cameras as Episode III and I daresay they look pretty decent :)

Somebody should just do a rogue telecine of whatever release 77-83 prints that they may or may not have access to at some point.
It would be the morally just thing to do.

Shouldn't be hard.

For now.

It's a terrible decision to make for the future, though.

That's my thought as well. I'm wondering how movies that were filmed in 1080P will end up looking on future home video formats (assuming, of course, that there are formats that will go beyond 1080P and that we don't all take four backwards steps to the streaming model instead).

Watching something in UltraHD that was filmed in 1080P like Episode III would be pretty painful, judging by how funny my eyes feel after watching an upscaled version of The Last Crusade tonight.

Ah, but a shedload of what we see in eps II and III is all CG, so that could surely be re-rendered at a higher resolution and the live action stuff could be upscaled. Remember, ep II was given an IMAX DMR makeover (i.e blown up to 15 perf 70mm!) with few complaints. It says 1080p on the tin, but we're not talking about consumer-camcorder grade HD quality here!

To be honest, until we start actually seeing the legacy of these 1080p24-shot movies with regard to UltraHD or whatever, all the negative comments smack of chicken little. And kids, don't forget one important point: IT'S NOT JUST LUCAS' PROBLEM. So please stop painting him as this lone nut who's hobbled his movies for all-time, 'cause there are plenty of other film makers who've happily done the same thing.

Leaving 1080p behind for a moment, it's not like every other effects movie will be able to magic up 4K quality out of thin air. Most CG work done in the last 20 years will have been rendered at 2K or below, and anything shot on film and finished on a 2K DI is fixed at that resolution too. Yes, the option is there to go back to the negative and re-scan it, but any visual effects and colour grading would need to be redone at 4K. The cost would be astronomical for something like the LOTR movies, and for what? A mythical 4K pre-packaged home format? 4K theatrical projection? There's very little return on that investment, and if it happens for commercial reasons within 20 years (for any movie) I'd be very surprised.

Not this again!!
 

Back full circle huh?

It's so tiring! Let's move on guys. We have this discussion before. Just go back a dozen pages where this topic was discussed to death. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

End of story!


Yesterday, I had a weird dream: I saw the new clone troopers for the BD edition.
They showed us the old design versus the new one, and it was really cool, although it didn't make much sense, since the clone troopers look great as is, and the new one had a cloak that looked totally convincing.
Wonder what that dream was all about?

Can't wait to see the changes done to the movies!

i do actually have a telecine of Star Wars from 77 on DVD