Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Original & Prequel Trilogy - Sept 16, 2011 - Review

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

Basically cleaned up but unaltered?

Yeah, pretty much. Though it depends on how you define "unaltered". My understanding (and anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong) is that even the original effects that remain in the Special Editions (i.e. the Snowspeeders) were recomposited using modern digital technology. That's how they were able to make it so that you don't see through the cockpits (for example), and helped to layer things better so that they look like they actually fit together in the same scene (as opposed to that effect that some older special effects have where they look like they were 'added in'.... kind of like the odd look on older sitcoms where they would use camera tricks to have the same actor play 2 characters on screen at once).

So, technically some modern technology comes into play, which some might argue is altering the original work. But, to me it would be original enough.

Originally Posted by shelldweller

Hopefully that will never happen!

Why? I'm not saying these should replace the newest special editions or whatever, but it would be nice to get the 'original versions' in the best looking manner possible. I don't see why this would be any more horrible than if Lucas simply remastered the UOT but still composited the effects the old fashioned way with all of the 'warts' that go with them.

Even if you prefer the newest versions with the changes, additions, etc, this wouldn't prevent you from having those. I fail to see how something existing along the lines of what I am saying would prevent you from enjoying your preferred versions.

[IndefinentBlu]

Hey guys answer this very important question:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/general-cha...hot-first.html

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by IndefinentBlu

Hey guys answer this very important question:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/general-cha...hot-first.html

I already did.

I'll copy & paste my post here...

It should be Han.

1: I refuse to believe Greedo could have possibly missed with that setup. Had he truly shot first, Han would be dead.

2: Han was a rouge, a scoundrel, a criminal, a pirate, etc. He knew what was about to happen. Of course (given the opportunity) he shot first.

Plotwise, this was the biggest mistake GL made when altering the OT. Visually, that honor would have to go to Jabba in ANH.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by IndefinentBlu

Hey guys answer this very important question:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/general-cha...hot-first.html

How important can that question be if you, as the person asking it, gave the answer of "who cares"?

[danny_boy]

Originally Posted by BillieCassin

I was talking about the mastering of a Blu-ray.

When a new film is coming out on Blu-ray, and they scan the 35mm prints, 2K is the bare minimum, with 4K and even 8K being used for the big guns. This master is then edited, then downconverted to 1080p for Blu-ray.

The studio's don't do that for fun (especially because it is expensive). They do it because it produces a better picture, and the actual resolution of a 35mm print is far, far above 1080p.

I don't know what the people supposedly quoted above are smoking - probably $100 bills, if you are talking about Cameron, LOL - but a couple of quotes from the biggest digital fanboys on the planet does not change the fact that 35mm film has a far, far greater resolution than 1080p. That's simply indisputable, no matter how anyone wishes to spin it.

Someone mentioned "well can't they just re-render and upconvert?" sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the "filmed" elements will never have any more detail than 1080p. It's like saying, "Why bother with a blu-ray just upconvert the DVD".

This locks those two films into 200*'s tech. Forever. Think past five years, try fifty, or a hundred. It was just a poor, poor decision on his part, because he's frozen those two films forever in infant technology from an early adopter rush, when every other film that is actually, well, filmed, can be manipulated far beyond that.

Sorry but there is a great deal of misinformation in your post:
You say that 35mm film has 4k resolution.
Well the camera negative has 4k resolution!
But the camera negative is not what you see in the cinema.
Unless you want to watch a 4k camera negative being projected.....and that would not be a pretty sight!



What you see in the cinema are the release prints which are at least 4 generations removed from the original camera negative.
And these release prints have a line per picture height(lpph) "resolution" of just 700-800 lines on average:

This international study performed in several countries confirmed the above:


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

And this was their conclusion:
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.


So George Lucas was comparing the end product(i.e the release prints shown in cinemas) to the end product of a digital workflow(images recorded on HD cams to the final result projected on a digital projector).

And in this respect a film recorded digitally at 1080*1920 is better or even superior to a 35mm interpositive release print.

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

How important can that question be if you, as the person asking it, gave the answer of "who cares"?

I was thinking the same thing. Why start a thread, asking a question that you think the answer to doesn't matter?

Maybe I'll start a thread asking if the old man that lives 1/2 mile down the road should wear his blue or grey shirt today.

[KaineKinetic]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

So why did Yoda tell him (in RotJ) that he needed no more training? It couldn't have been because he'd already faced Vader at that point, because we all know what a bang-up job Luke did with that encounter.

I'm guessing it was a few days, even though that doesn't seem to jive with other events. I say "seem to jive" because we can't be sure how long the other events took either... How long exactly were Han & Leia being held on Bespin?

That is not the question... It should be:
How long on sub-light speed would it take for them to GET TO Bespin?
Lando says "I had no choice, they arrived just before you did."

That means that Boba Followed them almost all the way at sub-light, the either turned and ran off back to Hoth System or Coruscant and said follow me, he wouldn't trust the empire to tell them if he wasn't there OR he jumped through hyperspace to the other side of the planet, called the empire, told them, they jumped there also on the other side for fear of alerting their presence to the Falcon and landed only when they knew for sure that they were going to land on Bespin

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Kinetic_Blue

That is not the question... It should be:
How long on sub-light speed would it take for them to GET TO Bespin?
Lando says "I had no choice, they arrived just before you did."

That means that Boba Followed them almost all the way at sub-light, the either turned and ran off back to Hoth System or Coruscant and said follow me, he wouldn't trust the empire to tell them if he wasn't there OR he jumped through hyperspace to the other side of the planet, called the empire, told them, they jumped there also on the other side for fear of alerting their presence to the Falcon and landed only when they knew for sure that they were going to land on Bespin

Then, how long does it take to get from Dagobah to Bespin in an X-Wing?

[-RONIN-]

$179.99 for US Canadians? WOW I wasn't going to pre-order it but considering I will be saving almost $100 by doing so I think I might have to place an order.

[danny_boy]

Originally Posted by retablo

If James Cameron was right, then why did Phantom release a 65mm sensor in their top camera, if a regular tiny sensor would be the equivalent of 65mm?

Heck, even the Canon 5Dmkii has about a 50% larger sensor than the Sony 900s that Lucas used... and no matter how you slice it, 1080 is 1080. You can't get "more" real information out of an image if the information simply isn't there. It's a little different now, with the RED One shooting native 4 and 5K images... but back then, 1080 was 1080.

Digital is still a long way off from being comparable to film. In addition, whereas digital has around 5 stops from black to white, film has around 15... which is why digital images have more crushed blacks and blown out whites and less "middle range".

The flip side is that film has far less depth of field:

Hi-def video’s extreme depth of field led the filmmakers to alter their blocking methods, as well as their approach to focusing on multiple actors in a shot. "We knew going in that our cameras had a greater depth of field, 2 to 2 1/2 times greater than 35mm film," Meyers says. "We shot much of the principal material around T2 or T2.8, and that looked flat from your fingertips to infinity. But there are certain focus pulls in three-shots or two-shots that viewers have come to expect aesthetically, particularly in anamorphic shows. So even though you can have a two-shot or an over-the-shoulder in HD where you can hold both actors in focus, we sometimes found ourselves cheating focus on the set to sell the scenes the way audiences might expect them to traditionally play. Whereas the approach to that would be clear and simple with film – go for the person who’s talking, go for the eyes, that sort of thing – we fought a little bit more about how to deal with those splits."

<SNIP>



Meyers dismisses the notion that Episode II looks better digitally projected than it does on film simply because it originated digitally. "I have some concerns about those comments, especially when you consider that so much of Episode I was digital to start with," he says. "Even though it originated mostly on film, Episode I has plenty of digital matte paintings and digital characters. When we did our digital-acquisition tests, we did side-by-side [comparisons] with anamorphic, Super 35, VistaVision and digital and took them all out to film. Shooting digitally, we got a good-looking picture that in many cases was better than many of the film formats. The decision to shoot digitally had nothing to do with digital exhibition, other than that we could be digital from start to finish.

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/sep02...ate/index.html

Quite frankly the effects shots of the original unaltered Star Wars trilogy in something as high as 4k will be ugly.
All those optical effects were rendered using multiple layers of film......each layer degrading the overall resolution of the picture which will be exposed in a transfer mastered at 2 k let alone 4K(Hence the reason why Lucas replaced a lot of those shots for the special editions).

[KaineKinetic]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

You're probably right. Yoda probably only told Luke he didn't need any more training because there was nowhere to actually get any. Might as well keep his hopes up. It beats saying... Well alright then, off you go to get horribly mamed, turned to the dark-side or straight off slaughtered. That more than likely wouldn't have helped.

That said, I don't think it mattered if they realized Yoda was dying, as they were pretty much on Luke's schedule at that point. He just happened to return the day Yoda died. Will of the force! Had he returned earlier, I'm sure there would have been more training.

Which makes me believe it's much more than just a few weeks/months between Empire and Jedi. Luke needed a new Saber, needed a new hand (we saw it, but how much time passed?) Learn how to make a Saber, need to know where to go to get the parts and the crystals, needed to find the parts to make a Saber, so he had to sneak on to Coruscant, in to the Jedi Temple, out of the Temple, off Coruscant, find Illum, get the crystals, events of Shadows of the Empire, go to Tatooine, build the Saber... there's gotta be more that needed to be done. so yeah, more time passed than the incorrect official timeline

[KaineKinetic]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

Then, how long does it take to get from Dagobah to Bespin in an X-Wing?

Luge HAD Hyper-Space jump capability, Han didn't.

[Jay444]

Originally Posted by shelldweller

Hopefully that will never happen!

I don't understand? Why wouldn't you want that to happen? I mean, I like the special editions just fine (they have their flaws but by no means are they unwatchable), but why would you hope an unaltered, yet cleaned up version of the OT not to be released?

Typo maybe? Or humor we are not catching?

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Kinetic_Blue

Luge HAD Hyper-Space jump capability, Han didn't.

What I'm saying is that Han was already being tortured when Luke left Dagobah. Going back to my other statement of how long were Han & Leia held prisoner on Bespin... How much time passed between Luke leaving Dagobah & his arrival at Cloud City? That would give a start to figuring out how long Han & Leia were actually held prisoner or vice-versa. That may lead to figuring out how long Luke was on Dagobah. Just trying to piece the timeline together.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

I was thinking the same thing. Why start a thread, asking a question that you think the answer to doesn't matter?

Maybe I'll start a thread asking if the old man that lives 1/2 mile down the road should wear his blue or grey shirt today.

Well, now this I care about! He better wear the blue shirt or there's going to be hell to pay!

[KaineKinetic]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

What I'm saying is that Han was already being tortured when Luke left Dagobah. Going back to my other statement of how long were Han & Leia held prisoner on Bespin... How much time passed between Luke leaving Dagobah & his arrival at Cloud City? That would give a start to figuring out how long Han & Leia were actually held prisoner or vice-versa. That may lead to figuring out how long Luke was on Dagobah. Just trying to piece the timeline together.

Well, just because they are shown cut together, doesn't mean thay happen together...
Luke makes jump to Light-Speed, ends up on Dagobah, meets up with Minch, realizes he is Yoda, starts training, is doing so for at least a few days, while Han is moving like a snail through space, then Han and Company finally get to Bespin and spend a few "relaxing" days on Bespin before the trap is sprung so as to lead them into a false sense of security, then weeks into Luke training he gets a future glimpse of Leia & Han tortured. He stays for a bit but gets it again and leaves, takes a day? to get to Bespin and the rest plays out as it is...

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Kinetic_Blue

Well, just because they are shown cut together, doesn't mean thay happen together...
Luke makes jump to Light-Speed, ends up on Dagobah, meets up with Minch, realizes he is Yoda, starts training, is doing so for at least a few days, while Han is moving like a snail through space, then Han and Company finally get to Bespin and spend a few "relaxing" days on Bespin before the trap is sprung so as to lead them into a false sense of security, then weeks into Luke training he gets a future glimpse of Leia & Han tortured. He stays for a bit but gets it again and leaves, takes a day? to get to Bespin and the rest plays out as it is...

If I remember correctly, the trap on Bespin is sprung at "dinner" during their first day there (lando invited them to that dinner when they were being shown their rooms). How would Luke's vision of them being tortured be of the future if the trap was already sprung? There is really no indication that Han & Leia were held for weeks. Even if events weren't happening at the same times, there is no indication that they weren't chronological.

[Jay444]

Originally Posted by Kinetic_Blue

Well, just because they are shown cut together, doesn't mean thay happen together...
Luke makes jump to Light-Speed, ends up on Dagobah, meets up with Minch, realizes he is Yoda, starts training, is doing so for at least a few days, while Han is moving like a snail through space, then Han and Company finally get to Bespin and spend a few "relaxing" days on Bespin before the trap is sprung so as to lead them into a false sense of security, then weeks into Luke training he gets a future glimpse of Leia & Han tortured. He stays for a bit but gets it again and leaves, takes a day? to get to Bespin and the rest plays out as it is...

There is also not telling HOW long they stayed in the asteroid field either. They could have been in that monster's throat for weeks trying to repair the ship which would allow Luke time to train a bit.

[KaineKinetic]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

If I remember correctly, the trap on Bespin is sprung at "dinner" during their first day there (lando invited them to that dinner when they were being shown their rooms). How would Luke's vision of them being tortured be of the future if the trap was already sprung? There is really no indication that Han & Leia were held for weeks. Even if events weren't happening at the same times, there is no indication that they weren't chronological.

Leia was already changed, and Lando never said "we're going to dinner since it's your first night here"

I never said they weren't in Chrono order, just that the Luke scenes mostly take place first then the Han scenes, they still go in the order that they are in...

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Kinetic_Blue

Leia was already changed, and Lando never said "we're going to dinner since it's your first night here"

I never said they weren't in Chrono order, just that the Luke scenes mostly take place first then the Han scenes, they still go in the order that they are in...

Yeah, but if they were just being shown their rooms, doesn't that suggest it's their first day there?

What I'm saying is if these things aren't happening at approximately the same time, then ESB takes place over a somewhat larger span of time than would seem simply going by the events themselves. I'm not arguing, I'm just trying to piece things (mainly how much training Luke did get) together. The way it was put together... Lucas just doesn't show the difference in time very well (if there actually was a difference).