Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[Duffy12]

Originally Posted by BaronVH

Ahh, a discussion worth talking about. When I got my fancy new home theater with the reference speakers the first thing I watched was the Star Wars DVDs. My jaw on the floor. Then Blu-ray came out and I realised something. They really looked bad in terms of black level. The scene with Luke and Vader when he turns himself in on Endor just looked awful as it relates to the black level. Then I started noticing the black level in other movies. Slither (an absolute B-level classic) became almost unwatchable. So I cannot wait for the Blu-ray of the Star Wars movies for the improvement of black levels alone. Oh, and Slither would be nice. Mr. Pibbs are my favorite Cokes.

Yeah, I HATE those crushed blacks also, but you shouldn't get your hopes up too much, as this article hints that it might be deliberate.

Perhaps because of the fact that Lucas had lost all of his color-work, he embarked on a new principle--instead of faithfully reproducing the look of the original release and photography, as had been the case on the previous re-release, it could be digitally manipulated to have a slicker look that matched the high-saturation, high-contrast look of the three prequels.

The 2004 SE (it has never been marketed as a Special Edition, though there really is no other label to describe it) had its color correction guided and supervised by George Lucas himself. [38] Screening the film at Skywalker Ranch, Lucas went through the film with members from ILM, who would be color-timing the digitized film themselves at Lucas' approval. [39]

This is one of the most controversial aspects of the release. While the revised film obviously is meant to have a deliberate look, what was released is a sloppy mess, in technical terms; blacks are crushed, colors bleed and pop distractingly, video noise is visible because of the oversaturation, skin tones are inconsistent and often very pink, scenes have weird casts to them (i.e. the Millennium Falcon scenes look very green), everything is much too dull and dim, contrast is not nominal, and many of the lightsaber effects are the wrong color (pink for Vader, green for Luke). The coloring is not even consistent with the prequels in some instances, whereas the originals were--for instance, the original blockade runner scene was meant to be Kubrick-esque bright white, while on the 2004 release it is a dull blue, yet strangely in Revenge of the Sith it is the bright white it is supposed to be. Lowry is often mistakenly pointed at as the culprits of these highly noticeable flaws, but in fact it is Lucas himself. The final DVD product has been screened for Lucas multiple times since, such as at Celebration III.

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html


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[phatrat1982]

I just watched Episode I on Spike the other day, and although it looked amazing in HD, the battle droid/Gungan fight scenes looked really fake. maybe Star Wars is a movie best watched on LD?

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by phatrat1982

I just watched Episode I on Spike the other day, and although it looked amazing in HD, the battle droid/Gungan fight scenes looked really fake. maybe Star Wars is a movie best watched on LD?

Not to mention that it was cropped from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1.

[Jezza]

Off the topic a bit, but anyway. Has anybody here encountered a fault on The Phantom Menace DVD at the part where Qui-Gon and Anakin are returning home just after the Podrace - Qui-Gon says to Anakin "Hey, these are yours" and Anakin replies "Yes!", then it just pauses for a couple of seconds and then cuts to the scene inside Anakin's home.

I bought this faulty DVD about a year ago in the 'Prequel Trilogy' boxset, but took it back because of the glitch and got a refund. I then re-bought the DVD in a slightly different re-release of TPM at the start of the year, and the fault is still there. I've tried it on every player in the house and the only place it works is on my computer on Windows Media Player, so I won't take it back because it does work somewhere, it's just annoying it doesn't work on any TV.

I know this is a Region 2 DVD, meaning I'm unlikely to get any sort of reason for the fault, so I my go elsewhere, but I thought this was a good place to start.

Any ideas?

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by Clone Trooper

Off the topic a bit, but anyway. Has anybody here encountered a fault on The Phantom Menace DVD at the part where Qui-Gon and Anakin are returning home just after the Podrace - Qui-Gon says to Anakin "Hey, these are yours" and Anakin replies "Yes!", then it just pauses for a couple of seconds and then cuts to the scene inside Anakin's home.

I bought this faulty DVD about a year ago in the 'Prequel Trilogy' boxset, but took it back because of the glitch and got a refund. I then re-bought the DVD in a slightly different re-release of TPM at the start of the year, and the fault is still there. I've tried it on every player in the house and the only place it works is on my computer on Windows Media Player, so I won't take it back because it does work somewhere, it's just annoying it doesn't work on any TV.

I know this is a Region 2 DVD, meaning I'm unlikely to get any sort of reason for the fault, so I my go elsewhere, but I thought this was a good place to start.

Any ideas?

I don't have that on my Region 1 DVD, but it might be the layer change.


I get a noticeable layer change in AOTC when Jango's ship approaches Geonosis, just before the Obi Wan/Jango space fight. It also freezes for about 1 second.

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

I don't have that on my Region 1 DVD, but it might be the layer change.


I get a noticeable layer change in AOTC when Jango's ship approaches Geonosis, just before the Obi Wan/Jango space fight. It also freezes for about 1 second.

Maybe you're right, it's just I can't find any sort of Region 2 fault mentioned on any website, so I was a bit confused.

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Nothing wrong with the transfer, it was the master. Someone decided to add a bunch of EE that played havoc with the compression. The EE is not on the EU disc that was released at the same time: that region has it's own master, in PAL.

The HD broadcast from a few years ago looks excellent.

Yeah, there is a lot of terrible EE in the movie. I think that is also what made the grain/noise come out even more.

Lots of objects have an ugly outline.

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by PUsokrJosh305

That's exactly what I was thinking. It seems that a lot of movies that turned out "ok" on dvd, turned out ok on Blu-Ray, like Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, it's ok on dvd and Blu-Ray, but not up to our standards. The same thing can be said for TPM, and the Fellowship of the Ring.

TPM isn't even out on BD yet.

We will see, but I am quite confident that it's going to look great on Blu-ray.

It will hopefully get a nice remaster and a transfer from the DI.

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

TPM isn't even out on BD yet.

We will see, but I am quite confident that it's going to look great on Blu-ray.

It will hopefully get a nice remaster and a transfer from the DI.

I'm sure it will do since there will be a complete remastering of all six movies.

[SonOfArathorn]

I don't even like Star Wars all that much anymore and I'm still excited to see it on Blu.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

TPM isn't even out on BD yet.

We will see, but I am quite confident that it's going to look great on Blu-ray.

It will hopefully get a nice remaster and a transfer from the DI.

There were no DIs in 1999.

[cinema sickness]

As long as we get the original (non special editions) released in atmospheric widescreen then I'll be in.

[Matt S]

Originally Posted by cinema sickness

As long as we get the original (non special editions) released in atmospheric widescreen then I'll be in.

Wishful thinking, for sure.....hope they do it though. Chance of becoming reality: 25%

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

There were no DIs in 1999.

Well, there is one now, or at least, there will be one for this release, hopefully!

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

There were no DIs in 1999.

Well, there is one now, or at least, there will be one for this release, hopefully!

Almost every single shot in TPM had a digital effect anyway, so the whole film was scanned into the computer. They just need to use that source, which ought to be flawless, to create the master. Right?

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

Well, there is one now, or at least, there will be one for this release, hopefully!

Almost every single shot in TPM had a digital effect anyway, so the whole film was scanned into the computer. They just need to use that source, which ought to be flawless, to create the master. Right?

The assets may have been scanned into the computer but the final results were output on film. They would have to basically rescan the raw elements, recomposite, and then build a digital master: something that would cost quite a bit of money to do. One reason why Fellowship of The Ring isn't as clean as the other films was the lack of a DI, and that was 2001.

[Chiyo_chichi]

I can see George going through it though, either by demanding it from the studio or funding it himself.

His reputation for holding off of putting Star Wars on dvd and now bluray make it seem like he's in this to do it once. One perfect transfer, one release. IIRC there were no true double dips of the OT/PT on dvd. There was that one with different packaging, but nothing else was changed from what I remember. Otherwise it was just individual releases and the poor unaltered ot release.

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

The assets may have been scanned into the computer but the final results were output on film. They would have to basically rescan the raw elements, recomposite, and then build a digital master: something that would cost quite a bit of money to do. One reason why Fellowship of The Ring isn't as clean as the other films was the lack of a DI, and that was 2001.

Why not just scan the final 35mm master into thje computer, and clean it digitally, and only edit elements from the raw filmstrip if editing new visual effects..is needed???

Originally Posted by Chiyo_chichi

I can see George going through it though, either by demanding it from the studio or funding it himself.

His reputation for holding off of putting Star Wars on dvd and now bluray make it seem like he's in this to do it once. One perfect transfer, one release. IIRC there were no true double dips of the OT/PT on dvd. There was that one with different packaging, but nothing else was changed from what I remember. Otherwise it was just individual releases and the poor unaltered ot release.

Let's all pray this is the reason why we are waiting!!

It's hard for me to imagine that they didn't have DIs in those days, since it's a mere 11 years ago, and everything on that movie was done digitally anyway, but I don't know about this specific area, hence the silly questions.

[Bluyoda]

In the link below it says that the 1st DI was created in 1990, and Pleasantvile's cas in 1998: The first time the majority of a new feature film was scanned, processed, and recorded digitally. The black-and-white meets color world portrayed in the movie was filmed entirely in color and selectively desaturated and contrast adjusted digitally. The work was done in Los Angeles by Cinesite utilizing a Spirit DataCine for scanning at 2K resolution, so I really don't understand that TPM didn't have a DI too, since they were working in the digital realm all the time....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate

[Lincoln6Echo]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

In the link below it says that the 1st DI was created in 1990, and Pleasantvile's cas in 1998: The first time the majority of a new feature film was scanned, processed, and recorded digitally. The black-and-white meets color world portrayed in the movie was filmed entirely in color and selectively desaturated and contrast adjusted digitally. The work was done in Los Angeles by Cinesite utilizing a Spirit DataCine for scanning at 2K resolution, so I really don't understand that TPM didn't have a DI too, since they were working in the digital realm all the time....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate

Thanks for that link. 'Cause I was about to ask was DI was. I had never heard of that abbreviation before this morning.