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A Few Words About A few words about... Star Wars on DVD (1 Viewer)

Jeff Brooks

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Agreed. I could not believe how nit-picky everyone is about this release. I have only watched Episode IV; but, it looks and sounds fantastic. (Now, the cardboard outer box is another story.) Thanks to Fox and Mr. Lucas for a wonderful release.
 

GeorgePaul

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Aug 1, 2004
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I just got finished watching ANH, and I have to concur: save the green matte boxes around the tie fighters in the "Here They Come!" sequence, the image quality is a breath of fresh air.:) The audio...eh, 3 out of 5 stars. I love how the soundstage has been opened up for some wonderful sound effects (particularly R2 falling over--now THAT is a garbage can being dropped! :laugh: ) If I turn on my 3-D sound on my surrounds, the flipping isn't noticeable, but without 3-D sound on the flipped surrounds are not only disconcerting but headache-inducing at some points. And the dropped Force theme right after "I'm going to cut across the axis and try and draw their fire," will certainly be remembered as the low point of this DVD release.

But before you dismiss me as just another fanboy whiner, let me just say I can deal with all of those slight imperfections. I anticipate the rest of the box set to be outstanding--it's fortunate, though, that ANH won't be sold separately, because individual sales of that title would be hampered by the glitches on the disc (mine kept skipping and sticking during the whole "That's no moon...that's a space station" sequence).

Robert is entirely correct: these aren't your or your father's Star Wars movies anymore. This trilogy has been updated for another generation, and I for one will gladly pass on the baton of cultural ownership. I'm happy with my memories and what the films continue to stand for.:)
 

Carlo_M

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Mr. Harris,

From what I understand, Lowry does DIGITAL restoration (scan the film into computers and use digital tools to "restore" and "clean up" the images).

Would a true film restoration (as you are a preeminent leader and expert in that field) yielded a better result? Do you know if Lowry's digital restoration process compare with true film restoration, now that they have more powerful PCs and tools than they did when they removed the rain on Citizen Kane?
 

Robert Harris

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I requested clarification via Fox's publicity people, but have been met by silence, after explaining that the information provided has not been of unity.

It seems that one is speaking of different things with the Star Wars cleanup and digital restoraion via LDI.

As far as I understand it, the films have not be restored for film, but rather for high definition video resolution. Perhaps someone from Lucas can clarify the situation.

As I can only speak from conjecture, it appears that the work done has been inclusive of dirt and scratch removal, which can be done at LDI; grain reduction to make generations appear to be more cohesive, with color correction somewhere in the production line.

And all of this in addition to whatever new digital effect updates, corrections and additions have been produced along with the audio changes.

I have no idea who is responsible for color correction.

Also, not having seen any of the original elements, but merely hearing the buzz about 100 pieces of detritus per frame, any having no knowledge of what or how many shots are no longer original, I have no idea what would be involved in doing a true restoration for the picture elements.

Also, generally, true restoration oriented entities use something slightly more powerful than macs or pcs to provide storage and computer power. although it would seem that with enough of them...

RAH
 

Brandon Conway

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Robert, thanks for the wonderful insight. :emoji_thumbsup:

And I know this is a sidestep, but do you have any thoughts concerning THX 1138 - The George Lucas Director's Cut?
 

Dan Szwarc

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One of the biggest problems with this Star Wars release is not the movie. It's the viewers.

True fans of the movie's story and characters have become fans of the physical film itself. They have studied every nuance and subtlety of the release on Laserdisk since the definitive edition came out in 1993. Anything different must be wrong to them. It's not what they remember. It's not what they've seen for the last 11 years.

Lucas decided to "finish" the films for a 1997 release and is still finishing them. Our problem is we have been watching them for 20 years and don't like the changes one way or the other.

Some of the effects have been "fixed". TESB had the Hoth battle re-composited digitally to eliminate picture bleed. SOME space scenes were redone to remove the mattes around the fighters. Our eyes are so perceptive, we notice not all of the scenes have been "fixed".

I looked to see if they digitally removed the shells from the stormtrooper rifles when Luke and Leia are stuck in the core shaft without the bridge extended. They didn't. So what?

I looked to see if they "fixed" Ben's lightsaber when it looked like it was "going out" while fighting Vader. They mostly did, but it still didn't look right to me.

I looked to see if they "fixed" Vader's lightsaber so it glowed red while the blast doors were shutting when Han, Luke, and Leia were escaping to the Falcon. They DID! But it felt weird. Something wasn't right... Now I know why.

We've all watched these movies 1000s of times. We know every frame. We know every sound effect. We know every nuance. Now we finally have a release of a movie on DVD and we are disappointed. Why is that?

The truth is NOTHING will make us happy. We have HUGE screens in our home theaters. We have awsome sound systems. Every little detail can be seen and we don't like it. Why? Because DVD is too good for us. It shows us how fake movies are. Star Wars seemed so real back in 1977. Now everything looks "better" with CGI and better effects, but it doesn't look real. Why? Because it can't! We know it isn't real because it isn't possible. Yoda is a puppet! Yoda is not a person. And now he is a CGI effect. Knowing how they did it takes the magic out of it.

The effects drew us into the movie and the story kept us there. We've overlooked corny dialogue just to see what happened next. Was Darth Vader Luke's father? We couldn't wait the three years to know for sure.

There is no more mystery. There is nothing new. We know how the movie ends. We've seen it all before. We expect the DVDs to be the perfect version of what we've been experiencing for almost 30 years. But it never can be because the original was imperfect. We have to enjoy Star Wars any way we can. Perhaps we should just sit farther away from the set and turn the audio down a little bit to 1977 levels to enjoy it a little more? Isn't that how we remember it?
 

Anthony Clifton

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Why do people keep speaking for "us"? Speak for yourself. I'm quite happy with my laserdisc rips. I'd be even happier if they came from a better source. Until then, I say a simple "No Thanks" to any official Lucas product.
 

Randy A Salas

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Just as an FYI, Lowry has the ability to scan in films in a clean-room environment, but it did not do that for the Star Wars films. The films were scanned by another company and then delivered to Lowry via disk drives.
 

MarkHarrison

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Thanks for the information Robert. As someone who hasn't seen these films tens or hundreds or thousands of times, this really puts my mind at ease about my purchase. Of course the real test will be tonight when I actually have time to view them for myself. :D
 

andrew markworthy

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A few years ago, I remember either starting a thread or adding to one in which we jokingly predicted what would happen when the SW discs came out. I recall that amongst the predicted gripes were that the ratio was out by a millionth of a percentage point and that one of the stars in the opening shot was missing. I am not remotely surprised that a fuss has been made. Remember the stereotype of an adult Star Wars fan? What did we expect would happen? I strongly suspect that a sizeable number of 'fans' watched the discs with notebook in hand looking for 'mistakes' rather than watching the movie and enjoying it like the rest of us. It's rather like the prude who watches TV programmes with adult themes not because they like them but because they are longing to be offended and can then call for them to be banned. However, in the same way that the moral majority neither has an undisputed right to the moral high ground nor forms the majority, so the nitpickers don't represent the majority view amongst fans.

What does surprise me is the authoratative tone that there are vast errors in the new discs - so large indeed, that diehard SW fans should form a mean posse [boy that's a sight I'd love to see] and head off to lynch Luca$. Thus why Mr H's and Ron's threads are a breath of fresh air.
 

Bryan Tuck

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Thanks for your thoughts, Mr. Harris. I'm also very impressed with the work of Lowry and Co, who did a bang-up job with the restoration of these films.

I have to be honest, though, and say I'm disppointed with the music levels in places (particularly the X-Wing dive), and other audio issues on A New Hope. The sound quality I have no problem with; I just think this particular mix is not as good as previous mixes. Just an honest opinion. But I do feel some people are complaining a little too much about it.

It's the same thing with the changes. A lot of this we've been hearing since '97, from both sides. I completely respect Lucas's right to change these films to his satisfaction. However, I also don't think it's wrong to not like the changes and to say so. People just don't have to be so rude about it.

For example, I honestly think the "Jedi Rocks" scene is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen and I believe it has no place in a Star Wars movie. I didn't have a notepad jotting all this down in the theater in '97; I just simply didn't like it. I did not, and still don't see it as an "improvement." But...that's just my opinion. When I watch Jedi, I will probably hit the old Search button and shuttle through it, and everything will be fine. However, that doesn't mean my (and most everyone else's) opinion of the scene is invalid. It's just a logical criticism of a film.

But I agree that threatening someone over it, even in jest, is uncalled for, and very childish.

At any rate, despite my few misgivings, I'm still going to enjoy watching the films on DVD. For the most part, they look and sound great.

I will also continue to hold out hope that Mr. Lucas will allow the original versions to be released alongside his "completed" versions in 2007. A foolish hope, perhaps, but still hope. :D
 

Steve Tannehill

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Mr. Harris, thanks for sharing your perspective.


Interesting... what kind of storage and power are we talking about? Can we talk brands and applications? Sun? SGI? Avid?

Thanks,
- Steve
 

Charlie Essmeier

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Mar 7, 1999
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I'm one who didn't care for any of the changes, including changing the title of the first film in the series. Lucas is still free to do as he wishes, and as a potential customer, I am free to ignore them.

Ultimately, like everyone else who doesn't care for the changes, I can only vote with my wallet, and I've decided to pass on buying this set.

Charlie
 

Terry Hickey

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Thank you Mr. Harris for your opinion on the Star Wars DVD.
My 10 year-old son and I have been enjoying these DVD's for the past couple of nights. They really look fantastic to us and we are glad that we have them to enjoy!!!
 

TedD

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Pesonally, I continue to amazed by the high quality of these DVDS and thought that I would post a couple of my infamous captures to show exactly how far we have come since the original release of "The Empire Strikes Back".

In this case the captures show how truly amazing these transfers are, because the top captures are from an original 70mm release print, and the bottom captures are from the DVD.

In this capture, I attempted to correct the fading typical of an Eastman color print. Obviously, I was not completely successful. I believe the captures from both sources are the exact same frame.

http://webpages.charter.net/tvdias/SWCombo1.jpg

The second capture, interestingly enough, shows an example of a recomposited scene with redone special effects. For this capture, I was unable to correct the color. The excessive grain on the 70mm print is typical of the optical printing of special effects.

http://webpages.charter.net/tvdias/SWCombo2.jpg

So, now you all know how much we have to be thankful for and how spectacular this transfer really is.

May the force be with you all.

P.S. I also dedicate this post to those who claim that DVD quality can never be anything close to the original prints.

Ted
 

Randy A Salas

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According to Lowry when I talked to him last week, LDI has 378 terabytes of storage space online, about 100 of which was devoted to the Star Wars project.

I asked him if the advances in technology have made it easier for him to do his work today compared with when he first started. He replied:

"I would say we've become much fussier, much more exacting. We have far more computing power now. You're familiar with the fact that we've got 600 [Macintosh] G5's and stuff like that? That's a lot of computing power. When we did North by Northwest, for example, I had 12 computers. Now, any one of those G5's is more powerful than those 12. On North by Northwest, there was 2 of us doing it. Now, I've got 80 people. We're all going flat out. People are trained to be so precise, it's ridiculous on this stuff.

"Does it get easier, back to your question. I think in many ways it is easier because the software does a lot more stuff automatically--very, very well, much better than it was just a year and a half ago. And yet we are fussier. We're reaching higher all the time. It guess it's just a continuing process."

This might address some of your questions, as far as Lowry is concerned.

The actual software Lowry uses is proprietary.

---

Ted, those comparisons are spectacular. Thanks for taking the time to do them and post them.
 

rich_d

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Terrific comments Scott! I believe the same but would not have said it as well as you did.

As far as Lowry goes, I found his comment about only having 30 days to work on the film to be ... eye-opening in that he seemed (from reports) to have volunteered that bit of info.

On the surface, it doesn't seem to speak well (from a project management standpoint) for Lucasfilms. On the other hand, we might be talking about a negligible difference in output quality (i.e. law of diminishing returns).

Does anyone know the scan rate of the material delivered to Lowry as well as what the source was (e.g. negative, master, print etc.)?
 

Josh Steinberg

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I've worked retail before, and sadly, I've had to be one of those doofuses (doofi?) that tries to sell people things they don't want. It makes me really uncomfortable to have to do so. When you have a choice between asking the extra couple questions or trying to push a couple extra items, or not getting hours because the manager isn't happy with your performance, it's not a hard decision. There have been times where I've had to swallow my pride (along with, perhaps, common sense) to try to get the extra sale in. Sometimes it works. Most of the time it doesn't.

The best compromise I was able to come up with was to start ringing up the transaction while mentioning the additional product, so if they said they weren't interested, no time was wasted. As a customer, I hate standing at the register waiting to be rung up while the clerk is forced to go on a two minute rant about whatever the corporate office says he has to rant about, and I try to avoid being that clerk whenever possible.

There's a fine line between being helpful and being obnoxious, and I can only hope that most of the time, I stay on the right side of it.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread...
 

Shane_M

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Feb 8, 2004
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232
I'm happy that I finally have these movies on DVD. Yes, some of the changes bother me. Mostly the replacement of Sabastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen (RoJ). It kind of loses the continuaty of the film. Why didn't Obi Wan revert to his younger self?

Plus, they changed the tones that R2 made in ANH before he was taking by the Jawas after landing on Tatooine.

Other than those I have no complaints. I just happy to have them sitting in my collection.
 

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