Star Wars The Complete Saga MEMBER REVIEW Thread

No reviews yet? Surprised!

Thanks Ron.

Live in London, England so today is the official release day got mine this morning from HMV just had a chance to watch Star Wars A New Hope. So I will talk about that movie only today.

The Good:
Picture quality is better than it has ever been before in a home format (I own it as many of us do on CLV/CAV Laserdisc, DVD etc etc since they first came out back in the day......). PQ is full of constant grain pretty much everywhere. Overall considering a lot of the source material was never that great to begin with due to the low budget, film stock problems (they changed it quite early on) & the photo chemical visual effects process taking several generations of film prints until it was fully composited so removing detail each time they ran it through the optical printer etc etc. The level of detail in places is very good I doubt it could possibly look much better without re-compositing every single FX shot (ILM did redo some in 1997 for the SE).

Overall the PQ is about what you would expect for a 1977 movie its not fantastic but better than previous home formats have allowed so for that alone its a blind buy for anyone who is a fan.

Audio is ok. The sound mix now gives more emphasis to the sound FX & music as they overwhelm in places but all dialog is still very legible so the balance is spot on I can think of no way it could be improved considering how old most of it is (Vader's voice sounds as weak as ever compared to the much deeper sound in the other movies).

Jabba Meeting Han. Looked to me like ILM had redone the scene it looks much better now. Animation seems more natural & Jabba looks a little less CGI. Not sure if this is the Bluray bringing this detail out or not but it felt more natural & looked much better for it.

Vader vs Kenobi lightsabre battle on the Death Star. New CGI on the sabres looks very natural & how it should be in all shots. Flawless nothing to complain about.

When Luke first uses his sabre on Tatooine after Ben has given him it again it looks pretty flawless & has a nice blue/white glow to it.


The Bad:
This is going to open several new cans of worms!!!!! so in no particular order.

1: The scene where the Millenium Falcon is escaping the Death Star & being attacked by Tie Fighters. You can clearly see some horrible brown travelling matte boxes around pretty much 95% of the Tie fighters as they swirl around the Falcon. It looks absolutely terrible & would not have been hard to fix. Why on earth did LFL let this pass QA??

2: Princess Leia's opening dialog on the Freighter to Vader at the very start of the movie. You can clearly tell her voice is speaking but mouth not matching the words she is speaking! Its only a few secs but very noticeable to me!

3: Tantooine. Several scenes look really sub HD. In particular the last fade wipe before the camera fades where Luke has collected the droids from the Jawa Sandcrawler you can see some horrible distortion in the middle of the frame. It looks like a huge blob of smoke/film grain around Luke's body. I am staggered this was not fixed it looks really terrible. Then several other desert scenes before they get to Mos Eisley have problems with quick flashes of colour in the background mainly but's its still very noticeable to me & looks like a film stock problem from the source.

4: Mos Eisley canteen has 1 or 2 dodgy shots as well which look like sub SD closer to VHS than BD!!! This is due to a lot of grain & lack of detail it really looks rough!

5: The Starfields are very uneven. Some have blue/purple stars. Other's blue or purple stars then some white stars. In the death star battle its quite noticeable but earlier in the movie you can see in some scenes a very uneven look. ILM should really have made a standard starfield & stuck to it as some of these are clearly from the 1977 release! Sloppy/shoddy QA again IMO.

5: Lukes Lightsabre on the Falcon when Ben is training him to use the force blindfolded. 100% not fixed it has a horrible white glow & you can clearly see the animation pencil marks on the sabre! Again how on earth did this pass QA is clearly not been redone in CGI.

6: Death Star explosion still fades to B+W & looks as strange as it did in 1997!

The Ugly:
If like me you use a powerful Desktop PC/Media Centre/HTPC to watch Bluray & hook it up to your HDTV/Projector then this is what I found:

1: PowerDVD11 will only play about 10 mins before exiting the movie with no warning & throwing you back to the desktop. This is with the latest 01/09/11 patch. The movie is unwatchable as you cannot even select a scene as this usually crashes PowerDVD11. It also cannot even handle the audio I counted 1 major dropout. You cannot blame LFL for this but Fox surely should work closely with Cyberlink to ensure a big release (and all releases work on release as expected). Fox obviously did not perform enough QA on Cyberlink players (they are some of the most popular so expect a lot of complaints next week when this is out globally!). I spent perhaps an hour trying to get it to work then gave up as I could see on Cyberlinks official forums others have issues as well.

So big heads up to everyone make sure you have the latest firmware/software updated (I did beforehand & still had no luck!!).

I could only watch the movie flawlessly on Arcsofts TotalMedia Theatre 5.

As I watch the other movies I will contribute to here as I go.

Just watched The Empire Strikes Back!

Very happy to report I have little to say this looks absolutely amazing for a 1980's film!!! The level of detail is simply stunning especially on Dagobah you will gain a new level of appreciation of the set/model work its really intricate & detailed. Some of it looks like it could have been filmed recently which is the highest compliment that could be paid to a 31 year old movie which is heavy on photo chemical VFX work & several generations away from the original film elements.

Princess Leia looks stunning the previous home releases did not do her any justice due to the subtle lightning/makeup used. Now Bluray brings out her natural beauty in full!!

All the lightsabre's look very good. ILM have used some heavy bloom effects but it works and makes the sabres look deadly/beautiful.

Few people could or would complain about the presentation its a very solid job the image is pretty clean but grain is still present. The Bluray brings out the budget difference between Star Wars & with this Bluray you can see it all onscreen in a good way!!

Audio is perfect no complaints nothing to talk about really other than its pretty much perfect.

The only negatives I can mention are minor but worth talking about as 1 is sloppy the other maybe intentional:

1: On the main titles as the crawl is ending you can clearly see an orange line on the furthest righthand side of the screen near the bottom. Its about 25% of the picture height. I'm guessing its to do with overscan & someone being sloppy on the transfer. Its only a few pixels wide but its there & obvious on my display (40" HDTV via HDMI).

2: Next I found more overscan related issues. For most of the movie but on Hoth I noticed it first there is at several times on scene changes in the top far left & bottom far left corners of the picture either a small black curved L shape or dirt on the image. This is present for most of the movie from Hoth onwards until Bespin when it more or less disappears. Sometimes its the L shape other times its a small dark mark. I think it maybe to do with overscan again. This is pretty sloppy & when or if you notice it I guarantee your eyes will be looking for it for a while (I know mine did!). Could be overscan/safe area but its very very sloppy if it was not picked up in QA...........

3: Finally once again the Tie fighters are proving to be a problem as for most of their onscreen time I could clearly see the travelling matte boxes around them in a dark blue hue but very easy to spot on the scenes when they are chasing the Millenium Falcon.

4: Also worth mentioning the startup times are pretty long. Well over a minute of loading until it brings the menu up (I have a constant internet connection so not sure if it performs additional checks when your connected to the internet for Java certificate updates.

Focusing on PQ

The OT movies are in places, Sky shots for example plagued by frozen grain.
This being typical of a Lowry restoration I expected that, they improve over the 2004 Dvd's but offer little over the HDTV broadcasts bar better compression and some better resolution of the added grain.
Is it the best the films have looked on home video? Yes but looking at even low budget fair like The Evil Dead there is no way they should look this close to a HDTV broadcast with half the bitrate.
Some issues with the 2004 transfers have been fixed, but many others have not, Hoth is still blue and there are still contrast problems.
The PT fairs better but 2 + 3 also share contrast issues, 3 comes off the best however with the pure CGI moments looking amazing.
TPM is a mess, one of the worst DVD's that THX have put their name to has been rescanned and would have blown away any previous version including HDTV (That always looked low resolution and with a pink cast) if not for the DNR added.
People are saying that this was to bring it into line with the other PT films, but there is no reason to remove detail on what could have been the stand out transfer of this set.

Extras I feel are a mixed bag, great documentary's like The Beginning and Empire of dreams are missing, and what is left is a hodge podge of things that feels thrown together.
The deleted scenes (the few that were not already on youtube) are great to see and deserve a place on the set.
The vintage making of's are ok for what they are but I didn't watch much of them past a few mins.
The spoofs is weird, I was thinking they would be in chronological order, or some kind of order but they are kind of just one after another and nothing I had not seen before.


This could have been the release to end all releases to show other studios how it could be done, but with releases like Bridge On The River Kwai, Taxi Driver, Rocky Horror and even The Evil Dead showing how amazing period film based productions (on any mm size) this set can look distinctly low rent and needed to be so much more.
Edited by Mike Wadkins - 9/13/11 at 3:47pm

I wonder how Return... looks. The HTF review of the SD always struck me as a little unfair and highly innacurate since it was berating the transfer for basically and quite accurately conveying the technical inferiority of J-D-C Scope.

There are some issues where horizontal resolution dips, its odd and looks like temporal DNR in places

What is your overall opinion of the OT on blu?

I have posted above, very poor given its importance and budget.
But I am used to watching it in HD from the HDTV versions so the upgrade is not as drastic to me, it is using the same masters as the HDTV versions and the 4 movies shot on film need a full restoration at over 1080p (the resolution Lucasfilm asked Lowry to use)
It Universal used these transfers again people would be all over them, but I feel there are some blinders as people get swept up in the movies.

I just don't get why LFL had a press event and said that they worked on this for 3yrs only for it to come out and look like this... I smell another release down the road.

I see little point in them spending too much money on this set, when they have to do a near full remaster for the 3D releases

For those of you who have the Saga or OT Blu-Ray sets, are the blacks still crushed as per the 2004 SE DVDs?

In places, the effect is lessened mostly in ESB but that and the contrast issues are still there

Would it be your opinion from seeing the set, that Lucasfilm weren't entirely truthful/candid about all the things that were supposedly fixed for this latest edition?

They fixed a lot of issues, but left others I would say it was a time thing.
The Saber on the Falcon is fixed in a few shot but still green in others, I think ILM need to go back through and start fresh with the SE files and rebuild using the Technicolor prints as a base, but this will cost a fortune unless Pepsi want to pay for it again.

Is it green or is it white? There's two people saying two different things. For what it's worth, it was white (or at least not as blue as it is in Empire) in the original version.

It changes from shot to shot, and it was blue/white originally.

I suppose a very, very lightly tinted blue can be considered blue/white but I've always thought of it as white.

Like all Sabers it changed depending on the background it was being comped against.



It was never really blue, but it was never ever green.
Most Saber fixes are in Jedi during the final battle.

Thanks for your honest views Mike. It does seem like it's a bit of a mixed bag overall, to say the least.

I think the top one was a photochemical process, whereas the bottom one was digitally re-comped. The top process worked in its favour to an extent because it blows it out a little. The bottom variant shows how bad this particular effect really was. This badly needed to be fixed. It's a mystery to me why some shots like that remain unfixed, after 14 years...

RETURN OF THE JEDI
Well,
I watched Return of The Jedi on Blu-Ray last night. A friend of mine works at Blockbuster, and they got the Blu discs in he rented them(I guess its common practice that employees get to rent films before street date, as long as they are returned by the street date).

We got a pizza and decided to watch ROTJ considering this is the film with the most changes. I had a copy of the 2004 dvd's to compare it with whenever we were in question about what is 'new'.

I will say this right now, It looks simply amazing. On my 40" Sony Bravia I caught myself smiling a lot just at how perfect it is. Film grain is indeed present throughout, and it does look very film like. The worries about waxy, excessive DNR can vanish. The sound is beyond reference material. I have a low end 5.1 speaker package, but I was still blown away. At some point in the speeder bike scene on Endor, I paused it looked at my friend and just said "wow", he replied by saying "I know".
I can just imagine someone with a mid to high end speaker package watching it in 6.1, that would be something.

The changes....ummm, I hate to say it but they are not that bad. Yes, I was one of the biggest nay sayers(and still believe it is wrong to change a work of art) but as others have mentioned in the grand scheme of how great a film it is they matter very little. The biggest being Darth Vader's "Nooo". That change didn't take me out of the pivotal moment in the film like I thought it would.
Also was it mentioned in the list of changes that when Artoo gets blasted at the Endor base HE has a lot more thingies(tentacle like probes toward the top of his dome) pop out than the previous 2004 edition? My friend brought it to my attention so we checked, and sure enough its new. If so then just disregard that.
My only real complaint is that the disc art, and title menu screen are both very bland. They could have been spruced up a bit.
My pre-order has been reinstated. Not only because it is amazing quality Blu-Ray, but because I am dying to see the bonus features(have been since I heard about them).
I honsetly feel that the next SW release on Blu-Ray will include the unaltered original trilogy, and I will buy that as well.

All in all, my friend and I had a great viewing experience and were well pleased with the product.
We both felt like we were 10 years old again watching ROTJ( we are both 37).
The magic is still there my friends.

DNR was used but a layer of fake grain was added

Travis I would stake my life on its not fixed in the scene I talked about on the Falcon where Kenobi tells Luke to wear the helmet & use the force to hit the training droid. Its a bright white & you can clearly see what appear to be the pencil marks from the hand drawn animation cells!!

Then later on Vader vs Kenobi on the Death Star it looks like the prequel sabre FX!! Someone @ Lucasfilm either missed this or there has been a miscommunication because on Tatooine when Luke first fires the sabre up after Kenobi has just given him it the glow is a distinct blue.

Also, THX seal is worthless here no-one obviously went through the movies frame by frame to check for picture errors like the corner dirt marks I talked about.......

Luke's lightsaber changes color (due to error) in the original version of the movie. Like you said, in Obi-Wan's hut, it's blue but on the Millennium Falcon, it's nearly white. I guess it's a matter of preference but I'd rather see it back to the original (albeit incorrect) white than making it more blue to match with the rest of the movie.

I thought the THX seal simply means that the disc was authored/ mastered using THX-certified equipment.

What if David Lynch had directed Star Wars?
Well, find out by watching the black & white rough cut of the cantina scene. It's like Han Solo meets The Elephant Man.

It's more like a seal of approval that all the steps from mastering to replication were done to a high standard. But it doesn't guarantee that the transfer or master are any good to begin with.