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

[Dan Rudolph]

This is 2d work, where Macs do typically perform better.

 

[Randy A Salas]

To me, the presence of Hayden can be explained by the fact that that is the last known visage of Anakin Skywalker. From that point on, he became alter-ego Darth Vader--despite the last-minute conversion when the Emperor was killed. Yoda and Obi-Wan never changed their personifications, so they looked the same as when they died.

That's my story, anyway...

 

[Mark Anthony]

One thing I don't understand and haven't seen mentioned before, is that when the special editions were released theatrically back in early '97, a big thing was made then of how poor a condition the original neg's were in - and how much they spent on restoring them - so why are they still in such poor shape?!

It wasn't PR hype as several interviews and books at the time brought it up and Lucas himself said what had been done to restore them.

I'm puzzled....

M

 

[Kevin M]

Mark beat me to it, I also remember them discussing how they had to restore the original negatives back in 96/97. How exactly did they "restore" them back then?

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Anyone know why Carrie Fisher is the only star on the commentaries? Did Hamill and Ford decline, or were they not asked to be involved? I'd love a track with just the three of them.

 

[Randy A Salas]

I'm sure they declined. Hamill, in particular, emphasizes that he has moved on. He is happy to talk about Star Wars and does so enthusiastically, but he doesn't like to dwell on something he did more than 20 years ago.

On my own (without a PR firm or studio help), I managed to land a lengthy interview with Hamill for my story about the DVDs. It wasn't until after I did that I realized he did only one other feature interview with a publication, Entertainment Weekly. When Lucasfilm found out I had tracked down Hamill--they were quite surprised--they called him to do other interviews, but his wife told me he turned them all down, including requests from the BBC and Good Day, L.A.

I had down to ask him why he didn't do the commentary, but we never got to it. We talked for about 45 minutes about all kinds of things, less than half the time on Star Wars. But it's clear that he doesn't go out of his way for Star Wars anymore.

"It had a beginning, a middle and an end, and that was fine with me," he said about being a part of the trilogy. "Even the fact that it's had this incredible sort of after-life and this cult status, there's nothing wrong with that. It's fun in many, many ways. But it is frustrating because I'm no longer engaged creatively. In my mind, I've moved on."

That's probably why he's not on the commentary.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

That was photo-chemically done and it was done on the negative itself. It was a physical thing that directly affected the negatives. This new one is of course a digital one. They didn’t touch the negatives for this one.

 

[ScottR]

Where did the footage of the original crawl, sans Episode IV come from for the documentary?

 

[Sam Davatchi]

The Lucasfilm archive of course!

 

[Michael Reuben]

We're always very grateful when Robert Harris takes the time to share his insights on HTF. That's why this thread has remained open. If anyone else had started a new Star Wars DVD thread, it would have been closed immediately.

That being said, this thread is not an "alternative" location to repeat issues that are already being discussed in the existing threads (notably the main review and discussion thread). Consider this thread an opportunity to discuss restoration techniques and technology with one of the leading figures in the field.

I've moved a number of recent posts over to the main thread, because they tended to take this one in a direction that would have rendered it a clone. Please bear that in mind for future contributions. Thanks!

M.

 

[Benjamin Ricci]

Probably a stupid question, but when a digital restoration is done, is that good enough to make prints from? Basically what I'm asking is if Star Wars is ever re-released to theatres will the prints be taken from the new digital master or will that not have enough resolution for the big screen? Is the digital restoration only good enough for home video releases?

RAH, maybe you can clear this up for me...

Thanks!

 

[Stephen Brooks]

I think that Lucas's plan is for all the Star Wars films not to necessarily look the best that they each CAN look, but rather, look pretty much the same. Consider that AOTC and ROTS were shot on 1920x1080 24p HD video cameras. That is the limit of the original source image-these two films (or rather, digital movies) will never have any more information than that. So thereofore, if they took the negatives of ANH, ESB, and ROTJ, and scanned them to create an HD digital negative, they now exist in the same resolution as the previous films. If 1080p is good enough for the prequels, I'm sure Lucas will consider it good enough for the OT as well. I honestly think that all future work on Star Wars will be done on these masters and the film elements may never be touched again. It's really no different than most TV shows nowadays that are shot on film but then "completed" on HD tape. The changes and tweaks that Lucas made for this set (and is no doubt continuing to make for the next set) are being made directly to the digital master-meaning, if they ever wanted to go back and redo the transfer and restoration in 4K or higher, they'd have to go back and do all the changes and fixes all over again too. I doubt they'd want to bother with that, plus there's also the question of whether the OT negs really have much more than 1K or 2K of information in them to be extracted in the first place.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

Yes Lowry has said that for Star Wars Original Trilogy, they restored at HD resolution and not 1K or 2K.

Also this came to my mind. Correct me if I’m wrong. Wouldn’t it be exciting to have Star Wars on HD-DVD? We would actually have exactly the same source as the Lucasfilm archive! That’s something! Maybe the first time that you have the same source resolution as the filmmakers!

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

So, if new prints of IV-V-VI were to be made today what would they be made from? The 1997 duplicate negative?

Do the original 1977, 1980 and 1983 camera negatives still exist as they did in '77, '80 and '83?

Or were they recut and re-cemented together?

Or were duplicate fine-grain negatives made from the O-negs which were used for creating work prints and, eventually were taken apart and the deleted scenes inserted (Jabba in ANH, etc, which would have been made from the O-neg trims) and then this new dupe neg would have been used to create another dupe neg to be used for the release prints.

Basically, what I would like to know is:

Can a new print be made of the original versions of the film today. Surely the new scenes and alterations were not cut and cemented into the original camera negatives?

I suspect they were not and that it is possible to create a new print of A New Hope exactly as people saw it in May 1977.

I believe, for example, that the original 1977 35mm Panavision camera negative (10,827 feet/1997 Special is 11,460 feet) is in exactly the same cut as the day the negative cutter cemented the last splice.

But I could be wrong. But it would have been foolish to recut the O-negs.

- YCM Labs worked on the O-negs in the mid 90s for the 1997 re-releases
- Pacific Title worked on the opticals
- Original SFX for ANH were shot in VistaVision
- Original SFX for ESB and ROTJ were shot in 65mm

 

[Vincent_P]

:: But I could be wrong. But it would have been foolish to recut the O-negs.

I believe they DID recut the O-Negs, not just to add the new footage/special effects shots, but to replace rapidly fading opticals with new ones that were redone from the OCN elements of those optical shots.

As for "can the original versions be reprinted", I would GUESS that some interpositives and internegatives of the original cuts still exist in vaults, and they could be used to make new prints (and new video transfers) of those "original versions".

Vincent

 

[Grant H]

What I don't get is how some of the press material (or more accurately articles written by the press) for this release seems to say they had to do so much cleanup on the original negatives when in fact all Lowry had was scans of the '97 SE prints handed to them by Lucasfilm. I wouldn't call those negatives. I don't even remember what the official releases said anymore, but I think some folks have mixed their facts up a bit, or at least terminology before going to press.

 

[DanRevill]

TedD,
Excellent pics. Thanks.

Gordon,
Not exactly addressing the original negative question, but, according to this , there would have to be one print of Star Wars (none of the sequels though) preserved. Star Wars was added to the National Film Registry in the late 80s, well before Lucas begun work on the Special Editions.

I think it'd be cool if my American friends started emailing off the hook to get Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi preserved (original cuts). Would Lucas turn down the National Film Registry if they requested 1980 Empire or 1983 Jedi?

 

[Aaron_Brez]

I think the answer to that is clearly, "Yes, he would." Rumor has it he asked the Library of Congress to replace their originals of ANH with the Special Editions, and he was politely refused.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

HD resolution is 1K (1080 lines horizontal).

Lowry's restoration work is typically done at 4K resolution (over 4000 lines horizontal), so as I've said before in the main thread, this is something like 15-16 times the resolution of HD, and almost 100 times the resolution of DVD (480 lines).

This resolution is meant to be good enough to create new negatives with as much detail as the original 35mm print.

Whether this is what they did for Star Wars, I'm not sure.

-Dennis

 

[Sam Davatchi]

It's not. Lowry said they did it at HD. There is an official article on this, I will try to find it.