STAR WARS ON BLU-RAY - FALL 2011 (1 Viewer)

[Jason Charlton]

It's no mistake. What you're seeing is a lesser-know fad among Jedi - "Mood Sabers". Depending on the circumstances, the light saber of a Jedi can range in color from Red (anger) to Green (awe and wonder) to Bubblegum Pink (does this cape make me look fat?). There's even the unusual White light saber, that has been seen with individuals momentarily confused over the sudden disappearance of a foe following a mid-body attack.

 

[Ricardo C]

Looking at the OOT DVDs, the saber issue is chiefly due to contrast, rather than coloring. Vader's saber does show some tint variation from shot to shot in the originals too. The high contrast on the sabers means that it's not really an issue in the originals, but terribly obvious in the SEs:





There's no real hue difference in Vader's saber, but the overblown whites in the OOT make it look "right". If more care had been taken in shots like this (and the horrendous saber clash shot in ROTJ), there would be no problem with the lightsabers in the SEs.


This is the one thing that's always bothered me about the SE DVDs. Save for Greedo shooting first and "Jedi Rocks", I'm totally fine with the SEs as the definitive versions of the OT. But the lack of care in this one area boggles my mind. Let's set aside all the lip service about Lowry's "amazing restoration". These films look sharp and detailed, sure, but they also look like they were run through an automated post-processing program and no one bothered to QA the results. It blows my mind that no one at Lucasfilm looked at these and said "hang on, what the fuck did you guys do there??" On the one hand they take the trouble to redo Obi-Wan's lightsaber, and to correct Vader's "white" saber in ANH, but then they ignore issues like this?? I don't understand it. I hope they actually go back and fix this for the BluRays, since I believe new masters will need to be made anyway.

 

[Ruz-El]

The SE light saber in that picture looks way cooler!

 

[Adam_S]

all that comparison picture shows to me is the limitations in old transfer equipment and old home video transfers in resolving detail, it does not prove that either one is how lightsabers are supposed to look like, all it shows is what it looked like when transferred for LD/VHS resolutions versus transferred for DVD resolutions, 180-240 compared to 480. Additionally, transferring the analog sources to digital may have introduced additional digital compression problems with the white blooming of the saber core causing it to be even more exacerbated. Not a good comparison at all.

 

[Ricardo C]

If you have a film print laying around, I'm totally up for a proper comparison, Adam.


However, for many posters, it's been literally decades since they saw a non-SE Star Wars film in theaters (and of those, many were too young to even remember the experience in detail), and the various home video releases are the only way many younger viewers have experienced the films.


Additionally, all the transfer artifacts in the world won't change the shot's hue. If the LDs' colors are faithful to the originals, then the pic is a valid comparison, at least as far as the color of the lightsabers is concerned.

 

[ChadMcCallum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ricardo C It blows my mind that no one at Lucasfilm looked at these and said "hang on, what the fuck did you guys do there??" On the one hand they take the trouble to redo Obi-Wan's lightsaber, and to correct Vader's "white" saber in ANH, but then they ignore issues like this?? I don't understand it. I hope they actually go back and fix this for the BluRays, since I believe new masters will need to be made anyway.

Its weird that the saber colour issue somehow slipped through the cracks. One look at Luke's saber while training on the Falcon in ANH and you can see its clearly green. The folks at Lucasfilm knew people were going to be going over these dvds studying every little detail and its odd that no one did anything about such an obvious mistake.


I really hope they've gone back and fixed the sound for the blu-rays too so the sound effects no longer overpower the score. The Death Star attack sequence in particular is really hurt by the sound effects drowning out John Williams amazing score.

 

[johnSM]

I read that part of it was to do with the digital cleanup work. A lightsaber blade fluctuates in intensity, and was animated to do so. Now if you you look closely at the very edges of the animated blades, they can appear grainy. This is seen as 'noise' by many digital grain reduction algorithms. Whether this was Lowry or the pre-Lowry clean-up work Lucasfilm did before handing the files over, isn't known. What is evident is that the noise reduction acted strangely with the lightsabre blades, thinning them down in many instances (the same happens with the animated laser bolts - check out the blasts at the imperial cruiser at the beginning of Star Wars they've lost their distinctive glow, and the intense bright 'cores' like the sabres...) and sharpening them too much to. I have a feeling the colour issues were pre-Lowry so there's not much they could do there, particularly with the reported time-scale they had (very little!) to work with each film. The blades need to be worked on again, and fingers crossed they already have done so.


- John

 

[MielR]

The 1st problem with the lightsabers started back in '92 or '93 when the Definitive Collection LD set was released- many noticed strange artifacts at the edges of the lightsaber glows, most likely the result of the "dirt concealment" process that also produced the smearing effect which was then carried over onto the non-anamorphic '06 DVDs (GOUT).


I guess the Lowry treatment created a new set of problems.


Neither the GOUT nor the Lowry SE's correctly represent the films in terms of color/contrast, though I give the edge to the GOUT. They're a bit too bright, and lean red, but not glaringly so. On the other hand, my immediate impression of the SEs were that they looked very dark.....and blueish. A lot of shadow detail is now lost, and I even noticed in Ricardo's pics, that the leather front part of Vader's costume is visible in the OOT pic, but not in the SE shot.


The Apt Irrelevance site has an extensive collection of screen shots of various video releases (check out the comparisons of Han, with the cockpit control panel behind his head):


http://www.aptirrelevance.com/otscreenshots/


There's also a collection of screenshots from the Technicolor D-T print shown at the Senator Theatre linked in here (which includes some lightsaber shots):


http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/302634/senator-theatre-farewell-screenings-of-star-wars-technicolor-ib-print


Personally, I could live with the too-dark, too-blue, transfers, and even the pink lightsabers, and would happily consider those fair trade-offs if it were the '77-'83 films we were getting on blu, and not the SEs.


That's how much of a crazed, impossible-to-please fanatic I am.

 

[Ricardo C]

Thanks for those links, Miel! I understand better now why Adam objected to my comparison shot. Sorry, Adam!


I've lived with the films on home video for far too long, it seems.

 

[MielR]

Sorry, it seems like the Apt Irrelevance site is down at the moment.

 

[MielR]

Another great site- this one has tons of 70mm film scans:


http://jedi1.net/

 

[Ricardo C]

Breathtaking...


Maybe on BluRay4k in 10 years

 

[johnSM]

Sigh - that's exactly how I remember Star Wars looking - maybe one day eh?


Beautiful shots.


- John

 

[Bryan^H]

Del Shannon's 'Runaway'.

Del Shannon created one of Rock n Rolls most memorable songs of all time....Runaway in 1961.


In 1967, Del Shannon re-recorded Runaway. It was a cleaner, more polished version of his original smash hit. It was still a good song, but something was missing. It just didn't have the 'Feel' of the original. Less sorrow, less ferocity. Del Shannon felt his original 1961 version was too gritty, and he could catch a bigger audience if he just cleaned it up. He was wrong. By re-recording it, he had changed the song. Purists, and fans of the golden era of Rock n Roll wouldn't go near the re-recorded version of 'Runaway'.


This is how I feel about The Star Wars original trilogy. The Special editions are altered versions of the originals .

It is not the same series of classic films. Fans of the original trilogy feel the same.

I'm not buying the Blu-Ray.

 

[Carlo_M]

Thank you so much for this, I've bookmarked the site.


That's a wonderful trip down memory lane. Those scans are fantastic. Beautiful grain too

Originally Posted by MielR

Another great site- this one has tons of 70mm film scans:


http://jedi1.net/

 

[snoopy28574]

There is a great deal there. there is just no way they threw anything away. Not star wars. Lost maybe, o neg to damaged to be used maybe. I seem to remember something about two ycm color seperation masters. Those would do fine

 

[hampsteadbandit]

sorry I am late to this party!


but news of Star Wars on Blu-Ray is excellent


for some strange reason this morning I was wondering if I owned Star Wars in HD and then remembered 6 DVDs sitting on my shelf


I wondered "when will it be out in HD Blu-Ray?" and I have come back to Home Threater Forum today for the first time in months to have this question answered!


thanks....

 

[EdReedFan20]

I'm surprised that we still have yet to see the official official box art. I understand that the box art we have now is "official," but by now I would have expected to see physical images of the box, including such things as what's inside (i.e., how the movies are stored, etc.). As we all know, the set is due in September, so hopefully we will get more information soon.

 

[TravisR]

^ I'd be surprised if there's any news or pictures before Comic Con at the end of July.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Originally Posted by snoopy28574

There is a great deal there. there is just no way they threw anything away. Not star wars. Lost maybe, o neg to damaged to be used maybe. I seem to remember something about two ycm color seperation masters. Those would do fine

I seem to recall that separation masters were either never done for the first movie, or were done incorrectly and are unusable.



Doug