Star Wars (1977) original Blu ray. Crappier than ever.

I don't understand why and how some big franchises and blockbuster movies get such a lousy treatment. The Star Wars BD's (OT) are mediocre, they are sourced from a 2004 scan that by today standards (beware, I'm not a Pro) must be outdated and as Vidiot stated it wasn't done on optimal conditions. The compression on Star Wars (1977) is lousy, look at the first desert scenes with C3PO and R2-D2, there's plenty of mosquito noise and other artifacts around the droid's edges. These Original Trilogy BD's are of subpar quality.
T2, they've been usin the 2001 master for ages and when they do a new "restoration" is pure crap plagued with DNR that can only please the less demanding videophiles, if they can be considered as such, that are only looking for the UHD BD and HDR badges, what's on the disc some people don't really care.
There are small companies like Arrow that almost everything they touch is turn into gold, like The Thing, Ronin, Rollerball or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, then move into big studios and big franchises and we get lousy quality. Sometimes I think they are ripping us off on purpose like if studios executives think "bah, it's Star Wars/Terminator, fans will buy whatever we sell them regardless of quality".

 

The scans themselves were not enhanced. The enhancement was done by Verta himself, and the color correction is only for demonstration purposes. From his videos it becomes clear, that he first restores the frames, and then applies a basic color correction. While a restoration from prints is obviously not ideal, I do wonder what the effect has been of fading on the negative of Star Wars before it was restored. Apparently 2/3 of the color had faded in some cases. You would expect enhancement of color noise. The technicolor prints would have an edge over the negative in that respect, since they do not fade.

 

From this link:

Color temperature is a characteristic of visible light and is stated in units of absolute temperature, known as Kelvin (K). ... It is measured in degrees of Kelvin (K) on a scale from 1,000 to 10,000. ... Kelvin temperatures fall somewhere on a scale from 2000K to 6500K.

SMPTE and the ITU specify 6500° relative white as a reference color temperature for broadcast video, and 5400° for theatrical film and digital cinema. 6500° is nominally the color of a piece of white paper on a cloudless day at high noon; 5400° is roughly close to what a carbon-arc film projector (later Xenon bulb) reproduces on screen through standard Kodak color print film. I believe this standard goes back at least 40 years. Read these documents:

ITU BT.2035 HD Viewing Environments
SMPTE RP166-1995 Critical Viewing Conditions
SMPTE ST2080-3-2017 Reference Viewing Environment for Evaluation of HDTV Images

My pals over at MixingLight.com have extracts of these documents and the need for 6500° whites for color evaluation, available for free at this link:

Anatomy Of A Grading Suite: Design

This is also a frequent topic over on the AVS Forum, and I think while sometimes they go a little overboard, the basics are generally sound and valid.

Well, that's a lot of double-talk that doesn't really mean anything. There's no context and no standards behind it. When you strip all the bull**** away, I think you're basically saying, "well, I think it looks better and therefore it is better." It's just a subjective opinion.

 

Terminator 2 went through Lowry Digital over a decade ago, and since the director is a huge proponent of digital, he's not a fan of film grain (at all). As a result, they pretty much cranked it up to 11. I don't see any artifacts at all in there, because the Lowry Process is non-real-time and basically takes over a day to process just 20 minutes of images, so it's a very exacting series of steps (plus there's some human decision-making and control involved). But what you saw was requested by the director, and they got what they asked for. Good or bad, the filmmaker is in control of films like this -- not the audience.

 

Pedants hat on... While the Kelvin scale is made up of units of degrees, when written down, the correct SI notation is, say 6500K rather than 6500°. Using ° makes it unclear which scale is being referenced (Kelvin, Celsius, Fahrenheit, etc).

Historically, before 1968 the units for absolute temperature were described as 'degrees Kelvin' or 'degrees absolute'. Since then, the international SI system removed the idea of 'degree' for absolute temperature, so the new unit should be expressed as a 'kelvin' (with lowercase k) and abbreviated simply 'K' (without the degree symbol).

However, when the context is know to be colorimetry then a looser 6500° notation is okay as one knows from the context that we're talking Kelvin.

 

Sorry, you're still wrong: Kelvin is not measured in degrees.

I think you misunderstood my argument. I know what color temperature is, and am familiar with the various standards, though I'm sure your explanation will be helpful to others. But, just as you said before in regards to 4k vs. UHD, "technical precision is important." Color temperature measurements should be reported in Kelvin, not degrees.

 

Sure, but that goes both ways doesn't it. You don't know his process any more than I do, and so just like me you don't know what standards were applied. What I do know is, that he's had help from some very knowledgeable people, and he has demonstrated his work to the restoration community, and it has been met with very positive feedback. So, rather than be rude about it, perhaps we can just agree, that his results look good at first glance, but nobody will know for sure until it is released in some capacity, if that ever happens.

 

Here is another video, where Verta compares his work to the bluray, and Reliance show reel, focussing mostly on color:

 

...and another one "The Look of Star Wars - Color Comparison #2:

 

This image was made by a guy, who digitally restores film professionally. He is one of the people advising Verta. The image displays what can be done with multiple 35mm prints and restoration software employing the technique "super resolution" (right print, left enhanced with super resolution, source originaltrilogy.com, no color grading has been applied):

 

I watched the 4K83 version of Return of the Jedi yesterday.
I don't really care that much anymore if the original trilogy gets released or not. There are so many great fan made versions out there now in the last years.

I don't care if the technical aspect of fanmade scans and color correction is all over the place as long as it's looks this good.

I trust these fans more than George Lucas. I never watch the blu-rays that he released cause they don't look right to me at all.
Directors and DPs and studio bosses changes their minds all the time about how a film should look. We've seen that many times on all the different versions on LD, DVD, BD and UHD-BD.
So that is not a guarante for anything. Better to trust your eyes.

French Connection blu-ray dissaster anyone?

 

Naw, it's all very subjective. You might as well remix an album from the multitracks and say you did a better job than the original artists. But is it really better... or is it just different? I don't think many people grasp how complex that question is.

Guaranteed, Disney/Lucasfilm could spend $10 million and take a year on the 4K HDR restoration of Star Wars, call it the "ultimate" edition, it could look absolutely fantastic, and there will still be annoying fans who live in their mother's basements who will criticize it... just for the sake of criticizing it. And there will be people who will rip the Blu-rays, create "their" versions, and then call it "better." There's a lot of "painting mustaches on the Mona Lisa" here.

That is very true. And even I have looked at my own work from 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago and thought, "jesus, what was I thinking?" On good days, I look at it and think, "gee... that was not too bad." Often we're prevented by time and circumstances from spending as much time as we'd like on a project. It's not so much "do the best job humanly possible," it's "do the best job in the amount of time and money we have."

 

Did you read the quote above that said degrees Kelvin?

"The Kelvin scale is an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale using as its null point absolute zero, the temperature at which all thermal motionceases in the classical description of thermodynamics."
Kelvin - Wikipedia

You're arguing over semantics, and I'm actually quoting from the ITU and SMPTE papers that people use. Tell me again what color temperature you're using for whites on your display.

Duly noted.

 

Firstly, it's unlikely George Lucas would even be directly involved with any potential restoration/re-release of the OT theatrical versions, except as a mere courtesy, for a number of reasons;

1) He left the DGA so Disney/Lucasfilm is (possibly) exempt from their rules regarding needed director approval on any remastering/reissue of the 1977 film.
2) Lucas signed away everything for $4bn to the Mouse House and no longer has any official involvement in SW, be it creative or otherwise.
3) Technically, they wouldn't need Lucas' approval on the OT trilogy as they wouldn't be altering anything further to the already-existing theatrical cuts.

If/when they ever decide to pull the trigger on the OT theatrical versions, I suspect Lucas will be consulted, again, as a mere courtesy, but I doubt he'd even be interested to participate in such a venture if he knew they were going ahead with or without his approval and he couldn't control the results...

As far as The French Connection Blu-ray debacle goes, Friedkin claimed there was a mistake in the mastering (which of course was utter baloney!), it's not what he wanted, and he worked with DP Owen Roizman to correct it... gotta love 'Hurricane' Billy Friedkin, one of Hollywood's true characters!!!

 

I meant when Lucas was still in charge. He's responsible for the 2004 DVDs and 2011 BDs

 

Lordy, I sincerely hope they don't remaster the OT theatrical versions in HDR (if they ever remaster them again at all!)... I don't have either an HDR player or television, have no intention of getting them, and I'm still not convinced HDR is either here to stay or has long-term wide commercial appeal beyond a select niche audience.

All they need to do is give the existing IP's a brand new (optical pin-registered) scan at 4K resolution; a meticulous frame-by-frame remastering wherein they remove dirt, scratches and other anomalies, 'clean up' the various optical effect artifacts, but fundamentally leave each film unaltered; remaster the original 70mm 6-track soundtrack mixes for the new versions... and et voila!!!

Throw in the 1993 audio commentaries, original trailers/tv spots, deleted scenes, the four vintage 'making of' documentaries, and they have a first-day purchase from your's truly... make no mistake about that .

 

I might agree with you, if it wasn't so obvious the color grading of ANH is riddled with color artifacts, which were clearly introduced by the color grading. Just look at this shot of the bluray:



This shot has a ton of issues, that are anything but subjective. For one, it's extremely dark and contrasty for a sequence shot during the day, and worse there is color noise all over the shot. There's blue and magenta on Luke's shirt, on the walls. It's everywhere. Why? Because of a combination of oversaturation, and a push in blue and magenta compared to the original photography. The original color grading seen on the 35mm prints in 1977 and 1997 for these sequences is quite warm, and looks closer to this:



You will note that the ugly color staining is almost non-existent in the shot, certainly not to the extend as seen in the bluray. So, yes if you don't mind color artifacts all over your shot, the bluray color difference is just different, but otherwise it's just not very good.

 

I did. The fact remains that Kelvin is not measured in degrees, which is a common misconception, apparently widespread enough to enter SMPTE/ITU white papers. I'm not surprised, just disappointed, really. Certainly, degrees will be nearly universally understood among the color temperature-initiated and within the scientific community at large. I'm just an insufferable pedant about these things.

As for my PC monitor calibration, I don't edit video nor watch any on it with a critical eye. Therefore, I don't worry much about color accuracy and just set the temperature in a comfortably warm range for working long hours in DAWs (with redshift down below 4000K at dusk, blueshift to around 5400K at dawn). My housemate's LCD TV is calibrated as best I can using mostly Spears & Munsil (Blu-ray) with a dash of THX (from Star Wars DVDs); I forget if the white point is user-configurable, but if it is, it's likely set to 6500K. All defeatable dynamic features are disabled. This is the most your average video consumer can be expected to do, and well beyond what most actually do. Is the end result color-accurate? Probably far from. Does it represent the typical "enthusiast" experience? Yes. Can reasonable conclusions be drawn about the look and feel of a release under such conditions with a large enough sample size? It seems I am far from alone in arguing in the affirmative.

 

The strengths of digital color grading are also its weaknesses. Unlike in the days of photochemical color timing the possibilities are limitless. An image can be manipulated to look like anything. Just like with CGI however, our brain is actually quite adept at detecting unnatural images, and sometimes an image can just look off, even if we can't put our finger on it, or produce some standard, that it doesn't adhere to. Such is the case with the OT on bluray, and it's not just limited to ANH. While TESB doesn't display many of the color artifacts ANH does, some of the color choices still look quite unappealing to my eyes. Take the shots on Dagobah:



What's with the fluorescent green and blue? Certainly in that last shot R2-D2 looks terrible. These sequences never looked like this either on film or home video. The telecine of the 1997 SE for TESB is actually reasonably close to the theatrical color timing. I color matched the bluray to this reference, and here's what it looks like:



These frames look far more natural to me. Here's a direct comparison:

TESB | FrameCompare.com

In this case I would agree with Vidiot, that it's more different than wrong, but it's also clear, that like ANH the color grading is anything, but faithful to the original or even the 1997 theatrical release.

 

Of course the most obvious evidence, that "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" even to a color grading noob, was the lightsaber color issues. While fixes were added for the bluray release by redoing the effect and fitting it into the new color grading, a few things are evident. For one the new color grading is different enough to seriously affect the lightsaber effects. Secondly, quality control was clearly not the highest priority in creating the DVD master. To the more trained eye, the lightsaber isssues are just the tip of the iceberg. Here is a shot of the Emperor as it originally appeared on the DVD master:



Here's the shot matched to the 1997 SE telecine for ROTJ:



Here's a direct comparison:

ROTJ | FrameCompare.com

 

I hear you after the 3D nonsense, but I think HDR is definitely here to stay in lock-step with 4K. It's trickled down into really cheap TVs, and there's a sort of race to the bottom for decent 4K HDR sets from TCL, Vizio and others. Since HDR10 is an open standard manufactures don't have to pay anything for licensing (they do with Dolby Vision though), and with aggressive tone mapping they can get away with panels that really don't get that bright. 1080p panels are getting hard to find at places where the average American shops like Walmart, Target and Best Buy, and lots of those cheap 4K TVs that have replace them will have some form of HDR built in at little cost.

All of this aside, the biggest thing that will drive HDR into the future is streaming and smartphones. Since it's an inbuilt feature for Apple, Sony, Samsung and more, and Netflix, Prime Video and iTunes have all embraced it, so it's already a huge success in comparison to 3D. TBH, I'd be pretty shocked if Star Wars isn't regraded in HDR or Dolby Vision.

 

Yeah, I got that impression. Duly noted.

I think it's standard procedure these days for any major film of importance to have a 4K HDR release, and I think that's a safe assumption for all the Star Wars saga films. The last couple already were done in 4K HDR, but it's a good question as to when and how they'll do the first six films. That will add another layer of difficulty and cost to the project... but it absolutely can be done.

No doubt the fans will go even crazier with a 4K HDR release, because when you see a film with highlights that are six to ten times brighter than anything ever released before, they're going to complain that a) it didn't look that way on film in the theater, b) it never looked that way on home video before, and c) the fans will insist they have a way to master it better. I don't think Disney/Lucasfilm will care, as long as the whiners spend the money and buy the boxed sets all over again.

I think from a historical point of view, it'll be great to have the films completely restored as they were shown on the first day of their original release. Just having the content assembled correctly will be great, even with the original Fox logos and the original main titles. Let's hope they make reasonable decisions on color and also locate the original Dolby A mag tracks, too.

That's a very good question on which I don't have the answer. Nobody but Mr. Lucas and Bob Iger got to read the agreement in which Lucasfilm was sold to Disney, but my bet is that Lucas let go of everything and just decided not to worry about it. I don't think he would care if they released the movies playing backwards and in B&W at this point. If he were asked to be involved, I'd guess he would say, "it's not my problem anymore: those are Disney's movies and their responsibility." [My suspicion is that the only thing he requested was that Disney had to keep Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic in business for X number of years -- I'm guessing at least 10 years. It's a good question what Disney will do, say, after Mr. Lucas passes way... hopefully not for many more years. But my observation is that Disney does not want to be in the post facilities business.)

If Lucas were offered final color approval of the first three Star Wars films, my guess is he would say, "I already spent 4 months doing that in 2003 and 2004. Just make them look like what we did back then." Most of the filmmakers who did the first three films are either dead or retired, so there's not many people left who were actually there on the set 35-40 years ago and could make any judgement calls. As I said earlier in the thread, you could pull up three original Technicolor prints, and then compare them to the 1980s, the 1990s, and 2000s video release release of the film, and you'd see six different images. Which of them tells the truth? It's all very relative. And don't forget that the film images do change over time (even Technicolor IB).

 

Already available. Project 4K77 | The Star Wars Trilogy

 

Naaaa. If it's not from the camera negative, it's a fail for me. And since my living depends on the Hollywood studios and distributors making money, I can't support pirated media. (Neither does this website.)

 

Beggars can't be choosers