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

To me the color grading for all three of the OT films just look off, and unnatural. I was stunned, when I compared Puggo's telecine of a 16mm print of ROTJ to the bluray release. I regraded a few shots of the bluray using the 16mm as a reference adjusting for the 16mm's increased contrast and saturation to highlight the enormous difference.

Bluray:



Bluray regraded:



Here's a direct comparison:

ROTJ | FrameCompare.com

These movies deserve a lot better than what they got, even if the releases are restricted to the SE.

 

Wow--beautiful results.

I am often very happy to have

entirely ​

written off The Star Wars long ago. Otherwise I would have to be appalled with every new development and release...
I mean, it's like nobody even looked at that garbage before releasing the BD! Such an immeasurable shame.

 

I'm happy with the Harmy editions.

 

Im glad the fan editions are out there. But I dont consider them as great. Too many sources and they are simply too chopped up looking.

What could be would blow those out of the water Im sure.

 

If Disney hasn't released the original, unaltered cuts yet they never will.

 

The Fox merger is not finalized. Disney doesn't have the distribution rights in hand as yet. Hold your horses.

 

Yes they are... the reason appears (and I stress the word appears) to be that Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy is abiding by George Lucas' continued wish for his 'revised' versions to be the sole versions out there in the marketplace... Lucasfilm employee Pablo Helman has stated on Twitter that there's only one person holding up the remastering/re-release of the OT theatrical versions, and that he didn't need to name him either... which was quite surprisingly frank, to be honest.

I believe the OT theatrical versions are copyrighted to the year of their respective releases, but the Special Editions are collectively copyrighted to 1997, the year of their theatrical releases (don't know if the revised DVD and Blu-ray versions are copyrighted to their release years)... although I doubt that changes anything with regards the former's potential reissue at some point in the future.

 

It would be nice to think once they finally get the rights to the 1977 film - and thus all SW films - in the FOX acquisition, and the current trilogy is finished by year's end, then they'll remaster and release the OT theatrical versions alongside the revised versions in a great big honkin' box-set... but I have my doubts, to be honest (I mean the theatrical versions being included not the box set).

I may be proved wrong - and gladly so if so - but it will depend on who replaces Kennedy as the next Lucasfilm CEO... if that next person continues to honor Lucas' wishes for the theatrical versions to be denied a release, then forget about it for another while... and thus the can is kicked down the road for another few years and on we go...

When such 'controversial' films as Birth of a Nation and Song of the South are all getting full restorations, it's utterly ludicrous that probably the most popular movie trilogy of all time - and one that literally changed the course of history - is continually denied a re-release in the versions they were originally released in... if Lucas feels that strongly about those versions, he should have returned the Visual Effects awards those films were given back in the day.

 

If an “uncut” version already exists as some speculate that would be unusual to sit on it, but I think at this point Kennedy’s main task remains revitalizing the Star Wars brand with new IP. She and Iger obviously overreached and oversaturated the market with spinoffs etc, not the mention the costly creative differences. I would imagine doing some sort of remaster / restoration would amount to bleeding cash they already lost with Solo, and distracting from the marketing of IX. For a while the long term strategy looked to be Disney + as the digital hub of the Star Wars universe, but Turner is never going to let the broadcast right for the older films go. That leaves the ever shrinking pie of physical media as the only way to make money off of a costly rerelease. Honestly I think it only makes sense for them to focus a lot more on new stuff like the Madalorian instead, even if I would love 4K restorations of the OG films right now.

 

Here's a frame from the bluray release of ANH:



It's easy to see, that this frame among many others has a ton of issues stemming from the fact, that the shot has been taken so far from what was shot on camera, that the colors are unnatural, and oversaturated, while the color noise has been blown up to dramatic levels. Here's the same shot taken from a scan of a 70mm frame (probably a blowup of a technicolor print frame) as seen on jedi1.net to give you a rough idea of what this shot originally looked like:



Just to prove that the color artifacts in the bluray frame can be attributed to the color grading, I matched the color of the bluray frame to the above reference:



While some of the color noise is still visible as in the 70mm (the fading of the negative probably made it worse), the overall look is far more appealing and natural. Here's a balanced version of the above frame, that removes the yellow cast usually seen for technicolor prints for the Tatooine scenes.

 

I don't know where you got your information, but Turner doesn't have the exclusive broadcast rights to Star Wars. They have some non-exclusive rights for a limited time, and the Pay TV, streaming, and home video rights are split with Fox & Lucasfilm/Disney for most of them. Fox owned 100% of Star Wars, but Disney owns it now. I suspect the only three things that are keeping the original films from being reissued as new 4K restorations are a) their desire to get Star Wars IX released first, b) the need to come up with millions of dollars to do the restoration, and c) the actual work involved, which I'd guess will take about 6 months per film (some of which can be done concurrently). My guess is it'd happen Summer 2020.

Nothing beats having the original camera negative on a pin-registered scanner. Done right, they could do an HDR pass (two passes, one at a low level, one at a high level, then they merge the two images for maximum dynamic range), and we could wind up seeing more detail than ever before. All they have to do is want to do it and be willing to spend the time and money. I think Lucas himself has nothing to do with it (pro or con).

 

Tell me again your evidence for believing this. Don't forget, Kathy Kennedy was also the person who rejected all of Lucas' ideas for Star Wars VII, VIII, and IX.

 

Meh, no need for evidence as I never made a declarative statement... I said it appears to be the case not is.

It's just, like, my opinion... man .

Plus, Lucas being the stumbling block to the reissue of the OT theatrical versions is also the opinion of the aforementioned Mr Helman; a high-ranking ILM/Lucasfilm employee, and he should know. Interestingly, his Twitter account seems to have vanished not long after that rather frank opinion of his was posted...

 

I disagree with the notion, that what we got was actually fairly faithful to the original theatrical color decisions. I've seen a number of technicolor prints, and the bluray is anything but faithful to the look and feel of a technicolor print, or even the 1997 theatrical release, which was faithful to the original look of the film. Here are two photographs of the final shot of the film from a technicolor print screening from a few years ago:





Here's what it looks like on the bluray:



Here's the Star Wars Legacy restoration of this shot by Mike Verta, who is restoring the unaltered Star Wars by combining information from scans of five release prints, including a number of pristine technicolor prints:



I've color matched the bluray to his restoration, such that we can see a direct comparison:

Star Wars | FrameCompare.com

Here's a video where Verta makes a direct comparison between the bluray and his restoration:

 

Maybe I was mistaken. I had seen several articles like this one last summer and figured we wouldn't be seeing them on Disney + for a few years. I agree on all your points, especially the money needed, which I think might be challenging to get an investment back on if this is true. Disney is clearly not interested in digital 4K rentals or really even sales for that matter, and I can't imagine the install base on 4K discs is really big enough to make that a honeypot. Disney + will probably be huge and a Star Wars is meant to be a big piece of that strategy.

I think we can agree it's a business decision either way. Not the absurd narrative of a vengeful CEO or a bitter old creator lol.

 

They did this with DVDs which I have. I also have the VHS Star Wars Trilogy Widescreen Edition box set but never watch those.

 

For those who "can't wait", there is a new color correction available (Sanjuro Color Grade) of the Team Negative 1 4K scan of a Technicolor print.

Sign up at forums.thestarwarstrilogy.com and look in The Original Trilogy -> Downloads forums.

 

I may be wrong, and often am, but anecdotally, I sense diminished interest, perhaps fatigue, in some aficionados for the franchise.

 

Do you mean Pablo Hidalgo?

 

Naw, you're seeing a SCAN of a theatrical print. The scan itself does not necessarily reflect (no pun intended) how it looks projected. For one, you're trying to evaluate it on (presumably) a 6500° monitor; theatrical prints are intended for use with 5400° Xenon light bulbs, so the color temperature is different. The monitor is supposed to be set to 30fL (100 nits), but theatrical film projection is only at 14fL. Finally, you're trying to judge a 40-year-old print of variable quality and supposing it can be trusted. And the scan equipment can be adjustment and often skews in one direction or the other.

Again, bear in mind that the director supervised and approved the color, so good or bad, what you wanted was what the filmmaker wanted. They reflected his changes for color from the 1999 revision, and that in turn was based on his original work from 20 years earlier. The ILM staff reminded me several times that George had never personally approved a home video version -- not ever -- and he had only supervised the theatrical color print timing at Technicolor (I think both London and LA).

You're sinking in very subjective waters and you do not know what you're talking about. If you throw away all the gobblety-goop, all you can ultimately say is, "but I prefer this version to that version," and that I can accept. But it doesn't mean one is more "accurate" than the other, simply for the reason that you have no idea what accurate is. It just means they're different. They might well be different, but it's all a case of subjective opinion.

As I've often said on this forum: even if you get 10 Oscar-winning cinematographers in the same room to judge one image, you'll most likely wind up with 10 different opinions -- none necessarily wrong, none necessarily right. The only one that matters is the guy who made the movie. Their opinion is more important than anybody else's, and that includes the audience and the colorist on the session. You don't get to collaborate on their work as an artist.

 

After all that I still think they aren't great. Lucas is not 10 Oscar winning cinematographers and he may have the legal rights to what is released but it doesn't mean we have to like him or "honor his vision."

We both know the released versions could be done differently - and in a way where many more people think they "look better." Will they be? Only if there's money in it. Those versions may get some money from me if they are ever released.

 

I have to say, I'll be first in line to buy the expected 4K original original restorations when they come out. And I bet they'll look fantastic, because the tools they have today are far better than what we had 15 years ago. Don't be surprised, though, if they don't use George's color from 2004 as a reference. This is the standard practice in the restoration business: use the most recent director-approved version as a color reference. I do that all the time even for stuff done in the 1980s. There's always a visible benefit of the modern version -- sharper overall, better black detail, more balanced color -- but one hopes it's in the same ballpark as the original.

 

Sorry, but I disagree. While there is a degree of subjectivity in judging an image, there are also objective criteria. For example we can all agree Leia's dress is not supposed to be pink as it is in the final shot of the film for the bluray, or C-3PO is not supposed to be greenish, or R2-D2 was not painted fluorescent blue, as they often appear on the bluray. It doesn't take a color grading genius to observe, that the Star Wars bluray color grading is dark, oversaturated, and riddled with color artifacts, whether it is boosted color noise, lobster faces, weirdly inconsistent lightsaber colors, etc, etc, most of which can be atttibuted to the color grading, and do not appear on a projected theatrical prints, whether it be the original or SE versions. It may have been what Lucas wanted, and that is his perogative, but that does not mean we cannot observe artifacts, crushed blacks, and generally unnatural brightness, contrast and saturation, not only when comparing the results with projected theatrical prints, but also with other releases by other studios which look just fine while working within the restrictions of home video.

 

I would also like to pose a question. Which of these two images looks most natural and photographic, and better represents the look of the 1977 film? I know the one I would pick having seen the film projected numerous times, or even simply by comparing the images with some of the actual 35mm frames themselves, which I happen to have available.

 

Well said Josh, keep up the good work my friend.