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

I have a Sony UBP X800 UHD BD and a 49" 4K HDR Samsung set that I watch at barely 1 meter and half, maybe even less. I'm not one of those people who think a 4K DI is a must as a source for UHD BD. Actually, some of my favourite looking UHD BD's are sourced from 2K DI's like Prometheus, Alien Covenant, Star Trek Into Darkness or Sicario Day Of The Soldado. They have great color (Wide Color Gamut is the feature I value the most from HDR), an actually high dinamic range picture with dark night scenes that look great and daylight scenes that look equally amazing, and a highly detailed picture.

 

Yes, there's merit to that. I think Yedlin's theories are very interesting and worth pondering.

Note that the 3 Star Wars films worked on by Lowry Digital went through their process where they basically "suck" all the grain out of them, stabilize the film, eliminate all flicker, remove virtually all dirt and scratches, and digitally repair any tears and warps and bounces in the film. After that, we color corrected them (I only did Episode 4 and 6), and then Lowry took those files and sharpened them slightly, then added back the original grain as a composite, ensuring that it was at a constant level throughout every reel. There's merit to this approach, though there are some in the industry who have the opinion that the grain tends to "float" on top of the image, and others feel it's a bit of a cheat. Me, I thought it was fine, but it's a subjective area.

 

I'm sure some would, but let's not pretend there's little to criticize about the most recent releases. I'm sure if the powers that be release a good restoration, that doesn't have a color grading that turns shadows in the sand blue, people's faces purple, screws up lightsaber colors, crushes blacks, is overly dark, and generally looks wonky, the vast majority of fans will embrace such a release.

 

Here's an example of a bluray frame from ANH, which has been claimed to be consistent with the theatrical release:



I happen to have the actual frames of a technicolor print for this shot:



A few things become clear. For one the bluray is very dark. Also the scene has seen on theatrical prints featured blue lighting in the foreground as well as in the background, and the print obviously displays more natural skin tones. What might a more accurate color grading look like? I decided to have a go at it, and came to the following:



Here's what it looks like in motion:

 

A new report from The Digital Fix claims that the entire saga will be released on 4K Blu-ray and standard Blu-ray in 2020. The Digital Fix's anonymous source at Disney seems to at least hint that the original trilogy films will be the theatrical versions.

[ EDITOR'S NOTE ] We've been asked about the 'original negatives' statement above. These were the words our contact used, but as many will know, George Lucas previously claimed that the original negatives had been used/altered in the creation of his 'special editions'. We are attempting to clarify this part of the story to confirm whether this release will contain a) the original films, b) the special editions, or c) both/something in between!

Update (22:20 on 11/04/19): Following a second conversation our contact helped clarify that Disney are working towards delivering something that will "please fans" and that the original material has come from a "variety of source ... much of the original film and negative stock was in poor condition even before George worked on the Special Editions" and the restoration team sought out the "best possible version" of each scene within the LucasFilm and Fox archives. The original trilogy 4K remaster was started way back in 2014 and has been through a number of iterations as new alternative/better copies of some scenes have come to light. The print watched by Gareth Edwards has had some improvement since he viewed it but everything other than Episodes II and III has been locked in now.
Exclusive: Disney are working on a 4K Blu-ray box set for Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (updated)

 

Well...
That'll be the day

 

Is anyone touting the results of the "Lowry process"? Surely, we won't suffer anything like that! Have transfers for any UHD releases so far been handled similarly? @Geoff D

 

Take my money Disney. My son just turned 7. 2020 would be a perfect age to show him these.

 

For those interested to see what Star Wars looks like on 1977 technicolor prints (where it should be noted that most Star Wars technicolor prints have somewhat of a bias towards green), here are a few more shots of the bluray regraded to closely match that look:



Correcting for the green bias would bring it closer to this:

 

They pretty much boxed up all of the hardware and software for the Lowry Process (which won an Oscar, BTW), and shipped it to Reliance Mediaworks in Mumbai. I think like a lot of things in mastering, there are ways to use the Lowry Process well, and other ways that are excessive and way over the top. I've often pointed to their first project, MGM's North by Northwest, where Lowry had the grain reduction cranked "to 11" (as per the studio's instructions). I think there were enough complaints that they weren't anxious to do that again... although Jim Cameron ordered them to do it on several of his film-based features, because he's a die hard digital fan who dislikes the grain of film emulsion. The process is only as good or bad as the people who sign the checks.

I don't know the status of the work done on Star Wars since 2005. I'd say there's enough competing processes today, there's probably 20 other ways that Disney/Lucasfilm could choose to scan, conform, and master the films today. The people over there are about as good as it gets in terms of knowing the limits of what mastering can do, and my exposure to them is that they're very demanding and have very good judgement. Unlike a lot of studios, they really understand how important their films are historically -- it's not just an opportunity to make more money.

 

I will again point out that you're not judging a Technicolor print -- you're judging the scan of a Technicolor print. It's not the same thing, because I can scan a print 10 different ways, and none of them necessarily reflect what the color really is. You can project it from a film projector on a screen and see the color, but bear in mind that's in 5400° K film color space and at 14 fL, which is a long way from what consumer HD or 4K digital is supposed to look like. (And I've seen some awful scans in my time.)

It's kind of like taking a beautiful painting and then making 10 different Xerox copies on 10 different copiers: each of them is just taking a snapshot of "a version" of the painting. If the Xerox copier is screwed up, what you're going to see could be radically different, radically wrong, or only vaguely similar to the original painting. This is not a simple process.

 

The recent Alien (1979) 4K release looks terrific. No rationale for expecting anything less for 1977 Star Wars. There are now so many great 4K releases and so few total hack jobs. Our expectations should be far higher than ever before.

 

I'm aware of these issues, and thus these represent an amalgam of different sources, which include scans, projected prints, film cells, photographs, and props within the limits of HD video. It is certainly not a simple process, as raw scans generally look radically different, and take an awful lot of work to get them to look filmlike within the confines of HD video, or in this case a specific film stock.

It's actually an interesting experiment to sort of filter out the effects of the different film stocks in terms of their biases and idiosyncraticies. In the previous post I did a quick balance of the "technicolor" version (which tend to look quite warm and are biased towards green), but that's not quite the same thing. Here's another version, that tries to achieve this filtering effect by averaging over the results for a number of different references (including but not limited to a pristine 8mm Derann print, and a 1997 SE release print):

 

I agree 100% it’s all about how tools are used.

But that being said I hate hate hate hate hate the Lowry process and what it did to many films. I think the idea of degraining and then adding a false grain plate (if any at all) is extremely detrimental to films and unfortunately some are still stuck that way. Then there are instances of that grain being literally frozen if studied carefully enough.
I hate the Lowry Bond masters that still exist and some of the Blu-rays thankfully seem to have rolled back to older scan versions or been provided new scans. (None of those are perfect and there’s no telling what the 4k editions will be like.)

Indeed you’re right that their first attempts were even worse. Many cite the erased rain and oversharpened Citizen Kane dvd, but North by Northwest was darn awful because in addition to the scrubbed look the color was infused with a pink tint and the mono was dropped for the inferior 5.1 remix. (The laserdiscs were the last release to have mono and I still think the mgm letterbox transfer is really good! I seem to recall you mentioning that was one you worked on back in the day.) Worst of all was their nightmarish mushy grainless Sunset Blvd. dvd release that was so bad it looked like a cheap public domain vhs dupe-no grain, ultra soft, and the B&W had the greenish tinge of super cheap dvd transfers. That dvd is easily one of the worst ever made.

 

As far as I know, Kane was done entirely by Warner Bros.' MPI (Motion Picture Imaging) division on the lot in Building 38. Color is very subjective, and a lot depends on whether your monitor is calibrated and who was calling the shots in supervising or approving the final color session. I have worked with producers and directors who were very "green-adverse," to the point where we pulled so far away from green, everything was getting too magenta. I'm more of a "straight down the middle" guy when it comes to color, and I value clean blacks and clean whites at all times... except when it's an intense, whacked-out scene lit with colored-gel lights, in which all bets are off.

Lowry did not do many jobs for Paramount, so I would be surprised if Sunset Blvd. came through for processing. As I've said before, CBS/Paramount/Viacom is a very "thrifty" company, and Lowry charged a premium for their work. I didn't see a lot come through when I was there except for Fox and Disney, with occasional stuff for the AFI. Judgement calls are exactly what they sound like: the variability is in the good taste (or lack of it) from the studio people making the decisions. The Lowry technicians could make all the suggestions in the world, but if the creative people choose to ignore them, that's their prerogative. And that happens everywhere, in color, in editing, in sound, and in many other allied arts.

 

Lowry worked on the Kane dvd at least on some stages IIRC whereas MPI handled the new transfer for Blu-ray which was a marked improvement.

The color in N by NW is variable on each release it seems. But the 2001 dvd has a pinkishness to it (specifically in the crop duster sequence) that I’ve only ever seen before in the 1997 special edition transfer of Star Wars to vhs and Laserdisc where all the Tatooine sequences had pink infused (seemingly by accident) in the telecine process.

Lowry did the first dvd of Sunset and there was a big to do in all the pr materials about it being an amazing new transfer using their process. I was so excited, bought it, and then wondered what the heck happened!

 

I dislike the Fox oficial BD's so much that I haven't played them in years, for Star Wars (A New Hope for the Millenials) I always watch the Project 4K77 which looks better for me,I much prefer its color, maybe that it's encoded at 10 bit instead of 8 has something to do, and I find it to be done with good taste. Also, the DTS-HD Master Audio track on it sounds better in my opinion than the 6.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track on the Fox BD, I love the thundering bass on the project 4K77. The project 4K77 best virtue for me is that makes Star Wars look like a 1970's movie, that's what it is, the Fox BD looks overly digital and scrubbed.

 

Oh yes! Finally!!

 

Episode II and III is going to be a weak looking 4K disc

 

What monitor are you using? There's not a lot of displays out there that are 10-bit. Assuming Disney releases the entire 9-film "Skywalker Saga" in UHD HDR next year, there's a good chance that will be true 10-bit and will look terrific. Which audio mix they'll use is a good question.

I'm not sure who's going to be in charge of it, since Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, and Disney kind of run "separate" mastering departments to some degree, even to the point where they use different facilities for mastering. And Marvel actually has their own facility in the old Animation building right on the lot, so in theory the Marvel movies can be done without ever leaving Burbank. Star Wars has been transferred at at least 4 different facilities I know of over the years (old Modern Videofilm, new Modern Videofilm, Universal HD DVS Center, and ILM), by different mastering engineers and supervised by different people. They all look different... but the latter was the only one Lucas himself supervised.

 

I watched that 4K83 with a couple mates in a Theatre Room with a projector and the end result was mindblowing! And I do think it's awesome too that Adywan is using the 4K77 & 4K83 transfers for his Revisited versions in HD. Those projects seem to be coming along rather well atm. Time to get into the 4K77 next.

 

Are the 2006 DVD re-altered versions identical to the 2004 DVD releases?

 

Yes, just repackaged with the theatrical versions.

 

Bear in mind that all the films up until this year were finished in 2K, even when they were shot at higher resolutions (like 4K or even 6K or 65mm film), because all the VFX were done in 2K because of time limitations. I won't say who told me this, but one insider confided to me just after The Force Awakens was released that "if we had done the entire thing in 4K, it wouldn't come out until June." And that was a December release. 4K is still tough to do for a film that has 2000+ effects shots being worked on by 11 or 12 different companies.

They are, except they're downrezzed from HD to standard def. "In theory," color and contrast should not change.

 

But that also goes for a fan making all of the decisions. Nobody knows what the films should look like, and nobody has a memory detailed enough to be able to say, "yes, this is what it looked like in 1977, or 1980, or 1983." Just because you love something and consider yourself to be an expert doesn't make you the sole arbiter of good taste.

I've been doing color mastering for decades, and I can't precisely remember what I did a week ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago. I can get close, but it's not identical. The process is extremely subjective. I would argue that the more people that are in on the decision-making process, the worse it can be, because then you're serving five or six masters. It'd be like a record album be mastered and approved by the rock group, their managers, the record company execs, and the producer and the mastering engineer. And that can become a mess very quickly.