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

I’m fairly certain the more recent stuff won’t be anywhere near as heavy-handed, as I remember hearing the new Little Mermaid 4K release contains grain. It’s hard to say if this is their new approach or not as most of the recent 4K restorations and releases have been of the films done in the CAPS system with a digital workflow so there was never any grain. It’s also hard for me to say as I’m far from a Disney megafan, so I don’t get too wrapped up in the debates, or seek out the animated films.

Lots of their catalog live action titles on D+ are certainly not using heavy DNR. I just watched some clips the other day of movies I found labeled with the 4K DV tags. Considering how many of their major titles are not restored yet there’s some really surprising ones that have been on there including the Santa Claus movies (lol). None of these films exhibit heavy DNR. I did compare 10 Things I Hate about You against the old HD master which I always removed looking horrible like lots of late 90s films. This new 4K transfer has wayyy more grain than the old waxy edge enhanced one. I think despite being the “lesser” titles in their catalog these are good signs that Disney’s own approach to restoration isn’t going for a DNR James Cameron scrub.

 

1) This has nothing to do with color. This has to do with digital restoration of their animated classics, which I agree is very flawed, and revisionist.
2) The OT was restored in 4K before Disney bought Lucasfilm.
3) The color grading for the OT is faithful to the theatrical presentation, and shows much restraint towards modernizing the look of the film.

 

Watched 4k Stars Wars ,sorry but I don't think this ever looked fantastic print wise,but I didn't compare it to the Blu Ray ,I guess we will have to wait for a real 4k version on disc

 

Whatever "the aim of the Disney animated restorations" is supposed to be, what they are in fact doing is a crime against cinematography and culture in general.

 

Has anyone confirmed the bitrate of D+ ‘s 4K streams? I know they built this off of their acquisition of BAMTech, and it does look quite good but I would be curious to see how it stacks up against the leading players like iTunes and Vudu. Sadly no Disney UHD films are available on iTunes, and the only overlapping title I have on Vudu UHD is Black Panther which is hardly a demo disc. No matter what it is finer critique of this master is best suited to disc vs disc comparison.

 

Don't hold your breath. They are going to milk the streaming for all it's worth if I am not mistaken.

 

I’ve read Disney+ peaks at >60Mbps for 4K. I have no way to measure, but everything I’ve watched has looked terrific.

 

Regarding the automated DNR to reduce grain you can have a look at the E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial UHD BD. I don't remember the exact time but it was something like 01:43 or 01:47 where a Goverment car is chasing the boys bikes side by side. On that scene yo can see the car's antenna appearing, disappearing and appearing again several times,my bets are because of automated DNR.

 

Damn, that’s quite a bit higher than iTunes even if I’m remembering right. IMO it is top tier for a streaming service, even the 1080p streams look pretty good compared to the likes of Netflix and Hulu, and far better than the woeful HBO quality.

 

Star Wars: A New Hope – A Visual Guide to Changes, Fixes, and Tweaks in the Disney+ 4K Version ​

 

For a Christmas present, Adywan just released a 13-minute snippet of the beginning of ANH: Revisited which will come in a 720p HD format, TBD. See if you can spot any subtle changes or possible enhancements...

Audio track used in this clip will not be in the finished version, btw.

 

For anyone not familiar, the "Revisited" series are NOT attempts to replicate the original unaltered versions, but instead are turned-up-to-10 Special Editions.

 

Yes, avoid if you're not a fan of Lucas's tinkering with the films. This is much much much worse.

 

If I may, at 12:56 in this clip there's a droid on the right side of the screen that I seem to recall seeing in operation, briefly, in a different Star Wars film. Am I right? Which film?

 

Super late with this, but all the SW films I saw on Disney+ before seeing RoS looked great. I and II don't look that hot but it's baked into the source. The OT looked great to my eyes with a few stray shots having a bit of DNR, overall a nice move to 4K. If the 4K discs are released in packaging other than cardboard sleeves I will likely pick up a set, although I have to say watching all 9 films through is a chore!

 

I don't remember if I've seen this quote before:

“There will only be one. And it won’t be what I would call the ‘rought cut’, it’ll be the ‘final cut.’ The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, ‘There was an earlier draft of this.’…What ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that’s what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition].”


— George Lucas, “An Expanded Universe”, American Cinematographer magazine, February 1997


The "Final Cut"? In 1997? He changed it again pretty much every time it was re-released since then. Including again after the 2011 blu-ray but before selling everything to Disney in 2012 which we are now seeing in Disney's streaming.


Also, at that link is this screenshot comparison. Is this really what the blu-ray shot looks like? I let my cousin borrow the set and never made it a point to get them back. The text above the pics is not mine:


This is not how Star Wars is supposed to look (shot as it appears on the official Lucasfilm Bluray Edition of Star Wars):



Same shot from Project 4K77:

 

well, I'm not sure what these are supposed to look like as neither image is color managed. Assuming they're meant to be SRGB, the blu ray is certainly rather dark (but for some reason most video is). The color hue is weird. But once you make up for the color and brightness difference, it becomes really obvious how much more depth and detail the blu ray has..

 

Well the 4K versions are probably better than both these images... fingers crossed.

 

They're out now on D+ and look different to both of them.

 

Brace yer wallets, there's a new transfer, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B082WXCSKN/ref=nosim?tag=thedigbit-21

I had no idea that the versions streaming on Disney + were new transfers. I'm old and stopped obsessing.

Star Wars: A New Hope – A Visual Guide to Changes, Fixes, and Tweaks in the Disney+ 4K Version

 

Here are a few changes I noticed:

1) Threepio's line "There'll be no escape for the Princess this time" has been edited to remove the words "for the Princess".

2) When R2 activates the escape pod panel, his appendage now retracts afterwards. (Looks like the film was simply reversed).

3) As the escape pod enters Tatooine's atmosphere, flames were added.

4) When Threepio notices the Jawa sandcrawler in the distance, the shots of the vehicle are different and use an actual moving model.

 

Having bought a 55” Dolby Vision capable TV to go with my Atmos sound set up, I’ve sorted a US Disney+ subscription despite living in the U.K. (the service doesn’t launch here until the end of March. The 4K Dolby Vision versions of the original/special editions look spectacular! They’re the first versions I’ve seen since the laserdisc era (the 1997 special edition box to be precise) that didn’t immediately give me pause to a custom myself.

I’ve got plans to watch all the films through again (with Solo on 4K BluRay) and have only ‘dipped into’ each film so far. I’ve already preordered the 4K Skywalker Saga box set on Amazon on the basis of the Disney+ streaming versions. Will keep my BluRay Complete Saga box for the extras, and my Harmys for the vintage versions. The Disney+ 4K versions are as good as I’ve ever seen the films.

 

Well done. Did you also notice how the Tantive IV actually stays in shot while the Star Destroyer pursues, not actually being obscured by the SD?

Also in the canyon shot, you can see the twin sunset in the distance.

Yes, you are right on point.

 

Good eye! I didn't catch that.
(And I've seen this movie about a bazillion times!)

 

That is a lie, fake news. This photo is altered: I had power windows on all three faces, everything had tons of light, and it was not nearly as dark as this photo when we mastered it in 2K at ILM. We spent tons and tons of time on this. I'm not a fan of dark, murky scenes in a film this bright and upbeat. (Horror films... maybe.)

Below is much closer to what I remember color-timing for Lucas in 2004:



This is more my style in terms of what I look for in color mastering: it's got lots of contrast, blacks are deep but there's still detail there, whites are bright but not clipped, and the skin tones are normal, right down the middle. (Note that Luke, Obiwn, and Han all have different skin tones, just as the actors did on set.) And we preserved the shadows and modeling of the original cinematography and didn't try to artificially fill it.

The "re-color-corrected" fan version of the shot you reproduce is too clipped, and the faces are too yellow for me. It's not what I would do, and I think most professional colorists in LA and NY would agree with me. It's got kind of a crushed "print look," which is traditionally not what we do (and is a sign of a bad scan source). This is what happens when they don't have access to the negative.