Star Wars Trilogy DVDs.. hit the shelves today.. thoughts ??

[verchad]

Which movie and which scene is the saber green
other than ROTJ when it's supposed to be green

It was at the very begining of the Lightsaber training aboard the falcon in ANH. It isn't quite as green as the ROTJ, but it is still very obvious. Anyone else think the boxes arounfd the ties looked like complete crap? I just can't believ that they haven been fixed.

Yeah, I thought I had read somewhere that they had cleaned up some of the SFX problems from the original. I was watching SW ANH on my 7" portable and was able to notice some of the edges around the tie fighters in esacape from the death star scenes. Overall, I'm very happy to have one of my favorite movies finally on an "Official" dvd release.

Now thinking of backing up my original Episodes 4,5,6 that were released in 1997? or so. It's been awhile since I watched those but I think they were the original theatrical releases packaged for the 20th anniversary.

[dwisniski]

The DVD's look and sound INCREDIBLE!

The video quality is superb, so much detail, landscapes in the movies can now be appreciated and enjoyed. Also, so much color, a real feast for the eyes! Of course there's the tinkering and new scenes, but some of the scenes actually work now, and some still do not. the Return of the Jedi ending is still terrible, but overall the DVD's are great.

[Darth Paris]

Just finished ESB. All the ligthsaber effects are very nice. Vades saber does vary from red to a almost pink sometimes though.

[D_Knife]

Yeah I was a bit surprised at this as well
and in ANH as well
Surely if you are going to touch up saber fights you would "fix" ALL the scenes in the movie so the saber looks consistent!!

[indolikaa]

Yeah I was a bit surprised at this as well
and in ANH as well
Surely if you are going to touch up saber fights you would "fix" ALL the scenes in the movie so the saber looks consistent!!

But what if the optical physics behind the lightsabre technologies would not allow for a consistent color?

Maybe Dr. Lucas is only portraying the lightsabre based on the most-recent data available.

I mean, how DARE any of us criticize or suggest that he may have been WRONG in his remastering of the original films. After all, they are HIS movies, not ours.

[vhelp]

** note, for space reasons, I've resized the image to 720x306 (to maintain AR)

Woah! Better change that to 640x360 if you want to preserve the aspect ratio. That looks waay too stretched. Or, you could show it at 853x480, but that wouldn't really save space would it?


Darryl

Thanks for the heads up.



Actually, I went ahead and allowed Painshop to do that AR thing automatically,
and relied on it to do so correctly, because of its "option". But I did notice
that it did look stretched, but didn't really think about all that much, cause
really, it was just to: show the subtitle and save space (so I thought)
.
However, according to the math, it's (720 / 2.35) = 306 (hence my 720 x 306 pic)
(note, 640 / 2.35 = 272)

And, remember, these DVD are 720 x 480 .. (not 640)

Another "however" .. these are "anamorphic" so, the math above, may not be
correct afterall ?? ??

Looking forward to your answer (or anyones)

Thanks,
-vhelp

[D_Knife]

Yeah I was a bit surprised at this as well
and in ANH as well
Surely if you are going to touch up saber fights you would "fix" ALL the scenes in the movie so the saber looks consistent!!

But what if the optical physics behind the lightsabre technologies would not allow for a consistent color?

Maybe Dr. Lucas is only portraying the lightsabre based on the most-recent data available.

I mean, how DARE any of us criticize or suggest that he may have been WRONG in his remastering of the original films. After all, they are HIS movies, not ours.

Heck I'll dare
I'm just wondering why a lightsaber goes from a very nice blue glow like seen in ROTJ or Ep 1 or 2 in one scene, next scene it's a skinny white looking stick

And if I was lucky enough to be working on some part of the "restoration" process I would have stuck my hand up and mentioned this

[indolikaa]

Yeah I was a bit surprised at this as well
and in ANH as well
Surely if you are going to touch up saber fights you would "fix" ALL the scenes in the movie so the saber looks consistent!!

But what if the optical physics behind the lightsabre technologies would not allow for a consistent color?

Maybe Dr. Lucas is only portraying the lightsabre based on the most-recent data available.

I mean, how DARE any of us criticize or suggest that he may have been WRONG in his remastering of the original films. After all, they are HIS movies, not ours.

Heck I'll dare
I'm just wondering why a lightsaber goes from a very nice blue glow like seen in ROTJ or Ep 1 or 2 in one scene, next scene it's a skinny white looking stick

And if I was lucky enough to be working on some part of the "restoration" process I would have stuck my hand up and mentioned this

Do you know what happens to 'hands' in George Lucas movies?

Yes, they tend to 'disappear' when people don't behave.

[Darth Paris]

But what if the optical physics behind the lightsabre technologies would not allow for a consistent color?

Well I'm not sure about that, but it was never green before. ITtshouldn't be green now.

[Darth Paris]

What are you planing on cutting out?

I would cut the crappy Jabba scene as well as the green lightsaber in ANH.


What do you guys think about the new Emperor in ESB? I though it was pretty good. It fits much better with ROTJ.

[GabeB]

I found the THX Optomizer included on the movie disks very handy. I found out that the geometry of my tv was way out of whack and it is a brand new 32" Philips HDTV. I entered the service menu and was able to fix the problem after about an hour of tinkering. Now everything looks kick-ass!

I can even watch it in Spanish soundtrack now.

[D_Knife]

Do you know what happens to 'hands' in George Lucas movies?

Yes, they tend to 'disappear' when people don't behave.

hmm ok you have a good point there or should I say good stump there :P

@ Darth Paris
I'm not sure I would cut anything out but I think some more scene checking could have been in order, for starters we wouldn't have the green saber bit
I liked the Jabba scene I though it fitted well in putting Solo's comments in ESB into perspective

[GabeB]

Should I get the PAL version off of eBay since it has more lines of resolution?
yes, I do have a multi-region DVD Player.
Will it look better?

[mongoo13]

Does anybody find it odd that for all of the re-editing and extra crap george lucas put into these films, you can blaitently see discolored squars around the tie fighters when the falcon escapes the death star in ANH?


I have the THX Tapes (not Special Edition thank god) and never noticed these blocks. They might be there but if they are the dvd versions make it alot more noticable.

WHY would he not correct this? Why? It's just stupid. George Lucas for all that you got to love him is a STUPID STUPID MAN!

Any thoughts?

[Darth Paris]

I have the last release of the original originals on VHS. I poped in ANH yesterrday to do a compaison of the boxes around the ties. They were very faint. If I wan't looking for them I wouldn't have noticed them. What is the deal?

[dphirschler]

** note, for space reasons, I've resized the image to 720x306 (to maintain AR)

Woah! Better change that to 640x360 if you want to preserve the aspect ratio. That looks waay too stretched. Or, you could show it at 853x480, but that wouldn't really save space would it?


Darryl

Thanks for the heads up.



Actually, I went ahead and allowed Painshop to do that AR thing automatically,
and relied on it to do so correctly, because of its "option". But I did notice
that it did look stretched, but didn't really think about all that much, cause
really, it was just to: show the subtitle and save space (so I thought)
.
However, according to the math, it's (720 / 2.35) = 306 (hence my 720 x 306 pic)
(note, 640 / 2.35 = 272)

And, remember, these DVD are 720 x 480 .. (not 640)

Another "however" .. these are "anamorphic" so, the math above, may not be
correct afterall ?? ??

Looking forward to your answer (or anyones)

Thanks,
-vhelp

The anamorphic transfer is for 16x9 TV, or 1.777:1. Since the movie is 2.35:1 black bars are added (yes even on a 16x9 TV). The encoded image on the DVD is 720x480 which gets stretched horizontally when played on a 16x9 TV, so the correct aspect ratio would be 853x480 (480x1.777=853). To preserve space as you were trying to do, I suggested 640x360, but I suppose if you wanted to keep the original horizontal resolution and reduce it verically, then go with 720x405 (720x1.777).


Darryl

[vhelp]

Does anybody find it odd that for all of the re-editing and extra crap george lucas put into these films, you can blaitently see discolored squars around the tie fighters when the falcon escapes the death star in ANH?


I have the THX Tapes (not Special Edition thank god) and never noticed these blocks. They might be there but if they are the dvd versions make it alot more noticable.

WHY would he not correct this? Why? It's just stupid. George Lucas for all that you got to love him is a STUPID STUPID MAN!

Any thoughts?

Hi mongoo13,

No. No sign of blocks on VHS. That goes for Laserdisc's as well.
The reason why you are seeing those blocks are because that source is
an MPEG-2 source. Its been encoded, w/ whatever encoder brand at the
time they encoded the source. Granted, there would be *some* issues,
but only *some* And, considering that they spent 20 plus years on the
re-colorization process for each film, makes me wonder why they even
bothered going through all that trouble (and wait) because for all this
time and process, the source should have ben presitine (that means, NO
macro blocks (specially those DCT blocks (you are refering to) ) !!
I've seen many of these variations in "blocks", though mostly in dark scenes
or static scenes.. even in the one where Layia (spelling) is hiding, waiting
to shoot at the drones. (that's one of the scenes I was gonna use for my
sample post here (DVD vs. Laserdisc)
.
Still, I appreciate the hard work that was put into thie making of these long
awaited DVD's.. ( though I can sure notice the blocks )

-vhelp

[maek]

Yeah, the discs are great! Several problems though:

1. Yeah, Luke's saber in the remote practice scene on the Falcon is green in A New Hope.
2. Yes, the tauntaun still screams in Empire after it's already and quite evidently dead.
3. Yes, the boxes are still around the tie fighters (really wish they had fixed that).
4. Something NEW - Han's head does a slight dodge as Greedo fires and the shots are nearly simultaneous. It looks worse now, I think.
5. Some of the saber shots - especially when Luke activates his for the first time - still shows some streaks and occasionally look flat in A New Hope.
6. Another NEW thing -- Jabba looks better in this current version of A New Hope.
7. Yet another new thing -- they finally fixed Vader's saber as he approaches the closing blast doors in A New Hope.
8. They got rid of Luke's wussy scream falling off the platform in Empire. Thanks God!!

Have not yet got around to ROTJ yet.

A+ on the digital transfer though. I would say A- on the sound, though...sometimes, the 5.1 soundscape is engaged, but there are other times that it's not. For example, as C3PO is talking to Luke about R2D2 in A New Hope, they switch angles in the middle of his conversation so he would be "behind you" although the voice stays centered on the center speaker. Nitpicky, but true.

[Darth Paris]

I riped ANH to an XVID file to mess around with. If you delete the frames where Greedo's and Han's lasers fly then it doesn't even look like Greedo fired. I removed the whole Jabba thing. I also took out a couple of the shots that looked really bad in the escape from the deathstar. The only real problem is lukes green saber. I can't trim that off because it shows Obi-wan realizing that Aldaran just blew up.

Also I just finished watching ROTJ. Two problems there. Vaders saber is pink almost the entire time. The other is when Luke tries to kill the Emperor, but Vader blocks it. There is just a yellow area where the saberes make contact. It looks like complete crap. Well at least the ESB turned out good.

Lucas is such an ass. I don't really like the SE all that much, but if thats the way he wants it then thats fine, but to realease the DVD's with half assed effort is bull crap. I guess its just his way of forcing us to buy the Blue-Ray disk set. This can be the advertising motto for the blue-ray set, "This is the definitive set for The Star Wars Trilogy. This set doesn't suck as much as the previous DVD release. With new lightsaber effects that are almost constant through out some of each film."

So here is what must change for the next release or Lucas isn't getting any more of my money (for the movies anyways).
-Get rid of the piece of crap Jabba or fix it completely (not "well this looks better then the prievious piece of crap we put in so lets go with this")
-Constant Blue and Red lightsaber through out ANH
-Removal of boxes around ties that were barley visible in previous versions
-Constant Red lightsaber through out ESB
-Constant Red ligthsaber through out ROTJ
-Fixed saber clashes
Unless these issues are resloved then Lucas can go to hell.