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Star Wars on DVD
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Author:  Cetera [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 3:50 am ]
Post subject:  Star Wars on DVD
OK, I went and bought them, just like I told everyone I would. Here's a very quick and dirty review, because I have to be up in less than 6 hours:

ANH: The movie cleanup is perfect. The sound is goofy. Basically, everything the DigitalBits review said is spot on. I didn't listen to all the sound problems, just the soundtrack stuff. I was in a hurry.

Han doesn't shoot first, but honestly, I really don't have a problem with this scene any longer. It actually looks surprisingly good. Not perfect by any means, but far, far, far better than the SE. Han's duck looks more natural. His fingers move on his distracting hand while he is ducking, really helping out the scene. Greedo comes much closer to hitting him. And while everyone says that they both shoot simultaneously, I'm not sure I agree with that completely. I think Han shoots about half a frame ahead of Greedo. I'll have to check on that tomorrow. Han does pump in two or three shots to Greedo, though, and it doesn't look half bad. Well, maybe only half bad.

The new Jabba looks good. Han casts realistic shadows on Jabba like he didn't in the SE. The Jabba model looks good. Screenshots don't really do it justice. When he's in motion, he looks again, far and away better than the SE. Not perfect, but very good.

Problems with ANH:

Luke's lightsaber is green in any non-close up shot in the Falcon. Why, I have no idea, but it looks terrible. Distracting to say the least.

The living room does feel slanted funny during the opening score. The reversed surround channels for the sound track really sound odd there. This was a horrible, horrible master job, and whoever did it should be fired. Quality control at Lucasfilm is apparantly not top priority these days.

Otherwise, things are simply great. I'm amazed at how much better the shootout in the cell bay looks, just by fixing the matte painting in the background. The movie simply looks phenomenal. Really, really good. I'm going to sound like a gusher, but I think the SE problems for ANH were fixed. It really doesn't bother me here like it did in the SE. Its not bad at all, I promise.

ESB: Sounds even better than anything I could have hoped for. Matte lines in the Hoth battle are completely gone, things are at full opacity, colors are amazingly vibrant.

There are still matte boxes around the TIE fighters in one shot, where the Falcon is flying into the screen, chased by four TIEs and the Star Destroyer. As the TIEs fly through the Star Destroyer graphic, the matte lines are very, very, very visible against the brightly lit grey/white of the Star Destroyer. They are the only matte lines I saw in my quick run through, however.

Yes, Vader's saber looks very, very pink in quite a few shots in the battle on Cloud City. It is worst when look is backing away in the carbon freezing chamber, its a close-up on him, and the only other thing in shot is Vader's saber. It is very pink, no bright white core at all.


That's my quick run-through for right now. I'm headed to bed. I cannot stress enough how perfect the films look, though, minor errors aside. I was picking out things in the background that I've never ever seen before, that weren't CG additions. They are simply phenomenal. The color saturation and contrast are like nothing I've ever seen before in Star Wars. It looks so new and brilliant and perfect.

If you have had an inkling to buy these at some point in the past, and aren't an extreme basher, they really are worth it. I'm very pleased so far, in a little over an hour that I've messed with them.
Author:  Rocklar [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 11:38 am ]
Post subject: 
Thanks for the review and comments, Cet. I need to get to the store today to pick up my copy!
Author:  X2-PB [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 1:29 pm ]
Post subject: 
My copy should have arrived at home yesterday. I've yet to ring up and see if it's arrive though!
Author:  tobiasds [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 4:58 pm ]
Post subject: 
X2-PB wrote:
My copy should have arrived at home yesterday. I've yet to ring up and see if it's arrive though!

So sorry, didn't you hear? The European release is not for another 2 months. :D
Author:  Angelus [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 5:42 pm ]
Post subject: 
Got mine today. No time to look at it tho cause I got Battlefront to play!!! :D
Author:  Romsuiag [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 6:44 pm ]
Post subject: 
Cool. I have some renewed faith in ol' GL looks like. Did you get RoTJ? I'd like to hear your thoughts on that one too.

Quote:
The living room does feel slanted funny during the opening score.
The living room?
Author:  Cetera [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:44 pm ]
Post subject: 
Yeah, I got it Rom, but haven't had a change to look at it yet. I didn't look at them much last night either. Just flipping through scenes really quickly.

The music soundtrack in the surround speakers is backwards. The rest of the sound on ANH is good, but the soundtrack is messed up. It is fine on the other two discs, so I'm not sure what happened.

Normally, when they record soundtracks for movies like this, they put the sound in the speakers in the same locations you would hear them if you were in front of an orchestra. So the violins and flutes are on the left I believe (for sure the violins). The surround speakers mirror that, so the sound coming out of your speakers should look like this:

Code:
1 C 2

1   2

Instead, on ANH, it is played like this:
Code:
1 C 2

2   1


So on the opening crawl, when there isn't any other sound besides music, the two channels that I arbitrarily labeled with a one are very obviously on opposite corners of the room. The music sounds great, but those two speakers my brain seems to link more closely, since they have a lot of movement in the piece, and it seems like my front left and right rear corners of my living room are connected. So my living room kinda almost seems like the rear left doesn't exist, and it slants towards the front right (audibly, anyway. It sounds kinda neat, kinda wrong.)

The thing I'm most disappointed with is the quality of the lightsabers in some shots. They don't look that great. Not quite as bad as some of the screenshots I linked in the earlier thread, but not like they should.
Author:  Cyrus Rex [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 9:01 pm ]
Post subject: 
Well I watched half of A New Hope.... so far I am not disappointed.

I noticed a lot more "sound" or "different sound" from random ambient things. Seems to be more colorful too... like scenes with the droids in the sandcrawler. I remember those scenes being dark, but now there is splashes of light and color here and there.

Maybe I am just crazy, but those are the things I noticed so far.
Author:  Arindel [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 9:06 pm ]
Post subject: 
I've got to save this for my Christmas list. Just so I have something to unwrap.

Can you believe my wife asked me why I wanted it as I have the original trilogy on VHS? I guess I don't chat these things up with her anymore.
Author:  lakini81 [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 10:19 pm ]
Post subject: 
I got lucky, I ordered mine yesterday, and got them today. I just finished A New Hope...awesome!
Author:  Cyrus Rex [ Tue Sep 21, 2004 10:40 pm ]
Post subject: 
Ok I watched all of A New Hope, and the changes were not bad.

I did not like how the Ties had a box around them when they fought the Falcon when it escaped the Death Star. I guess they made the space in the scene darker, and they kept small boxes around the Ties to keep them from looking darker... kind of like they cropped the ships out and pasted it on a background where the space color did not match. The result is a square of dull/brown space surrounding the Ties as they attack the falcon.

Luckily I did not notice the same problem during the attack on the Death Star.
Author:  Cetera [ Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:51 am ]
Post subject: 
Yeah, those are matte boxes. Believe it or not, they used to be in every single scene with a spaceship in it. They are actually less noticable than before, too. The print looks really, really good.

You'll notice the matte lines in a couple places in Empire still, mainly when a TIE fighter crosses a brightly lit Star Destroyer, and in one or two place in Jedi. They've fixed so many of those matte lines.

There are still some opacity issues in Empire too, but mostly less noticable than before. There is one shot I don't think has ever had work on it from the SE or this release, and the cockpit almost looks like just tinted plastic, its so see-through in parts. Kinda weird. But mostly things are bright, clear, noise free, sharp focus, no dust, really nice prints. I'd say they look better than the TPM DVD, and are just almost as perfect as the pure digital transfer of AOTC. They are amazing.

Wait until everyone gets to the pink lightsabers, though. It is horribly distracting. Its really bad when Luke attacks the Emperor, and Vader blocks, right in front of his face. That shot looks every bit as bad as those screenshots I posted in the other thread.
Author:  Azzameen85 [ Wed Sep 22, 2004 9:30 am ]
Post subject: 
They won't sell them in Greenland util the 24th. :cry:
Author:  Cyrus Rex [ Wed Sep 22, 2004 12:23 pm ]
Post subject: 
On the bonus disk, there is a feature named "Episode III Making the game”. At the very end of the feature, when the RL Anakin turns into computer game Anakin, and his sparing buddies are turned to computer game droids, Anakin fights the droids.... and he throws his lightsaber and uses the force to swing the saber around and back into his hand like a boomeraing.

I wonder if this attack is something we will see in the Movie.


On a side note, it think it is cool how Anakin is getting cocky and careless with his fighting posture as he learns he is better than everyone else.
Author:  Cordalis [ Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:30 pm ]
Post subject: 
Cyrus Rex wrote:
On a side note, it think it is cool how Anakin is getting cocky and careless with his fighting posture as he learns he is better than everyone else.


And then we see him in his more venerable state in the Original Trilogy, where the saber fights are LAME! I think they should CG in a ton of crazy saber duel stuff (in the Originals) to make it consistent :D

(Although he does do a nice lame saber toss in RotJ )
Author:  Cyrus Rex [ Wed Sep 22, 2004 2:27 pm ]
Post subject: 
The bonus disk has a feature that explains why the lightsaber fights progress the way they do.

GL says EpIV Vader vs Obi was not overly impressive because of their old age. (I think GL just did not know how great these fights could be at the time the first movie was made). Also GL in the early films thought the lightsabers were heavy, something like 30 pounds. He made the actors use 2 hands and only later did he relent and let them use the more flashy one handed style. In the feature you can tell Mark Hamel wishes he did not have this restriction on his fights... as if he’d rather have cool fights like in the prequels.

I think most of the EpIV explanations are attempts to justify why those fights are not as great as all the ones to come. I think it was only after EpIV that GL started to think about how lightsaber fights could be better.


GL says that in the original trilogy Luke was never formally trained, so his fights get better and better as he learns how to better use the force.
-EpIV Luke does not fight
-EpV Luke fights Vader and gets owned most of the time. Luke is fighting the guy he thinks killed his father, Obi, and the symbol of the evil empire.
-EpVI Luke is in better control of the force, he knows he is fighting his father. (I think in the end he owns Vader because he is giving into his emotions regarding Vader’s threat to Leia)

GL says the prequels show Jedi in their prime. Those Jedi have been formally trained as a result they are more aggressive and more flashy. They are pulling off moves that whiney ass Luke could never dream of.




Another side note: I thought was cool is in one of the features GL talks about how Vader is loosing his ability to think like a human as he is slowly replaced by machines. He said something like he was loosing his soul. I found that intresting because in EpIII we will meet General Grievous who is just as much machine as Vader, if not more. I can not remember what feature that part was in, but it was kind of cool
Author:  iJasonT [ Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:37 am ]
Post subject: 
Pictures are worth a ten thousand souls crying out

Image


http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews3/ ... anges.html
Reviewing this site I can see that there are some interesting and changes that only diehard fans would notice namely Jabba now looks much better but the Purist in me just cannot accept the dissing of Sebastian Shaw.
Author:  tobiasds [ Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:08 am ]
Post subject: 
If they went with the young version of Luke's pappy (Hayden) then why didn't they go with the young version of Obi-Wan too?
Author:  Locke_Trinmin [ Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:16 am ]
Post subject: 
tobiasds wrote:
If they went with the young version of Luke's pappy (Hayden) then why didn't they go with the young version of Obi-Wan too?


The reason is because Obi-Wan Kenobi was always good, Anakin Skywalker wasn't; he was only of the good side during his younger years, and his older years composed of him being Darth Vader. When Anakin turned good at the last moment at the end of Return of the Jedi, he bought himself a ticket to blue glowie form, thus letting him remain in the light side for his afterlife. The force ghosting process, is rumored to be explained in Episode 3.
Author:  kebernet [ Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:38 am ]
Post subject: 
iJasonT wrote:
Pictures are worth a ten thousand souls crying out

Image


http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews3/ ... anges.html
Reviewing this site I can see that there are some interesting and changes that only diehard fans would notice namely Jabba now looks much better but the Purist in me just cannot accept the dissing of Sebastian Shaw.


That is so sad, I want to cry.
Author:  Rocklar [ Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:48 am ]
Post subject: 
Aargh! 58:47 into A New Hope, my DVD freezes! I'll be exchanging it today.
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