ROTJ quality on VHS

Over the last coupla years I haven't been watching the OT as much as I had previously, but I watched my VHS of ROTJ a few weeks back. What I noticed, that I don't remember picking up before, was that composites in all the fighter scenes show up quite badly ie. there were pinkish square blocks semi-permanently around the tie-fighters, and the scenes generally just looked really tired.

Has anyone else experienced this? I know nothing about film and tape life, can it have anything to do with the age of the VHS (c.1989)? It doesn't make sense to me that composites should show up on a VHS, but they clearly do. Have they always been there and it's just that I've grown used to superior quality space CGI etc.?

 

I haven't noticed it myself, but I've seen others complain about this on all the films.

 

It's because you have a used VHS most likely.

Star Wars Insider issue with the ROTJ Anniversary special specifically said that the space battle in ROTJ was untouched for the Special Edition.

It is 100% the same in the O-OT and the SE.

 

Only way to improve it a little it to turn your televsion brightness down a couple notches.

They're not as bad as the Emperor's Slugs though

 

^^^Yeah, really.

WTH were those things for??


TLJ Edit: w00t, first time I got to edit that!

 

It's weird. I never noticed those things until about a year ago, and then, the last two times I've watched it I haven't seen them. I guess it's a good thing if I can't see them anymore, but it still confuses me.

 

Yeah, as someone said, you might want to try turning the brightness down on your TV. A lot of TV's have it turned way too high. I think it looks best with the contrast up all the way and the brightness very low.

 

^^^This is true.

 

I wish the transparent matt boxes had been cleaned up for the SE. They weren't!, it depends on your TV's settings of course, if it's brghter, you'll notice them more. In a theater they're hardest to see. These matt boxes better be fixed for the DVDs or I'm going to be one pissed off SW fan. I don't think they have a choice anyway, DVD picks up detail much better than a VHS. So if they're stupid enough to keep those matt boxes there, they'll show even more and make OT look laughable to todays effects. These matt boxes also appear in Star Trek films, Battlestar Galactic, battle beyond the stars, even Spaceballs. They only become noticable when the movies are screened on TV. Sad relic of the past these annoying matt boxes.

 

Most TVs are set way too bright. If a scene fades to black, there should be almost no light coming from your screen. If a black screen isn't black you need to turn up Picture all the way and turn down Brightness until black is black, or as close to it as you can stand. One thing I noticed seeing the SEs in multiple theaters is how much darker the movies looked compared to video, and one has to assume that how it looks theatrically is what was intended.

If ILM were going to clean up these matte boxes, what technique would they use? The best result would be from separately digitizing all the model photography elements and recompositing every shot from scratch with all the blue-screen mattes perfectly calibrated and invisible. Given how complex the ROTJ battle scenes are, that would be a major project, and it's only even theoretically possible because Lucas supposedly saved all the negatives of all the elements.

More likely, they will leave the compositing alone and tweak the levels of the digital remaster so that if your TV is properly adjusted according to the THX calibrator on the DVD, you will see the image as intended and the matte lines will be minimized.

 

When you say the Emperors slugs, do you mean
the jumping shadows on either side of his hood?
I always wondered why those were not cleaned
up. Also, the Rancor scene still seems a bit
janky. Did they clean up those mat lines for the
SE? It doesn't look like it.

 

I miss my purple DSII.

 

The SE didn't change ANYTHING that really needed to be changed.

It changed stuff that was FINE.

 

Yeah.

Artoo has one in his eye at Jabbas palace door too.

 

The matte boxes are still really apparent in ANH SE, most notably when Vader and his wingmen fly across the surface of the Death Star (above the trench).

 

AMEN "plutoneam"
long live the ORIGINAL palace dance number and Ewok ending

no matter how much my vhs has deteriorated, or how much better the dvd turns out to look than the vhs, I will still stick with the vhs until Lucas releases the original version on Widescreen dvd, IF he ever does that is

 

I heard a average VHS doesn't hold longer than 25 years.
Make sure you have your VHS stand upright with the WHOLE tape side on the bottom and away from magnetic sources.

 

25 years??? I put my '97 Star Wars VHS's in the bin last year because they were nackered.

Well, I did watch them a lot...

 

May I recommend a Laserdisc?

Or you can go to Ebay for something that I can't talk about here.

TLJ Edit: *sigh*
"Information on obtaining bootlegs will be edited out of posts on sight, and repeat infractions will earn you a ban."

 

I didn't say I don't have other ways of watching them

I just can't watch my VHS's anymore, that's all

 

The contrast on a VHS is much higher than on a DVD. For example, the stars in space scenes generally show up a lot brighter on a VHS tape than on disc. This is evident if you have both VHS and DVD copies of The Phantom Menace. (Which I do.)

Speaking of which, I want the original version of THAT movie on DVD. I hate the new podrace... HATE it!

 

One thing I noticed seeing the SEs in multiple theaters is how much darker the movies looked compared to video, and one has to assume that how it looks theatrically is what was intended.

this is because of theater owners turn down the power of the projector lamp. These Xeon lamps cost a fortune to replace. an example of cost is $400 for the little Xeon lamp for the sony video projector. just imagine how much a movie projector lamp is.

This is the most common complaint of all directors/critics over the years.