CT STAR WARS SE color timing issues

With the Vader shot, the original version all the white surfaces have a greenish tint to them, the bluray one looks better.

Again with the Luke and Owen shot, the Bluray looks better with the blue sky as opposed to the grey sky that looks overcast and both Luke and Owen being washed out in the original.

The Obi-Wan closeup, the original version does look better but not by much IMO. I don't think one is ever going to find a perfect coloring of these films no matter the version, every version is a mixed bag to me in regards to coloring.

 

Obi-Wan's skin tone is better in the original, but the noise is too visible for my tastes.

 

With the IMO obvious exception of the Luke/Vader saber clash in ROTJ, I honestly do not see anything weird.

 

I like the blue sky on Tatooine. That's better than the original, at least.

And yeah, the OOT version of the Tantive IV does look a bit greenish. I thought the point was that the interior of the blockade runner was supposed to be pure white, like in Episode III? It doesn't seem like the OOT version quite achieves that.

 

I´m probably blind because I don´t see any issues whatsoever.

 

These are bluray frames matched to a Technicolor print of Star Wars. This part of the Tantive IV was never completely white, those were the hallways. Some of the walls were a slightly different color. Here's a still from an actual Technicolor print. This is what this scene should look like:



The noise is part of the bluray, and has nothing to do with the colors of the original print.

 

Here are a few more comparisons with larger differences. In my opinion the originals are vastly superior to the bluray (top bluray, bottom original):

 

Can't wait for my Blu-rays to come in the mail, they look awesome!

I can however appreciate the historical significance of the OOT as well - it comes across in the editing differences between the two.

 

The stormtroopers even have a green tint, the coloring doesn't appear to ever have been perfect with these films IMO. Some of the other original scenes you posted also have green tints to them, never noticed it before until this thread. Something to keep in mind is that everybody perceives colors a little differently. In this scene you can tell the walls are supposed to be white and the round doorways are supposed to be a eggshell color but both have green tints in their shadows.

 

Blu-ray Tarkin on top looks more natural, IMO. One on the bottom looks weirdly pallid even for Tarkin.

 

What throws the Blu-ray shot off for me more than anything are his eyes and lips. There's so much magenta going on there.

 

the color should be right between those two examples. something like this but obviously better quality. click for full size.

 

The pic isn't displaying for me. Maybe link it?

EDIT: Never mind, you fixed it.

 

The best example of that is Princess Leia on the Death Star. Her makeup ends up looking horrible, like a cheap prostitute.

 

The print is slightly green shifted (as is the case for many Technicolor IB prints), but other than that it is very accurate. Tarkin's makeup was done in such a way that he looked extra pail. Here's an original production photo from 1977:



Here's the Technicolor IB frame corrected for the green shift:

 

Tarkin looks like a lobster person in those two pictures. I thought that was bad?

I think she looks like a very high-class prostitute, personally. Though I'm not quite sure how one is supposed to judge such things.

 

Yeah, that picture is red shifted. I found it on the internet. The point was that Tarkin looked very gaunt in the OOT. It turns out the Technicolor print, although slightly green shifted, is more green shifted in the Death Star sequences, so it appears that it was a delibirate choice.

 

Unfortunately, color timing is just like the loudness wars in the 90s. But instead of music getting louder and louder, the color keeps getting darker and more blue-tinged. I guess they were trying to update Star Wars in that respect. Unfortunately, sometimes this has dire effects, the worst of which are the unnatural skin tones. The original tints are often deliberate, which then causes audiences to see things they aren't supposed to (Leia's makeup). And on the flip-side, sometimes details that are visible are then obscured by darkness and crushed blacks. So I guess the original Star Wars may look older, but it's still the most natural. Even Attack of the Clones had a strange green-blue hue to it that just didn't look appealing next to the original.

 

They aren't objectively. They are simply different.

It's just that some fans don't like the differences.

For myself I am fine with them either way. I really don't see one as "superior" to the other. Obviously the original photochemical color timing results in a look that is very of the time of the early 70's and 80's movies in general while the digital grades result in the kind of look that movies of the digital era have.

As I have said taking the corresponding frames of each version and putting them side by side really doesn't show anything that we don't already know:

The problem with the above photos is that it's really not the same as actually watching them on a large HDTV screen in full motion.

The blacks in the photos are going to look crushed when in the HD experience they are not.

No doubt if I really went scene by scene my personal preference would take shots from each but then that would just look weird.

 

I don't really see what the problem is. And the exaggerated colors seemed to appear on those characters out of focus in the background.

 

Red often appears pink as a result of the blue tint. Examples of this include blaster bolts, Vader's saber, and X-Wing engines.

 

I find it very obvious and distracting. It's like watching the movie while wearing tinted glasses. Explosions are oversaturated and blown out, white lights appear pink, faces look ruddy.

Back to the Future also looks off on Blu-ray: Michael J. Fox looks like he's wearing lipstick. But it's not nearly as egregious as ANH, which is almost unwatchable if you have an eye for colour.

 

It's certainly different. It's certainly blue-shifted. And I certainly prefer the original, more naturalistic look. But I disagree it makes the film "almost unwatchable if you have an eye for colour". For one matter, we all have color controls on our TVs. Just reduce the blue levels if it bothers you to that degree.

 

I've recently watched A New Hope on Blu-Ray and I've also noticed this color timing issue. I popped out my old DVD of Episode IV from 2004 in order to make a quick comparison and this issue wasn't there. It must be either an issue related to the conversion to the 1080p Blu-Ray format since it was a 480p screen resolution for the DVD, or it was an attempt to hide the noise in the picture as mentioned above.

But even with that change of color, the noise issue in the picture can sometimes be still there. But keep in mind that in the 1970's, the technology for cameras was much less advanced than today and the noise might be related to the technology used back on that time in order to film the scenes than the conversion to the Blu-Ray format.

I still have an old DSLR camera with me and when I compare it to a much recent version of a DSLR, there's less noise on the picture taken by the newer version than the older.

This noise issue might be why I was under the impression that the movie was starting to show its age on the Blu-Ray while on the DVD edition from 2004, I couldn't tell the difference if it was an old or recent movie when I've first watched this movie 10 years ago.

 

I was under the impression that X-wing engines were always, even in the VHS version, closer to pink than red.