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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Saga The Official Star Wars Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Star Wars Saga In-Depth' started by Fat_Rancor_Keeper, Apr 17, 2010.

  1. Drewton

    Drewton Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 8, 2009
    Maybe Lucas thought that the crosscutting was too confusing for kids. :p

    I'm actually serious about that.
     
  2. Bacon164

    Bacon164 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Mar 22, 2005
    It'd wouldn't be so awful if the music hadn't been directly taken from the next scene and just thrown in without any attempt to make it flow with the "lull" as it were.
     
  3. MattPeriolat

    MattPeriolat Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2001
    Question for anyone has got to the extras yet.

    TheDigitialBits.com review left me with two impressions:

    1. The deleted scenes for Episodes 1-3 are different from the ones previously available, plus none of the DVD deleted scenes from Eps. 1-3 are back on the blu. True?

    2. No trailers for any of the six movies. True?

    Thanks for the help. My blu is supposed to arrive on Sept. 22 from Amazon (had to do Super Saving Shipping...), but was curious.
     
  4. jasperjones

    jasperjones Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 24, 2001
    OK, have just watched the Noooo, and maybe I was primed for it to be the worst thing since the bubonic plague, but while it's totally unnecessary and the second no is a little comical, I don't actually find it that bad in the movie. Wish it wasn't in there, but can live with it.

    On a much more positive note, does anyone else think that Sebastian Shaw's scene with Hamill is even more amazing now? The extra detail seems to really bring out Shaw's quietly powerful performance to me. Or am I getting carried away?
     
  5. DARTH_CHINA

    DARTH_CHINA Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 31, 2001
    That's for sure!! In the worst case, they could've looped some of the build-up music during these shots, but they literally took the shots, together with the music and inserted them some seconds earlier.

    The slow music worked in the original edit, but it's totally out of place in the new one. The music should've continued to build up, not suddenly disappear.

    It even makes the weird "ESB Vader arriving on Star Destroyer"-cut during the hyperspace music sound good! :eek:
     
  6. rpeugh

    rpeugh Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2002
    Just a lot of additions. THe duel starts with Obiwan chasing Anakin towards the control room, and Anakin is force throwing a bunch of objects at Obiwan. Becuase of all the objects getting thrown at him, Obi wan loses sight of Anakin and Anakin is hiding. Then Anakin jumps out at him and it is now Anakin forcing Obiwan towardsd the control room. THe fighting on the table is similar but in the control Room, Obiwan somehow gets Anakin's lightsaber when it is turned off, and Anakin is grabbing Obiwan's arms. Anakin then grabs the lightsaber from Obiwan and turns it back on. They then accidentally hit the lava repelent controls. They they go outside onto that balancing beam. They then fight on a series of beams and are cutting the beams so that they are then swinging on them. They then go onto the collectin arm and it falls into the lava, and then they each fall on a lava platform. They use the force to attack each other with lava. Anakin uses the force to create a giant lava wave towards Obiwan, and Obiwan force blocks it, but some of the lava catches his platform and it starts to burn. He jumps onto Anakin's platform and they fight for a while. Eventually, Anakin makes the mistake of raising his arms up to slowly to initiate an over the top swing of his lightsaber, and Obiwan quickly does a low swing of his lightsaber and cuts Anakin's legs off. His torso fall to the lava bank below the platform. He then burns to a black crips.

    What I liked about it is that it started off small and gradually became more and more epic. Sure it was over the top but that is how it ended up to some extent. Might as well go all the way.
     
  7. shanerjedi

    shanerjedi Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 17, 2010
    Fixed

    :p

    j/k


    I love what I'm hearing about the set thus far.
     
  8. rpeugh

    rpeugh Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2002
    #1 is definately true. Dont know about #2 but I didnt catch any trailers, but I didnt look throuroughly. Poeple are going to find the deleted scenes for the PT a real disappointment.
     
  9. MattPeriolat

    MattPeriolat Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2001
    Why a disappointment? I mean, I heard about the Yoda/Qui-Gon scene and think a.) And this isn't in the movie why? and b.) glad to at least see it.

    Oh and as for the missing deleted scenes? Yet another reason why I keep EVERY version of Star Wars I have.
     
  10. LAJ_FETT

    LAJ_FETT Tech Admin (2007-2023) - She Held Us Together star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 25, 2002
    For the person a couple of pages back who asked about Amazon shipping to Australia - I've ordered books and CDs from Amazon US for shipment to the UK and have had no problems. However - in the UK books are free of import duty. Not so CDs and I had to pay duty before I got delivery. (It was all online through Royal Mail). So you might want to see what the rules are in your country before ordering.
     
  11. rpeugh

    rpeugh Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2002
    As much as I enjoyed the menus for the dvds, I think the menus for the blue rays are a welcome change. Very simple. Each feature movie disc features only one theme from each movie. Curiously, for the prequels it is the most operatic theme for each movie, and for the OT it is the most iconic pulse pounding theme for each movie.
     
  12. Gallandro

    Gallandro Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1998

    Sorry, but as I stated before the 93 master of ANH is a desaturated mess. Because of the particular film stock used for ANH, the original negatives were not only losing their physical integrity in many cases, but were losing the yellow end of the color spectrum as well. This of course results in murky blacks and eventual blooming as I evidenced by the images you selected. The image appears more flat and you lose a great deal of depth and contrast in the image.

    And frankly I really don't care what Bill Hunt says. This is the same guy that gave the 2004 DVD releases glowing reviews only to be swayed by fanboy opinion and later bash the release.

    Yancy
     
  13. Gallandro

    Gallandro Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1998
    I thought it worked fine. It's definitely prominent in the mix but is offset by the music ad fx in the surround channels. The original Youtube video was compressed as hell and did not do the audio mix justice.


    Yancy
     
  14. Drewton

    Drewton Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 8, 2009
    That doesn't explain how there's simply more detail in the shadows for the laserdisc transfers and 70mm film scans.

    Try brightening the 2004 version of that Tantive IV image. You just can't get the detail on his costume that was there on laserdisc.
     
  15. None

    None Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Mar 14, 1999
    On the crushed black and other color issues which emerged from the 2004 digital master, the video linked below was created to show where some of those issues can be found. The 2011 set probably addresses some of these, but to what extent hasn't been determined yet.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWRs0ZD8ay4
     
  16. Drewton

    Drewton Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 8, 2009
    Unfortunately, I've read that the color timing and black crush was done before the actual cleaning up of the image. So they can't have undone it unless if they cleaned it up again. They have brightened up the picture a little however.
     
  17. Blue_Jedi33

    Blue_Jedi33 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 12, 2003
    Got mine and they threw in a lightsabre, as a bonus, glows blue or red. The first five people got one, and there was no line up or anything, went 1/2 hour after the store opened.
    Lithographs as bonus too. Watched a few scenes, I love the new details you get with HD, for example, what is going on outside during Dooku confrontation in ROTS. ANH looks awesome too.
    At the opening price of $79 plus all the bonus's I got, it would be hard to go wrong on these for any SW fan.
     
  18. Gallandro

    Gallandro Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1998
    Yeah it does. Eventually as you GAIN brightness more and more information is "revealed" (often times unintended)as the image becomes lighter, it may look more "detailed" but you have sacrificed a ton of artistic intent. Look at that shot of Darth... its awful. There is no depth to any shadows and the formerly grey walls are turning a tinge green because of the loss of the yellow spectrum. There is absolutely no depth or contrast to that picture at all and looks like it was lit for a 70s sitcom.

    Do yourself a favor, go and find an old copy of the Godfather and compare it to the new blu-ray release... specifically the opening scene which, as shot, was supposed to be dark and mysterious until the reveal of Don Corleone. Now look at the 2001 DVD release, the blacks are murky and the image is brighter. There is certainly more information the viewer can discern, but that was never Coppola's intention and was the result of a dodgy transfer which thankfully Coppola was able to correct with the blu-ray. Heck there were even people complaining about that...

    Yancy
     
  19. Gallandro

    Gallandro Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1998
    The audio mix for AOTC is amazing. Too bad Obi-Wan's faux beard sticks out like a sore thumb. Hey George, how about a little digital touch up on that?


    Yancy
     
  20. zombie

    zombie Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 1999
    You are right about the 1993 transfer, it's overly bright because it was customary back then to brighten up the telecine to accomodate people watching movies in the daytime. It's a bit unfair to judge it against modern ones, as it was an SD video transfer from the early 1990s and thus wouldn't even be capable of having deep blacks anyway. But reference quality it is not.

    However, the 2004/11 transfer is a mess when it comes to the blacks. They have erased detail and dulled the image, with way too much contrast. It's one of the worst transfers I have ever seen as far as major titles go in recent years.

    That 70mm cap (I think it's 70mm) by comparison looks far more natural and detailed, and closer to how the image should look. Really the 1993 master and the 2004/11 master are both messes, but for different reasons and in different scenes. The truth is in the middle--the image should be a bit darker and contrastier and much more saturated than the 1993 one, but nothing even close to the 2004/11 timing. It's like they went from one extreme to the other. Star Wars was a brightly lit film using high-key soft bounce lighting, there should be contrast but only a little. As I said that 70mm cap, though suffering from hue problems, has a very well balanced contrast ratio.

    And yes, the hue problems and black crush are not on people's television. It's part of the transfer, and it's deliberate, intentional design (however misguided). Heck, you can see it in those caps! And Drewton is right: a black crush can't be undone by making your TV brighter or less contrastier, you still have all the black level problems but now everything will be milky and the brightness levels will blow out. It's in the transfer. I really don't know how you can say it looks fine, I have to question your professional experience in film and television. I've been a member of the Cinematographer's Guild and I can tell you, that transfer has some very serious problems with black levels and colour timing, everyone's not just imagining it or failing to use our monitor's properly. I am pretty sure the discs even come with a THX Optimizer to make sure your setting are correct.
     
  21. PirateofRohan

    PirateofRohan Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 11, 2009
    I'm so conflicted right now!
     
  22. Gallandro

    Gallandro Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1998
    Having finished AOTC I would like to see Lucas readdress Yoda in a future release. He looks nowhere as detailed as he does in the new TPM footage or in ROTS.


    Yancy
     
  23. Jedsithor

    Jedsithor Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 1, 2005
    I'm watching The Making of Star Wars right now. The quality isn't great but they do show clips from the film as it was in 1977 and Luke's lightsaber is most definitely blue. If anything the effect has gone backwards in that scene since the Special Edition. Watching the Falcon approaching Yavin is also a bit strange because I'm so used to the redone shot in the Special Edition. I'd forgotten how different they were.
     
  24. Sabertrader

    Sabertrader Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Jul 28, 2002
    A few words on the BluRay Saga's packaging...

    I have a love-hate thing with this (US set). I love the 'book' style in the sense that you can get so many discs in so little space. I can put this on the same shelf as my SW dvds and Clone Wars series BRs. Great, space-saving design, and I like the outer cover/case.

    I hate that the discs can be tedious to get in and out cleanly, and makes my paranoid about scuffing the discs getting them in and out. The BR packaging for Star Trek: TOS is a slick space-saving method, and I like how the CW BRs are packaged better as well for easy disc access.

    Again, the outer case artwork isn't bad...but all the inner artwork and presentation...ehh. I think the LOTR: EE Bluray set is much more grand, and they could have gone with something more grand for Star Wars. Just a little too much of a 'kid' vibe to the artwork to me. It's hard for me to properly express. I guess I just don't feel this set really got the packaging it deserves.

    Anyway, still tickled to death to have these films (and extras) on BR and can't WAIT to fire it up when I get home tonight. PS3 to Sammy 55" LCD and 7.1 Onkyo system...wheee! :)
     
  25. DarthPhilosopher

    DarthPhilosopher Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2011
    Thanks LAJ_FETT.


    What quality do they ship their products however and what are the chances of pristine quality packaging (in regards to the actual box)?


    Also what symbols are on the US packaging?