CT Star Wars: COLOR COMPARISON - Theatrical vs. 2004 DVD

This is why i'd prefer to own the 1997 special editions on DVD instead. I used to own a couple of them but gave them away.

 

I don't think the 2004 versions look very good. With that being said, the "theatrical" home releases don't really reflect the true theatrical color timing either. My understanding is that there were special "telecine prints" made which were low contrast and had their own color timing. These prints were then telecined (the process by which film is transferred to tape). The individual telecine operators would often do their own additional scene-by-scene color corrections (often with the goal of making the colors fit within the reduced dynamic range of the home video color spectrum). So the colors we see on the home releases (the pre-SE versions) are more natural and neutral than what was actually in theaters. They look good, but they're not accurate. Even the 1997 SE home releases aren't accurate to their theatrical counterparts (they're far too pink).

 

^^ Can you cite me an example of them being "too pink?"
The first editions and the 1997 special editions had it right. The 2004 editions and beyond have serious color problems.

 

Here's one example:

Spoiler

And here's another example:

Spoiler

And again, keep in mind that neither of these have anything to do with how the films looked in theaters. In fact, the theatrical versions of both the OOT and 97SE looked quite similar; it's the home releases that had their colors altered. That being said, I do quite like the more natural looking colors of the OOT home releases, despite them not being accurate.

 

@theMaestro

I wonder what source starwars.com is using for their screencaps of the films. Some of the grading is noticeably different.

Blu-ray:


starwars.com


e: The screencaps for Attack of the Clones are also notably lacking the teal filter that was applied for the Blu-ray.

 

Yeah I've noticed some differences from the site as well. A lot of the screencaps from ANH seem to have less pink in their whites, which looks nice. I thought at first that it might be from a new transfer or something but it seems more likely that someone may have just done some color correction on the images themselves before posting them to the site.

Although for the AOTC screencaps, they seem to have crushed the blacks and made everything darker with their corrections. I don't recall the pre-teal DVDs looking quite as dark as those pictures, though I could be wrong.

 

The 4K editions that Lucas probably had regraded?

 

I doubt that the starwars.com staff would get early access to a new remaster and would be allowed to post images of it. Companies like to make announcements for this sort of thing when they want to start generating hype, so they'd likely want to keep quiet about it until they're ready. And these kinds of images with different colors have been on the official site for years, so it really doesn't seem likely that it's from a new version. (Even when the 2004 DVDs were coming out, I remember some of the television promos for it were still using footage from the 1997 versions.)

 

Early? They were done pre-sale.

We got to see some of TPM's CGI Yoda on the ROTS disc in 2005 right? That was six years before it was released.

 

"Early" as in before they're publicly released. You could be right though. But starwars.com has been known to just post things that aren't official. I remember they once did an article where they used posters for the films that were fan-made (they probably just used google images). It just seems like its staff wouldn't be in the exclusive club to receive a remastered set of films. It'd be cool if it was since the images look nicer than the Blu-rays. But I have my doubts.

 

That's why I want the 1997 editions more so. They introduced some improvements like the windows on Cloud City while keeping in much of the previous needed stuff, not to mention the original coloring. I suspect the "too pink" reference is pointing to the evening sunset there.

 

I'd bet on everything being changed again for the 4K.

Personally I like the old "technicolor" look so when it comes to Star Wars I always turn the color up anyway.

 

I'm loving the look of the StarWars.com screenshots. I doubt those are from 4K restorations though because the ANH on leaves a lot to be desired in terms of resolution. At this point I'm expecting 4K releases of The Force Awakens and Rogue One will be available before seeing original six films on the format.

Is the Fox-Disney deal finalized yet?

 

Soon apparently.

 

They are original publicity stills, not taken from any home video master.

What original color? There was no consistent grading to begin with. It was a mess. Color correction and consistent grading was done for the first time with the 2004 restoration, which was also the first time Lucas himself supervised and approved an home video release.

 

As stated before the colors of the 1997 home video releases are not the same as the theatrical releases. The 1997 theatrical releases were color timed to look similar to the original releases in the 1970s and 1980s, but particulary ANH suffers from many color inconsistencies in the theatrical color grading, even more so in the 1997 release, probably due to time constraints. The 1997 home video releases for Empire and Jedi look fairly consistent, and pretty similar to the theatrical color timing as far as I can tell, ANH however is a complete mess, and looks nothing like the theatrical version for the first half of the film whether original or otherwise. The color balance of the 1997 telecine for Star Wars is all over the place having a distinct blue cast very early on, which becomes pink during the entrance to Mos Eisley. The second half of the film looks much better, but I would still say it is the worst transfer of ANH to date, despite the fact I'm not a fan of the 2004 digital color grading, which introduced its own set of problems, mostly because of the black crush, increased saturation, and the fact that they attempted to match R2-D2's blue panels to the other two films with mixed results at best.

 

The original theatrical color timing isn't as bad as you make it out to be. While both the 1977 and 1997 theatrical color timing suffers from inconsistencies in the color balance, the look and feel of the films is quite different from 2004 home video release.

 

I owned both on DVD in widescreen, copied from laserdisc, but gave them away to friends. I want to own them again!

 

Although most attention is usually given to ANH when it comes to its altered color timing, the other two films in the trilogy look quite different as well. Here are some regrades of the ROTJ bluray, that show the difference between the 2004 color timing and the theatrical color timing.

Bluray:



Theatrical:



Here's a direct comparison:

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/01MCNNNU

 

I like both. But the more bluish version feels more like the original to me.

 

I vastly prefer the original coloring. The blueish tint muddies up details in some of the low-light scenes scenes in Jabba's palace and the sail barge, and it makes Tatooine look cold in the outdoor scenes, which I don't think is how a hot desert planet should come across.

 

Here are a few more shots.

Bluray:



Theatrical:



http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/WYZPNNNX

 

that threepio and artoo shot on the sail barge is freakin' hugely different. And I can see Ackbar's skin pattern better on the theatrical colour. Where were those theatrical colours sourced from?

 

The colors are sourced from preservations of 16mm and 35mm prints.

 

Here's a final set of 16 frames across the entire film.