CT Will Disney Re-Release Theatrical Cut Of The Original Trilogy?

You mean in 1977 it was green? Or could the greenish tint be due to chemical deterioration in later years? I honestly don't remember what it looked like in the original theater version in the 70s. But I think in pictures from that time it was also kind of greenish. But that could have been because of poor print quality.

 

The chances of an unaltered (by time) 1977 print of Star Wars being in circulation and available for exhibition are virtually nil.

All the supposed "the way it looked" projects that have touted an original print have displayed the tell tale signs of ageing that simply cannot be avoided. The silver screen print had rose coloured stars on a deep mahogany background before it was made to look like it was in 1977, like it is supposed to. Which is bogus. You can't turn a print back to what the print was supposed to look like in 1977 without a reference which is a print that still looks like it was supposed to.

Unless you have an immaculate dye transfer print for reference, that's almost never been run and has been vaulted since 77. OR you have flawless, unshrunk separation masters to strike a new answer print or internegative and the colorists notes from 1977, you are just guessing.

Some of the recent home video transfers have been accused of being too green in places. That would seem to be closer to the greenish walls seen on Tantive IV.

But I recently saw the "Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans" videos on Youtube and the version that's used there is more blue in those areas. That version looks very good overall and I can't quite figure out where it comes from.

 

Yes, it was green. Technicolor prints of Star Wars generally have somewhat of a green cast, but nowhere near the amount to account for the amount of green in those sequences. I recently saw an unfaded print of the 1997 SE, who's colors were based on a 1977 technicolor print reference, and the 1997 theatrical release featured a similar green tint for those shots.

 

There are several privately owned dye transfer prints, and several of them have been scanned on professional equipment. The photographs I posted are from a dye transfer print, that has sadly been cut to pieces. As with all dye transfer prints there may be scratches and dirt, but since they don't fade, the colors are still top notch. As with any 35mm print colors will vary to some degree between prints, but overal you can get a pretty good sense of what it's supposed to look like.

The silver screen edition was based on a somewhat faded Spanish dupe print.

The "Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans" video seems to be using the 2004 master also used for the bluray, which differs greatly from the theatrical release in terms of colors. Just as an example, here's a comparison between the bluray and Mike Verta's 4K restoration of the 1977 version of Star Wars:



Just to be clear Mike Verta based his restoration five scans of pristine dye transfer prints, and had access to many of the people involved in making the films, and many of the original props and costumes used. The above shot is a preliminary color grading, but overall close to how it looks on the dye transfer prints.

Here are two interesting videos by Mike on the colors of Star Wars:

 

I could have swore the "too green" areas of the 2004 releases looked bluer in the version used by PaletteswapNinja.

 

OK, you are talking about actual film here, correct? In those two versions you would only see a difference if projected directly, analog, with an analog movie projector. For other methods how can we even know what the source looks like unaltered? How about a digital source?
If the source is not film but digital, besides changes made digitally during production of the DVD, bluray or whatever, isn't a lot also dependent on monitor or TV settings? I'm pretty sure you could end up seeing both "versions" (color/contrast/brightness being different) that use exactly the same source simply by changing color, hue, brightness, contrast etc., settings on your TV. How does a source look anyway, originally? When you watch it on a screen what you see is already dependent on your display settings.
I can't even say for sure which of the two images looks better. The first is slightly darker and has less contrast, something easily adjustable on the monitor. Even those examples posted are seen differently by forum users because we use different display equipment. The colors and contrast probably don't look the same on my laptop monitor as they would on a smartphone, projected, plasma TV or whatever.
I could have exactly the same DVD and get both results just by changing TV display settings, and even results that look vastly different from both examples. So with a digital source how is it even possible to establish what is original anymore?
Let's use a digital photo as another example. What does the "original" look like? No one can tell because it's all dependent on how you display it. I have seen huge differences looking at the same picture whether I watch it on a smallish laptop monitor or on a huge TV screen. And I can adjust one and the same TV to get huge differences in final results again. Even sharpness can be changed. Sure, you can't get more resolution out of a low-resolution source. But you could decrease resolution afterwards to get a less sharp image. So even things that are there in the source, like film grain or those "boxes" around space ships in the OT, could be made to be less visible when watching. Whatever the source material, end results will always also be a function of how you display it, not to mention that different viewers would again perceive it differently. Sure, part of the result may be determined, even "fixed", and can be measured, by the source itself, but more major changes can be made by display equipment. Scratches or film grain would still be there, but color, contrast etc. can always be changed later.
Those two pictures, even though I don't have any editing skills, I'm pretty sure either one could be made to look like the other even with simple editing software like Picasa, let alone professional software.

 

In principle we're talking about how it would look on the big screen, and how that would translate to a color calibrated monitor. However, even on a non-calibrated monitor it would be obvious, that the bluray is much darker and overly blue for this scene (compared to the theatrical color timing, and previous home video releases). You actually cannot really make the bluray look like the original color timing by adjusting the settings of your monitor. The color adjustments are more complicated than that, and vary from scene to scene. Having developed an algorithm for matching the colors of two sources, I can attest to the fact, that it is actually not that simple to make the bluray approach the theatrical color timing, because in some cases the color gradients have been adjusted to such an extend, that color information has been lost, that cannot be recovered, particulary in the shadow areas.

 

I see, that makes sense. Information that has already been lost can't be gotten back that way. I have never seen the bluray version. The 2004 DVD looked fine to me on the surface, but I didn't really analyze it, and have no way to compare it to other releases. The LaserDiscs also looked OK, except for the usual problems that medium has. So the final verdict is what? That the latest bluray edition differs too far from the 1977 film that it will never look the same? All they would have to do is rescan the original film, which I understand has been done already privately, but not released officially. So does it count as an unauthorized (illegal?) fan edit?

 

I would say it's a restoration, since it was done by a professional, and involves a previously released work. It is illegal, but Lucasfilm is aware of it, and have stated they won't interfere as long as he doesn't distribute it. Last we heard, which is over six months ago, he was in talks with both Disney, and Fox to get it released through the official channels, after that things went quiet.

 

Man, the Blu-ray looks so bad. George should have gone to Specsavers

 

But Cedric, don't you understand? It was all part of George's original vision to have the film look like that!

 

I know it's sarcasm, but if it was his original vision. So why did he make the other two versions in 2004 or 2011?

 

Because the technology wasn't there to have Ian Mcdiarmid appear as Palpatine in Empire or to have Vader scream "no!" in Jedi.


In all seriousness, the whole "original vision" argument has always been weird to me. Wasn't his actual original vision just to make an adaptation of Flash Gordon?

 

Why do you think it's illegal?

 

For one he used five scans of 35mm prints as a basis. Owning a 35mm print is illegal, so the sources he's used are not officially released material.

 

I'm talking about the fact, that all 35mm prints are officially owned by the studio. So, anyone in possession of a 35mm print probably obtained it through illegal means. Now, most collectors only have these prints for personal use, so the studios don't actively hunt for these prints unless they are publically displayed, and in rare cases private collectors have actually been invaluable in preserving films for which the negative was damaged. In fact a private collector lend his technicolor print to Lucasfilm to color grade the 1997 SE theatrical release.

 

No offense anybody, but you have to be blind not to see the obvious difference between the Blu-ray image (top) and what the original negative can yield (bottom).

At the danger of sounding like a broken record, I can only repeat myself, that the OT is in desperate need of a re-release to reveal the (hidden) potential in accurate brightness, contrast and colors - regardless whether it's the Theatrical or the Special Edition.

 

It would be illegal if someone were to steal the 35mm film owned by Disney, but it is not illegal for someone to own it if it was acquired legally prior to their ownership. I actually know a private collector that has some. He got it from a private collection in the early 90's.

 

The original negative yielded both. It's about the change in technology which allow greater ability to manipulate images that wasn't possible before and the aesthetics changed.

 

Qui-Riv-Brid wrote

It's about the change in technology which allow greater ability to manipulate images that wasn't possible before and the aesthetics changed.

...so that travelling mattes of VFX elements (that were not fixed for the Special Edition) could be conveniently concealed at the expense of a natural, lively image...

 

In a recent interview at the BFI, Martin Scorsese recalled how film stock was so poor in the late seventies and how George Lucas showed him Star Wars opening scene, explaining that the whites of the corridor were deliberately left a little pink, so that when the colour inevitably began fading (expected to take around 6 months) the drift towards pink wouldn't be as noticeable.

 

The natural image is one that doesn't exist as it's a movie. The closest thing to a "natural" image as such is certainly not present on any version of the movies that any of us have ever seen since that would be a version not color-timed. As we know there are many fan versions especially of ANH that have tried many times to find the "real" color.

 

The "real color" is there on the existing prints, within a certain print to print variation. I've seen technicolor prints, and the colors are more natural than the bluray, even if the Tatooine scenes were delibirately graded to look very warm, and desolate. The fan versions suffer from the fact, that it's actually not easy to manually match a source like the bluray to a print, which is why I developed some software to do it. The difference between the Tatooine sequence on technicolor prints and the bluray is quite stunning. These shots were directly matched to a scan of a technicolor print:









Note how weirdly green C-3PO is on the bluray, even compared to his color in the PT, and don't get my started on that bluish purple **** in the second frame. Either way I would argue the original color timing definitely looks more natural, and is more consitent with the other films:

 

Can I please have a screenshot compilation for illustration purposes in my Rebel Blockade Runner thread in the above quality?

In case anybody doubts the color, brightness and contrast accuracy of the above image, just check out publicity stills and other photographic shots from the scenes aboard the Tantive IV: