Star Wars

[Aractus]

OK, so it's time for me to vent all my frustrations about SW in a discussion thread where we can all hate-on Lucas/Disney together.

Let's stat with the prequels. Lucas has been unable to resist from altering "Phantom Menace", and he directed all three even though he said he wouldn't in 1995. One of the most controversial moves he made was to shoot Episode II, and then Ep III in digital, all the while claiming that it was "better quality than 35mm" film. Really?

Ep II (Attack of the Clones) was filmed at 1440 x 1080 24p and cropped to 818 vertical lines. There's a misconception that it was filmed at 1920 x 1080, it was not. Specifically it was "1920 x 1080 3:1:1" meaning that both the Luma and Chroma was compressed (the Luma compressed to 1440 x 1080, and the chroma conveying just 1/3 of that!) The camera did capture 1920x1080, but the tape stores it at 1440x1080.

Although the camera he used was "designed for the movie" it didn't even store the picture in the way that Lucas actually needed it. I mean, why couldn't it crop the picture 75% vertically (810 lines) and then store it 4:2:0? What's the point of filming the full vertical resolution of 1080p when you're going to crop it 25% anyway?

I don't hate digital cameras - far from it. Wolf Creek (2005) was also filmed in 1440 x 1080, however it was a low budget Australian film (I think the budget was $1.4 mil). Plus it was only cropped to 1.85:1, not 2.35:1

Ep III (Revenge of the Sith) was filmed at "full hd". I use quotations for a few reasons, yes it was filmed at 1920 x 1080, however the colourspace was 4:4:4 RGB (10 bit) which is equal to 4:2:2 YPbPr. So it certainly did not have the dynamic range that film has.

DLP cinema projectors in 2002 (when Attack of the Clones came out) were 1280 x 1024 and 1440 x 1080 resolution at the time, so the movie would have been scaled from 1920 x 818 to those two sizes for DLP cinemas (I'm assuming the films were mastered at the full resolution with effects, although in my opinion the Blurays do not convey more picture information than 1440 pixels you can decide for yourself).

When Phantom Menace came to home video in 2000 (or was it 2001) Lucas released it on VHS, and Laserdisc only in Japan! He refused to release it on DVD claiming that the complete 6 film saga would come to DVD at the "same time".

So piracy prompted a more immediate response. Here's a screenshot of SW (bare in mind that there were also 1997 Special Edition bootlegs which were a bit higher quality than this one):





Back in the day everyone thought these were fantastic quality - when compared to VHS. There was also one made from the Japanese LD of TPM.

Thus Lucas brought the updated version of TPM to DVD in 2002, and then the Special Editions of SW, ESB and ROTJ in 2004. Now here's where we're gonna have an argument.

Lucas refused to release the originals - although (partly because of the Laserdisc bootlegs as above) he did release them in 2006, but they were mastered from the 1993 telecine D1 tapes, they weren't even converted to anamorphic. Here's a screenshot from that DVD for comparison (NTSC version):



And of course, this post wouldn't be complete without mentioning the fact that the "bootlegs" (as so labelled by starwars.com) are still well appreciated by the fans, eg Wil Wheaton. FYI on the issue of the "Special Editions" that Lucas justified by saying they're "his movies" - no they're not. He directed Star Wars, but he didn't direct Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, ergo they aren't "his" movies to alter.

But, even if you're a fan of the Special Edition, which had a DLP limited screenings on the weekend in Australia and some other countries, you too should worry. When Lucas released the Special Edition DVD in 2004 he had a 2K scan done of each movie (2k is 2048 x 1556 and essentially 1080p resolution). They were never intended for HD release, nor are they even on par with the standard technology these days. The 2014 Robocop (1987) Bluray, for instance was mastered from a 4k scan of the camera negatives. The 2006 and 2007 releases of Blade Runner were mastered from the 35mm camera negatives scanned at 4k resolution, and the 65mm effects shots scanned scanned at 8k resolution (link).

It is unacceptable to release a film to Bluray in 2011 based on a 2004 DVD transfer!

Disney has not had a strong track record with their recent releases - crushing out the blacks in all your favourite animated films including Beauty and the Beast, Fantasia, etc.

So don't hold out much hope for future releases, now going back to the DLP's - what I want to know is anyone who paid for a $25 ticket to see, essentially, exactly the same resolution as is on Bluray (and bittorrent and usenet) - WHY?? I wouldn't give Disney $1 for that. It's 2014 not 2004! Surely if you're going to have a limited cinema run you should at least scan the films at 4k/8k/10k resolution first and master a 4k DLP (4096x2160) which is the current resolution of cinema DLP projectors.

OK, now that rant is over we can discuss what we're all gonna hate, etc, about VII!