Short video showing the sources that i used to recreate the original 1977 version of this scene. The Special Edition droid never looked good IMHO and it’s something i always wanted to remove but didn’t have the skills to do it back when i created the SD version of ANH:R.
This one took a LOT of work and just over 3 weeks to complete. I had to combine the best elements of each source , with each one having its own problems. The 4K77 print scan had a lot of print damage that needed cleaning up by hand just so i could use small sections. The 2011 Blu-Ray had more details in parts than the new 2020 blu-ray edition but suffered with blurry faces of the characters in the background. While the 2020 blu-ray lost a lot of detailing in the brighter areas. So, to get this done, it was weeks of cleaning, stabilising, tracking, rotoscoping, grading and manually lining up and matching each source to overlay on top of each other to get the bets possible details out of the sources.
And, for those that want to see it in higher quality than on youtube, you can download the sample here:
The third and final video for this week, as promised.
This one, having the original 2020 grading played alongside the new grading may through out the perception of the new colour grade in places, especially with skintones. The 2020 shifts from having an almost fully desaturated image with a heavy blue filter (why the hell is endor suddenly blue?) for the space shots shifting to a more green shifted grade with yellow/ orange skin tones in the Hangar. Vaders belt lights are now suddenly blue in many shots in the 2020 edition. Subtle colour tones on the Death Star equator mattes have been lost in this new grade, similar to what happened with the 2004 grade. So after watching it in comparison mode, watch it again while covering the top image and you’ll get a better idea of the grade.
And for anyone wondering why the TIE’s are blue in this , well they were blue in this scene and others in 1983 right up until the horrendous 2004 grade ( yes, they were blue in the ’97 SE release too) where they became more desaturated and a heavy blue tint added to the picture, and the 2020 grade seems to have gone down that route too but this time eliminated all of the blue colouring, except for the matte shot where they part from the shuttle.
There are about 3 fixes in this video this time around. See if you can spot them all.
Your next look at the grading for ROTJ:R. This scene needed a little more work that the rest because , for some strange reason, the grader over-brightened the image in places to to the point where it almost bleached out parts the picture. But , again, This is just the first stage of grading. I won’t be doing the shot for shot grade to fix any problems until this first pass is completed.
The problem with these comparison videos is that the original video can throw out the newly graded one, making the colour look off in places. So the best thing to do is watch it again with the original video covered.
After over a year i have finally finished restoring the 2020 blu-ray, removing as much of the static grain possible without impacting the detail in the picture. There is some minimal static grain in a few places, but for the most part that problem is gone. I have also replaced a few shots throughout with better quality ones taken from the 2011 blu-ray. These shots were so scrubbed of grain thanks to their algorithm that is removed so much detail in the image and made them really soft. But, thanks to a bit of tinkering with grading an image processing, you won’t really be able to tell that 2 different sources have been used.
It wasn’t an easy task, which is why it took so long and so much work. You can’t just apply digital noise reduction to the image to remove the static grain, or just place a layer of grain on top to try to hide it. Using an all over DNR that would be enough to eliminate the static grain would just destroy the detail in the image and give everything a waxy look or worse. So you have to go shot for shot, creating many layers with different levels of DNR or a level with none at all. Then you have to rotoscope every level in a shot so that foreground objects that don’t require a great amount of grain reduction, or any at all, would not be affected. But faces that have bad static grain then need a different technique. Reducing the grain that is visible on the skin while keeping the original level of detail in the facial features. So you have to rotoscope eyes, eyebrows, nose & mouth to keep those elements intact. Its backgrounds that suffer the most in the 2020 blu-ray and that was a bit of a godsend with the depth of field used in this film. so the backgrounds are out of focus and the only real detail that you perceive was caused by the static grain. this is not the case with all shots though, so that’s what took so much work and took so long. Once this was completed and a layer of minimal grain was added, the static grain problem was no more for the most part.
Here’s a sample you can download that shows a before and after comparison that will give a better example of what i mean by all of this:
there are still one or two shots that i’m not 100% happy with, but i can tweak those as i go along. But at least i now have a suitable version to begin this edit.
And thats what i have done this week. I have completed about 5 fixes so far, but at the moment i’m concentrating on the colour grading.
I can’t understand why people rave about the 2020 blu-ray so much. It’s a mess. Not just the static grain and over softened shots, but the grading. Jedi never looked like this. It was vibrant and colourful. Not this flat, almost sepia, desaturated version we got with this release. Its like they heard the complaints with the 2011 releases, about the oversaturated image with the overuse of a blue filter throughout and though ” we better do something about this” but when in the completely opposite direction and muted all the blue tones and desaturated the image far beyond what they should have done. It’s horrible. All the high levels have been muted. There’s no definition in the image at all. The bright levels in objects look flat, especially noticeable in skies with clouds. Mids have been raised to brighten the image but have gone overboard in places. Take the scene when the emperor arrives on the Death Star. They have raised the levels in many of the shots in that scene it’s almost blown out the image. What was the grader who worked on this release thinking? . I’ll be posting a comparison video of this scene next week sometime and you can see just how bad it is. But, for now, here’s a sample image comparing the 2020 official grade with the Revisited one…
So the colour grading stage has begun. I’m using the 4k83 & 97SE versions as a rough guide to the grading. Over the next week or so i will be posting 3 comparison videos showing the new grade, so watch out for those. But here’s a little teaser of the first video i will be posting over the weekend…
Things are progressing really well with ANH:RHD. There’s only about 40 shots left to do. It may sound like a lot of shots but it’s not. Most of the film is complete. The remaining shots are mainly the CG work for the Yavin battle with a few shots here and there in other places. It’s looking very likely that it’s going to be a 2024 release now, hopefully mid year. The one thing that could hold things up is shooting the replacement Sandtroopers. I was hoping to get the shots i need filmed this year but we have had such a shite summer it became impossible. So that’s going to have to wait until next year when hopefully we’ll have some sunny days.
There may be a slightly extended section when the TIE’s appear during the Death Star battle, but it will be quite brief so there won’t be the problem with a long period of no dialogue like in the original ANH:R. The music will also be completely different during that part if i do it. The Imperial march WILL be present during the battle but not in the way it was in the Standard Def version. I’ve been doing some messing about and mixed a couple of tracks together so the music fits in with the style of the music heard during the battle. It works pretty well and, with a bit of tweaking, i think i can get it to work. So the chance of having that small extended battle really hinges on whether this new piece of music works or not.
There’s no way i can do any serious work on the video side of things for ROTJ:R until ANH:RHD is complete and released because ANH has almost filled up all of the new internal drives and most of the external ones i purchased because they are the backups. One 8tb external developed a fault that couldn’t be fixed but luckily i was able to replace that and recover all but one of the files that were on it. So once ANH is done and dusted i can start to empty the internal drives to continue work on ROTJ:R. So, at the moment, i have just enough space to complete ANH:R and render out the master file. Then it’s on to the audio mix.
But i will be starting to build the models etc for ROTJ:R early next year so i’ll keep you updated about those.
And now a few comparions…
I’ve replaced the temples in this shot to eliminate the fact that they use the same ones in the following shot, just from a slightly different angle, but it’s obvious its the same place. I’ve also removed the path that is visible in the original. I’ve also replaced the sky to match the sky in the shot that follows.
I’ve replaced the “dummy” Kenobi and Vader in this shot so it no longer seems like they are just standing there in the same position for ages in this scene. (Plus Vader is actually in a paused posture of having just struck down kenobi as this was actually a failed attempt of having the dummy sliced in half, being suspended on wires floating above the ground . You can see the dummy swinging)
I’ve replaced the X-wings in this shot to give a more natural movement because the right hand side one seems like it is sliding towards the camera instead of flying past.
There will be some differences between the original A New Hope Revisited and tbr 1080p rebuild because i can’t recreate it 100% faithfully but it will be as close as possible. Although the edit will be closer to the “Purist” version i released and not the main version. But i won’t be taking any suggestions for changes/ fixes for the HD version
Planned differences so far between the original and HD version of ANH:R
1 – 2 audio tracks. One containing the prequel music during the Vader/ Obi-Wan duel and the other without
2 – No electrical effect on the torture droid needle
3 – Altered Mos Eisley entrance ( no mirrored stormtroopers) and a return to the original 1977 version of the music
4 – Final shot of Tarkin reinstated
5 – Spinning hyperspace jump starfield reinstated
6 – Removal of the Special Edition CG Dewback and Stormtrooper during the “I don’t like the look of this ” scene, instead just keeping the cg background addition which is less ” in your face”.
7 – Removing Yavin 4 from the SE shot of the X-wings approaching the Death Star. This was an error added for the Special edition that didn’t exist prior. The Special Edition version now shows Yavin 4 in direct line of sight of the Death Star. I replaced all of the background ships with the original ships used in the 1977 version, so it’s now a mixture of original and Special Edition.
8 – No extended Death Star battle sequence. It was something that was more of an experiment in my original version, but it didn’t work, so it was removed when i did the “purist” version.
9 – No extended Death Star reveal. Another sequence i don’t think worked too well in my original. Original timing and music will be restored in the HD version. But the Death Star will still be orbiting the planet, as in the original ANH:R, but it will now be Scarif.
10 – Ponda Baba’s arm with the “furry hand” will be returning to the HD version. The “hoof” hand we see him have earlier in the scene, while standing at the bar, will be replaced instead with the furry hands.
11 – Obi-Wan ignites first during the Vader / Obi-Wan duel. I wasn’t able to fix the jump cut when he ignites originally , but now i have been able to. Plus it was originally meant to mirror the ROTS duel where Obi-Wan ignites first, but i prefer the way it was originally. The whole duel also will have different editing than in my original version of ANH:R
12 – Most, if not all, jump cuts fixed or smoothed
13 – Droids added to the y-wings during the trench run that were originally missing from the models in that shot
14 – The sources used will be a mixture of the 2011 Blu-Ray and the new 2020 blu-ray. Both releases have major problems with them but the over use and bad use of “power windows” in the 2020 version ( really horrendous masking where the section power windows was used stick out like sore thumb and over brightening of areas of a shot that destroys the original cinematography)tipped the scales in favour of the 2011 version being used as the main source. In many way the 2020 version is worse than the 2011 version ever was. Although for ROTJ:R, it will be the 2020 blu-ray used because the 2011 version has more major problems.
15 – Fixed Vaders helmet during the Death Star battle where it has slipped back due to being pressed against the TIE fighter seat
Well what a shit start to the year. facebook has finally given me back posting rights to this page after all he fuss with my phone number . Took them bloody long enough to accept it. I would have been back early last month but i had to go and get bloody covid. Knocked me for six and still suffering with the after effects. Energy levels of a 90 year old now. lol.
Anyway, since Facebook blocked me i decided to stay off the net and concentrate on working on ANH:R. Bloody hell i got so much done. Its surprising just how much longer its taking me to do each shot compared to when i did the same shots in the Standard Def version all those years ago. Working in HD really does slow things down. Rotoscoping especially. Things you could get away with when working in DVD res you just can’t with HD. But it will be worth it in the end.
Work on ROTJ:R, at the moment, has almost halted. I want to get ANH:R HD out of the way first. Working on both at the same time became a bit of a nightmare. Burned me out almost. That doesn’t mean to say that nothing is being done on it though. I’m about to start building some of the models that will hopefully be ready to shoot in the summer ( need the good weather to shoot some outside) . I’ll also be tacking some of the FX shots when i take a break from ANH. But the majority won’t start until ANH:R HD is complete and released
The Star Wars Revisited project is a series of fan-edits of the Star Wars movies, freely available on the internet. It is not for sale, and no one can ever make money on it. It is done by a fan, for the fans. We ask that you own a copy of the official DVDs before downloading.
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