Support us on Patreon: / retroblasting Michael discusses some misconceptions about home video technology and the state of Star Wars on home video. #RetroBlasting #StarWars #4K77
In that regard, Harmy's Despecialized Edition is a masterpiece, made out of love by a real artisan. It really made me feel like the 8 years old boy I was back in 1978, when I discovered STAR WARS for the first time. I didn't know about Team Negative One though. When fans become librarians of the big cultural biomass out there... Poetic and brilliant.
*When fans become librarians of the big cultural biomass out there... Poetic and brilliant.* Yup! And have i every version of these fan restored remastered efforts of the original Star Wars trilogy in some capacity on my hard drives and on DVD/Blu-ray so i'm happy to be an admirer of many of these endeavors! - *Star Wars The Hyperspace Collection* (by OmegaMattman) - *Star Wars: Harmy's Despecialized Edition* - *Star Wars Silver Screen Edition* (by Team Negative One) - *Star Wars 4K77 trilogy* (by Team Negative One) 😎😀
It's a scary shame that the original "Star Wars" is in the Library of Congress, but there is no actual print of it in the Library of Congress, as George Lucas wanted to give them a Special Edition version instead.
Library of Congress did have the original movies. But the versions they had were sent for Copyright reasons in 77, 80 and 83 and thus were unawaible for viewings and research. Also Empire Strikes Back was in bad shape. A later report says that Library of Congress screened The Original Trilogy in 2018 "Star Wars Under The Stars" so it seems they eventually did managed to get George to send them the real versions.
@Mammoth Supremacy 55 Correction, those are the laser disc scans of the pre-special edition rerelease versions. They are midling quality between VHS and DVD, but at least they are letterboxed.
I’ve just watched and listened to a guy talking to camera for 25 minutes about the film used for Star Wars and fan attempts to preserve the original prints - I’m not even a hardcore Star Wars fan! You kept my attention. 👍🏼
@@nicholasdickens2801 Not completely true, George cared about presentation. It was the content IN the presentation that was the issue. He wrongly assumed the fans would be happy to see additional special effects added, just because he wished the special editions were the films he had made in the first place, doesn't mean anyone else does. He should have understood this and had the theatrical versions re-scanned, remastered and released.
I remember when I first watched many old films on digital TV, then HD when it first came out and was surprised by how much better and cleaner they all looked than it did in grainy analogue. Now I know why, and I wouldn't go back.
Harmy Despecialized is the closest thing I’ve yet to see to an “Original Trilogy Theatrical Release,” based on his amount of work on vintage sources, and the level of mastery of his frame by frame corrections. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see Team -1’s version, but if it’s as intensive a project as what Harmy has accomplished, I’m sure it’s a quality original theatrical experience. (And yes, I was in line on May 25th, 1977 and Star Wars has been a huge part of my life since I was 14 years old.)
Very different idea, as Michael mentions. TN1 is actually doing it off original prints, so it's a matter of cleaning those up (to put it too simply). They look beautiful, I gotta get a 4k TV! Whereas Harmy's magnificent work is taking all the different versions available to the public and doing what he can to HD from there. Tiresome work, but what a job he did.
@wannabchomsky By original experience I mean the original theatre experience. Harmy's main source for the despec is the blu-ray which is sourced from the original negative, people weren't watching the original 35mm negative in cinemas in '77 they were watching prints. That's why I said the original experience. Have you tried the recent colour regrade of 4K77 it's way better than the 1st version and gets rid of a lot of the green tint.
Harmy takes the flawed 2011 bluray releases, made from the 1080p scans talked about in this video and painstakingly removes "special edition" stuff. The colors are just as fucked as the bluray. It is an edit of a compressed version of a poor-color edit of an old scan of the original (or as original as they could get since the original negative degraded too far from 1977-1995 to be useful). 4K77 scanned multiple theatrical prints in 4K and restored them. These prints are copies of copies and lose information but are as good as a consumer can acquire. 4K77 is the closest to the original you will see as of this post BUT the level of work is that of a hobbyist. Lots of scratches and dust remain, despite their best efforts. And although the color correction isn't fucked like the bluray, it wasn't done all that much. And it was an overall correction. That's why the desert scenes look so overexposed in 4K77 and there's green fringing in multiple scenes. But at least the details remain. The DNR version turned out too yellow and has more green where it doesn't belong but retains higher contrast in most scenes. The non-DNR version turned out too dull in many scenes but looks better overall. There's another fellow (Mike Verta) who has released demos of his own restoration project. He pays far more detail to colour correction than 4K77 - even getting in touch with people who worked on models and painting props in 1977 - and from his demos, he's also created an excellent process for combining the best of multiple film sources to retain detail. He has no current intent to release but has been attempting to pitch his restoration project to Disney. If they don't go with it, I just hope he has a release plan in place for if he dies.
"You're watching the LASERDISC!" Thank you! You will not believe how many people I've had this argument with in the past few years. Trying to explain video lines of resolution, and film resolution and watching people's eyes glaze over... I'll just send them the link to this video from now on!
I suspect the Laserdisc master tape was at least a digital tape. By 1990, it was common to master Laserdisc using digital video tape. I don' know the source or how it was scanned. It would be interesting to learn about the origin of the LD master.
Michael always seems to have a bit of an edge in these 'unplugged' episodes. Like he's been waiting in line at the DMV for about six hours prior to getting in front of the camera.
I found your channel when you teamed up with WCBS and subbed, but YT never recommended any of your vids. I'm glad I checked out your channel a second time. I like how you're doing videos on what interests you rather than keeping the channel on just one topic. It's inspiring, because I have a lot of random things I would like to say and make videos on, but I don't want to make separate channels for every topic. It's cool to see someone pulling it off.
I want a 4K version on physical media and not just Disney plus. If Disney doesn’t want to preserve the movies on physical media they should let Shout Factory or Criterion do it.
Heard they are putting out 4k discs next year but they might not use the higher data discs to save money like in Endgame fingers crossed they treat it right.
@@Tr0nzoid Disney knows they can make a ton of money by releasing the pre-1997 versions. However Lucas likely had stipulations in his contract that prevent it from happening.
A while ago I took the originals from the DVD, removed the pillar bars and letterboxing, and put it on a new disc so it would fill a 16:9 TV a little better. Not only were they taken from the laser discs, but they kept the 4:3 image formatting. Lucasfilm put no effort at all into them and it’s a tragedy. I checked out the 1080p versions that OT put out years ago, they were pretty good. I wish Disney would put out a set with all 4 major cuts (unaltered, 1997 SE, 2004 DVD, 2011 BD) so everyone can experience all the versions.
Thank GOD for Team Negative 1! When I didn't have a job and I saw the original trilogy on discount, I just couldn't miss it, I gave my last money for it. Then I saw the ending of Return of the Jedi and saw Hayden Christensen's face I could not believe it. I gave my money for... this.
Michael, you are the man. On behalf of cinema fanatics everywhere - THANK YOU. The best way I ever heard the negative vs print issue explained is - the negative is the score, the print is the performance. If the print is bad, that does not inherently mean the film was poorly made, just that the people making the print weren't doing their best.
Thank you. Thank you for reminding everyone that film is a higher resolution than Blu-ray. I constantly have this argument (usually with the same people that hated letterbox). Thanks for bringing the 4K77 version to our attention. I have to go searching. I have to say, you and I are identical in collecting films. I'm constantly in search of the best, clearest version of specific films. I think I have the same versions you do, of Star Wars. Great video.
Thanks for the educational video Michael! I didn't know how 4K worked. It's an eye opener. I have the Harmy despecialized editions and was already mindblown by those. It's awesome team negative 1 is going all the way for 4K Star Wars. It's sad how Lucasfilm refuses to release the original cuts. Long live the fandom!
Star Wars was completely restored by Mike Verta. He works in the industry and showed Lucasfilm his work. It is beyond anything Lucasfilm or Lowry had done or attempted to restore the film. It is an unlikely possibility that they may release his restoration. He has documented some of what he did on his vimeo channel.
Verta's work is stunning. He's actually pulled together a cleaner image from frame stacking of IDENTICAL frames using multiple film prints rather than the lesser method of temporal frame stacking using before and after frames. The other guys are using digital techniques to repair damage and reverse color fading.
@@dasooperb1371 Nope, he's created these best version in the world, but refuses to share it. He's too scared of getting in trouble (even though none of the other fan edit people ever got in trouble).
@@DerekMoore82 it's a shame but I understand his fears. Theyre valid worries. Also, he should get paid for his hard work, but he can't if he just releases it for free somewhere. If he does charge people for copies that's where the Lucas film lawyers come in.
@@dasooperb1371 Since he works in the industry, he doesn't want to make waves. I hope his work sees the light of day, eventually, either as an official release, or as an underground release.
Love these restorations- Take me right back to the cinema - I also really miss my "Lapti Nek" sleazy space funk! - You know the kind of music a sleazy space slug gangster WOULD actually be jamming in his domain! 🤟
Yeah, of all things, the music never needed changes! GL is BS'ing all of us when he says these changes were to fulfill his original vision. If he had that vision for the music, then that's the music he should have originally asked for. (It would have sucked, but whatever.) Same thing with Han shooting only (I refuse to say Han shot first, b/c in the theatrical only he fired and it was great!). If GL wanted both characters to shoot each other, he should have directed it that way on set.
I have the 4K77 Star Wars film in 4K it’s about 80GB. It is definitely the best it’s ever looked. I work in the home theatre industry an I demo a lot of older films on 4K HDR or Dolby vision Blu-ray because they look amazing. For example the original 1979 superman or blade runner an Close in counters of the third kind I use a lot because there shot on film. Basically any film done before the year 2000 was recorded on film and if it gets a 4k remaster you know it’s gonna look amazing on your 4k tv.
That was very informative. Love TN1's releases. They already have reel 1 done of empire. The ANH and ROTJ 4k projects are really special. I really have to get a 4k TV now!
Thank goodness- the title of this video gave me eye twitch. Glad to find you actually knew what you were talking about. The 4KXX restorations are incredible.
I think it was a cinemassacre video where I learned this, but apparently there was some really old movie that was filmed on two cameras simultaneously for some reason, and now somebody is looking into making a 3D version of it using the feed from both cameras. It's not exactly relevant here, but it's neat.
Seriously - thank you for this video. Back when those DVD’s with the laser-disc rips were released I remember some voices screeching how “well, if you wanted the original unaltered trilogy this is what it looks like” and that asking for a good DVD quality version was like crying for a sliver of the special edition without the other alterations. Thanks for doing your part at setting the record straight.
The 6 Channel Audio was also remastered to the sound like the original Dynamic Range and Vinyl like cinematic sound they had in Cinemas Originally. Its apparent on the 4K77 and I’m sure the 4K83 as well. 👏👌
I'm really glad you mentioned lens technology. The highest resolution lens I own produces an image that looks soft to the eye because there's no lens coating, which reduces light scattering. Also, it was common for directors of photography to INTENTIONALLY soften the image for artistic purposes, especially for closeup shots. Lucas himself originally wanted SW to be rather soft looking, almost like a 16mm documentary.
Checked out your referenced video. See no reference to "dubious 4K." Looks fine to me? Can't find anything negative online. I'm looking at two different colour grades of 4K77, DNR and non-DNR and the 2011 bluray as comparison. Detail is there (I mean, as best as you can get with DNR but that has nothing to do with resolution). So what do you mean by "dubious 4K?"
I finally watched 4K77 for the first time today... Before, I'd rely on the Despecialized Editions, but this version feels so much more authentic and genuine even looking like a film from the era it came out in. Needless to say, it will be my go-to now.
Its cool to have both. 4K77 is like owning a copy from the 70’s while the Despecialized is like having the same film on modern-day Blu-ray (without the awful changes)
You’ve said everything magnificently. I’ve been popping in with these guys from time to time. I love seeing the flaws of older films in HD/4K. I love the flicker, the scratches, the ever so slightly misaligned colors of technicolor movies (with three strips of color film stuck together it’s a miracle they didn’t jam up). The upside to Star Wars prints is that they weren’t on nitrate. Not only could they have been decayed but dangerously flammable.
As usual, a great , fun interesting and informative video from RB, I learned quite a bit, the most surprising of all is that there are Special Edition fans!
Great video. And it is real refreshing to listen to someone from my generation and not a millenial bombastic twenty-something talking head that sounds like a neurotic bubblegum commercial like 90% of current youtubers. Thanks for this man. Yes, the guys at TeamNegative1 are heroes.
Excellent, Overview on how these movies have different cuts; not only between the originals vs S.E., But also the different S.E. cuts. I'm glad you mentioned fan preservation and fan-edits of these films.
Just found this on a whim. Great video and explanation. I pretty much knew everything you were saying but always love a good SW home video /versions video. I have 4K77 and 4K83. They are indeed doing the lords work on those prints.
I hope a lot of the people that are looking for the 4K77, 4K83, and the future 4K80 will donate to the team. The funds are for hardware to preserve the copies. Look at the data storage requirement alone. Add modern computers to handle working in 4K and the cost become quite staggering for most people.
Wow, just the other day I asked my brother in law if he knew what the maximum resolution was of a 35mm source material. We both felt it had to exceed 1080p (current standard of HD), but neither of us knew if it hit 2160p (4k). This was very educational and clarified a bunch of things we were discussing. Thanks for another fabulous video.
35mm film is closer to 6K. At higher resolutions you won't get any more "information" out of it. But higher resolution would make it a little easier to clean up the scanned film. Also, 4K is bigger than 2160p. 1 142 784 pixels bigger, to be more precise(16:9 aspect ratio).
It's because of Star Wars that I learned about how movies were filmed using special negative cameras that would make them look HD for those big screens in cinemas, and that was a thing even since earlier in movies history, so that made a lot of sense for me about how older movies were released in HD format.
All the HD and 4k stuff, now I get it thanks to this vid. I ws also fixn to ask about Gregory Peck and then you referanced 12 O' Clock High and answered my question.
I used to love as a kid when any of the OG Star Wars would run on network television. It would blow me away how clear it looked only because I wore my VHS tapes down so much from watching a thousand times lol.
Thank you for this clarification, I already understood this, but I know many people do not and this was very informative. Another point would be, if older film movies are not HD quality, then why does Criterion Collection's older movies look so good? Better than 4K UHD in some cases. Film is UHD quality and this video explains that point very well , thank you.
That was a very well made and concise explanation of digital formatting. Personally, my first vhs tape that I bought 30 years ago, with a tracking error right when Chewie growls after Threepio suggests to let the Wookiee win is my favorite to watch. It is much like my parents old records, it is unique to itself which you’ll never find on any other copy.
question trying to find the laser disc download on original trilogy of the defitnative collection to download with the 1981 title crawl of a new hope becouse while i love the gout dvd rips its missing that crawl that says a new hope were can i download those cuts
I want to add on to this that apart from resolution that we also have to take into account bit rate also. You can have a 4k video look blocky if it has a low bit rate. A good example can be a water fountain scene in a 1080p formatted movie on tv but on bluray you won't see the water get blocky or on bad/low bit rate movie rips. Bluray is high bit rate but movie rips are lower to save storage. So save in high bit rate to preserve in digital if it's a film.
Found the YIFY torrenter. Things shouldn't get blocky unless you have a REALLY bad connection or are torrenting a shitty re-encode - or streaming from a sketchy, illegal website. Streaming might have some quality loss in action as you mentioned but it shouldn't come out as blocks with today's encoding methods at the bitrates used by streaming services on the high-end. At worst it will come out as some localized smearing or sometimes contrast/colour being off. But in the case of the video you are replying to, no he does not have to take into account bitrate. He is talking entirely about equivalent media (DVD, Bluray, 4K77, etc. all of which have enough bitrate for all detail present).
Film is inherently high definition resolution if not effectively infinite. I've never thought something recorded on actual film "wasn't filmed in HD" nor have I heard anyone say that. We don't have the originals in HD because George Lucas didn't want the original versions to be available. He's basically tried to erase them from history in favor of the special editions. I am thankful for the special editions in one way, because I was born a year after Jedi came out, so seeing the special editions in theaters was the only chance I got to see the original trilogy in the theater. And I have to say, that is what they are made for. It was a revelation seeing them like that. The ships fill the giant screen at what feels like almost to real life scale, the engines roar around you. It's amazing. Back then, I even thought the special editions were pretty cool, because I had already watched the movies many times, and the special editions were just more Star Wars. You can watch those movies over and over and see some new background character or detail every time, and these versions added to and refreshed that experience. But I had no idea George Lucas would make it so we wouldn't even have the option to watch the originals. I wish I would have bought those DVDs you showed, but after hearing it was just a laserdisc copy some time ago, I'm not so sad about missing out on them. So it's very upsetting to not be able to watch them. When I got the DVD set and George had changed Boba Fett's voice, that was the last straw for me. It pissed me the hell off and I never watched those DVDs or any version of the special edition ever again. The only way I had before was the remastered VHS tapes, which apparently didn't come in a wide screen? Now I watch the Despecialized Editions. It's good to hear about this work on preserving the original prints to release the films by the fans. Though I don't own a 4K TV or player and won't be able to afford one any time soon, so this probably doesn't help me much. I've also heard that the human eye can't even tell the difference between 4K and HD unless you have a REALLY big screen and are sitting at a certain distance. But don't know if that is true or not. In any case it would be nice to have just 1080 versions so more people could watch the movies, but I understand it's an endeavor by the fans, so they can only do so much, and they are gearing it towards the best resolution possible. My only last hope is that Lucasfilm releases the theatrical versions after episode 9 comes out and they make the inevitable 9 movie box set. Every other milestone has come and gone and still no theatrical releases so that's probably our last best shot at it happening. I thought after Disney bought Lucasfilm and George was no longer in control that they would come out. Then I thought they'd come out for the 40th anniversary of Star Wars and they didn't. Now that I think about it putting them on Disney Plus would have been a good selling point. So now all we have is for after 9 comes out. I REALLY hope it wasn't part of the deal with George that Disney/Lucasfilm can't release the original versions.
Decent 4k displays are not expensive. Even then, Handbrake is free and can resample the 4k versions to 1080p or even 720p. I did a 720o version for streaming as I can't upload fast enough for 4k.
Michael, great video as always. Glad to hear that you are a fan of the Adventures of Robin Hood. My grandmother was friends with Errol Flynn and was present on set while they were filming the film. Supposedly she is setting at the end of the table during the Sherwood Forest feast scene out of camera range but unfortunately I cannot find any photos to back up her claim. Recently I was given a notebook she kept on set with autographs in it. I have it locked up safely but if you are ever in LA, let me know and I will dig it out to show you.
I think we were used to seeing films on tv and video. Now they go back to the original prints and remastered movies we see much more detail. I see some older movies now and they look brand new. The Adventures of Robin Hood was on sky movies hd looked fantastic.
I love that this is being brought up. Great video Michael! Does anyone know if anything like this is being done for The Phantom Menace, since that film has been heavily altered?
I just checked and saw that Harmy's version of the first movie included a 6-track audio from some 70-mm prints. Perhaps its picture is too degraded or something, but you'd think that a 70-mm print could be scanned to give you an 8K source.
Thanks for an amazing video! I, for one, never saw the originals in the cinemas, as we were too poor, so my first experience was ESB on a CBS Fox All Time Greats VHS...tinny audio, bland colours...the works. For nostalgia, I still define the audio, and turn the bass off whilst watching the 2006 DVD. Still, I want to watch these films as close to the original vision, so thanks for raising Team Negative One to me!
I'm one of those people who, very much, want to see that original '77 theatrical release made available to buy, but I also enjoy the Updated versions. I want to original simply for my own personal nostalgia. I'm 49 year old. When I was 6(almost 7), my parents took me to the local movie theater, a 100+ year old theater, converted into a Movie theater after Vaudeville and stage performances had died away, and still remember vividly the initial reaction in the room when they ships came racing in across the top of the screen. I like and appreciate the majority of the "updates" made by Mr Lucas as time went on. He made improvements to get it closer to what he originally envisioned. I can't fault the creator for improving what they created. It would be like someone castigating Ford for changing the 2020 Mustang because it isn't like the 1964 1/2 model year production.
Thank you Michael for ONCE AGAIN making a video that explains it all! Shout out to the fans that are REALLY trying to do a TRUE HD version of the original cut! And your opinion is exactly that! YOUR OPINION! Star Wars like all cinematic works is art and art is objective! Everyone has a different way of seeing it in some parts in particular and/or as a whole! Keep up the wonderful work and I’m looking forward to the next video! 🤘🏻
I just watched Project 4K77 and 4K83 and they are so damn beautiful!! Mad respect to TeamNegative1 for doing this. Also watched the Grindhouse Empire version and thought that was beautiful as well with all of the imperfections. Look forward to 4K80 in the near future.
can some one make a video of how to download these team negative one scans I have the depsclized versions but would love to see the team negative one verzions of the films
I have a copy of 4k77 and loved it. Just ordered 4k83 copy of Jedi. I'd like an HD version with polished effects ( like Obi Wan's lightsaber not being a white stick) but none of the extra scenes or CGI creatures. Is that the Despecialized version?
Is there a source that will provide actual discs to view of the 4k77 80 and 83 versions? Versus having to download them on your own computer and hope your computer has the capability to do so? Is there a legitimate service?
I remember when they released the DVD with the theatrical cut bonus disc and was so happy. Then I realised they half-assed it and just dumped the laserdisc version on to a DVD and was sad.
@bigevilworldwide1 I wouldn't doubt that in the least. I was under the impression they didn't necessarily need the negatives, and could scan the actual prints though. So if they could find some reels of the original theatrical release preserved in good enough condition we have some kind of chance to get a 4k transfer. Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno. I watched a thing about a Bond film where they had to go through this process.
