Definitely.

McQuarrie, Johnston and Rodis-Jamero all produced Ewok designs with and without pupils in the eyes. IMO, the designs without pupils win hands down, and that seems to be what they went with for the finished film - it is the one thing that helped prevent them from looking pure, 100%, unadulterated cartoon teddy bear.

Except a Star Wars film is never finished, is it?

Hey, I thought of another thing to check - did they ever get around to fixing the windows in cloud city? The massive windows with the elevator as the gang is being led into the trap which are there, gone, and there again? The ones Lucas was saying in 2004 "Huh, we'll have to fix that someday.".

Still not buying (to reinterate, "fuck this set"), just curious after the stupid shit that's been revealed as changed if they got around to something that actually could have used a fix.

clearly a someday that hasnt happened yet! still there

People don't freak out about the black crush etc. Your viewing a MKV on a computer SCREEN. NOT THE ORIGINAL INTENDED VIEWING METHOD. If your not using the proper setup on a mkv it can look like crap.

Before you say, but wait I use my plasma as a monitor for my computer or htpc. The same can occur. PC Output != Standard. For this reason alone I wait for the ISO's and load them up to disc and try on the media equipment to gauge my thoughts. MKV's are crap for color and black crush. These are COMPRESSED releases. Anything can happen in this process.

Keep your panties on and wait for ISO or Real Discs in the mail to gauge color and compression.

ok, i just read there's a new musical number with the ewoks. true or false?

Wow. Just...wow. What the fuck exactly were they doing for the last three years? The transfers blow, the colours are still screwed up, the extras, apart from deleted scenes, are questionable, the major addition (Yoda in TPM) was done roughly eight years ago, and they didn't fix things which were identified going on ten years ago BY LUCAS as needing attention.

But we did get Ewok irises and more Vader "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"s. Have I mentioned "fuck this set"? I have? Oh, well, let me just restate in n o uncertain terms that this set can go fornicate itself. I'll wait for Harmy to have a crack at the Blu source material.

Agreed. Which is why I will wait for my set to arrive in the mail from Amazon.

We can only hope so, and I'm hoping for a brass pole to be involved. It's the only way we as an audience could really get a feel for the depth of the Ewok culture, and it'll be funny too! Oh, and hey, BV, you wouldn't happen to be Angel over on OT, now would you

I agree with this. The encode is pretty shitty, so the source has potential to be a much much better (and very likely it is). Only thing we can be sure is that this encode has very crushed black. To judge better I'm going to wait my discs to arrive.

Here is a small audioclip of the Krayyt Dragon yell: KrayytDragon.mp3

Guys, when have you ever seen an encode from 1080p to 720p change the colourspace or contrast ratio? I hate to pee on your parade, but I think you're seriously deluding yourselves if you think that this is going to be massively different from the final product. Now, if you still want the set, that's different, but I think you're setting yourselves up for a major dissapointment there.

Wow the Krayyt Dragon yell sounds like shit. I don't know why Lucas even changed it, the original was fine.

Agreed! I'm a total A/V snob

Just got the 720p to keep me going and so I could check for new stuff, quality wise its quite bad. I have some 1080 hdtv hybrids that look better. Presuming its the way it was encoded and the fact its only 720p as iIusually have BLUs or 1080p and watch it on a 120" screen.

Yeah, but this is scene encode. Those are always crappy when compared to trackers' internal encodes. I wouldn't be too suprised if color or/and contrast would be wrong here.

holy shit! Obi is doing a rebel yell now! we're being trolled here. those Vietnamese gooks got ahold of the source files and are playing a big trick on everyone. This is incredulous!

and it's not the colors most are complaining about. it's the changes or the LACK of changes in areas that have pissed the nerds off. encoding isn't going to change clear cockpits or windows disappearing or rebel yells being added or OMG eyeballs on EWOKS!

It really was. This one, however, sounds like a little old woman reacting to an extremely filthy joke, while the Bennings/Thing from John Carpenter's The Thing is being torched in the background.

"The original was fine" holds true for every possible scenario. There were no jump cuts needed fixing; no extra troops patroling Tatooine, floating spy droids, Dia-Noga eyelids, Ewok pupils, Bespin windows, CGI Jabba addtions needed; no matching Luke's ANH saber to the later movies or even "fixing" Vader's glow-less saber as the blast doors close ever NEEDED.

Because the original was fine as it was, and that is why they became the most successful/popular films of a generation. These changes are needed no more or less than going back and CGI-ing Daniel Craig's head onto every previous Bond movie is needed. Lucas is entitled to to whatever the hell he wants with his movies of course - but, come on, this is turning into a farce now...

And here is the new "No! Nooooo!" from the end of the ROTJ: NooooNoooo.mp3

I haven't laughed so hard the entire month as when hearing this. It's incredible.

Holy shit! Please tell me this is a wind-up...

Well, all I can say is "....nnnnoo.....NNNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!!"


Sounds like RotS-era JEJ to me, probably an unused take from the end of the film. That was....awful, who thought that was neccessary?
Oh, and would someone mind putting the Krayt sound up somewhere else? That Bayfiles site doesn't like my machine and always gives me a low-memory error when I try to enjoy the beauty of the new mix.

it doesn't even sound like JEJ-

yet still possible

Regarding the color timing for this rip. Why not those of you who are complaining, just fucking wait and get your discs on September 16th and view it how it was meant to be viewed? Then make up your own damn minds that way.

Three of the most powerful moments in the saga - for me at least - involve Vader acting without saying a single word.

The first is as the Falcon blasts into hyperspace at the end of TESB, and Vader pauses for a moment before turning and striding away, so preoccupied he can't even be bothered to choke any of his crew to death.

The next is when Luke surrenders on Endor. After Luke is led away, that moment of Vader contemplating his own thoughts at the balcony echos the earlier moment from TESB, and reinforces for the audience, despite everything he says to the contrary, the existence of the inner conflict Luke senses.

And finally, that moment where he stands there looking from his master to his son, before finally acting upon the emotions he has been feeling - it needs no words. Really, this is truly amazing. Whatever next? I had barely recovered from the Krayyt Dragon.

Mirrors:

Krayyt Dragon
Noo! Nooo!

The first "No!" doesn't even blend in with the rest of the sound mix. It's just dumped in there over everything else.

I don't hate this change at the moment. At least the tone and timing of the Noes seems fitting.

Still, the KraytDragon made me doubt if this all is for real or someone's joke.

Evening all - haven't posted on here for years but lurked for the longest of times...

Just thought I'd come out of hibernation and say...



Holy fucking Christ - what the fuck was that?!

Didn't we go through this 7 years ago here, or rather, "didn't we just leave this party"? This is a bizarre conviction that you are laboring with, Raveers. I mean, you have to be working pretty hard to convince yourself that it'll all be different on the discs. You should know what a shitty encode looks like, and it has nothing to do with the kind of crappy colour and contrast being reported here.

You'll get artifacts and softer picture, but come on how can you sit there are convince yourself that the release group intentionally fucked with the colourspace? Because that's the only way you would be seeing what you're seeing now, if someone went out of their way to screw with it so that it just happened to match the DVDs and the HDTV rips.

So you're theory is "despite everything we know so far about the shit quality in this package, just buy it, THEN be disappointed when it's exactly what we already knew it was"? Knock yourself out.

Thank you for the Krayyt mirror, Duke, but...oh my god. Oh my god. OH.MY.GOD!!!!! How do I make that my sig, becuase I must have it; I want it to play everytime I post something, anywhere. Holy shit I'm laughing so hard I can't see through the tears.

Wow...people bitching about rips to a compressed file format. Whodathunk.

I'm beginning to wonder if this is evidence of George losing his mind. He's arguing with himself over what a fictional creature sounds like over the span of 35 years!


1977- "alright Alec, just act crazy and yell something as you come over the hill. Wave your arms real scary like. It'll be great."

1997- "you know, I never really liked that sound Alec made. Get Ben Burtt on the phone. Yeah, Ben, that sound of the Kraytt dragon that ObiWan makes, it never was quite right. It should have been more scary. It's been bothering me every time I think about that scene. That's not what a Kraytt dragon sounds like. It should have more presence. See if you can crank up the bass and fiddle with the effects. Oh, here's $300k, that'll do it right? all right. that sounds great. let me just stamp my approval on that and we're ready for the DVD's!"


2011- "no, no, NO! goddammit! It should have more of an reverb echo in the middle. More like a, mmrrrraaaouu, and less kaaarrroo. Jesus, SHIT! Don't you know what this thing is suppose to sound like?? FUCK! It's a Kraytt dragon! I mean shit! It's not like it wasn't in any other of my movies! Ok, here, let me explain it one more time. He should yell "whooooaaah ahhhhhh" like he's falling off a cliff. Stretch it out real good in the middle. Yeah. Add some pulsations through all the channels. I want to feel that kraytt dragon scream."

For the umpteenth time, just becuase it's a compressed format (and at 19gigs a pop, it's not like we're talking about dropping down to 320x240 gifs), doesn't explain why the rips look (colour and contrast-wise) pretty much identical to the DVD and HDTV version, just with a gamma boost (which incidentally is why we're noticing the grain more) and over-correction against the blue shifted DVDs, to give the OT films a pretty new yellow/magenta shift.

I'm trying to find an explanation for that...mmmm.hhhmmmm....wait, I've...I've thing I've got it! LFL PRETTY MUCH IS PRESENTING THE SAME SHITTY TRANSFER THEY HAVE PREVIOUSLY.

See, no bizarre theories about how reduction of bitrate leadfs to a massive increase in contrast which happens to match previous sub-par releases and shift in colour required! It's so easy even you could do it! Buy the box set if you want, but don't whine about it when it turns out the colour is exactly the fucking same as the current rips, KTHANXBY.

The Blu-Rays they showed in San Francisco two weeks ago weren't the same transfer.

Han vs. Greedo - Greedo still shoots first:

How do I explain this to you? YES THEY WERE. Lucasfilm fucking SAID they were! For the OT films, which, honestly is all I care about getting on Blu at this point, the source is the same as for the 2004 DVDs - the same outdated 2K scans. No one (except perhaps youÉ) including the authors is saying otherwise. These are the same transfers, with some work done on top of them.

Now, I was really hoping that the fact that LFL presented some nice fixes in press releases over the last few months meant that they were actually going to present a decent clean up of the mess which currently exists. Trust me, no one was more hopefull than I was. I was so SURE that because they were showing some really nice quality fixes and what looked like better colour, and that theyèd take THREE YEARS to do this set, that weèd have something really nice.

Then even skeptical reviewers like Bill Hunt started saying ÈHey, these don't look bad, you know!È and I was over the moon. However youère going to have to face the fact that weève now pretty much got the final product for view, and itès shit. Surpirse surpirse, fixes have been applied in a half-assed way, thereès new bewildering stupid shit slapped on top of the movies, and the vast majority of problems have been carried through from the previous releases.

I just have to laugh. I mean - didn't everyone expect this in the back of their minds? I sure did.

I will never see a great Star Wars set on any format.

Actually there is a story involving a LFL copy room janitor.

Let me guess - he's the guy whose been posing as George Lucas the last 20 years? It would explain a lot.

The "noooos" are unnecessary, but I actually like the new dragon sound.

At this juncture, I should point out that I have recently bought a Blu-Ray player simply to justify purchasing this box set. And I will still buy it, for the deleted scenes, and for a handful of the other extras, and just to own it I guess - I've got all the other releases.

But I'm a more than a tad disappointed... more by the kind of utterly misplaced "oh, we've made a few other little changes here and there, you'll have to wait and see - wink wink" attitude from those press screenings. Like - you drew pupils on Wicket; made Ben's scream even worse than ever; and took Vader's "Noooooooooooo!" from ROTS (something that has been universally ridiculed across the entire Internet) and added it to the climax of the whole saga? You have got to be kidding.

I can't think of three things less likely to make fans of these movies feel utterly bewildered with LucsFilm's intentions. I'm not angry with LucasFilm, I'm not boycotting these releases or calling for Lucas' head or anything like that etc etc. I'm just, to be honest, confused as to what the hell LucasFilm think they are actually trying to achieve now.

Copy machines are useful for copying printed paper like outlines and scripts.

Yes, and water is wet. What is your point?

I liked the Ewok's eyes change. I only wished they had fixed more urgent issues like the lightsabers.

For those have been around for the past decade or so know that a few of us get stuff early - like images, scripts, audio and video - all of which can be replicated by employees who feel they aren't getting paid enough to care. I also know that Lucasfilm employees like to browse sites like this and even to find out info.

Because they don't know whats going on anymore than the rest of us.

As a prequel fan and regular defender of Lucas...

WTF??? I'm hoping deep down this is all some joke but I know it's not.

oh, so they're compartmentalized now? and the janitor story would make a great geek movie. disgruntled janitor gets back at ILM by stealing script of Phantom Menace and posting it to geek website. Only to be thwarted by the dreaded Cease and Desist order.

That is what actually happened.

This and this.

And for the last time they look the same as the HDTV broadcasts. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.....oh to hell with it. You can just buy me a pint in two weeks when the discs are out and those problems turn out not to be due to some magical compression which operates like no other compression ever has, K?

You know the only hope I'm keeping a glimmer alive for is that these are deliberate releases by LFL to either A)Waste downloaders' time and bandwidth and/or B)track IP addresses in preparation for a court case. Far fetched, but Rifftrax did the same thing with a file that started out normal, but then by about 2-3 minutes in turned into the guys saying they weren't going to do the track if people were going to pirate.

Then it degenerates into nothing but cows mooing for an hour and a half. Awesome anti-piracy attempt. Utter (or "udder"...HA!) failure, but still awesome.

a MKV is just a container, it can contain a video file that is a 1:1 copy of the .m2st file-

yes, these particular mkv's are compressed- but the amount of black crush would be minimal- the full ISO's will look better but not enough that anyone will be amazed at a difference-

I am not obtaining these but when I make MKV remux backups of my own blu-rays, i watch them on my pioneer kuro with a popcornhour and a computer screen is never a factor-

After viewing the initial 720p and 480p rips there are serious compression issues which affects the screen resolution.

The encoding does not explain why there are queer changes to the films such as Krayt Dragon Yell, Jedi Noooo, and Ewok CG-Eyes: Especially when there are what many consider effects defects present such as Falcon saber and Solo vs Greedo - restoring that scene back would have sold this set alone.