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Those title cards were optically printed into the image and cut into the original negative as a dupe element (and probably needed additional subtitles for some markets) but the general subtitles for the movie would have been done in a later stage of printing so they could be in whatever language was needed for the country the film was being released in, so they would be missing in a 4K scan of the original negative and it would not look as good if those shots were a scan of a later generation that had the subtitles (plus you'd be stuck with English or whatever they picked to scan).

 

Oh, I didn´t know that. That makes sense to me.

I thought those English subtitles only come together with the movie, and can´t be "separated". That means, there is the original negative withouth the subtitles, just the picture, and they added those titles with optical printing. But how can those subtitles be on the old DVD? Does that mean, for the DVD they did not use the original negatives? And why are the "original subtitles" there in other scenes (like the one with the phonograph cylinder)? Shouldn´t they be gone on the original negative too?

Now I have to look how optical printing works, maybe I´ll find a good page that explains that :)

 

 

So there is no choice but to use electronic subtitles if you want to release this in various countries.

But still: forced subtitles? I mean, I know that movie nearly word by word, I want to be able to turn those white subtitles off. They are distracting for me and doesn´t fit into the beautiful images :(

 

 

Greetings,

Sandra

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Usually a video transfer is made from a color-timed IP struck from the original negative, scanning the original negative is less common since it takes more work in color-correction (especially if the negative was A-B roll and not single-strand). Negatives are considered to be precious archived originals so usually are not touched unless for digital restoration or long-term digital archiving, not for a typical telecine transfer in HD for home video or broadcast (I'm talking about movies finished to film in the pre-D.I. days). However there are exceptions, sometimes the owner of the negative will decide to telecine or scan it just for home video. Early transfers of "Seven" were from low-con prints and/or I.P.'s but at some point, it was transferred from the original negative for a high-end blu-ray release. Usually the studios try to combine digital archiving and restoration with a new home video release, but that can often delay the release for years because of the limited yearly budgets the distributor has for restoration, so some titles wait years to be tackled, so if they want a video version sooner, they have to telecine a vaulted intermediate copy.

 

Interpositives are one generation removed from the original negative and contain all of the exposure information of the negative (i.e. they are very low in contrast) but there will always be a mild generational loss -- but they are much better than a projection-contrast print. For some old 3-strip Technicolor titles, some of which have fallen into public domain, you basically just see these mediocre video transfers out there because all they have are the old prints to work from, and the original three b&w negatives (or dupe copies) are much more expensive to work with to recombine into color, plus if they exist at all and haven't degraded, they are owned by some other company.

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Yes, subtitles should always have the option to be turned off but that isn't always the case. The TV show I did called "Smash" only came out in blu-ray in France and the English singing has French subtitles on permanently even though you can turn off the subtitles for the dialogue scenes.

 

When I watched the Criterion blu-ray of Orson Welles' "Chimes at Midnight" I had the opposite problem -- I had trouble following the Shakespearean dialogue so wanted to turn on the English subtitles, except that there are none. Which if I were deaf and needed them, I would have been even more annoyed.

 

I am losing some ability to hear high-frequencies -- so I find that some heavily-accented dialogue sounds muddled to my ears...

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This is very interesting. I was watching the Minority Report and Schindler's List blu rays and was surprised to see scenes go between relatively grainy and completely clean and waxy, almost as though the grainiest shots were completely degrained and the rest left untouched. Maybe they were. Really ugly.

 

I tried some high quality DNR on a scene in an old Italian cult feature shot on 16mm or 35mm during the 70s maybe and it was a pro res master of the feature from a good source. Worked pretty well but when you had flame or particles they were mooshed just as you saw in the first post here.

 

I've actually used dust and scratches DNR techniques to clean up dust from a set since.

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This is very interesting. I was watching the Minority Report and Schindler's List blu rays and was surprised to see scenes go between relatively grainy and completely clean and waxy, almost as though the grainiest shots were completely degrained and the rest left untouched. Maybe they were. Really ugly.

 

I tried some high quality DNR on a scene in an old Italian cult feature shot on 16mm or 35mm during the 70s maybe and it was a pro res master of the feature from a good source. Worked pretty well but when you had flame or particles they were mooshed just as you saw in the first post here.

 

I've actually used dust and scratches DNR techniques to clean up dust from a set since.

 

Interesting fact about the Minority Report Blu Ray- it's lacking the bleach bypass look of the film as it was in cinemas.

I'm not exactly sure what happened to it, but it looks more like a normal movie on Blu Ray.

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This is very interesting. I was watching the Minority Report and Schindler's List blu rays and was surprised to see scenes go between relatively grainy and completely clean and waxy, almost as though the grainiest shots were completely degrained and the rest left untouched. Maybe they were. Really ugly.

 

I tried some high quality DNR on a scene in an old Italian cult feature shot on 16mm or 35mm during the 70s maybe and it was a pro res master of the feature from a good source. Worked pretty well but when you had flame or particles they were mooshed just as you saw in the first post here.

 

I've actually used dust and scratches DNR techniques to clean up dust from a set since.

 

I think the main problem is, that they use DNR to remove the GRAIN, because they think, it doesn´t look "modern" enough, or grain is some dirt. I absolutely don´t have a problem with removing dirt; for example, they did a wonderful job for the Indiana Jones movies on DVD, cleaned frame by frame, but they didn´t use DNR.

When you remove the grain, you lost picture information, so the DNR-program has to "blur" it in order to fill the missing spots. That´s why so many details are lost on those Blu-rays.

 

Speaking of Indiana Jones: "IJ and the Temple of Doom" and "IJ and the Last Crusade" are good on Blu-ray, but I hesitate to buy "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on BD, because I´m not sure if they changed the color. Look at these examples, a comparison between the old DVD and the BD:

 

post-72805-0-94953200-1498020123_thumb.jpg post-72805-0-73147300-1498020136_thumb.jpg

 

The Blu-ray looks too bright and artificial to me. Just some torches with small fire, and so much light? The DVD looks better to me.

 

post-72805-0-20948800-1498020146_thumb.jpg post-72805-0-19272600-1498020430_thumb.jpg

 

In this case I´m not sure too which one is correct. Indy is in a dark cave, the only light comes from a torch, but which one is correct?

 

post-72805-0-76289500-1498020164_thumb.jpg post-72805-0-85621000-1498020174_thumb.jpg

 

The BD-version looks too bright for me, and there are some details missing. Also, notice that the frame is smaller on both sides. (And notice the great picture quality on the DVD! That´s what you get when you only put the movie on the disc in order to minimize the compression. Of course you see the compression on the big screen and in close ups, but the IJ-DVDs are one of the best I know.

 

The strange thing is, that the Blu-rays for part 2 and 3 are identical with the DVDs, no different colors.

 

 

 

Greetings,

Sandra

Edited by Sandra Merkatz
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Interesting fact about the Minority Report Blu Ray- it's lacking the bleach bypass look of the film as it was in cinemas.

I'm not exactly sure what happened to it, but it looks more like a normal movie on Blu Ray.

 

 

Very weird. Interesting. If I remember it was ENR? The blu ray still looked really stylized to me, but I haven't seen it on film since its release so I have no point of comparison. Both it and War of the Worlds looked good to me on despite the problems. The film grain and halation added texture, and I liked that the camera moves weren't stabilized. Space had physicality. Fincher removes that for a reason, and I get it, but usually those camera bumps work. Most contemporary directors are afraid of even the good and physical flaws (not so with Spielberg and Lynch), but I forgive Fincher because he's intentionally trying to dehumanize the camera. (But that's another story.) A.I. looked good on blu ray, too, and seemed to be a pretty faithful transfer. It's one of my favorite films so I was glad that it was. Great compositing, too. Spielberg really knew how to use CGI as though it were practical, letting it play in the medium shot. But he also used puppets unusually well. Such a great director.

 

 

 

I think the main problem is, that they use DNR to remove the GRAIN, because they think, it doesn´t look "modern" enough, or grain is some dirt. I absolutely don´t have a problem with removing dirt; for example, they did a wonderful job for the Indiana Jones movies on DVD, cleaned frame by frame, but they didn´t use DNR.

When you remove the grain, you lost picture information, so the DNR-program has to "blur" it in order to fill the missing spots. That´s why so many details are lost on those Blu-rays.

 

Speaking of Indiana Jones: "IJ and the Temple of Doom" and "IJ and the Last Crusade" are good on Blu-ray, but I hesitate to buy "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on BD, because I´m not sure if they changed the color. Look at these examples, a comparison between the old DVD and the BD:

 

attachicon.gifIJ dvd.jpg attachicon.gifIJ bd.jpg

 

The Blu-ray looks too bright and artificial to me. Just some torches with small fire, and so much light? The DVD looks better to me.

 

attachicon.gifIJ dvd 2.jpg attachicon.gifIJ BD 2.jpg

 

In this case I´m not sure too which one is correct. Indy is in a dark cave, the only light comes from a torch, but which one is correct?

 

attachicon.gifIJ dvd 3.jpg attachicon.gifIJ BD 3.jpg

 

The BD-version looks too bright for me, and there are some details missing. Also, notice that the frame is smaller on both sides. (And notice the great picture quality on the DVD! That´s what you get when you only put the movie on the disc in order to minimize the compression. Of course you see the compression on the big screen and in close ups, but the IJ-DVDs are one of the best I know.

 

The strange thing is, that the Blu-rays for part 2 and 3 are identical with the DVDs, no different colors.

 

 

 

Greetings,

Sandra

 

 

This is troubling. Raiders is one of my favorite films (no surprise by now lol) and I remember seeing it on 35mm about a decade ago and really loving it. The over-the-top showy coverage that Kael detested felt inventive in context and in a way seeing it helped me understand Michael Bay's considerable visual talent and the often unfair vitriol critics aim at him (even when his stories are terrible, his eye is good; but Indy also reveals a great eye and a fantastic story to which that eye is keenly attentive). I own the blu ray but haven't watched it. I plan to soon, but I run my projector in "bright mode" which isn't color corrected in the first place (my retroreflective screen was too heavy to ship across country when I moved so I need to use bright mode to compensate) so I won't be able to speak to the color.

 

Fwiw, noise is also the most difficult thing to properly compress and encode so that's another possibility that it was removed to salvage the image that's there as best possible. But in that case, at least let a little bleed through and match the grain rather than destroying it. When I denoise noisy footage I always try to match the noise level to "normal" rather than clean. Some of the modern algorithms are so good that you can improve some footage, but film grain seems to denoise worse than digital noise, which is more predictable in structure. I saw Keanu (shot on Alexa) at the Arclight and it was wonderfully projected, but I noticed that the night exteriors were denoised completely and looked waxy, whereas the rest looked like normal Alexa footage with a bit of nicely textured digital noise (I like the Alexa as digital cameras go). So I sort of suspect that this bullshit is common practice even in theatrical release.

 

Nevertheless I don't think it's worth getting too worked up about. Yes, there's apathy being shown toward films we care about, but these unfortunate changes only get to us if we let them and are only major in context. Butchering the image is nothing new. I've seen 16mm 4x3 prints of scope Preminger movies that were pan-and-scanned many decades ago and were far more unwatchable than the DNR footage I complain about today. The Minority Report blu ray still offered me a great movie, weird DNR and all. But it still makes me want to spend more time going to the New Bev even if I moved out of Koreatown. :) I am a film snob. A big one. Even if I no longer shoot it.

 

Still, it's a real shame. But denoised Indy is still way better than native 3D 48fps Hobbit (not trying to be mean, I think Peter Jackson has talent it's more the trend toward writing by committee and directing in post that bugs me).

 

Edit: Sandra, have you read Bazin?

Edited by M Joel W
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What do you mean by this?

 

 

The tendency to cover scenes in blockbusters with dozens of cameras rather than one, but without any specific intent behind any of their placement and motion. And then finding the meaning and emotion of the scene in the edit instead of deciding on the intent in the storyboards. And the partial set approach that lets the look be discovered in post as well. None of this is bad by design (Bay, whom I like as a director very much in a few ways, has always taken an intuitive approach with a lot of coverage; so might Ridley Scott; I even liked Avatar a lot and it went full on digital), but even on the lower budget stuff I work on so many decisions are made in post because they can be. Again, it's fine. Why not if you can? It is a very cool thing to be able to do, and can be very useful and even necessary, but when it's taken to its logical conclusion on features with unlimited resources but very specific commercial dictums, that approach that allows you to "direct" after the fact, without any specific intent or vision on set, can be stifling. And like... the director's vision on set is the point of directing.

 

So it betrays that.

 

I talked with a super A list director about his experience going from TV to nine-figure blockbuster and he said that the shooting schedule felt similarly crazy but he (or really, his producers) had infinite control in post to change every little thing after. Not the answer I expected or wanted, but we do romanticize these things.

 

I suppose what I mean is I dislike the tendency of delaying the decisions about the structural and narrative and emotional aspects of the scene from the set to the editing room. Intent should be a malleable through line, not something deferred to the last minute. And even the tendency to over-do it with reshoots, which are not bad by design but can be abused, is trouble. (Liman uses reshoots well. Raimi, too. They aren't bad. CGI isn't bad. It's the abuses and failures in intent that such technique allow for that are bad.) Hobbit was shot on green screen stages with a few master angles and then massive multi-cam coverage, like every contemporary blockbuster.

 

That can be a problem. In that case I think it's probably mostly tied back to the producers' financial need to release the film in time. I can't blame them.

 

But it can be a problem.

Edited by M Joel W
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I sound forgiving of this stuff, but I'm not. It really upsets me. But I'm glad to have what I can get.

 

I just don´t buy Blu-rays that destroy the picture, and I don´t buy them when I have doubts whether the picture is correct or not. And: I don´t want to give the companies my money for what they have done, and support them.

 

What´s up with the famous movie "La Strada"? Look at the difference between the UK and the JP- version.

 

post-72805-0-72223100-1498028758_thumb.jpg post-72805-0-97017200-1498028767_thumb.jpg

 

Maybe the director wanted it to be so dark, to have that intimacy, that mood, and the other BD is too bright.

 

Or he wanted it to be bright, and the other BD is too dark and sets the wrong mood. As long as I don´t know which one is right (or if neither of them is right) I wouldn´t buy it.

 

Who or what is "Bazin"?

 

 

Greetings,

Sandra

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I just don´t buy Blu-rays that destroy the picture, and I don´t buy them when I have doubts whether the picture is correct or not. And: I don´t want to give the companies my money for what they have done, and support them.

 

What´s up with the famous movie "La Strada"? Look at the difference between the UK and the JP- version.

 

attachicon.gifstrada 1.jpg attachicon.gifstrada 2.jpg

 

Maybe the director wanted it to be so dark, to have that intimacy, that mood, and the other BD is too bright.

 

Or he wanted it to be bright, and the other BD is too dark and sets the wrong mood. As long as I don´t know which one is right (or if neither of them is right) I wouldn´t buy it.

 

Who or what is "Bazin"?

 

 

Greetings,

Sandra

 

 

I hear you. I'm more of a moral relativist but I am very sympathetic to what you write.

 

It's even worse with music. Most contemporary remasters are worse than the originals. They're much louder so they can compete with today's over-compressed music (read up on the loudness wars if you're curious), but as a result they lack dynamic range and impact. I have a very precious pair of hi-fi electrostatic headphones I love to listen to at night. With them, old music, recorded and mastered properly, sounds incredible. I can't imagine anything much better. But newer music sounds bad. Worse than with cheap earbuds. Newer remasters of old music sound pretty bad, too. It's a real shame that everything is now catered to the lowest common denominator, including image and sound quality. Particularly when we have the technology that could allow it to be so good.

 

So I am very sympathetic to your cause. Clearly blu rays suffer the same fate as music and that fate is detrimental to both, in the case of film betraying the cinematographer's and director's intent in the same way I argue that modern shooting techniques tend to defer intent close to the edit. This is definitely not good.

 

But I don't watch that much film lately and I'm glad to see the movies I like on blu ray, and the extra resolution, digital warts and all. As David Lynch says, focus on the donut and not the hole. :) But it's hard. The hole (DNR and digital compression and careless color correction and even menus and preroll that show the studio only has a financial stake and not an emotional one in the film) is vast and deep.

 

Bazin is a film critic and theorist who drew on Claude Lévi-Strauss' (not the jean manufacturer) ideas on semiotics. He was the father of the French New Wave and, in my opinion, a genius. He understood things about the ontology or simply the unique purpose and ability of film that few remember. I believe he would have hated CGI and certainly digital, whereas I simply see CGI and digital as ontologically distinct media that only truly suffer when they attempt to compete with the real thing. So I don't agree with everything he wrote, but I find his writing to be brilliant and enthusiastic and inspired. Far more than I can say of my own. :)

 

https://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-author=Andre+Bazin&search-alias=books&text=Andre+Bazin&sort=relevancerank

Edited by M Joel W
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The tendency to cover scenes in blockbusters with dozens of cameras rather than one, but without any specific intent behind any of their placement and motion. And then finding the meaning and emotion of the scene in the edit instead of deciding on the intent in the storyboards. And the partial set approach that lets the look be discovered in post as well. None of this is bad by design (Bay, whom I like as a director very much in a few ways, has always taken an intuitive approach with a lot of coverage; so might Ridley Scott; I even liked Avatar a lot and it went full on digital), but even on the lower budget stuff I work on so many decisions are made in post because they can be. Again, it's fine. Why not if you can? It is a very cool thing to be able to do, and can be very useful and even necessary, but when it's taken to its logical conclusion on features with unlimited resources but very specific commercial dictums, that approach that allows you to "direct" after the fact, without any specific intent or vision on set, can be stifling. And like... the director's vision on set is the point of directing.

 

So it betrays that.

 

I talked with a super A list director about his experience going from TV to nine-figure blockbuster and he said that the shooting schedule felt similarly crazy but he (or really, his producers) had infinite control in post to change every little thing after. Not the answer I expected or wanted, but we do romanticize these things.

 

I suppose what I mean is I dislike the tendency of delaying the decisions about the structural and narrative and emotional aspects of the scene from the set to the editing room. Intent should be a malleable through line, not something deferred to the last minute. And even the tendency to over-do it with reshoots, which are not bad by design but can be abused, is trouble. (Liman uses reshoots well. Raimi, too. They aren't bad. CGI isn't bad. It's the abuses and failures in intent that such technique allow for that are bad.) Hobbit was shot on green screen stages with a few master angles and then massive multi-cam coverage, like every contemporary blockbuster.

 

That can be a problem. In that case I think it's probably mostly tied back to the producers' financial need to release the film in time. I can't blame them.

 

But it can be a problem.

 

Huh. I guess it depends, then. Because one of the most interesting bits of filmmaking I know of involves George Lucas completely reshaping Anakin Skywalker's motivation in Episode 3 in post production, with reshoots, rewrites, ADR, creative editing, etc...

And unlike most people (apparently- I was rather shocked when I found out that the prequel trilogy wasn't looked at as fondly as the first trilogy), I think it works and that the movie is better for it.

 

But I agree about the Hobbit films. They feel less like Middle Earth than the LotR films. However, I think the biggest problem there wasn't shot composition or staging IMO, it was the use of RED cameras. They shouldn't have used something that screams digital for a world that's so organic. The Alexa would have been better.

Edited by Jesse Straub
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I also liked Episode 3! I don't think George Lucas suffered from a lack of intent with the prequels, I think he suffered from a lack of external criticism checking his intent against broad audience reaction. Maybe he had the opposite problem from most contemporary filmmakers in that he went unchecked with Episode 1 and 2. But it's good he listened on the third film; that he internalized or took criticism on Anakin's arc paid dividends there. I really like his arc in that film and it feels organic and essential to the story. Until I read your post, I had no idea it was so heavily changed in post.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with winging it or changing what you've got. Casablanca was basically written as they shot and its script is masterful.

 

I simply find the approach of deferring decision-making to the editing room to be contrary to what film's good at. Granted, I would think that, being a fan of Bazin's.

 

I won't write more re: contemporary blockbusters such as the Hobbit because my opinion is biased. I do think the Alexa has a good look, my favorite among digital cinema cameras and not by a small margin. I think my second favorite look might be the iPhone, for the exact opposite reason, because it is so true to its digital roots. :)

 

(I also think Canon has good color in its C line but that's a really different story! Maybe I'm biased because I own one of those!)

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I hear you. I'm more of a moral relativist but I am very sympathetic to what you write.

 

It's even worse with music. Most contemporary remasters are worse than the originals. They're much louder so they can compete with today's over-compressed music (read up on the loudness wars if you're curious), but as a result they lack dynamic range and impact. I have a very precious pair of hi-fi electrostatic headphones I love to listen to at night. With them, old music, recorded and mastered properly, sounds incredible. I can't imagine anything much better. But newer music sounds bad. Worse than with cheap earbuds. Newer remasters of old music sound pretty bad, too. It's a real shame that everything is now catered to the lowest common denominator, including image and sound quality. Particularly when we have the technology that could allow it to be so good.

 

So I am very sympathetic to your cause. Clearly blu rays suffer the same fate as music and that fate is detrimental to both, in the case of film betraying the cinematographer's and director's intent in the same way I argue that modern shooting techniques tend to defer intent close to the edit. This is definitely not good.

 

But I don't watch that much film lately and I'm glad to see the movies I like on blu ray, and the extra resolution, digital warts and all. As David Lynch says, focus on the donut and not the hole. :) But it's hard. The hole (DNR and digital compression and careless color correction and even menus and preroll that show the studio only has a financial stake and not an emotional one in the film) is vast and deep.

 

Bazin is a film critic and theorist who drew on Claude Lévi-Strauss' (not the jean manufacturer) ideas on semiotics. He was the father of the French New Wave and, in my opinion, a genius. He understood things about the ontology or simply the unique purpose and ability of film that few remember. I believe he would have hated CGI and certainly digital, whereas I simply see CGI and digital as ontologically distinct media that only truly suffer when they attempt to compete with the real thing. So I don't agree with everything he wrote, but I find his writing to be brilliant and enthusiastic and inspired. Far more than I can say of my own. :)

 

I don´t want to go too much off topic, I´ll just answer your last reply in this thread if that´s ok for you :)

 

I know about the loudness war, it´s horrible how they turn up the volume or the basses just to sound "modern" or whatever. I´m always very careful when a cover says "Remastered" ... however, I usually only buy classical music on CDs, and only then when it´s performed on period instruments in historic informed performances (HIP), there you don´t have that loudness war, at least I don´t see one.

 

Of course we have different opinions in some topics, for example CGI, because I think a film should be made with a camera, not a computer, but that´s ok - let´s agree to disagree :)

 

To return to the topic: it´s hard for the interested viewer to find out what Blu-ray did it right. Who knows what colors or lighting are correct? And the correct light and color is VERY important for a movie. It´s the same problem with HIP-CDs, by the way. I don´t want to buy a CD and just listen to it, I also want to know what instruments they used, if the conductor studied different sources, and to what conclusions he came. Usually in newer recordings they write about this, but it´s not easy to have fun with a movie or a piece of music if you are more interested in it.

 

Since I read Michael Caines book, I´ll never see a movie without thinking about how it has been made. I just see actors now doing their hard job, tryin to make it look as if everything is natural and normal, trying to hide the fact that they probably waited for many hours to shoot this scene. And since I knew a little bit more about lighting (also thanks to the members here :) ), I begin to pause scenes and try to find out what they did. I ask myself, what do I see? What do I not see? What could be the intentions? But when a Blu-ray shows a movie in a wrong way, it´s hard to analyze anything, because I want to analyze the work of the director, not the failures of the movie company.

 

 

 

Greetings,

Sandra

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I also liked Episode 3! I don't think George Lucas suffered from a lack of intent with the prequels, I think he suffered from a lack of external criticism checking his intent against broad audience reaction. Maybe he had the opposite problem from most contemporary filmmakers in that he went unchecked with Episode 1 and 2. But it's good he listened on the third film; that he internalized or took criticism on Anakin's arc paid dividends there. I really like his arc in that film and it feels organic and essential to the story. Until I read your post, I had no idea it was so heavily changed in post.

 

 

He didn't necessarily change it to make it more in line with audiences, I think he changed it merely because it was somewhat underwritten the first go-round.

Whether this is true or not, George has talked about the fact that people maybe expected a more traditional/predictable reason for Anakn to fall (i.e. just turning rotten with power or someone killing Padme and him going on a rampage etc), when that was never his plan.

The first cut was mostly Palpatine driving a political and personal wedge between Anakin and the Jedi.

The final film was changed so that his primary motivator is Padme's imminent death, with the Jedi vs. Palpatine loyalty stuff somewhat cut down and now used to supplement the Padme angle.

 

I might be being unfair, but i've always felt that if Disney or some studio had been the ones to tell the story of how Darth Vader became Darth Vader it would have been a much more conventional drunk on power/revenge scenario.

As Lucas said, the real "revenge of the sith" is Palpatine's.

Edited by Jesse Straub
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I don´t want to go too much off topic, I´ll just answer your last reply in this thread if that´s ok for you :)

 

I know about the loudness war, it´s horrible how they turn up the volume or the basses just to sound "modern" or whatever. I´m always very careful when a cover says "Remastered" ... however, I usually only buy classical music on CDs, and only then when it´s performed on period instruments in historic informed performances (HIP), there you don´t have that loudness war, at least I don´t see one.

 

Of course we have different opinions in some topics, for example CGI, because I think a film should be made with a camera, not a computer, but that´s ok - let´s agree to disagree :)

 

To return to the topic: it´s hard for the interested viewer to find out what Blu-ray did it right. Who knows what colors or lighting are correct? And the correct light and color is VERY important for a movie. It´s the same problem with HIP-CDs, by the way. I don´t want to buy a CD and just listen to it, I also want to know what instruments they used, if the conductor studied different sources, and to what conclusions he came. Usually in newer recordings they write about this, but it´s not easy to have fun with a movie or a piece of music if you are more interested in it.

 

Since I read Michael Caines book, I´ll never see a movie without thinking about how it has been made. I just see actors now doing their hard job, tryin to make it look as if everything is natural and normal, trying to hide the fact that they probably waited for many hours to shoot this scene. And since I knew a little bit more about lighting (also thanks to the members here :) ), I begin to pause scenes and try to find out what they did. I ask myself, what do I see? What do I not see? What could be the intentions? But when a Blu-ray shows a movie in a wrong way, it´s hard to analyze anything, because I want to analyze the work of the director, not the failures of the movie company.

 

 

 

Greetings,

Sandra

 

 

As a consumer, I'm 100% in agreement with you. I have the same concerns with music that you do. But I have no personal or financial stake in the music, so I'm free to. I just like sound quality and hearing the given artist's intent. That said, I also suspect that sometimes I gloss over digital cheats in contemporary music because they're done so well I never notice them, while I blindly appreciate the work those digital cheats facilitated. And I have a soft spot for conspicuous autotune like in 808s and Heartbreaks (horribly mastered, btw) same as a I have a soft spot for some Instagram photography. At least it's so far gone that it's ontologically sound in a perverse opposite-end-of-the-spectrum way.

 

And as someone who works in the film industry, I've come to tolerate and even happily embrace some recent changes, even if I think they're to the detriment of the medium overall. I'll leave that at that... But I still think Terminator 2 and Avatar alike use CGI well, and Spielberg often uses it well, too. I also think that there's a lot of invisible work no one sees and which allow creatives to flex their intent like never before by deferring problems (not intent, but easily solvable problems like a blown highlight or distracting background element) into post to allow them to better allocate their energy. But that's still very simple stuff, like paint out and split screens. The more you rely on CGI, the worse it gets.

 

And from a theoretical perspective, if I were a purist, I'd frown even on a little bit.

 

I haven't read Michael Caine's book but now I'm curious. A good performance forgives many sins.

 

I strongly recommend those first two Bazin volumes. It's a shame his writing is wordy and not condensed well in those compendia. I think he has a better understanding of film that any other theorist, and his ideas mirror yours. As a theorist, they mirror mine. As a creative and as an artist for hire, they don't entirely.

Edited by M Joel W
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I might be being unfair, but i've always felt that if Disney or some studio had been the ones to tell the story of how Darth Vader became Darth Vader it would have been a much more conventional drunk on power/revenge scenario.

As Lucas said, the real "revenge of the sith" is Palpatine's.

 

 

Disney just fired Lord and Miller, whom I respect very much and whose films I've really liked in the past. I don't disagree with your opinion that corporate influence stifles creativity and vision.

 

I have a soft spot for the prequels particularly in terms of their intent even if I don't like them as consistently in terms of execution. Still I'm certain Disney wouldn't have let them see day one of photography if they were in charge of their production, and that would be a shame. I still want to read Lucas' treatments for the new trilogy more than I want to know how the trilogy they're making now ends! I like Lucas and the risks he takes.

 

But Disney has made a heck of a lot of money since and from acquiring the Star Wars franchise, which they paid a heck of a lot of money to acquire and continue to pour money into.

 

From their perspective, I can't blame them for firing Lord and Miller or for anything they've done with the franchise, hugely detrimental to my enjoyment as it's been. I feel like they were fired because they had their own intent and style. Which is what I'm more sympathetic to. It's what I want to see.

 

If I were an aspiring producer or financier I'd feel differently, I guess. This is more a discussion of the industry though.

Edited by M Joel W
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Disney just fired Lord and Miller, whom I respect very much and whose films I've really liked in the past. I don't disagree with your opinion that corporate influence stifles creativity and vision.

 

Yeah, damn. I just saw that.

I'm not really that invested in these Disney Star Wars movies so i'm not personally disappointed, but shakeups like this are always fascinating.

 

Anyway, I don't deny that the prequels aren't perfect, but my thing is that I don't think they are executed any worse than his first three films. (THX, Graffiti, and Star Wars).

 

I think my confusion stems from the fact that people always feel the need to quality positive praise of the prequels, when they don't with A New Hope, when I can't see any difference in filmmaking prowess.

 

Now Empire Strikes Back is probably technically better, but Lucas didn't direct that. And Return of The Jedi feels about on par with Lucas' six films skillwise. It almost feels like he directed it.

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