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THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: 40th Anniversary


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My first ever cinema trip. I didn't see a thing of course because I was in the womb. I thought it was probably Return of the Jedi but that was released in Poland in February 1985 (!) which is a month after my birth. And it definitely wasn't the original because Yoda was in it. I know because my mum thought I looked like when I was born (not sure how to take that) 😆

 

Anyway, it does explain why I have such a soft spot for certain score. When I first heard some of Williams' music from this film around the age of 10 or 12 I experienced chills like never before (or since, for that matter).

 

Karol

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I will never forget that experience of seeing it in May 1980 being in line that wrapped around the theater.  The film itself made a huge impact and opened so many more questions about what happens next, Luke's identity, why Ben lied. 

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Like Stu, all of the OT is pre-memory, but as a kid really the first two movies bored me, and Star Wars was only Return of the Jedi.  It wasn't until the special editions when I was 12 that I fell in love with the trilogy - and Empire has been my favorite Star Wars movie since that time.  I'm happy to say that my kid enjoyed Empire when we watched it a few weeks ago.

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4 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

First viewings of the original trilogy are all pre-memory for me, but we had the 1990 VHS releases in my home

 

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That tape was the first time I watched it. It's good but I think people are too hung up on it these days.

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Well, I first watched ROTJ (the first time I saw any of the SW trilogy, although I saw the second Ewok movie before all of them) taped off the telly and some bits were trimmed such as Leia and the Ewok scene, presumably for runtime. So when I got the FOX videos, I was surprised by the new stuff. 

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32 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

Well, I first watched ROTJ (the first time I saw any of the SW trilogy, although I saw the second Ewok movie before all of them) taped off the telly and some bits were trimmed such as Leia and the Ewok scene, presumably for runtime. So when I got the FOX videos, I was surprised by the new stuff. 

Haha same for me, I remember being amazed Leia chokes Jabba to death because that had been cut. 

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I saw it on the Disney Cruise theater in March. The music mix was so great it puts all other SW movies to shame. (ANH has the Ben Burrt destroyed mix and in RotJ the music is a bit muffled

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2 hours ago, Þekþiþm said:

Where did you get this??

A friend got it from a private torrent tracker. It's quite a large file, enough to fit a BD-25 disc. He said it's been around for some five years now, or more. I got it earlier this year but only watched it recently.

 

13 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

Probably the Grindhouse print.

I guess so. This website says it is, as they don't mention any other version available. https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/project-4k80/

 

Too bad the 4K restoration they're working on will take quite a while. Glad to see SW and Jedi 35mm 4K are out already. Been downloading for days now (around 70 GB for EACH file :eh:).

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20 minutes ago, phbart said:

I guess so. This website says it is, as they don't mention any other version available. https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/project-4k80/

 

Too bad the 4K restoration they're working on will take quite a while. Glad to see SW and Jedi 35mm 4K are out already. Been downloading for days now (around 70 GB for EACH file :eh:).

 

I'm on the SWT forums all the time watching the progress (and even helping out with some projects). Progress is actually going well for 4K80 and hopefully shouldn't be too long a wait now. The Grindhouse version as I mentioned is the only publicly-available scan at the moment that I'm aware of; it looks alright but since it's a raw scan obviously it needs a lot of work. ~70 GB isn't too bad for a 4K film, especially if you have a huge collection of them on your PC. :lol:

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3 minutes ago, crumbs said:

I think between the new Disney 4K remasters and the existing technicolor print scans, there should be enough material to make a truly definitive presentation of the original films now.

 

Such a shame they smeared DNR all over the Empire 4K remaster though. I'll never understand why these studios feel obliged to wipe all the grain away from these remasters, when consumers can just enable noise-reduction filters on their TVs if it bothers them so much. Films should look like films, not wax museums.

 

I made my own edits using them. Well, for Star Wars and Jedi anyway. Still waiting on 4K80 before I can do my Empire edit. I just finished my ANH project yesterday actually; it looks pretty nice but could use a bit better CC on a few shots. I also added some grain plates to help them look a little more consistent.

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There's also apparently issues with the HDR on the ESB 4K, with the non-HDR version looking badly washed out (at least in the screenshots I saw, it was borderline monochromatic).

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4 minutes ago, crumbs said:

There's also apparently issues with the HDR on the ESB 4K, with the non-HDR version looking badly washed out (at least in the screenshots I saw, it was borderline monochromatic).

 

I think the 2K version on the standard Blu-ray disc (non-HDR) looks pretty alright; certainly better than the 2011 Blu-ray release. It is a bit on the less-saturated side though, and some shots are a bit muddy. The DNR obviously is the worst issue plaguing all the new sets, which of course TESB suffers from pretty bad.

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16 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Such a shame they smeared DNR all over the Empire 4K remaster though. I'll never understand why these studios feel obliged to wipe all the grain away from these remasters, when consumers can just enable noise-reduction filters on their TVs if it bothers them so much. Films should look like films, not wax museums.

They pobrably tried to match it with the all digital prequel look.

 

I also think they made these new masters with streaming in mind. Taking out the grain makes it easier to compress the video with lower bitrates.

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11 minutes ago, phbart said:

They pobrably tried to match it with the all digital prequel look.

 

I also think they made these new masters with streaming in mind. Taking out the grain makes it easier to compress the video with lower bitrates.

 

I think Matt Wood (or someone else) said recently that these were actually made with 3D in mind since these scans were done before the Disney merger. Less grain is great for 3D releases; not for standard releases though.

 

Speaking of which, I'm currently refining a few aspects of my edits. Here is a quick screenshot of a test grain plate... what are your guys' thoughts? Too much grain? Not enough? Perhaps a different size or type of grain? (Ignore the color, I didn't do any correction yet).

 

Untitled-1.png

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55 minutes ago, crumbs said:

There's also apparently issues with the HDR on the ESB 4K, with the non-HDR version looking badly washed out (at least in the screenshots I saw, it was borderline monochromatic).

 

Sounds like what they did to ID4.

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5 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

speaking of which, I'm currently refining a few aspects of my edits. Here is a quick screenshot of a test grain plate... what are your guys' thoughts? Too much grain? Not enough? Perhaps a different size or type of grain? (Ignore the color, I didn't do any correction yet).

 

Personally, the grain looks a little artificial/digital to me. What did you use to generate it? There's lots of consumer-level software which can replicate grain based on different film stocks, so I'd match it to the stock used for each film (SW77 was shot on Eastman Color Negative II 100T 5247/7247 film, After Effects actually has this stock as a preset).

 

 

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5 hours ago, crumbs said:

Personally, the grain looks a little artificial/digital to me. What did you use to generate it? There's lots of consumer-level software which can replicate grain based on different film stocks, so I'd match it to the stock used for each film (SW77 was shot on Eastman Color Negative II 100T 5247/7247 film, After Effects actually has this stock as a preset).

 

I'm well aware, and that Eastman grain plate is actually what I typically use. However for this test I was rendering it in Resolve, using a Fuji grain plate (not digitally generated, it's an actual film scan). I'll perhaps make my own custom grain plate using the Eastman preset and import it into Resolve to see if that looks better.

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  • 3 months later...

FYI!  This will be in theatres this weekend for the 40th anniversary!

 

https://www.cinemark.com/movies/star-wars-episode-v-the-empire-strikes-back-40th-anniversary-comeback-classics?rclick=0&layout=b&showDate=2020-09-24

 

https://www.amctheatres.com/movies/empire-strikes-back-40th-anniversary-65158

 

Not sure about any other theatre chain.  My older son and I are going tonight, first time seeing it in the theatre since the SE days in 1997. 

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I was at the Northern California premiere - a benefit screening before the theatrical run. It cost $$$ but I couldn't bear to stand in line or hear spoilers. Yes, I was a fanatic!

My fandom lasted until the uber disappointing JEDI

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1 hour ago, ATXHusker said:

FYI!  This will be in theatres this weekend for the 40th anniversary!

It's been all over UK cinemas, for the last few weeks. Have fun.

 

 

1 hour ago, ATXHusker said:

My older son and I are going tonight, first time seeing it in the theatre since the SE days in 1997. 

Give me regular reports, please.

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On 6/3/2020 at 4:16 PM, King Mark said:

yeah I hope this thread was

 

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: 40th Anniversary Complete Remastered Score Album

I only saw THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: 4 on the forum's main page and thought sth. like "4-Disc INTRADA release coming in November".  ;-)

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Like 25 years ago you could download isolated scores to sync to the movies. 

 

The Star Wars scores are hugely popular.  Fans for done everything imaginable with them

 

There's also this

 

https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/25291-restored-isolated-score-star-wars-saga-unused-music-restored-to-picture/

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A question that’s bugged me for years: what theories are there for why Yoda’s Theme is used in the chase through Bespin? Almost any other theme would make more narrative sense - it’s not like the chase is Yoda-related in any meaningful way - and many other themes would have worked well musically at that point.

 

Maybe JW just felt the other new themes were getting a good airing and he wanted Yoda’s to get more air time? Seems odd reasoning to me though.

 

Thoughts?

 

Mark

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Empire will always be the answer to the question "what would you pick if you could have only one more remastered/Mike Mattesino-magic score?" I also love the idea of (when my lottery win comes through...) having a top notch orchestra and conductor record the whole score, not as a "film music re-recording", but performed and recorded like a ballet by Prokofiev or an opera by Shostakovich or a tone poem by Richard Strauss. Not to supplant the brilliantly performed original recording, but interpreted as a great piece of musical art by a conductor bringing his own ideas. My fantasy choice of conductor and orchestra would probably be Esa-Pekka Salonen with the LA Phil probably recorded by the engineers that BIS (my favourite classical label) use.

 

Oh and it's a great film... seeing it performed with live orchestra last year (which feels like a decade ago) at the Albert Hall was an absolutely thrilling experience.

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1 hour ago, QuartalHarmony said:

A question that’s bugged me for years: what theories are there for why Yoda’s Theme is used in the chase through Bespin? Almost any other theme would make more narrative sense - it’s not like the chase is Yoda-related in any meaningful way - and many other themes would have worked well musically at that point.

 

Maybe JW just felt the other new themes were getting a good airing and he wanted Yoda’s to get more air time? Seems odd reasoning to me though.

 

Thoughts?

 

Mark

 

I think he just thought it sounded good

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