Luke’s saber changes color 3 – 4 times over a period of a couple of minutes on the new DVD set. Just as the Millenium Falcon escapes Tatooine and Leia witnesses the destruction of her home planet. We cut to Obi-Wan sensing the obliteration of Alderaan. Notice Luke, who’s busy training with the drone.
His saber is green.
As the scene progresses, it sort of shifts back and forth between green and blue. It looks horrible!
In general, the colors on this edition are overly saturated… You’d think that with all the changes, they would have fixed the sabers as first priority.
…Not to mention the obvious “jump” luke makes, the very first time he turns on the light saber. He kinda makes a flick of the wrist, only in the next frame to have an almost entirely new posture in the next frame. Obviously it’s because they stopped the camera, gave him an “ignited” lightsaber, then started rolling again… but still. I’d say fix that, rather than Hayden.
Jeez, this really is kinda geeky innit.. then again it is filed in “geekdom” :)
They did fix the sabers. At least in some scenes. They made the blade look more consistent with the new movies.
I read on aintitcool.com that they had messed up the music in the rear channels of the Empire dvd. The music that should be in the right rear channel is now in the left and vice versa. But just the music, not the sound effects!
Joen: But that’s an ‘old’ thing. They might not have had any of the necessary footage to use for that. The color of the lightsaber seems more like an actual oversight of some sort. Especially, seeing as how they did fix the sabers for Obi-Wan and Vader on Deathstar…
Also, they didn’t clean up the optical background on the tie fighters. You can still see their ‘transparent’ box if you turn up your brightness a bit. In particular, when the Falcon escapes the Deathstar.
My wife just purchased my copy of the Star Wars DVDs for me. I just need to find the time to give them the proper attention.
BTW, I really like how the borders change color from blue to red and then turn gray as you go from one field to another. Very nice detail-work you’ve done here.
Michael, I heard that this only occurs on YOUR DVD set. Lucas heard about all the kufuffle about you naming something so wonderful after Kubrick, got insanely jealous and made sure you got the “dodgy” version.
OK everybody. NO MORE Starwars DVD talk until mine arrives. Amazon told me that it shipped today, so that means another week of agonising waiting while people go on and on about how wonderful (or crap – depending on which version Lucas set you up with) it is…
Did Lucas finally decide to include the scene where cyborg Picard mediates the peace agreement between Emperor Ming and the Fish People?
Lucas needs something to fix for later. In 8 months he launches the “Star Wars Trilogy Special “Corrected and Restored” Edition DVD Box Set”. The light sabers will be corrected… oh and Greedo shots 2 times now. Another thing is, that Han Solo no longer says ”I use them for smuggling…”. He’s now saying: “I use them for transporting teddy bears to the children’s hospital.”
Lukes saber was white in the original movies the first 2 or 3 times you see it. They didn’t fix that in the Special Edition VHS box set. It’s beyond my imagination, that they can create an epic droid battle 100% CG, but can’t make a white saber blue even if they get 2 shots at it.
Well, I better go buy the DVD set anyway. Darned SW curse!
I think Morten’s assessment is correct. He needs to overlook a few mistakes, possibly even make a few new ones, for the next DVD installment.
Although, no continuity to the light saber colors is a bit absurd to me.
I disagree. I don’t think they would loose any sales by fixing all the current mistakes and simply adding more cool extras on the next set (which the will, considering the absolutely vast amounts of stuff in the archives).
Just a little tip for the Danes out there, who live near a Bilka. Just spotted the set there priced at 325 kr (in Aalborg), but I’m guessing the other Bilka’s follows suit.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004 – 09-22&res=l
Just thought it was somewhat fitting in regards to the topic.
I read an interview that there most likely won’t be any new box set until 2007, the 30th anniversary.
Michael, I understand where your coming from. I guess I was just being sarcastic about the situation.
Continuity is important, even in its most simplistic form. I despise watching films that aren’t consistent and I realize that Star Wars has its moments, but light sabers? Come on now, that would take less time to fix than changing Luke’s hairstyle to look less 70s.
Everything that’s wrong with Star Wars today is described below.
Lucas: Not really… The thing about science-fiction fans and “Star Wars” fans is they’re very independent-thinking people. They all think outside the box, but they all have very strong ideas about what should happen, and they think it should be their way. Which is fine, except I’m making the movies, so I should have it my way.
AP: After “Episode III,” will you ever revisit “Star Wars”?
Lucas: Ultimately, I’m going to probably move it into television and let other people take it. I’m sort of preserving the feature film part for what has happened and never go there again, but I can go off into various offshoots and things. You know, I’ve got offshoot novels, I’ve got offshoot comics. So it’s very easy to say, “Well, OK, that’s that genre, and I’ll find a really talented person to take it and create it.” Just like the comic books and the novels are somebody else’s way of doing it. I don’t mind that. Some of it might turn out to be pretty good. If I get the right people involved, it could be interesting.
Forget episodes 1, 2, and 3. Leave 4, 5, and 6 the way it originally was and finally make episodes 7, 8 and 9 using stop motion photography for androids and mechanical things CG for organic stuff and bring back the original cast, but bar George Lucas from having anything to do with any of it.
Mark Hamill so poignantly put it, “It’s like telling the story of how 007 got his licence to kill and then NOT telling any stories!”
Yeah, the colors are definately oversaturated. Sadly, some people don’t realize that “more saturation” does not equate to “more better”, and it seems that, this time around, one of them was the guy “fixing” the coloration.
If Lucas wants to completely change his movies, fine, that’s his perogative, and they are his movies. But the least he could do is do a good job of “improving” the films. The Jabba scene in ANH, for example. Yeah, it looks better than it did in 1997, but it still looks like shit. Or all the “improved” Mos Eisley exterior shots. Or how the colorist decided to go apeshit with the brightness and “blueness” of the background smoke in the fight between Luke and Vader in ESB. Or the absolutely shittastic job done on to clean up some of the dialog. You know, because having a slightly muffled line followed immediately by a perfectly crisp, over-enhanced line is not reminiscent of a student film in any way.
So true, so true.
I totally agree with you about the over saturation of the box set, it seems less noticeable in Empire and Jedi, but when the robots first land on Tatooine all I could think was ‘Digitally Remastered, is that the new buzz phrase for crank the saturation up full volume?’
The scene went from being bleak and washed out to a picture postcard from Egypt.
I don’t think it’s just me; isn’t the door to the droid-pod blue?!