The Empire Strikes Back, Part 2
The introductory scenes in Echo Base are good examples of the differences in compositing and color grading between the theatricals vs. Despecialized vs. Blu-ray.
Recompositing
Han’s entrance into the Echo Base hangar is a good opportunity to discuss recompositing, which I mentioned in the probot section in the last post. The original special effects were filmed on separate film plates that were then composited together to create the final film. The techniques of the time were imperfect and often resulted in visible artifacts (such as matte lines or garbage mattes) around the inserted footage. Many of these effect shots were later recomposited from the original sources using modern methods, which greatly improve the degree to which the effects blend naturally into the rest of the scene.
The Despecialized generally seeks to restore the original flawed compositing. You can see the difference in the outlines/blur around Han’s tauntaun. The Blu-ray is a huge improvement in my opinion, and is what I’m going with. Here’s the difference between both versions in motion:
This is also a good time to talk about color grading, which starts to become noticeable in this scene.
Control room color grading
Color grading is the fancy film term for color balance. The challenge with these films and other old ones is how did the color grading originally look? Has the grading been altered since the original? And which looks better?
So far, the Blu-ray seems to have been regraded toward the blue or cool end of the spectrum, and in my mind this is an improvement. Many modern films have a much more aggressive approach to color, so this makes the film feel newer. The Despecialized seems to try and pull the blue back and push warmer tones. Warm tones or predominance of grey can give the appearance of faded film stock or low production values, which is not what we want. We also don’t want the warm colors to get oversaturated, which they seem to at points in the Despecialized.
Heavy use of blue tones also helps Hoth feel cold, which it should. So I prefer to leave Hoth’s color grading largely the same as the Blu-ray. Scenes in cold environments, such as Hoth’s exterior and the Echo Base hangar, can stay blue. But warmer environments, such as the control room, can have the grading warmed up a bit.
You can see the old Laserdisc version (slapped onto DVD in 2006 and commonly referred to as the GOUT) has pretty muddy color, which is almost certainly not how the film looked originally. The Blu-ray obviously sharpens the image, and adds a very blue grading. The Despecialized takes the Blu-ray footage and pumps up the color and contrast, too much so for my eyes — even the blue consoles in the background have a warm tone on them, making everything feel almost sepia toned?
I’m not a grading expert, so there may be a better way to do this, but my solution was to use the Lumetri Color filter:
- Go to the “Color Wheels & Match” section
- Shift the highlights warmer
- Leave midtones and shadows alone
This gets some warmth back into the skin tones while leaving the rest of the scene reasonably chilly. Check the small but noticeable difference between the Blu-ray and my version above.
It’s important to note that color grading is the most subjective part of this edit — it has nothing to do with the film’s thematic content and is purely aesthetic. So the approach I’m suggesting might not be to your personal taste. Which is part of why I’m not distributing this edit — this is just the way I’m grading the film, if you don’t like it you should make your own edit!
Next: the wampa lair, and the enormous headache that the Special Edition scenes cause.