Happy Life-Day Eve!
December 24, 2023 9:14 AM Subscribe
Star Wars Holiday Special: 5K 60fps Upscale (1978)
Relive a tradition!
Relive a tradition!
If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
Emphasis on the first part.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:27 AM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Emphasis on the first part.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:27 AM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
60fps upscaled footage looks like ass, but here it genuinely complements the ass-nature of the footage itself, so no complaints.
posted by Philipschall at 9:30 AM on December 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Philipschall at 9:30 AM on December 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is not the upscale I wanted.
I want an 8k AI upscale with truly impossible levels of detail "recovered" from the original. I want to see nightmare dog faces twisting around in Chewie's fur. I want to see Bea Arthur sprouting and losing fingers. I want it to give Leia's tongue eyeballs and a little secondary tongue when she's singing. I want shifting moire patterns with a Langford basilisk.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:37 AM on December 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
I want an 8k AI upscale with truly impossible levels of detail "recovered" from the original. I want to see nightmare dog faces twisting around in Chewie's fur. I want to see Bea Arthur sprouting and losing fingers. I want it to give Leia's tongue eyeballs and a little secondary tongue when she's singing. I want shifting moire patterns with a Langford basilisk.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:37 AM on December 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
You just need a little acid.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:39 AM on December 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:39 AM on December 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
Apart from the potential to further annoy/torment George Lucas, I have to ask “But why…?”
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:41 AM on December 24, 2023
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:41 AM on December 24, 2023
Finally, I can watch sexy AMSR dimension-tripping Diahann Carroll the way Zod intended
posted by credulous at 9:42 AM on December 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by credulous at 9:42 AM on December 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
They should come up with a filter that removes the cocaine, but then it would just be Art Carney against a chroma key
posted by credulous at 9:47 AM on December 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by credulous at 9:47 AM on December 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is not the upscale I wanted.
I want an 8k AI upscale with truly impossible levels of detail "recovered" from the original. I want to see nightmare dog faces twisting around in Chewie's fur. I want to see Bea Arthur sprouting and losing fingers. I want it to give Leia's tongue eyeballs and a little secondary tongue when she's singing. I want shifting moire patterns with a Langford basilisk.
Hey Special Circumstances? Is this one of yours? Because if not you're going to want to have a look at this one. They seem to be malfunctioning and off their baseline.
posted by loquacious at 9:52 AM on December 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
I want an 8k AI upscale with truly impossible levels of detail "recovered" from the original. I want to see nightmare dog faces twisting around in Chewie's fur. I want to see Bea Arthur sprouting and losing fingers. I want it to give Leia's tongue eyeballs and a little secondary tongue when she's singing. I want shifting moire patterns with a Langford basilisk.
Hey Special Circumstances? Is this one of yours? Because if not you're going to want to have a look at this one. They seem to be malfunctioning and off their baseline.
posted by loquacious at 9:52 AM on December 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
I love '70s schlock TV and fun-bad movies. I love stuff like old Paul Lynde TV specials, Osmond Family videos, Sonny & Cher, Match Game, etc, etc, etc. I just watched an entire performance clip of Marilyn Chambers singing and dancing the song "What is Hip?" from a talk show that Geraldo Rivera hosted in 1978!
When I first watched the Star Wars Holiday Special, I had the same WTF? head-smack reaction as everyone else! I had some laughs for sure. But man, this special is such a boring slog. I'm happy... Life Day Happy!.. if others enjoy it, but I barely made it through the whole thing the first time I saw it—back when it first was an Internet sensation. I just can't imagine watching it again, no matter how good it looks.
But I will not put myself at risk of being visited by three ghosts this evening! Happy Life Day everyone!
posted by SoberHighland at 10:03 AM on December 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
When I first watched the Star Wars Holiday Special, I had the same WTF? head-smack reaction as everyone else! I had some laughs for sure. But man, this special is such a boring slog. I'm happy... Life Day Happy!.. if others enjoy it, but I barely made it through the whole thing the first time I saw it—back when it first was an Internet sensation. I just can't imagine watching it again, no matter how good it looks.
But I will not put myself at risk of being visited by three ghosts this evening! Happy Life Day everyone!
posted by SoberHighland at 10:03 AM on December 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
From the video summary emphasis mine:
Jokingly labeling the resulting file “5K” (8K video height, but tagged “4K” by YouTube due to its original 4:3 aspect ratio), the upscaled version unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) replaces some songs and omits some segments that were flagged by YouTube’s copyright watchdogposted by achrise at 10:12 AM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
They should come up with a filter that removes the cocaine, but then it would just be Art Carney against a chroma key
You say that like it's a bad thing.
posted by PlusDistance at 10:35 AM on December 24, 2023
You say that like it's a bad thing.
posted by PlusDistance at 10:35 AM on December 24, 2023
*sigh*
posted by George Lucas at 10:55 AM on December 24, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by George Lucas at 10:55 AM on December 24, 2023 [15 favorites]
I'm with you, SoberHighland. This was so bad I couldn't even enjoy making fun of it, don't think I can ever try to watch it again. But for those of you who can, have fun.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:59 AM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:59 AM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by George Lucas
What the.... just what in the hell do you think you are doing here?
*leaps across the table, trying to grab Lucas by his jowls*
posted by loquacious at 11:01 AM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
What the.... just what in the hell do you think you are doing here?
*leaps across the table, trying to grab Lucas by his jowls*
posted by loquacious at 11:01 AM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is not the upscale I wanted.
Pray they do not upscale it further.
posted by Artw at 11:10 AM on December 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
Pray they do not upscale it further.
posted by Artw at 11:10 AM on December 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
We've found an appropriate use for the technology mentioned in the next post.
posted by eye of newt at 11:19 AM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by eye of newt at 11:19 AM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just learned about A Disturbance in the Force, a making-of documentary that presumably explains this as well as it ever will be explained. All I know is that TV’s Frank tweeted that he liked it, which is a pretty good recommendation to me.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:46 AM on December 24, 2023
posted by Countess Elena at 11:46 AM on December 24, 2023
I have seen A Disturbance in the Force and very much enjoyed it. It does a great job situating the Holiday Special in its correct context, which is not the Star Wars Universe but the 70s variety show.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:20 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:20 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's funny that the article in the MetaFilter post right after this one chronologically specifically has a gripe with people who do what this YT video has done:
I spend a lot of time regularly capturing VHS and Laserdisc at the highest possible quality for fun, and when I see people who should know better say “Just use Topaz” (a commercial AI upscaler) instead of learning how to correctly ingest footage and deinterlace it, it makes me want to pull out my hair, because it almost uniformly looks bad to anyone who works with video professionally.posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 12:23 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I love all you nerds. Merry Christmas!
posted by Hermione Dies at 12:53 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Hermione Dies at 12:53 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Pray they do not upscale it further.
No! Upscale it all the way! Downrez it to ascii art and then force an AI to turn it back into video at gunpoint! Even if the gunpoint doesn't matter, do it anyway!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:07 PM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
No! Upscale it all the way! Downrez it to ascii art and then force an AI to turn it back into video at gunpoint! Even if the gunpoint doesn't matter, do it anyway!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:07 PM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I watched this damn thing the night it first aired.
Until the Internet came along I was the only person I knew that had memories of Chewbacca‘s family and their treehouse home.
God help my broken soul.
posted by chronkite at 3:17 PM on December 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
Until the Internet came along I was the only person I knew that had memories of Chewbacca‘s family and their treehouse home.
God help my broken soul.
posted by chronkite at 3:17 PM on December 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have to routinely tell people: you think that the Star Wars Holiday Special will be "so bad it's good," like maybe it'll be earnest in a way that makes it entertaining to watch for its badness, but no. No. There is no wisdom in the pepper. It is so bad it's awful. It is bad specifically because of the way that it fails to be entertaining, on a fundamental level.
It is long and boring and best experienced through a secondhand description, because that will at least be presented in such a way as to be intended to engage the audience, and as a key bonus, it will be over in less than two hours.
It is, then, fitting, I suppose, that this irredeemable garbage pile of a TV special, featuring things like a Julia Child parody with no actual jokes, should be upscaled in such an uncanny-valley-forward way. Maybe making it physically harder to look at will help discourage people from trying to watch it.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:38 PM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
It is long and boring and best experienced through a secondhand description, because that will at least be presented in such a way as to be intended to engage the audience, and as a key bonus, it will be over in less than two hours.
It is, then, fitting, I suppose, that this irredeemable garbage pile of a TV special, featuring things like a Julia Child parody with no actual jokes, should be upscaled in such an uncanny-valley-forward way. Maybe making it physically harder to look at will help discourage people from trying to watch it.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:38 PM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Apart from the potential to further annoy/torment George Lucas, I have to ask “But why…?”
The question is the answer.
posted by Panjandrum at 5:07 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
The question is the answer.
posted by Panjandrum at 5:07 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
maybe it'll be earnest in a way that makes it entertaining to watch for its badness, but no. No. There is no wisdom in the pepper. It is so bad it's awful.
The Rifftrax version is pretty okay. The underlying thing is boring but has enough weirdness for the riffed product to be worthwhile. Sort of like Manos or Red Zone Cuba.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:12 PM on December 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
The Rifftrax version is pretty okay. The underlying thing is boring but has enough weirdness for the riffed product to be worthwhile. Sort of like Manos or Red Zone Cuba.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:12 PM on December 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
please no
posted by doctornemo at 5:25 PM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 5:25 PM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I am too young to have seen the Star Wars Holiday Special on its original airing, but I am just the right age to have sought out and bought a bootleg VHS copy at a Star Trek convention.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:06 PM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:06 PM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Boba Fett cartoon, tho
posted by credulous at 9:24 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by credulous at 9:24 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yes, if I'm reading the YT comments correctly, this version is missing the Nelvana cartoon with the first appearance of Boba Fett and the Jefferson Starship performance, as well as a few music substitutions to prevent automatic copyright strikes. Let's see how that works out for them!
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:52 AM on December 25, 2023
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:52 AM on December 25, 2023
The original was 29.97 FPS interlaced, now at 60 FPS? Are they using some Sith trick to infer the one-in-one-thousand missing frame alongside conventional de-interlacing?
You know what? I care not. Have a great Christmas Special and/or whatever else you're celebrating.
posted by k3ninho at 7:49 AM on December 25, 2023
You know what? I care not. Have a great Christmas Special and/or whatever else you're celebrating.
posted by k3ninho at 7:49 AM on December 25, 2023
In olden days we’d just double the missing frames. As long as you clock out the audio on time “nobody” notices the stutter. The human visual system will happily accept absolute garbage.
I watched the special when it aired and remember being quite confused and disappointed.
posted by pdoege at 9:02 AM on December 25, 2023
I watched the special when it aired and remember being quite confused and disappointed.
posted by pdoege at 9:02 AM on December 25, 2023
I believe the cartoon ("The Story of the Faithful Wookiee") was resurrected for Disney+ so that may explain the omission.
posted by credulous at 5:26 PM on December 25, 2023
posted by credulous at 5:26 PM on December 25, 2023
Yeah, the original was terrible, and one reason was that it was made to fill a 2 hr slot. I think it might have made a tight half hour show, at least as tolerable as most other variety shows of the time. For comparison, you can easily find at least a couple other Sonny and Cher Christmas variety specials, seemingly made for a 1 hr slot, and they, too are pretty terrible. The 1973 one even has an animated segment for a cover of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground. That one guest stars William Conrad. The 1976 one guest stars Bernadette Peters and Captain Kangaroo(!). You can imagine how craptastic they can be. But at least they don't run on as long as the Star Wars special.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:22 PM on December 26, 2023
posted by 2N2222 at 8:22 PM on December 26, 2023
I think we used to have the same garbage can Mrs. Chewbacca uses
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:00 PM on December 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:00 PM on December 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
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I think I mentioned this before, but I really use this video to clear out the living room when it fills up with too many folks zoning out in front of the TV during the holiday get together.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:23 AM on December 24, 2023 [7 favorites]