ignatz (01/11/83)
My partner in crime bought a Pioneer Laserdisk about two months ago, and since then we've both been acquiring our favorite flicks on the shimmering disks. (Poetic, eh? Incidentally, I can't recommend the Laserdisk highly enough over the capacitative type. Picture quality is excellent, stereo is superb, the disk never wears out, and there's no stylus to wear out.) Anyway, we picked up Star Wars Episode IV, and discovered a fascinating side-effect of the disks. It seems that films transcribed to disk lighten an f-stop or two from what you see in the theatre. (Our theory: film it lighter than you want it to be seen to allow for attenuation between projector and screen...any confirmation?) In any case, this has a most interesting effect on Darth Vader. While the eyepieces on his breath-screen have always appeared black on film, it may be seen that they are, in fact, dark red plastic. Even more, in at least three scenes--most notably, in the one where he says, "...a great day for the Empire. It has seen the end of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and soon it will see the end of the Rebel Alliance."--you can see his eyes! He blinks, and looks from side to side. Everyone who sees the laserdisk version can see it, once they've been alerted to look for it. Obviously, David Prowse had to be able to see out, and they counted on the darkening of the film prints to prevent our "seeing in". It definitely detracts from Darth Vader's ominous aspect to see a couple of normal, human eyes blinking away in there... Incidentally, Star Dreck: The Motionless Picture only improves by being shown on Laserdisk...it, too, gains an f-stop or two, and thereby sheds that dark, shadowy quality it had in the theatre. Even better, I can use the chapter scan to perform the additional editing in my living room that they should have done in the cutting room.... Dave Ihnat ihuxx!ignatz