San Francisco-based designer Nick Acosta spent his Friday night upconverting the trailer for the Star Wars Holiday Special into 4K Ultra-HD at 60 frames per second. The result is somehow bother crisper, and more uncanny valley, than the original low-quality TV broadcast. He explained his process on YouTube:
I have been remastering the Star WarsHoliday Special. It's done using a combo of version shopping and software. There are a lot of bootleg versions floating around and some are worse than others. The main way to get more resolution is through a machine-learning program called Topaz Video Enhance AI. It analyzes it frame by frame. It is a LONG process so I cut the thing down into a modern-style trailer for it then upscaled that. I've long loved this weird thing. It's so 70's and goofy but it has the actors in their post-New Hope prime, it has the first appearance of Boba Fett and I still consider the whole thing canon.
The response has been so great that Acosta plans to do the Boba Fett cartoon segment next.
Semi-related: I read the recent Star Wars: Life Day #1 comic book one-shot last night and it was, uhhhh, not great. But for very, very different reasons than the original holiday special.
