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ESB questions from a newbie

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OK, so I'm new here, and I have some questions regarding ESB.

1. I once heard from someone who said that they had a 16mm print of ESB that contained some audio idiosyncrasies. Namely, Luke lets out a little scream as the floor gives out under him in the Cloud City vents. Is this on Puggo Strikes Back?

2. Is a good preservation of the 70mm version being worked on currently?

3. What has our best color source been determined as currently? The 16mm? The Betamax telecine.

4. Has anyone ever attempted to assemble a complete Hoth Battle Animatic from official and/or unofficial releases?

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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1. Yes

2. No

3. Unknown. I'd say it's the 1985 CAV LD release, but some members disagree with me on that. Take a look at Harmy's TESB thread for some different opinions.

4. Unknown

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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 (Edited)

Tack said:

I once heard from someone who said that they had a 16mm print of ESB that contained some audio idiosyncrasies. Namely, Luke lets out a little scream as the floor gives out under him in the Cloud City vents. Is this on Puggo Strikes Back?

The 16mm print used for Puggo Strikes Back does indeed contain a completely unique mix for the film that differs from both the mixes heard on American 70mm prints and 35mm prints, but no little scream from Luke in the Cloud City vents is heard in this mix.

I believe that someone you heard from might have been thinking of the cheesy scream in the Vivaldi teaser trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH9z8se3Aho 

Thankfully that scream of Hamill was never heard in any theatrical release. But, we got something worse in '97. ;)

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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Thanks. I was just wondering, since I'm almost certainly going to be getting Puggo Strikes Back soon. What is the content of this alternate mix you speak of?

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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 (Edited)
  • When we see the snowspeeders taking off (after the scene of R2, "Imperial walkers on the north ridge"), there is no music.
  • When R2 is being loaded into Luke's X-Wing, C-3PO's "And" is more clearly heard before saying "do take good care of yourself."
  • Yoda makes a frightened "Ehhhhh!" just before Luke says "Like we're being watched" and points his blaster at him.
  • In the asteroid field, after C-3PO says, "Oh, this is suicide", he says, "There's nowhere to go."
  • In the Yoda training scene, Yoda is clearly heard saying "Yes..." before "run".
  • "Anger, fear agression...the dark side of the force are they. Easily they flow... quick to join you in a fight...." is mixed much louder.
  • Yoda: "Consume you it will... as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice." It seems a different, less aggressive take of "as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice" is used.
  • Right after Luke's failure in the cave, the establishing shot of the fleet features the classic TIE sound effects from "Star Wars" just like in the 70mm cut.
  • The droid's "Eh chuta" seems to be a different take.
  • C3PO only says "Hello?" once when he thinks he hears an R2 unit and the voice of the unseen guy who blasts him is different.
  • Added Chewbacca vocalization heard over the shot when Boba Fett makes his entrance after Vader's "We would be honored if you would join us."
  • Han screaming when he is getting interrogated is much louder in certain spots during the Vader and Lando conversation.
  • C3PO has an additional line at the very beginning of the carbon freezing scene.  "Oh dear, what now?  I don't like the look of this."
  • When Luke forces Vader off the ledge in the carbon-freezing chamber, his grunt from earlier in the battle is reused instead of his "Ahhh."

 

Some additional notes from various posts on this forum:

*Right after Luke puts the charge into the AT-AT and blows it up, the very next speeder Veers' AT-AT shoots down has an airplane sound effect in the 35mm which is mixed much, much softer in the mono.

*Music is generally mixed much more prominently, with much punchier brass and violins. For a good example see the Hoth base scene right after the power generator is blown up. The music is inaudible in the 35mm and only fades in when 3PO appears- the missing music is not only audible, but very prominent in the mono. For instance, in that very same scene, right before Leia falls down, she screams twice in the mono mix.  No extra explosion before she falls. And as C3PO is climbing up the ramp, the most prominent sound in the mono mix is the flutes and the swooping strings. In the 35mm, it's C3PO footsteps on the ramp, and the ramp sound effect- only to have to dial the music back up for the next scene (Vader).

*The shot after the Falcon escapes Hoth, the X-wing flyover is not nearly as prominent.

*The asteroid field sequence- all the sound effects are drastically muted and some are entirely missing.  Focus is on the music.

*There is much louder computer sound effects in the scene right before the big Han/Leia kiss on the ship.

*Right after Leia screams seeing the Mynock out the window... audio of her footsteps on-set is much more prominent.

 

Many of these later reappeared in the Special Edition.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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 (Edited)

The Puggo Edition mix seems to have been assembled especially for that 8mm digest. The Luke/Han intercom exchange has different ADR takes of both Hamill and Ford's lines (Han says "I'm coming back" instead of "I'm going back").

Lucas and Burtt seemed to be indecisive about which ADR takes to use; every film has at least one version where some line is a different reading (alternate takes of Aunt Beru/"What good'll it do us if he gets himself killed"/"Hang on back there"/Blast it, Wedge" in the mono mix of SW, "till I get the shelter up" in the ESB SE, Wedge's "one more pass" on the ESB story album), different lines ("You were lucky to get out of there" in the ESB SE, "It's all right, I can see a lot better" in ROTJ SE), or a line that was recorded but unused gets added (3PO's "we've stopped" in ANH:SE, the aforementioned "There's nowhere to go" in the ESB 16mm and SE, and Lando's "and you know what? It's overrated" in the 8mm and I think the story LP of ESB)

It even extended to Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Jock's line "Oh, that's just my pet snake Reggie" sounds almost British in most versions, but in one of the DVD extras (and supposedly some 16mm prints, of the type Puggo's been transferring for the SW trilogy) the accent is clearly American.

(Which gives me an idea: Raiders of the Lost Pug...)

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TServo2049 said:

Lando's "and you know what? It's overrated" in the 8mm and I think the story LP of ESB

I've never heard this before. Where does this line get put in?

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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"You were right all along, it's overrated" is heard in the background when 3PO sees the other protocol droid. Actually, I think it's the same reading as in the regular mixes, they just dial the line back later so we actually HEAR "it's overrated."

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 (Edited)

Does it have the alternate take of "Princess, we'll find Han. I promise." from the original 70mm mix?

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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Wow, all these audio differences are really interesting. I would love to see it get GOUT-synced and included with Harmy's 2.0.

Here's a question... what was the purpose of the 16mm?  Was it ever shown in theaters? Was it for TV stations or something?

Anyone remember different camera angles from ROTJ?

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SpilkaBilka said:

Here's a question... what was the purpose of the 16mm?  Was it ever shown in theaters? Was it for TV stations or something?

16mm was useful for showing films to airplane passengers as well as people in the military.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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So, why exactly hasn't a ESB 70mm preservation started yet? Is it because we don't have 100% information, or is it just a lack of time?

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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Tack said:

So, why exactly hasn't a ESB 70mm preservation started yet? Is it because we don't have 100% information, or is it just a lack of time?

Do you mean 70mm soundtrack or 70mm film?

If you mean the latter, then the answer is simply that nobody has a 70mm print of TESB.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Tack said:

Does it have the alternate take of "Princess, we'll find Han. I promise." from the original 70mm mix?

No, there is probably a lot more subtle differences in the 16mm audio not mentioned in my post but all the major ones should be listed there.

Tack said:

So, why exactly hasn't a ESB 70mm preservation started yet?

You'll have to ask Lucasfilm.

Tack said:

Is it because we don't have 100% information, or is it just a lack of time?

Joking aside, the simple answer is that initial release prints of ESB contained a slightly different cut of the film with minor visual effects differences including different wipes and dissolves, we have the info but you cannot restore or preserve something you don't have access to. An in-theatre audio recording has surfaced, that's all. You could make a sort of half-assed reconstruction but it would be pointless IMO.

Haven't been able to find any info regarding this but I still find it entirely possible that the 70mm prints that was prepared for foreign markets later that year could've contained the "final cut". I saw ESB in 70mm in Sweden later that year but I can of course not recall if it contained the different editing nor different audio seen and heard on American 70mm prints. I've seen british folks say they heard some of those lines listed in my post when they saw it back in '80, true or not we cannot say for sure what this mono mix really is, it's entirely possible it reflects the final English mix prepared for European exhibition or a '81 or '82 re-release mix.

I think we possibly could have an early cut on 70mm and a final cut on 70mm which also means two different mixes. Only a theory, that any additional info regarding 70mm ESB is impossible to come by speak against my theory though. You would think something would have been documented on the numerous re-releases if new prints were made containing differences. Apparently there was even 35mm prints shown at drive-ins in May '80, which means 35mm prints with the early rare cut of the film.

Empire was released in at least five different formats in its original release:

1) 70mm six-track Dolby-encoded magnetic
2) 70mm six-track non-Dolby-encoded magnetic
3) 35mm with optical mono soundtrack
4) 35mm with optical Stereo Variable Area (Dolby) soundtrack
5) 35mm with mag-optical soundtrack (magnetic 4-track + optical mono)

Five different formats, not necessarily five different audio mixes... but all this can make your head spin.  I'm pretty sure there are some collectors out there who owns the rare cut of ESB. Who knows, maybe some day...

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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The Special edition added "Look out" "Behind Us" to the panicking crowd as Lando and Leia and Co are fleeing cloud city in the Gout all you can hear is crowd noise and no lines.

I spotted this one the other week.