'twas a good one. Thought it would be someone's sig by now.

OK, say the TESB screening was the 1980 version sporting a nice pristine print...

...

Wait for it...

Let's get conspiratory:

Just imagine that this whole Special Edition deal is just a big, ville marketing scheme carefully crafted by the profit-master Luca$ and with this notion in mind take a little tour through the history with me:

In the early 90s the STAR WARS franchise is pretty much dead, there are a few devoted fans but most people have moved on to other things. Lucas hires a renown sci-fi writter Timothy Zahn to write a trilogy of books that would basically be sequels to the SW Trilogy. When those books come out, they are an immediate success and give the old hype for SW a new spark.

In 1995 Lucas announces the production of the SEs and says that the current VHS and LD release will be the last time the original SW will be released on any home video format, thus maximizing the sales.

1996 the Shadows of the Empire project comes out, further reinforcing the new SW hype.

In 1997 Lucas has the SEs made not for his money but for the 20th Century Fox's and releases them theatrically not only bringing all the long time fans into the cinemas but even the casual viewers, who were curious about the "newly enhanced sound and visuall effects" and thus making enormous amounts of cash in the box office.

Later that year the SEs come out on VHS and LD selling greatly because the general public wants this new improved version of SW.

This year also sees the debut of a new format called DVD.

2000 The SEs are re-released on VHS along with Episode 1 with covers that fit the E1 release, making many people buy them to look good on they're shelf. The fact that these are the SEs is not mentioned anywhere which is justified by Lucas by stating that these are the only versions of the OT from now on.

2002 DVD surpasses the VHS sales and the fans demand their favourite films on this new widespread format. When the demand is not met, the bootleg market for SW DVDs starts growing rapidly.

2004 The massive bootleg sales don't  escape Lucas' notice and he succumbs and releases SW Trilogy on DVD. Although it is a half-arsed release of the SE only, it sales incredibly well because the general public doesn't care. And it is enough to kill the market for the SE bootlegs. But as Lucas keeps saying the SEs are the only existing versions of the films and he will never release the OOT, it opens a door for the OOT bootlegs, which are mostly sourced from the 1993 Definitive Collection LD.

2006 Seeing that SE release didn't kill all the bootleg activity he recognises that there is a big enough market for the OOT and releases it on DVD and thanks to stealing the bootlegers' idea and using the 1993 LD masters he makes the release only a little bit better than all the available bootlegs. Not only does this put a definitive end to any bootleg market for the OOT, it also gives him a chance to pull a massive double dip releasing the OOT as a bonus material to the previously released 2004 edition. Production cost of a 2 DVD release for each film? Close to zero. Profits? Doubled.

2010 A nice clean print of the original STAR WARS is shown publicly, proving that the original STAR WARS could look great in HD and leaving many fans with a bitter sweet taste in mouth.

Shortly afer BD release is announced but it won't have the OOT included, although GL seems less militant agains it.

Now, lets start guessing:

Not long after that a nice pristine print of TESB is shown publically reinforcing the effect of the SW screening.

Some time later a good print of ROTJ surfaces somewhere and gives fans another proof and making them hot with rage and determined to go and bring the message out there.

2011 The BD set comes out and makes enormous profits although it doesn't include the OOT and is the same master as the 2004 DVDs because the general public doesn't care as it is not even aware of these issues and thinks that the OOT looks like it did on the 2006 DVDs. But as it was proven by the more active fans that a great release of the OOT is possible, the official home video sites and magazines start a campain for it, slowly making the general public aware of this and want the OOT to be released. But GL still insists that an OOT restoration  would be too expensive.

2014 when the seling potential of the original Blu-Ray set is past a new deluxe Blade Runner style release containing all versions of the OT films on several discs plus a new definitive making of documentary is released for each film separately for an enormous price and thanks to the general public wanting the OOT now, it sells gorgeouly and George doubles his profits like with every other previous format...

OK, seriously now, Zombie, did you know about this site: http://www.prillaman.net/starwarsdvdreviews.html ?

The guy reviews different SW bootlegs and DVD releases.

Cool news, been away all weekend at my parents cottage. Will respond to this in time.

While I was vacationing I did find the time to write a desperately needed editorial though:

http://savestarwars.com/righttoculturalheritage.html

zombie84 said:

While I was vacationing I did find the time to write a desperately needed editorial though:

http://savestarwars.com/righttoculturalheritage.html

Very interesting and well written article.

Another form of alteration to the film medium that somehow lately have gained a sort of acceptance, is that the films original audio mixes (that is as much a part of the film as the picture imo.) is rarely available on new home video releases, if they are included, it's often available in compressed form when the new remix gets a fine lossless treatment. They should at least, always be included.

Great article, but I've found a bug in it:

In 1997, they were still so popular that they collectively grossed over $200 million in an altered re-release. That year, however, George Lucas had this to say about the altered "Special Edition", quoted in American Cinematographer in February:

"There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rough cut', it'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.'... The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition]...I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's, to go back and reinvent a movie."

I think he didn't say that in 1997 but in 2004. Note that he's talking about the DVD version, why would he say that in 1997?

Well, that sounds really weird to me as 1997 was the year DVD first appeared and very few people heard about it and he didn't release the films on it for another 7 years.

How can we save the oot trilogy when its own creator wants it buried and set out to destroy it with badly conceived prequels with videogame and cartoon cgi, and badly reedited butchered versions of the only real star wars trilogy.

To be honest it must have taken seven years to figure out how to screw up a major DVD release so conclusively.

Do you think screwed up sound, blue snow and pretty peach lipstick Vadersabers come from nowhere?

LOL

All he has to do is just license the original films out to someone else (CRITERION!!!) since he wants nothing to with them. Everybody else can, why can't Lucasfilm? Two reasons: 1. Loss of revenue. 2.It would then look like that they had caved in to demand.

Just throwing another aesthetic idea out there.  You have a lot of information on the home page.  That's great, because there is a lot of important information that needs to be addressed up-front.

I think an outsider or uniformed guest might find it easier to read and maybe a little less Star Wars geeky if the copy wasn't so stylized. I'd left-justify the headings, change the font to Times, and leave the body ragged right. Giant blocks of justified copy without breaks can be a little cumbersome to read, particularly on a computer screen.  I  also added color to the copy to give it a little more depth, tying it in with your page header.

Just a thought.

msycamore said:

Great job with the site zombie! I love your dedication.

A few things that I think needs to be done on the site:

The main page text describes that the original films are not longer available, but some of the average persons reading this will maybe say to themselves "what do they talk about, it's available already on the DVD bonus discs." I think you'll need to adress clearly why these aren't up to standards even though it's perfectly clear to us. I've actually heard some younger people who believe that the original films actually looked that way in the cinema. And that is a horrible truth which leads directly to the second suggestion, The Changes. The Lucasfilm changes comparison you link to is incomplete, faulty and sometimes even wrong in its descriptions. In fact, the whole article reeks of Lucasfilm propaganda that help reinforce younger people to think these beautiful films looked like shit.

I know you're planning to put this article directly on your page, when you do, my suggestion is that you write your own descriptions and fill in the blanks. I can help catalogue the changes if you want.

Yeah, I remember thinking they didn't get every change, but if you know offhand already that would be a tremendous help. Its so tedious to go through and catalogue all this stuff. I've been avoiding this article because doing that, plus making my own caps or modifying the existing ones is just so much work, so any help here would be great.

Anchorhead:

I think I prefer the block text and right-justified titles, but the yellow text intrigues me for "punching up" the main page. I also agree that its a bit too wordy. I'm working on trying to modify it to say the same thing in fewer words so it doesn't overwhelm first-time clickers.

Harmy said:

OK, seriously now, Zombie, did you know about this site: http://www.prillaman.net/starwarsdvdreviews.html ?

The guy reviews different SW bootlegs and DVD releases.

 I had no idea this existed. Pretty cool! Is he someone here? He must be.

Oh yeah.  I forgot about Prillaman.  I wonder if he is still hosting my old Holiday Special DVD covers?

Ok, here is some of the Visual Changes done to SW that was not included on the official list. Many are subtle but they are changes nevertheless. I'm sure I missed a few...

'77

'97 same font but thinner with wider spacing.

'04

'77

'81 different starfield

'77

'81 Aside from the different starfield and the new crawl, no thick matte line around the Stardestroyer.

'97 the original '77 starfield is back, the SW logo also recedes much faster into space than in the two earlier opening crawls.

'77

'97  digitally recomposited? or just cleaned up mattelines on the Blockade Runner.

'77

'97 recomp? motion blur on the pod & cleaned up matte lines on pod & ship.

'77

'97 I believe that all hologram shots in the film were recomposited in '97, they also removed the horizontal bars that was present on all original holograms...

'77

'97 ...and they forgot or didn't bother to reinsert the cone of light from R2 in two brief shots, the other is on the official list but it didn't include this one in Ben's hut.

'77

'04 CG clouds inserted to match the close-up of the suns.

'77

'97

'77

'97

I didn't bother to post the '97 digital landspeeder & Jabba the Hutt, I can post them if you need them.

Also this info is wrong:

The '97 version of this shot is exactly the same as the original besides the colortiming, it was in '04 they removed the landscape.

Keep going! I've not seen 97 Jabba since 2003 or so. There's seems to be a lot more, some of them new mistakes. Sad really.

To me the 77 version looks the best in every single shot.

Why mess with perfection.

That is the version of the film i want.  Too bad we will never see it on the big screen ever again.

doubleofive said:

Keep going! I've not seen 97 Jabba since 2003 or so.

 Here you go: