Current status as of November 13th, 2023: Project files updated to version 15.0
Supported Languages: English, English SDH, Mandarin (Simplified & Traditional), Cantonese, Hindi*, Urdu*, Spanish (American & Castilian), Arabic, Metropolitan French, Canadian French*, Indonesian, Malaysian, Russian, Bengali, Portuguese (Brazilian & European), German, Japanese, Iranian Persian, Afghan Persian (Dari)*, Tajik (Cyrillic)*, Swahili*, Turkish, Korean, Vietnamese, Italian, Thai, Polish, Ukrainian, Uzbek (Latin)*, Burmese, Romanian, Dutch, Azerbaijani (Latin)*, Serbian (Latin & Cyrillic), Croatian, Bosnian*, Greek, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Albanian*, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovak, Catalan, Georgian*, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Latvian, Basque, Estonian, and Icelandic.
Subtitles for languages marked with an asterisk (*) are partially or completely based on machine translation
If you want to get the subtitles, check for downloads on MySpleen, thestarwarstrilogy.com, find the secret decoder ring with my name on it, or PM me for a download link. This will be the complete set of project files, so it is a big download. If you need help, send me a PM or post your questions in this thread and hopefully someone will be able to help you.
PROJECT THREEPIO SUBTITLES
The goal of Project Threepio is to provide high-quality subtitle options for preservations of the Star Wars “Original Original Trilogy” – Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in their unaltered forms – and to provide a framework with which anyone can add or change subtitles as needed for any other purpose. I hope that this will broaden the appeal of our preservation efforts beyond the English-speaking world.
Project Threepio’s subtitles work best with audio and video that have the following characteristics:
- All films synced to the full theatrical releases of the trilogy, or within a few frames of that
- For all films, English opening crawl text, English audio, and burnt-in theatrical English subtitles for alien dialogue
- Video format: 2160p(4K)@23.976fps, 1080p@23.976fps, or 720p@23.976fps
- Aspect ratio: approximately 2.37:1 (35mm) or 2.2:1 (70mm), letterboxed in a 1.78:1 frame
Examples: Harmy’s Despecialized Editions, 4K77–4K83 35mm Preservations, D+77–OTD83 Theatrical Reconstructions, SW Silver Screen Edition v1.6, ESB 16mm Duplication Print, Harmy’s ROTJ Grindhouse 35mm LPP
Utilities and detailed instructions are included for modifying the subtitles to work better with audio and video sources that have different characteristics, such as non-theatrically-synced film scans, international versions, cropped video, DVD video, etc.
SUBTITLE IMAGE GALLERY
All images below are based on Harmy’s Despecialized Editions using Project Threepio’s PGS subtitles. The appearance of subtitles when using SRT subtitles can vary a great deal.
Subtitles are moved to the top of the frame for titles and crawls, to prevent overlapping onscreen text as much as possible.
Subtitles for multiple speakers are formatted to align along one side.
Translations for burnt-in alien subtitles are also moved to the top of the frame. In rapid back-and-forth dialogue, the entire exchange is shifted to the top to prevent the viewer from having to repeatedly switch from reading the top to the bottom of the screen. If your video doesn’t have burnt-in alien subtitles, Project Threepio contains utilities that allow you to shift these subtitles back down to the bottom of the frame.
SDH subtitles use a dark background for increased readability.
Included utilities can resize subtitles, while retaining all formatting and layout (i.e. for large projection screens).
You can even use subtitles in two different languages simultaneously.
Specially-designed “matching” subtitles mimic the appearance of theatrical subtitles (first screenshot has theatrical alien subtitles, second has Project Threepio’s matching subtitles).
FUTURE PLANS
English-only preservations don’t do much to help many of the people out there who want to be able to see Star Wars, but are instead afflicted with the Special Editions. I would love for every new Star Wars preservation to include these subtitles by default, to increase the international accessibility of these historic films.
At just shy of five dozen languages, Project Threepio still lags quite a bit behind its namesake. I am always accepting contributions of good-quality subtitles for additional languages, and improvements to existing subtitles.
THANK YOU
I’d like to thank the following Star Wars fans for their contributions to Project Threepio:
Feallan, Sadako, schorman13, pittrek, ArdaYlcn, Laserman, a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous, none, morgands1, williarob, Teesel, You_Too, laozi, RashadShehadeh, bttfbrasilfan, LexX, Kaz47, Rina, roback214, Leoj, Hostmaster, Rondan, kylefan, spaceghost, lexsanor, msycamore, IronMagus, Harmy, daboka, Laserschwert, csd79, ZIPC, B2D2, thxita, hot noodles, pmc3, Leonardo, Anuj, stormpack, aserdaryakut, sf999, carlosmon, frater, lucaslslopes, coolman756, Kloky, jl8, wayphat, carlosmon, DevilWing, Faithwyn, ChainsawAsh, CAL0901, alexp120, negative1, Doctor M, dahmage, marvins, bilditup1, Chewtobacca, Darth Mallwalker, towne32, Diego, TheHutt, Mavimao, TV’s Frink, Possessed, and Collipso.
LOGOS FOR PRESERVATION PROJECTS
Also included in the Project Threepio resources folder are some high-resolution logos for various preservation projects, suitable for T-shirts or whatever you like. Preview images shown with a solid black background are provided with a transparent background for more printing flexibility.
Official Project Threepio Images (album art mashups: The Clash and Operation Ivy)
May the Force Be With You in multiple languages (white, black, or yellow text)
Unofficial Images For Other Preservation Projects (album art mashups: The Police, Negativland, and Pink Floyd)
