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If you could only remove one Special Edition change...? — Page 2

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Wazzles said:

imperialscum said:

TV’s Frink said:

Big fan of Jedi Rocks, I see.

Nah, not a fan of it at all. It is just that the original scene is about as embarrassing as the new one. So I don’t care which one I have to endure.

I disagree in this case. Yeah, Lapti Nek is cheesy, but in a sleazy 80’s way that’s easy to forgive, and fits in well with the atmosphere of Jabba’s palace. Jedi Rocks is cheesy in an uncomfortable 90’s way. I feel embarrassed every time I see it.

So are you saying…don’t embarrass yourself?

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At least Lapti Nek isn’t 90s CGI in an 80s film.

The Person in Question

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TV’s Frink said:

Wazzles said:

imperialscum said:

TV’s Frink said:

Big fan of Jedi Rocks, I see.

Nah, not a fan of it at all. It is just that the original scene is about as embarrassing as the new one. So I don’t care which one I have to endure.

I disagree in this case. Yeah, Lapti Nek is cheesy, but in a sleazy 80’s way that’s easy to forgive, and fits in well with the atmosphere of Jabba’s palace. Jedi Rocks is cheesy in an uncomfortable 90’s way. I feel embarrassed every time I see it.

So are you saying…don’t embarrass yourself?

Yes. I only pull it out to make others uncomfortable.

Please feel free to use that out of context.

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I would remove Vader’s “Nooooooo!”. It’s so cringe-inducing and it ruins one of the movie’s best moments. The other changes are bad too but this one really takes the cake.

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Man that’s tough. There are a few that if they were removed, I would consider the SEs tolerable. Probably tolerable enough to not even bother with Despecialized and the like. I’d still prefer the theatrical editions, particularly since I grew up with them, but I could live with the SEs if just these things were removed:

  • Greedo shooting first.
  • “Alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival.”
  • Jedi Rocks
  • Nooooooooooo!!!
  • Hayden Ghost/stupid new song (screw you all, I love “Yub Nub” and don’t care what you say)/entire change to the closing sequence of ROTJ.

There are a few others I would really like gone and would annoy me but wouldn’t be dealbreakers. The Jabba scene, for one, but I give that one a little leeway since at least it was originally intended to be in there from the start. Unlike many of the “original vision” changes that very obviously were not.

The rest I’m either indifferent toward or actually like. (Particularly Ian McDiarmid in Empire, which would be the one change I would most like to keep.)

If I had to choose just one of the above, it would have to be Greedo shooting. It’s just so, so, so, so dumb on so many levels and, other than the “Noooooo” maybe, is the only one that fundamentally alters the story and the characterization of a character. George’s “rationale” makes zero sense considering Greedo didn’t have to shoot to make it self-defense; all he had to do was point a gun at Han. Let alone threaten to kill him, which he also did. Han was totally justified. I guess George just had to assume his audience/children were too dumb to figure that one out for themselves. Not to mention it makes Greedo look pathetic and the editing is just atrocious. I know this has all been said before, but really it is an absolute travesty that this shit is still in the official version of the film. Literally no one except George Lucas likes it.

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Lapti Nek is great, I don’t know what y’all are talking about. OK, the puppets don’t look great, but they sill look waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy better than the Jedi Rocks CGI. I don’t have to deal with that… thing up in my face or Boba Fett flirting with aliens. And the song itself is 1000000000x better. That may have something to do with the fact that it was ACTUALLY COMPOSED BY JOHN WILLIAMS. The fact that Jedi Rocks was not should by itself be enough to keep it from qualifying as Star Wars music.

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FrankT said:

Jedi Rocks, by far. I could forgive the Hayden ghost because at the time I thought my memory was playing tricks on me, but Jedi Rocks - no, that’s just - that’s too much.

Wait… What? How could you think that an adult Hayden Christensen was originally in a movie made when he was 2 years old? Unless I’m missing something here…

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Density said:

And the song itself is 1000000000x better. That may have something to do with the fact that it was ACTUALLY COMPOSED BY JOHN WILLIAMS. The fact that Jedi Rocks was not should by itself be enough to keep it from qualifying it as Star Wars music.

I don’t think Lapti Nek is so bad at all. It’s John Williams writing 80s music. I think it’s hilarious and appropriate for Jabba’s palace.

Jar-Jar is the Emperor in the extra special edition of ROTJ (scenes 1, 3, and then 6 to the end).

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Sue me. I prefer both Lapti Nek and Yub Nub over the music they were replaced by in the SEs. Lapti Nek for me is a catchy 80s tune. Jedi Rocks barely qualifies as a terrible 90s song! Yub Nub, granted not that great either, is more upbeat and IMO fits the Victory vibe of the scene.

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Density said:

FrankT said:

Jedi Rocks, by far. I could forgive the Hayden ghost because at the time I thought my memory was playing tricks on me, but Jedi Rocks - no, that’s just - that’s too much.

Wait… What? How could you think that an adult Hayden Christensen was originally in a movie made when he was 2 years old? Unless I’m missing something here…

I’ve heard a couple people say this now. Someone else assumed that it was not actually the same actor, but that they made Hayden look the part in III.

Man, that would’ve been confusing in 1983. I mean, people would probably eventually figure it out (some people [children?] didn’t even make sense of Shaw right away), but still.

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I would have them restore the original colours. Then I could maybe, just maybe, look beyond the other changes.

Not enough people read the EU.

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crissrudd4554 said:

Sue me. I prefer both Lapti Nek and Yub Nub over the music they were replaced by in the SEs. Lapti Nek for me is a catchy 80s tune. Jedi Rocks barely qualifies as a terrible 90s song! Yub Nub, granted not that great either, is more upbeat and IMO fits the Victory vibe of the scene.

100% agree. The so-called “Victory Celebration” in the SEs isn’t a victory celebration at all. It’s like some generic New Age elevator muzak of the kind they would play in a spa. Totally bland and unoriginal. Doesn’t fit with the dancing or the celebrations at all. Say what you will about the Ewoks, but “Yub Nub” sounds like the kind of music they would be playing and it’s not half bad. The scene is literally designed to go with that song so it just seems weird to see the Ewoks running around “dancing” to the other song which is not even dance worthy. The whole thing is just off sync and then it even fails in its transition to the end credits whereas Yub Nub segues perfectly. Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking, but something about the melody of “Yub Nub” triggers a warm happy response in me that seems totally fitting for the end of the series while the other one just leaves me totally cold.

It’s a great example of why these movies should not ever have been fucked with in any case. It’s just totally obvious when something comes up and it wasn’t in the original movies. Whether it’s the song not syncing right to the scene, the new CGI scenes on other planets that we’ve never even seen in the movies, whatever. You can just tell. Even on the first time watching these movies, I’ve known people who can tell something isn’t quite right about these bits. It’s even more obvious with “Jedi Rocks.” It just. Doesn’t. Work. It’s like George stuffed a cheesy 90s music video into the middle of the movie, total distraction. For better or worse, these movies are products of their time and should be LEFT ALONE. It’s like if they went back and remixed The Beatles’ music and added a bunch of modern digital auto-tune and drum beats to “improve” it.

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Density said:
Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking, but something about the melody of “Yub Nub” triggers a warm happy response in me that seems totally fitting for the end of the series while the other one just leaves me totally cold.

I could say the same thing in reverse, with Victory Celebration being a lovely tune that fits the end of the series perfectly and Yub Nub doing absolutely nothing for me… so yeah, nostalgia could very well be a factor here, for both of us.
I mean, I’m pretty sure the first version of Jedi I saw was the SE, and for the longest time that was all I knew. So even though I KNOW Yub Nub was the original track, it just doesn’t feel right to me.

I will agree that the transition to the credits is awkward in the SE though. They really should have rerecorded the credits music too, and not just awkwardly cut back to the original recording once the credits started.

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When you’re young your opinions can be very biased since you’re mind has to mature. Looking back on it, as a child I insisted the original cuts were better however I realize now that that was born out of my nostalgic love for them. Although I didn’t really get into SW until probably the time the SEs came out I had already overly exposed myself to the OUT by the time I owned the SEs on video. In recent years I’ve tried to not let my personal opinion affect why I think the OUT needs saving. No matter what there’s never gonna be a unanimous answer to which is better. However I agree the originals were products of their time and need preserving. History should not be rewritten as it is regardless of how good or bad the originals may be. Movies are like people. Some age well some don’t. But that’s no reason to erase something that’s made a cultural impact.

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I think any movie that has “Jedi Rocks,” lousy outdated CGI splattered all over the screen for no reason, and a terrible edit of Greedo missing a shot at point blank is pretty much objectively inferior. IMO the only SE you could make a solid argument was actually an improvement is ESB. But even then, the differences are so slight with the Wampa and the Cloud City windows that it just doesn’t matter and there are still a couple things that bug me like the loss of the “Bring my shuttle” line. (Another example of a scene butchered by killing its pacing and emotional impact.) Of all the SE changes to the entire series, the only one that I think comes close to essential is making Ian McDiarmid the Emperor hologram in ESB. I’ve seen people nitpick about how it supposedly looks less like the ROTJ Emperor than the ROTS Emperor, but whatever, it still looks a helluva lot better than that other thing did and is a lot less jarring and continuity-breaking. My ideal cuts of the movies would probably be all the little clean-ups of things like matte lines, the Emperor hologram, and maybe little non-intrusive things like the Cloud City windows. And nothing else changed from the originals.

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Greedo shoots first, or at all. No doubt about it. However, Jedi Rocks vs. Lepti Nek is another bigee for me.

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After calibrating my TV, I have a newfound love for the originals. I can no longer see the garbage mattes (which is how it should be on a well-calibrated screen). Star Wars is just absolutely beautiful now.

I can, of course, still see the regular matte lines, but they’ve never bothered me like garbage mattes do.

“You don’t really mean you’ll kill me, do you?” - Juror 8
“Silence, Earthling! My name is Darth Vader. I am an extra-terrestrial from the planet Vulcan!” - Calvin “Marty” Klein

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Colson said:

After calibrating my TV, I have a newfound love for the originals. I can no longer see the garbage mattes (which is how it should be on a well-calibrated screen). Star Wars is just absolutely beautiful now.

I can, of course, still see the regular matte lines, but they’ve never bothered me like garbage mattes do.

Soooo…
You’re saying you would put the garbage mattes back in?

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Anh: Greedo shooting. Duh. Although the mos eisley approach and the Jabba scene are almost as equally atrocious. The Biggs scene isn’t bad on it’s own but it alters the pacing in a way that pulls me out. Also the jump cut is pretty cleverly disguised by the cgi man walking in front of the camera, but I still find it to be extremely obvious and noticeable and it isn’t smooth.

ESB:Alert my star destroyer. Boooooooo. Why? Ugh. The original is perfect. I miss r2 not tasting good as well, but that’s not technically a SE change because the original 70 mm sound mix has this line.
ROTJ:Jedi rocks. Although I honestly like the film with the whole musical scene edited out as lapti nek is stupid too. Its like they took a part of the movie that was already pretty stupid and somehow made it even more stupid.

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Darth Id said:

Colson said:

After calibrating my TV, I have a newfound love for the originals. I can no longer see the garbage mattes (which is how it should be on a well-calibrated screen). Star Wars is just absolutely beautiful now.

I can, of course, still see the regular matte lines, but they’ve never bothered me like garbage mattes do.

Soooo…
You’re saying you would put the garbage mattes back in?

No! I was simply stating that something I thought was a problem in the original actually wasn’t a problem at all. Honestly my comment was a bit off-topic.

I’d remove Greedo shooting first. Although I could probably be talked into fixing the colors instead.

“You don’t really mean you’ll kill me, do you?” - Juror 8
“Silence, Earthling! My name is Darth Vader. I am an extra-terrestrial from the planet Vulcan!” - Calvin “Marty” Klein

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The colors aren’t a big deal to me, especially not the 97 version which had great and highly accurate colors apparently. But even the Blu-ray, to be honest I didn’t even know people took issues with the colors until I joined this site.

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Density said:

The colors aren’t a big deal to me, especially not the 97 version which had great and highly accurate colors apparently. But even the Blu-ray, to be honest I didn’t even know people took issues with the colors until I joined this site.

I take it you’ve never looked at the lightsabers then.

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The colors aren’t perfect but I don’t classify it as a ‘change’ per se hence why I dont argue them as much as the revisionist changes. I’m also not a color expert so I feel better staying away from arguments that deal with coloring. Have I seen reissued films with bad coloring?? Sure. Personally Im not crazy about the coloring on the BD for The Neverending Story. Ivory Tower scenes looks too yellow and many scenes just look plain dark. All in all, SE or OUT, the SW films need new restorations. The time has come.

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TV’s Frink said:

Density said:

The colors aren’t a big deal to me, especially not the 97 version which had great and highly accurate colors apparently. But even the Blu-ray, to be honest I didn’t even know people took issues with the colors until I joined this site.

I take it you’ve never looked at the lightsabers then.

Well frankly I have hardly watched the official Blu-ray or DVD at all, and it’s been years, so no not really. I just didn’t see anything that jumped out at me as awful from what I remember, but then again I was too impressed by the improved detail and resolution compared to VHS to focus on that much. I didn’t even know that the colors were unfaithful to what was originally shown in theaters.