Cobra Kai

Posted this in the other thread, so I'll paste it here as well:

OMEN, I would be very interested in your project.  I just want the Trilogy in the best available quality, but without all the really offensive special edition changes.  There are some minor changes that aren't distracting for me and which do not alter the original intention of the story. 

In a perfect world, yes I would obviously prefer to have the unaltered originals in all their glory, but it does not have to be a true 100% theatrical version for me to enjoy the movies as I did when I was a kid.  Here are my thoughts on each film:

STAR WARS:  The only big SE changes that I wouldn't mind keeping are the new death star attack shots.  They blend very well with the original scene, in my opinion.  Everything else, though, has to go.  All the new cg creatures on tatooine, greedo shooting first, jabba, etc.

EMPIRE: Basically, change everything back to the original except maybe the new Cloud City shots where they added windows revealing parts of the city outside.  This is much less distracting to me, than inserting backgrounds from an inferior quality source and rotoscoping movement around the old backgrounds.   This was really my only problem with Harmy and Adywan's Empire restoration, as it was really noticeable.

- Obviously the old emperor scene MUST be restored.  I'm surprised more people dont talk about this more, as it is one of the most harmful changes that Lucas did to his movies: 

From the opening title crawl we learn that Vader is "obsessed" with finding Luke.  Then later during his conversation with the emperor we hear Vader almost defending Luke:  "He's just a boy.  Obi-wan can no longer help him."  He also expresses reluctantance to kill Luke and offers an alternative - "If he could be turned."  It becomes clear that Vader's "obsession" has to do with the fact that Luke is his son.  His dialogue in the emperor scene starts to reveal that Vader still has a small piece of his humanity left.  Later of course in Jedi we learn that Luke was in fact correct about this as Vader redeems himself in the end and is able to save his "soul".

The new emperor scene removes all of this cool character development and even implies that Vader didn't know Luke was his son: "How is this possible?".  Not to mention the fact that the new dialogue is simply horrible and is the same ridiculous, wooden, lifeless nonsense that plagued the prequels.

- Also, the new shuttle scene during the climax has to be taken out and restored so that we hear the classic "bring my shuttle" line.  That new scene only breaks up the action anyway, and is completely useless.

- Original wampa scene:  I'm "ok" with the new wampa scene but I much prefer the original.

- Restore the original Jeremy Bulloch / Boba Fett audio

JEDI:  I'm ok with the '97 SE ending.  To me the new John Williams score combined with the new shots are a more fitting way to end the Star Wars saga than the original "yub-yub" song.  Still I'm completely happy with the original ending, and yub-yub brings back memories from my childhood, so either way... 

- Jedi Rocks must go.

- original sarlaac.

- Hayden Christiansen - please make him go away. 

- Vader does not yell "Noooooooo!" when he throws the emperor down the shaft.  Seriously, George? What the hell were you thinking?

I'm sure there are more abominations that need to be restored - These are just the major ones that I remember from watching the 06 dvd's several years ago.  I refuse to watch them today.  I also don't like the new over-saturated color correction from the new versions. 

All this being said, yes I can't wait for Harmy's new version 2.0.  I would just like to have these "mostly-despecialized" versions, as another option.

OMEN, I would be very interested in your project.  I just want the Trilogy in the best available quality, but without all the really offensive special edition changes.  There are some minor changes that aren't distracting for me and which do not alter the original intention of the story. 

In a perfect world, yes I would obviously prefer to have the unaltered originals in all their glory, but it does not have to be a true 100% theatrical version for me to enjoy the movies as I did when I was a kid.  Here are my thoughts on each film:

STAR WARS:  The only big SE changes that I wouldn't mind keeping are the new death star attack shots.  They blend very well with the original scene, in my opinion.  Everything else, though, has to go.  All the new cg creatures on tatooine, greedo shooting first, jabba, etc.

EMPIRE: Basically, change everything back to the original except maybe the new Cloud City shots where they added windows revealing parts of the city outside.  This is much less distracting to me, than inserting backgrounds from an inferior quality source and rotoscoping movement around the old backgrounds.   This was really my only problem with Harmy and Adywan's Empire restoration, as it was really noticeable.

- Obviously the old emperor scene MUST be restored.  I'm surprised more people dont talk about this more, as it is one of the most harmful changes that Lucas did to his movies: 

From the opening title crawl we learn that Vader is "obsessed" with finding Luke.  Then later during his conversation with the emperor we hear Vader almost defending Luke:  "He's just a boy.  Obi-wan can no longer help him."  He also expresses reluctantance to kill Luke and offers an alternative - "If he could be turned."  It becomes clear that Vader's "obsession" has to do with the fact that Luke is his son.  His dialogue in the emperor scene starts to reveal that Vader still has a small piece of his humanity left.  Later of course in Jedi we learn that Luke was in fact correct about this as Vader redeems himself in the end and is able to save his "soul".

The new emperor scene removes all of this cool character development and even implies that Vader didn't know Luke was his son: "How is this possible?".  Not to mention the fact that the new dialogue is simply horrible and is the same ridiculous, wooden, lifeless nonsense that plagued the prequels.

- Also, the new shuttle scene during the climax has to be taken out and restored so that we hear the classic "bring my shuttle" line.  That new scene only breaks up the action anyway, and is completely useless.

- Original wampa scene:  I'm "ok" with the new wampa scene but I much prefer the original.

- Restore the original Jeremy Bulloch / Boba Fett audio

JEDI:  I'm ok with the '97 SE ending.  To me the new John Williams score combined with the new shots are a more fitting way to end the Star Wars saga than the original "yub-yub" song.  Still I'm completely happy with the original ending, and yub-yub brings back memories from my childhood, so either way... 

- Jedi Rocks must go.

- original sarlaac.

- Hayden Christiansen - please make him go away. 

- Vader does not yell "Noooooooo!" when he throws the emperor down the shaft.  Seriously, George? What the hell were you thinking?

I'm sure there are more abominations that need to be restored - I'm just going off my memory of the last time i watched the 06 dvd's several years ago.  I refuse to watch them today.  I also don't like the new over-saturated color correction from the new versions. 

All this being said, yes I can't wait for Harmy's new version 2.0.  I would just like to have these "mostly-despecialized" versions, as another option.

Harmy, I was planning on making my own pde after you finish Despecialized 2.0. 

The theatrical version is of course my first choice, but i also want a version that combines your 2.0 with the SE death star attack.  The new shots in that scene work well for me and don't distract me in the least (as opposed to every other SE alteration), so it would be nice to have that entire scene be from one high quality source.

Would this be a simple edit?  Could I just replace the entire death star scene in 2.0 with footage from the PDE (or maybe directly from the 97' SE tv broadcast), or would that cause the original audio to be out of sync?

I'm also a newb, so I'm not sure how to do this yet.  I work on a mac, so that may be problem too, as most of the technical threads here are only relevant to pc's.

thanks.

Harmy said:

You need to make yourself more clear. Do you mean the subs in the video or on the picture? The subs in the video aren't final - they were so bold because I tried to simulate the subs in Puggo Grande but then I found some different sources, which I think are very reliable (one of which is the Baltimore screening video but mainly Mike Verta's picture, which I think can be deemed 100% reliable) which seem to point towards a slightly thinner, more rounded font (it's probably the same font in Puggo's but the overblown whites make it look thicker) hence Yoo_Too's adjustment of my subs, which makes it look almost perfectly like the original subs and that's what's in the last picture I posted :-)

yeah - was talking about the video.  Thanks for the info.

That looks great! 

My only question would be that the subtitles might look a little too bold, from what i remember of the original?  I dont know, i dont currently have the gout on my computer to compare.

just out of curiosity, what did Adywan do in this scene?  I watched his "purist" edition recently and don't remember anything weird in this scene.  It looked great to me.

Looks great Harmy!  well done.

It seems like the technicolor print would be the best reference for color. 

Here is a pic of the of the next shot in that scene.  I would think the color needs to be close to this.

I'm sure you guys have seen all these pics from the technicolor showing last year, but I just ran across them recently and thought they were amazing.  I would have loved to have been at this screening.  It just makes me furious though, that i probably will never see Star Wars again in this high of quality, and in its original form.

http://petergaultney.smugmug.com/Movies/historic/Star-Wars-at-The-Senator/13089279_nXePV#948678565_oUqQS

EyeShotFirst said:

EyeShotFirst - did you ever finish the regular dvd versions of these?  I think I recall you working on them a while back. 

-thanks

which version is the HDTV? isn't that the same as the first SE?

you're still going to have to deal with that awful shot of Hayden Christiansen's ghost at the end as well. No need to put yourself through that kind of torture.

awesome.  really looking forward to this

EyeShotFirst said:

Coming soon!!!

In a vein similar to Harmy's restorations I have restored the film posters to the best of my abilities. They may not be 100% accurate, but they are very pleasing to the eye. I did my own take of the Definitive laser disc box set, though it is still quite different. I'm almost done with the discs, so they will be uploaded sometime in the next few days or so.

All art and images are pre 1997 material to make things more legit. The only images on the back that are not from Harmy's preservation are promotional images and what not.

awesome work.  exactly what i'm looking for.

watched this with several friends.  Not a great documentary but was highly entertaining and well worth watching.  Also, the Gary Kurtz extended interview on the special features section is very interesting, and gives a little more insight into the mind of George Lucas.

Awesome work, Harmy.  I'm a little out of the loop lately - do you have a time-frame for when 2.0 will be finished?

Thanks.

I'm looking for the same thing for ANH and ROTJ.  Adywan's ESB theatrical reconstruction is almost flawless, so I'm good there.

I don't need a true theatrical version (although that would be ideal).  

• ANH - I just need Han to shoot first & to get rid of that horrible Jabba scene. 

• ESB - original Emperor (one of the worst additions to the SE.  Makes Vader look like an idiot and completely ruins his entire motivation/character for the movie), original wampa scene, & get rid of new vader-shuttle scene. (thanks Adywan!)

• Rotj - lose new music scene, original sarlaac, Sebastian Shaw.  I like the new music at the end, so I'm ok with the special edition here. 

Basically I just want the best quality version possible while removing all the really bad additions.