scruffy_looking

The only change I would insist on is this: re-instating the Fox Fanfare. Even if it’s just the music over a black screen, as long as the timing matches the other films. The movie felt a little naked without it.

I recently read descriptions of all the deleted scenes, and I don’t think any entire scenes need to be restored. What I would do is re-instate some brief shots that were cut (the Constable on Jakku for example). Basically anything that would give the movie just a little more breathing room, to slow down the pace just a tad.

Overall I loved the theatrical cut, and I don’t think it needs an overhaul.

Looks gorgeous to me.

Better blended than most matte painting/live action shots.

Fang Zei said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

scruffy_looking said:

Seeing "4K" and "SE" in the same sentence makes me feel violently ill.

Urge to create a droid character named SE-4K for one of my SW screenplays rising ... 

DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

 Would be a good name for one of those walking garbage bin droids.

Seeing "4K" and "SE" in the same sentence makes me feel violently ill.

Polishing a turd indeed.

Yep, some dismiss it as "fan fiction". An absurd claim.

Would anyone else on the forum with the skills and supplies be willing to print ronwlim's awesome packaging set for me? I would of course pay for supplies and shipping. I could probably provide the plastic cases, too, if necessary. 

WOW!!

Amazing work, ronwlim!

I've had dreams about packaging of this quality!

zensu91 said:

Elo' Good folks, i was wondering if there is a better link or another one to the Blu-ray covers? The one Harmy has posted sends you to the deep web of eastern europe and i dont understand anything, but when i do the kinda dumb thing of clicking about it comes up what seems to be surveys or whatnot. 

So, it would be greatly appreciated if someone could link to a proper website thats preferably on english :)

Thank you very much Harmy for all of this! 

 There's this thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Blu-Ray-and-other-HD-box-size-STAR-WARS-covers/topic/11843/page/18/

It would be wonderful to see 2.0 released in time for all the OT watching marathons we'll be having leading up to the release of Ep. VII...

yoda-sama said:

scruffy_looking said:

Well said yoda-sama, I agree completely.

And trashing Yub-Nub was one of the worst sins of the special editions...

Well, so many bad things happened all at once there it is hard to say what is worst... Yes they switched to oddly somber music, but they also assaulted us with CG, gave Jar Jar the last spoken line, and then threw Hayden's face at us.  That is really a lot of terrible to take in the closing minutes...

That about sums up why I felt I felt sick to my stomach after seeing the SE in the theaters and made sure I never had to settle for watching that version again, and ended up here.

yoda-sama said:

Alderaan94 said:

Hi¡ Is there a version of the movie with the 1983 scenes but the 1997 Ending/Celebration with the changed music? I prefer the originals, but i grew up with the Special Edition Celebration Music and an hybrid versión would be epic, with only Endor footage and Sebastian Shaw but with the 1997 music.

While out of place to ask this in a forum about removing all changes, and as appreciative as I can be about nostalgia, what really makes me sad about Alderaan94's question is the further realization that these horrible Special Editions have been the prominent available versions long enough now for people to have been able to "grow up" with them...  Harmy's work is important, and it will do a LOT of good for the people that can get it and use it, but it is becoming clear that an official release of the OOT needs to happen critically soon or George's hope that only his revised version will be the one that lasts could still come to pass...

Well said yoda-sama, I agree completely.

And trashing Yub-Nub was one of the worst sins of the special editions...

Of course what looks "natural" to the individual and what is historically accurate may be two different things.

That shot looks a little wonky to me too. But I don't have original prints, mattes, etc. to use as an authoritative reference. The purpose of Harmy's project is not to make everything look natural and pleasing.

I think a neat way to enhance the presentation of the OT theatrical versions would be to precede the feature films with a collection of vintage trailers for other movies, and any other material (popcorn ads?) that would have actually played in theaters during the original run.

How doable do you all think this is? Of course the actual content would have varied greatly depending on geographical location. Certainly it would be fairly easy to guess what trailers would have been shown in May of 1977 in the U.S. for example. But are there sources where one could determine these contents more precisely?

Of course even an approximation would really enhance the viewing experience imo. I’m a big fan of putting stuff in context, and I think popping in a Despecialized Blu-Ray and having it kick off with a slew of vintage theatrical promo material would be awesome, and a nice contrast to whatever crap trailers might be on an official release.

I personally don’t have the means to assemble such a thing, so I’m just tossing this out there as an idea. Maybe someone has already worked on this?

bings said:

scruffy_looking said:

bings said:

This is my new menu for my trilogy Blu Ray using FrankT's covers.

Available on usenet

 Do you have an image link to those covers? They look great!

 http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Blu-Ray-and-other-HD-box-size-STAR-WARS-covers/topic/11843/page/13/

FrankT put a link up to covers, 8 posts from the bottom

 Thanks!

bings said:

This is my new menu for my trilogy Blu Ray using FrankT's covers.

Available on usenet

 Do you have an image link to those covers? They look great!

yoda-sama said:

Yeah, that is what I meant.

Just had a thought, for the background video during the initial menu, what clips do people have in mind?  Being that this is the DeEd, would shots of before, during and after restoration be something we'd like to see, or do we want to look past that the SE's even exist and have just choice clips from the restored film?  This project seems to always walk a fine line of wanting to focus on only the originals mattering and lauding the truly impressive achievement of undoing such heinous alterations.

This is just my two cents, but when I pop in a despecialized edition, the last thing I want to see on my screen is any trace of any "special edition".

I hereby nominate Harmy for sainthood. I finally got around to downloading and burning all three "despecialized" movies. Incredible.

Yes, I bought the blu-rays because I support copyright law, but I don't even have a blu-ray player, just a nice DVD player and a modest 27 inch TV. Prior to now I had been watching the OT via the old TR47 laserdisc rips. So needless to say, Harmy's versions are a gigantic leap in terms of visual quality. The colors alone are a joy to behold. And this is probably the first time I've heard the original theatrical mix. And of course the "de-specilalization" is seamless.

I really, really hope that Lucasfilm does the right thing in the near future, but it's fantastic to know that I, and the rest of the world, have such a quality restoration to rely on no matter what.

Erik Pancakes said:

I'd suggest the same, but for some people that isn't feasible for other, non-cost-related reasons. For instance, my uncle doesn't own an HDTV, so he has no need for a BR player, and as most (all?) BR players are HDMI-only now, he wouldn't be able to use one anyway, so I gave him DVD-5 copies.

But anyway, glad I was able to help you, Bobby D! Enjoy!

 The DVD-5 is great! Up until now I've been watching the OOT courtesy of the old TR47 ld transfers, so even thought the DVD-5 version is downscaled, it's a gigantic improvement in quality. The DVD version also has the advantage of being easy to burn.

I would greatly appreciate a myspleen invite if anyone is willing. Thank you!

chyron8472 said:

I don't think you understand.

MySpleen is a private torrent tracker (meaning you must be invited to set up an account and the .torrents it lists are permanently blocked from using any other peer discovery methods outside of the MySpleen tracker itself.)

Suffice it to say, what you should do (after having bought official copies of the Original Trilogy) is:

- get an invite to Myspleen and create an account,

- search MySpleen for "Harmy"

- download the v2.5 AVCHD of Star Wars, the v2.0 AVCHD of ESB, and the v1.0 AVCHD of ROTJ (as those are the lastest respective versions of each)

- buy blank Memorex DVD9's (or DVD-DL's)

- burn each AVCHD to a DVD.

- Enjoy watching them on your Bluray player.

 A couple follow up questions to this very helpful post:

-what is the current best way to get a MySpleen invite?

-Will the AVCHD, when burned to a DVD9, play on a standard DVD player? I only ask this because you specifically mention watching it on a BluRay player.

Thanks!

I know this seems like a non Star Wars related topic, but I figured this was a good place to post a question regarding laserdisc transfers to DVD.

I’ve heard that the theatrical version of Close Encounters was never released on home video, but I’ve also heard that the laserdisc release was the least-altered of any version available. I’m wondering if anyone can clear this up. I’m also wondering if anyone’s considered doing a transfer to DVD of the theatrical or laserdisc version, or if any transfers already exist. Thanks for your time