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What Special Edition changes (if any) did people like? — Page 21

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NeverarGreat said:

ray_afraid said:

I’d almost forgotten that the Luke/Biggs scene before the big battle was added for the SE.
I like that one.

BUT R2 MAGICALLY TELEPORTS IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE SCENE!
0/10 FAIL
NEVER FORGET!

(What is it with R2 now doing impossible things in the SE?)

Yeah, but I still like the scene and think it’s a good addition. That R2 jump could (and has) been fixed pretty easily. Too bad the quality control at LFL isn’t as tight as it is for some fanedits…

Ray’s Lounge
Biggs in ANH edit idea
ROTJ opening edit idea

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I actually didn’t hate putting Haydn in Return of the Jedi.

Wait: hear me out! Believe me: I’m as shocked as anyone to say this, lol. But when Phantom Menace came out, they released a timeline of the Star Wars universe. Phantom Menace took place 32 years before Star Wars. And Lucas commented on how he changed Anakin to being 9 years old.

Well that means Anakin is 41 years old in Star Wars, and he’s probably-what?-44 or 45 in Return of the Jedi.

When they cast Anakin in Return of the Jedi they cast a contemporary of Alec Guiness. Sebastian Shaw was (if I remember right) in his early seventies when he played Anakin. That’s 30 years older than the character would actually be.

So I think that’s one change that wasn’t actually too bad.

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Quatorz said:

I actually didn’t hate putting Haydn in Return of the Jedi.

Wait: hear me out! Believe me: I’m as shocked as anyone to say this, lol. But when Phantom Menace came out, they released a timeline of the Star Wars universe. Phantom Menace took place 32 years before Star Wars. And Lucas commented on how he changed Anakin to being 9 years old.

Well that means Anakin is 41 years old in Star Wars, and he’s probably-what?-44 or 45 in Return of the Jedi.

When they cast Anakin in Return of the Jedi they cast a contemporary of Alec Guiness. Sebastian Shaw was (if I remember right) in his early seventies when he played Anakin. That’s 30 years older than the character would actually be.

So I think that’s one change that wasn’t actually too bad.

Ray’s Lounge
Biggs in ANH edit idea
ROTJ opening edit idea

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Quatorz said:

I actually didn’t hate putting Haydn in Return of the Jedi.

Wait: hear me out! Believe me: I’m as shocked as anyone to say this, lol. But when Phantom Menace came out, they released a timeline of the Star Wars universe. Phantom Menace took place 32 years before Star Wars. And Lucas commented on how he changed Anakin to being 9 years old.

Well that means Anakin is 41 years old in Star Wars, and he’s probably-what?-44 or 45 in Return of the Jedi.

When they cast Anakin in Return of the Jedi they cast a contemporary of Alec Guiness. Sebastian Shaw was (if I remember right) in his early seventies when he played Anakin. That’s 30 years older than the character would actually be.

So I think that’s one change that wasn’t actually too bad.

Anakin shouldn’t have been nine years old in TPM, which means he shouldn’t have been in his forties in the OT.

A stupid change made to cater to another stupid change doesn’t negate the stupidity of either.

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ray_afraid said:

Quatorz said:

I actually didn’t hate putting Haydn in Return of the Jedi.

Wait: hear me out! Believe me: I’m as shocked as anyone to say this, lol. But when Phantom Menace came out, they released a timeline of the Star Wars universe. Phantom Menace took place 32 years before Star Wars. And Lucas commented on how he changed Anakin to being 9 years old.

Well that means Anakin is 41 years old in Star Wars, and he’s probably-what?-44 or 45 in Return of the Jedi.

When they cast Anakin in Return of the Jedi they cast a contemporary of Alec Guiness. Sebastian Shaw was (if I remember right) in his early seventies when he played Anakin. That’s 30 years older than the character would actually be.

So I think that’s one change that wasn’t actually too bad.

That wait was better than the first wait.

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Boba flirting with the dancer. Literally the only characterization he gets in either film.

TAFKA TheBoost

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I’m actually quite fond of three changes:

Han Solo’s charging into a room full of stormtroopers just makes that sequence even funnier to me.

Ian McDiarmid’s Emperor being placed into ESB was great.

I am fond of Victory Celebration over Yub Nub. Though I loved Yub Nub as a kid, I like the emotional impact of Victory Celebration now–I even like the galaxy celebrating scenes that they added.

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I’ve read that they went back to the original negatives of the scenes shot and the original film for the special effects and bluescreen ships and things and scanned all of that and digitally re-composited that back together?

I do like them removing the matte lines and blending that all back. I really hate matte lines. And I can still remember the terrible matte lines of Luke and that Rancor thing in Jedi.

I also like them fixing some of the lightsabers and fixing errors like the red arm in the Wampa scene very early on in Empire.

One thing is I wish Harmy would have left in the fixed matte lines and other fixes like them removing that red arm in the wampa scene.

I really wish the Blu-Ray release of older movies in general that they would at least digitally remove the matte lines. I’ve got the Goonies on Blu-Ray and really hate the matte lines when the kid is looking through the hole in the coin. I just wish they’d gotten rid of matte lines as even in the 80’s, those matte lines would stick out and take me out of the movie.

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I’m actually a bit of a fan of the addition of the Aurabesh language in Star Wars (1977). As originally you would see plain English. Also it seems that the original Aurabesh was just random letters splashed around. In the Special edition they were fixed and the original Aurabesh was fixed to actually stay things. Also all English was replaced with their Aurabesh equivalents.

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LssjCorey said:

I’m actually a bit of a fan of the addition of the Aurabesh language in Star Wars (1977). As originally you would see plain English. Also it seems that the original Aurabesh was just random letters splashed around. In the Special edition they were fixed and the original Aurabesh was fixed to actually stay things. Also all English was replaced with their Aurabesh equivalents.

You just have to understand that the ‘English’ is just an alien language that happens to coincide exactly with what English looks like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9tgLnI0fFc

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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i’d be fine with them completely re-rendering and re-compositing all of the digital effects in the prequels in 4K, crawl to credits, while merely upscaling the 2k digital live-action footage for episodes 2 and 3.

also, making the lightsabers look more like they do in the sequel trilogy. i’d have no problem with them doing that.

i’m really just imagining them doing all of this with better graphics processing and faster rendering in 2019/2020

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These were some the Special Edition changes that I liked.

A NEW HOPE:
New Crawl
C-3PO’s Added Lines
New Wide Landscape Shots
Modified Matte Paintings
Extended Sandtrooper Search
Most of the New Added Effects to Mos Eisley
Explosion Rings
Added Stormtrooper Lines
Added Stormtrooper Hanger Shot
Improved Echo Effect
Modified Lightsaber Blades
Added Biggs Darklighter Scene
New Visual Effects to the Death Star Attack
New Millennium Falcon Visual Effects
New Actors in the Celebration Hall

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK:
New Emperor Palpatine Scene
New Music Transition Cues
New Aerial Visual Effects
New Cloud City Background Windows
Added Millennium Falcon Hatch
Added Cloud City Reactions to Lando’s Message

RETURN OF THE JEDI:
Added Shots of Boba Fett
Enhanced Unfreezing Han Solo Effect
Added Shot of Banthas
Added Sarlacc Beak
Added Blinking Ewoks
Darth Vader’s Enhanced Face
Death Star Explosion Ring
New Ending Song
Added Other Planets During the Ending

The name’s Lawson. Noah Lawson.

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Gaffer Tape said:

I liked “Close the blast doors,” but that wasn’t really an SE change. It was used on, I think the 70 mm and mono (or one or the other) original audio tracks, but it wasn’t used in a <span class=“Italics”>home</span> release until the SEs.

yeah that was awesome!
had been missing that ever since the original theatrical releases

that said, NONE of the home releases still show that scene the way it was originally shown, they all seem to cut some part of the original dialogue out and revoice other parts and alter the chase sequence in one way or another

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But going back further, when that scene was written and filmed, Vader and Anakin probably weren’t the same person at all. Trying to think like Lucas makes my head hurt.

I don’t know. I sort of feel like he already had a feeling they might be one and the same.
Alec Guiness said that he insisted Lucas fill him in on background details so he could act his character better and I think he said he was told secret stuff.
Now note the whole meeting between Luke and Obi-wan. When Obi says Darth Vader killed his father, that whole bit, look at how Alec Guiness acts that, his eyes go all shifty, he is clearly stretching the truth (at best). He didn’t deliver the line and act it out as if that was simple flat fact.

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bactaOT said:

I really dislike the added Jabba scene in the SE, and not only for the obvious and poorly executed CGI either.

In my opinion Han would have managed to get off Tatooine WAY before Jabba even got the chance to catch up with him.

In fact, I don’t think Han would be careless enough to leave any trails to allow Jabba to discover where the Falcon was docked.
Han was better than that!

Just another thing to mess up Han’s character, and is right up there with the ‘Greedo shoots’ scene for me!

Well, the problem is the scene was originally made back when the rest of Star Wars was originally made. You make it sound it’s something Lucas thought up years later. He just didn’t have time to add in an effect to replace the stand in actor back in the 70s so the scene got cut.

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JacDan said:

None of them really. A couple of Death Star battle shots from Ep. IV but the quality of those shots were so inconsistent with the original footage that it was more annoying to watch than anything else. Also scenes in Ep. IV that SHOULD’VE been changed weren’t, e.g., Ties chasing Rebs in the trenches. One moment Ties but no Rebs, next moment Ties fire and Rebs just ahead explode to kingdom come. I also hate the remastered look of the SEs. They look nothing like the films from their runs during the late 70s - early 80s. The contrast levels are nice but overall it’s just so damn revisionist.

When R2D2 goes through the Jawa canyon it looks really dark in recent releases. In early home releases that looked almost like day time. I forget, when did the home releases change that? If it was with the SE, then the SE actually get that MUCH, MUCH more accurate. Back in the theatrical release, it did look really dark when he went through that canyon and did not look vritually like day time as it had on TV and so many home releases for years.

Perhaps they already fixed that before the SE though, maybe for some earlier THX release or something?

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Easterhay said:

Quicker to list the changes I don’t like.  They’re all in ESB.

The dialogue change from “Bring my shuttle” to “Alert my start destroyer to prepare for my arrival, and have my smoking jacket and slippers ready.  Oh, and put the kettle on for I should like a cup of hot chocolate, too.”  And the butchering of the subsequent chase scene.  All unecessary and I’d love to see them removed.

Other than that, I’m fine with everything.

ugh I hated that whole change, they cut the single most fiercely deliver line by Vader in the entire series! and totally cut up the pacing and music

i’d call that the single worst change

I don’t like Greedo shooting first or both shooting at the same time. Makes no sense! I mean Han is jsut supposed to sit there and let Greedo kill him? Greedo is supposed to miss from 2’ away?

I sort of miss the original x-wings in the Death Star battle.

The expolding DS didn’t really need the ring added.

I’m actually fine with Hayden ghost though.

Wasn’t crazy about the new Jabba palace song.

I don’t mind the somewhat busier Mos Eisley. It was always supposed to busy and bustling from day 1, Lucas just ran out of money. All the talk that Star Wars has to be half empty, nothing going on locations doesn’t really make any sense.

I’m fine with WOlfman gone from cantina.

The new windows and such for Cloud City are fine.

I don’t mind the Jabba seen in ANH, although it’s not really needed. Perhaps it does make ROTJ less suspenseful for first time viewers.

I love that they sort of brought back the close the blast doors stuff, but they still don’t have it like it originally was, which was best of all.

The new celebrations at the end of ROTJ are cool.

Bantha herds were a nice addition

etc.

Plenty of stuff was fine. But I do wish they had always given us the original cut as well. Sometimes you jsut want to get the full nostalgic pull of the original version. Sometimes you want to see the new stuff. Let us see it both ways whenver we chose.

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slask said:

fandom’s vision is not lazy, it’s stuck in time, and that’s worse.

some truth to that

some went nuts because the prequels dared to show crowded cities
what? what? all this nonsense, cars, taxis, ships all over by the dozens? just a bunch of fake show off garbage!

but really, come on… the entire galaxy is supposed to be nothing be barren wastes just because that is all we ever got to see in 4-6???

I guess Times Square in NYC is fake? It’s just a bunch of phony, over-crowded, CGI show off nonsense???

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joefavs said:

^eeeeh, I dunno. I guess if they’d done it before his characterization went completely off the rails it could have been cool, but the original Emperor hologram has always been one of my absolute favorite parts of the saga. Continuity be damned, it’s so pleasingly spooky.

yeah the original emperor there was pretty cool

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[adywan said:]It’s pure bull that the additions were part of Lucas’ original vision and that technical limitations at the time stopped him from doing the thing he wanted. You only have to look at most of the additions/ alterations to see that this isn’t true

you go far to extreme in the other direction

plenty of the stuff he had wanted at the time, but had either no money or tech or both for it at the time, and you can find writings of his from back in the time of the OT where he mentions stuff, it’s not at all all pure bull

that said, plenty of stuff he did think up later as well

And to say that if you complain about the SE then you should also hate every directors cut is ridiculous. For one the SE’s stopped being called that and replaced the originals as the only version.  With directors cuts you usually get the original along with it or available as a separate release. Not so with the OT.  If Lucas had just kept them as special editions and not tried to bury the originals, then you can bet the hatred towards those films wouldn’t be half as bad as it is now. You could just ignore them. As it stands now you are either stuck with crappy DVDs of a non-anamorphic laserdisc master or fan made preservations/ recreations . The more Lucas refused to release the originals, restored in HD, the more the hatred towards the SE’s grew

I certainly don’t like that the OOT got hidden away.

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MonkeyLizard10 said:

bactaOT said:

I really dislike the added Jabba scene in the SE, and not only for the obvious and poorly executed CGI either.

In my opinion Han would have managed to get off Tatooine WAY before Jabba even got the chance to catch up with him.

In fact, I don’t think Han would be careless enough to leave any trails to allow Jabba to discover where the Falcon was docked.
Han was better than that!

Just another thing to mess up Han’s character, and is right up there with the ‘Greedo shoots’ scene for me!

Well, the problem is the scene was originally made back when the rest of Star Wars was originally made. You make it sound it’s something Lucas thought up years later. He just didn’t have time to add in an effect to replace the stand in actor back in the 70s so the scene got cut.

You refer to the professional theatre, tv & film actor Declan Mulholland hired to play the role of Jabba - playing the role in made to measure and full screen-ready costume?

It is well documented that George was short on money and time whilst filming Star Wars - so it is surprising he went to the lengths - and cost - to hire a professional actor and then also fitted him out with a screen-ready costume… especially if he was planning to then going to replace him with ‘an effect’ later.

Surely a stage hand or anybody around the set willing to do a ‘stand-in’ would have been a lot cheaper, quicker and easier… than going to above lengths?
 

As Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz pointed out… the Jabba scene is also fairly redundant as the audience has already learnt much of the same information - and dialogue - from in the Greedo Cantina scene.

Along with Kurtz’ quotes on the subject of “… and that character was originally going to be a human being”, and also “Jabba is [now] this a giant slug rather than a human being… the sightlines are a bit odd… the position of the characters… if that had been the way the original scene was going to be shot… it would have been shot differently”.
 

That there are no plans, sketches or mentions of an alien slug-like Jabba prior to shooting the film is also an indicator that Jabba was - as he originally appeared for the shooting of the film - a human.
 

Lucas attempting to go back in time and alter scripts/screenplays to fit with his later narrative claims also raises issues on him once again ret-conning history to fit in with his later and grander ‘vision’(s)…

 

More information on this can be found here - George Lucas: Unreliable Narrator & Time Travelling Revisionist…; in Category No. 9 - ‘Jabba originally was a human; from planning to filming…’

 
 

MonkeyLizard10 - If you could also limit your posts made one after the other it’d much appreciated mate (eight consecutive posts in a short space of time is a bit much) - you can use the ‘Edit’ button in the future to help place your content/replies into one post.

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

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Well, the biggest (non-CGI-related) problem with the Jabba scene was, when it was cut, they changed the dialogue in the Greedo scene to relay the small amount of information that was originally only in the Jabba scene, down to lifting full audio clips of Ford’s dialogue from the Jabba scene into the Greedo scene (“Even I get boarded sometime. Do you think I had a choice?”)

But when they added the Jabba scene back in, they didn’t revert the Greedo scene to its original state, which means the Jabba scene now does…nothing. Everything’s already been conveyed in the Greedo scene, and now we have not just repeated dialogue in the revised Greedo subtitles, but full-on repeated audio takes in Ford’s dialogue across both scenes.

You need to either keep the Jabba scene out, or put it back in and restore the Greedo scene back to the dialogue it had in the shooting script.

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suspiciouscoffee said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Perhaps he raised the question because the prequels turned Darth from a cool name into a lame title.

Why not both? I say we need a sith named Darth Darth.

Funny side notes, doing genealogy, I found that in a certain country, in some parishes, the scribes wrote a local girls name in the books as “Darth” (which is also contrary to all the claims that the word “Darth” has never appeared before and was made up for Star Wars) coming from Darthe or Darte which is Dorothy in English so Darth Vader is really Dorothy Vader 😃. Also amazingly I found farms called Jawa, Tatoone, Tosche, Jaku! Part of me almost wonders if someone he didn’t once see an old church book from this place, although it seems hard to imagine.

I even have a female direct ancestor whose name was written out as Darth in baptism record!

And talking about Darth Darth… that reminds me of the 80s and Mr. Mister which reminds me that I also found in those church books a few Mr. Misters listed.