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The ‘Custom Special Edition’ That Almost Wasn’t, But Then Was (Released) — Page 12

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Have you thought about using Vader’s voice from the Blu-ray mix of A New Hope. They added the correct vocal effect on his voice in the DVD and Blu-ray versions.

The name’s Lawson. Noah Lawson.

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Someone around here suggested applying a bass boost has a similar effect, and that’ll probably be worth playing with rather than hopping around sources for much of the movie. I still don’t trust the 2004+ mixes.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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 (Edited)

Hmm… shifting the bass affects the rest of the sounds occurring at the same time, and won’t work for me. While I appreciate the logic and consistency of using the 2011 track for all of Vader’s dialogue, I think I’ll pass on that one.

Can anyone with access to the mono mix (including via Harmy’s DeEd), please send me the clip where Luke asks, “Blast it, Wedge, where are you?” I’m pretty maxed out on hard drive space right now and don’t want to download the 20GB file just to rip that small chunk from it. Much appreciated, if so.

Also, I just recreated the mono mix’s slight ‘sneak preview’ of the Cantina band music as the heroes approach the entrance. Gave it a low pass filter and matched the noticeability of the (clip on YouTube I pulled up of) the mono mix.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I don’t know if it would help. I don’t know how isolating mixes work but if this helps, Ady has Blast it Wedge where are you if you have it. It’s more along where it doesn’t sounds like Luke shouts the line “Blast it Wedge where are you?” in the mono, Its more of the tone “Blast it Biggs (Wedge) where are you?” in his. Just throwing that option out there.

All my life as I looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never in my mind did I know where I was, what I was doing.

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 (Edited)

Exporting a new audio track to sit alongside the other. This track is the same, but includes:

  • “[I] wanted you to have this when you were old enough…”
  • 2004 Krayt dragon call
  • Recreated mono mix preview of the Cantina music as heroes approach entrance
  • “Blast it, Wedge, where are you?”
  • Luke reacting to Biggs’ death (from radio drama; idea from Adywan’s edit)

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I think Old Ben picked up a drinking habit out in the Tatooine desert!

Sounds totally seamless, Hal! I’m glad you decided to do this.

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Out of curiosity will this version on ESB have the cropped Falcon shot or the un cropped? I remember you inquiring about that a while back and noticed the cropped shot were used.

All my life as I looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never in my mind did I know where I was, what I was doing.

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Hal 9000 said:

Well, I don’t think this is half bad. I added the first syllable and a half of “A Jedi can feel the whisky flowing through him” from ANH.

https://vimeo.com/343932338
password: fanedit

That’s seamless, perfect!

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

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ZaneFlare92 said:

Out of curiosity will this version on ESB have the cropped Falcon shot or the un cropped? I remember you inquiring about that a while back and noticed the cropped shot were used.

It would be more trouble than it’s worth in my estimation, and would force me to use 720p Harmy footage for large chunks of the movie.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I’ve had a frustrating time encoding the video streams for Empire, but it should be coming down the pike pretty soon. Then V6 of TAS shouldn’t be far behind, though still needs me to resync subtitles and things like that.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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ESB V2 is on its way up, in the usual places. Again, this is a remastering of the video stream, primarily. I used LUTs provided by DrDre (and two provided by Sir Ridley) to somewhat creatively correct the BluRay on a scene-by-scene (and sometimes shot-by-shot) basis. The only new change to the content itself is to modify Ben’s line to “[a] Jedi Master who instructed me,” and there is another audio track without this change.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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 (Edited)

The new version looks great, thanks for all your hard work Hal. I have to point out though, that the changelog isn’t entirely accurate anymore. Thumbing through the edit, there are several small visual alterations from 2004 and 2011 that aren’t listed. Also, the Wampa cave scene is clearly the theatrical version and not Adywan’s version. I think these changes are mostly for the better so I’m not complaining, but perhaps it would make more sense to list what visual changes were made from the 2011 version rather than the 97 release?

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 (Edited)

Oh, yeah, that’s right… I just modified what I’d done differently and didn’t consider in depth the 2011 source versus Adywan’s 1997 recreation.

The Wampa scene is sourced mostly from Adywan’s Revisited edit, with a few Despecialized shots. I had to do that in order to maximize quality, but reverted some of his new Wampa shots to the OOT.

But thank you; I’m glad you like the final product.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I’m glad you’ve used a higher bitrate video source for TESB: the quality is excellent. I haven’t checked the entire edit yet, but I like the colors (to be fair I don’t mind the bluray color timing except for the pink lightsaber, however it looks better with this grading). Thanks to anyone involved with it (I understand it’s a huge amount of work to get this result). I’m ok with what’s kept for the SE (many small things actually) and what’s being pushed away or “fixed” (Adywan’s Emperor and cloud city continuity issue, brillantly done - I just wish you had emulated his continuity fix for the reused shot of Piett at the end of the movie).

I’m surprised by the change from “the Jedi master” to “a Jedi master”, but it works well. I’m more surprised by the fact Lucas never thought about implementing it himself back in 2004/2011 !

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Thank you. The saber duel was one instance of shot-by-shot correction (or creative LUT mixing and application), since what was good for the red saber was bad for the blue. Took a while to do and to refine.

The reason I included the continuity fix for the Cloud City window was because the error was introduced by a Special Edition change. So, while I don’t know which Piett change you’re talking about, I’m not really concerned unless it’s a problem the SE(s) introduces.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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 (Edited)

Hal Im glad I thought about this before you finished ANH, Being youre gonna go through the whole Wedge thing, Rouge Leader says “Red 6 do you see Red 5 ?” but it’s Wedge who responds “There’s heavy fire on that side, Red 5 Where are you?” Red 6 is Porkins who is already shot down. Adywan some how mocked up Rouge Leader saying Red 2. In the battle after Wedge says "Look at the size of that thing. You can use Red Leader "Cut the Chatter “Red 2” to fix that for your alternate track. Im sure that was the likely thing Ady did to do that fix.

All my life as I looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never in my mind did I know where I was, what I was doing.

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I realize my sensibilities about these things for the Custom SE version are weird, but that’s the sort of thing that doesn’t bother me; just a byproduct of making a movie like this. If it wasn’t damage caused from a SE change not being thought out, it just doesn’t seem to get to me.
However, I know I already broke the seal on that as a criteria. So, let me take a look and listen and see what I think. I thank you for the suggestion.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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No problem, I know it’s on of those weird movie things that just happens to be. That’s why I suggested it to be used as a alternate track with other alternate dialogue ideas that have come forward if you thought of going through with it. Just thought it be a cool continuity feature.

All my life as I looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never in my mind did I know where I was, what I was doing.

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Where can I get a copy of your ESB Custom SE? I would love to have it! Thanks in advance!

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 (Edited)

These look amazing! You’re incredibly talented, Ridley!

I have a friend who hasn’t seen any of the Star Wars movies that wants to catch up before Episode IX comes out, and I might show them these versions, Hal. I feel like they’re a great in between as far as not being too different from the OOT but updating some effects so it doesn’t feel very outdated in comparison to the other films.