My Son, 6 years old, ask yesterday to watch starwar on Disney Plus. He want to see the Luke Skywalker movies. He has a bunch of the legos and loves them. However, I could not bring myself to let him watch the “new” versions. It just feels wrong for that to be his first experience. After some searching for a way to watch the “original”, I found this site.
Posting to say, “Hello World” to like minded people.
What do you think? Should he watch the Disney Plus version?
Well, you’ve made it this far so kudos to you!
I’d say get yourself some of the better fan restorations/preservations and show him the original cuts. I showed my kids (ages 5 and 3) the original cuts of the original trilogy in this way earlier this year and it was a great experience all around.
I’d personally go for 4K77 for Star Wars, harmy’s despecialized 2.0 for The Empire Strikes Back, and 4K83 for Return of the Jedi. I’m sorry I’m not much help in regards to obtaining these versions but I’m sure some of the helpful people on this board will jump in and help point you in the right direction.
I’d say at the moment Despecialized for all three, but more or less the same points as above. Fan restorations are definitely in a good enough state to swap for the official cuts without any worries. Even Star Wars, which is the roughest of both the 4Kxx and Despecialized series, is still more than good enough for a first-time viewing (although I’d give the nod to Despecialized if they’re accustomed to that pristine Blu-ray look).
Depending on how much time you feel you have, you can download and compare to decide what you’d prefer to do. I personally would not choose the Disney+ version, but that’s just me.
Many of us, including myself, are parents who have gone through something similar. In fact, I came to this site at more or less the exact same point in my new parenthood, looking for a way to make an anamorphic DVD version of those bonus disc releases of Star Wars, back when that was a thing people did. The situation has improved a bit since, thankfully.
Eh, I’d still argue in favor of 4K77 over despecialized. Even Harmy himself has gone on record as saying he’d recommend it over his current work. It has several things going for it. First and most importantly, it’s a faithful scan of original 1977 sources and not a fan made reconstruction. Secondly it’s available in higher resolution (despecialized is 720p whereas 4K77 can be had in 1080p or 4K).
While I don’t think the natural film grain will be an issue for your kids (it wasn’t for mine), there are several different DNR versions of 4K77 that reduce and smooth out the graininess to varying degrees to suit your preference.
Advantages of DeEd over 4K77: cleaner Blu-ray like feel, more Blu-ray like contrast (less crush), more theatrically accurate colors, more fine detail (the 720p/4K labels are a bit of a red herring in this regard). I get that DeEd has issues – the seams do show from time to time – and 4K77 is Harmy’s favorite for that very reason, but DeEd still has some clear advantages.
The advantage in fine detail alone is worth it for viewing on bigger screens IMO. A projection print scanned at 4K resolution simply has less detail in this case than a negative scan at 720p, even if that’s how it was in the theatre.
Those are all fair points, but I would challenge the claim of color accuracy. I’d say the colors of both are very good (and there are multiple color-timing options to choose from with 4K77 already). Personally I prefer the colors on 4K77 for a couple reasons. One, the original release was timed to match how the print actually looks. And two, while DeEd’s colors are good, they still occasionally suffer from the horrible color timing of the official BD’s creeping through in minor ways.
But really the difference in colors is so minor as to almost not even be worth arguing over. At least to me.
Nevertheless, it’s nice to have two options of such high caliber to choose between. Admittedly, Star Wars is the weakest movie of the trilogy where fan restoration quality is concerned, but they’re both still fine.
And two, while DeEd’s colors are good, they still occasionally suffer from the horrible color timing of the official BD’s creeping through in minor ways.
I agree, the worst parts of DeEd v2.7’s colors are, for me, the overbearing yellows in Mos Eisley and the extreme blues on the Death Star, especially in the Obi-Wan vs. Vader fight. 4k77 v1.4 tunes both of those down to better hues, for me, while still retaining the technicolor look that I believe the film should have.
“Remember, the Force will be with you… always.”