Hi there
Long time listener, first time caller here.
I made the decision to join this community so I could say I’m so GRATEFUL to Harmy, the 4k77 and 4k83 project teams and originaltrilogy.com.
OT means so much to me. It is good and true and an immutable part of who I am and I’m humbled to join the community that curates and protects it.
tl;dr
I first became aware of originaltrilogy.com after acquiring Harmy’s Despecialised Edition of Ep. IV. I was stunned at the amount of effort that must have gone into it but also not stunned because OT means that much to me too.
I’m 43 this year which means I guess I got to experience the sheer wonder and magic of seeing Star Wars as a kid of the age of 9 or 10 then again and again as I became a teenager, adolescent and adult at each stage of my development finding something new whether it be the Wilhelm Scream or “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” only dropping for me after like the 20th viewing LOL but always ALWAYS still experiencing the magic no matter how old I got.
I was so conditioned after watching it so many times even when I was an older teenager I COULD NOT SEE models or double exposure or matte composites. I still saw REAL SPACE SHIPS just like when I was 9 and this effect persisted all the way into adulthood and it was only since I got a big screen TV in the last few years I finally thought “oh yeah ok I see the ‘effect’ now”.
My OT journey was a little different actually because ahem somehow my dad had a VHS copy of ROTJ before it was released in theaters - not the final cut either - and I was too young to understand what a trilogy was or be aware of any of the marketing for the films. I watched Ep IV then ROTJ but ESB did not exist for me until I was about 14 or 15!
I was too young to see have seen any of the films at the cinema so I’d only seen them on VHS - a wrong later to be made right by 4k77 and 4k83 which brings me to the reason why I have signed up tonight.
I only have a fairly modest 55" 2K TV but O… M… G… 4k77 took my breath away. From the exquisite texture, character and definition of 3PO and R2D2 in the opening scene to the tail lights on the Tie Fighters to the structural detail of the Death Star (you can see every individual window) not to mention the colour etc. - every scene is just so alive!
Anyway this is probably not the thread to gush too much about that project but the point is it inspired me to make this connection with originaltrilogy.com as the site that fosters such collaborative efforts.