And here’s the “best news” I referred to earlier – we now have a complete set of Catalan dubs.
So what’s so special about this? Isn’t it just another dub? No, not in my opinion. Not at all.
I don’t often wax poetical about dubs – I’m a subtitle guy myself – but I’ve found they fall into certain categories, at least in terms of audio quality. There’s your high quality dubs from Laserdisc or DVD of the unaltered trilogy. German, French, Japanese, and so on. Great sound quality, no Special Edition nonsense, the way Star Wars dubs ought to be. But there are only a certain number of these, and the list never grows. Then there’s your variable-quality captures of TV dubs – at best, never nearly as good as your high quality dubs, and at worst, pretty bad. Then there’s your Despecialized dubs from DVD and Blu-ray, which can have good audio quality, but you get the Special Edition material, which puts them dead last in my estimation.
And then there’s the Catalan dubs. Star Wars and Empire are made-for-TV dubs, Jedi is a theatrical dub, but all three were TV broadcasts, and that’s how we have them. In terms of translation quality, I have no idea how they rate. But in terms of overall audio quality, these equal the Laserdisc tier in my opinion. Mono, but top-notch mono. And no, they don’t use the mono mix, they’re just a mono fold-down of stereo mixes.
They’re not perfect, of course. There is some tape damage at the beginning of the first reel of Jedi that I was sadly unable to correct. The lip sync comes and goes but is usually pretty solid. And there’s some crazy made-for-TV business – I don’t know all of the sound effects that Lucasfilm made for these films and rejected, or only included in certain releases, but I have the distinct impression that some sound effects were added by the dubbing studio or TV station. And they are occasionally quite weird. In Star Wars, in the shootout immediately following Obi-Wan’s death, there’s… I dunno… EXTRA laser blasts. But not really extra Star Wars laser blasts, extra laser blasts made by some guys whacking a metal cable to achieve something one cut above yelling “pew! pew!”. And in the mission briefing, there’s extra robot noises. Are they from the robot next to R2? Or from the projection screen? I have no idea. But whatever they are supposed to be, they are now preserved in very high quality, and these strange moments are the rare exceptions to an overall excellent presentation.
So, if you or someone you know speaks Catalan, this is great news, because Catalan just jumped the queue to become a top-tier language for the whole trilogy. If you’re curious about some of these unusual dubs we’ve been collecting, but are put off by that lo-fi VHS sound, this is the one you want to try. Either way, you can PM me for links to the dubs or download them from the usual places.
And to top it off, Laozi has offered to produce full Catalan subtitles, which will be included in the next version of Project Threepio. These subtitles are still a work in progress, as he’s taking extra time to ensure the best translation from the English.