British Star Wars - original voices reinstated from on-set audio

This is a very silly project which I’ve been meaning to do since I first saw the “lost cut” version of the cantina scene in Deleted Magic, then again since the 2011 blu-rays had this in better quality. Finally, I just stumbled upon Bobson Dugnutt’s Star Wars: Leftovers which collected together all of the source audio I could want for this into one handy package, so I no longer had any excuse not to do it.

Here is the on-set audio of British actors edited back into scenes from the film, replacing the American or alien voices they were dubbed over with. The dialogue isn’t always exactly the same, as a lot was re-written between principal photography and ADR. I’ve taken some creative liberties to focus the scenes on the lines in question and to include as much as possible.

Here is a preview version of the video. Any creative or technical feedback would be appreciated. In particular, I’m not sure if it’d work better as separate videos for each scene, or one 9-minute video as presented here. I do love the totally inappropriate transition into the cantina scene.

The video is primarily D+77, and the audio is based on the mono mix. Other sources are:

• hairy_hen’s isolated score
• 4K97_IV V2 (Jabba scene)
• Flunk DTV broadcast of the 97SE (to patch out the burnt-in subs in that scene)
• Doctor Who: The Androids of Tara (audio of Declan Mulholland screaming)
• Adywan’s regraded 2011SE (textless Greedo scene)
• JW Rinzler’s Making of SW ebook bonus videos (one shot in the Greedo scene - I know this was in BD’s Leftovers, but it was more effective to upscale it directly from the low-res source)
• Bobson Dugnutt’s capture of The Sounds of Star Wars (various sound effects)
• DMC’s archive of the old StarWars.com soundboard (other SFX)
• Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (more SFX, extracted by iteachvader at vg-resource.com)

I tried uploading the preview to YouTube, but it was blocked as containing the SW SE. Does anyone here have experience uploading any SW content to YT while complying with their rules and jumping through their hoops? Legally, I’m pretty confident this is a “transformative work”, as no-one is going to be watching this selection of footage with different voices instead of watching some version of the actual film. I’m downloading a version of 4K77 to see if swapping in that as the video source makes a difference.

EDIT: The video is now on Vimeo. This version was previously called “preview 2”, but I think it’s finished now: https://vimeo.com/738944956
Change list below

Preview v1: https://vimeo.com/730729177

Where is that Wedge voice from? Is it the original audio?

Ice said:

Where is that Wedge voice from? Is it the original audio?

Yes, it’s Denis Lawson’s original performance. I found it in Bobson Dugnutt’s SW: Leftovers video.

The first post in that project’s thread (linked above) gives a list of sources used, though I’m not sure which one that particular clip came from.

Lawson is actually Scottish, so he was putting on that English accent for the role, only to be dubbed by American actor David Ankrum anyway.

I believe Lawson has since voiced Wedge himself a few times, putting on a US accent for those performances.

Somehow, British Wedge was the most cursed part about this lol. Great job implementing them into the original audio!

boffy said:

I believe Lawson has since voiced Wedge himself a few times, putting on a US accent for those performances.

As I recall, dubbed American in ANH, fake American in ESB, fake English in RotJ, real American in Rebels (not Lawson), and real Scottish in RoS. Poor guy must have a vocal condition.

https://vimeo.com/738944956

Here is preview version 2, changes include:

• Used Althor1138’s FIJI Image Registration Macro and DrDre’s Color Matching Tool to better integrate different sources in the Greedo and Jabba scenes

• Turned down the excessive grain on one shot in the Greedo scene

• Dialled back the automatic dirt repair in the Jabba scene from “comically overdone” to “slightly overdone”

• Processed on-set dialogue throughout to improve clarity. Primarily, I used UVR or Spleeter to reduce the level of other on-set sounds.

• Fixed an audio glitch which snuck into the Vimeo version of preview 1

• Trimmed scenes where I felt I was waiting for the dialogue

  • Several seconds between the two parts of the Tantive IV scene
  • About 40 seconds of aliens in the cantina. I love them, but they’re not what we’re here for.
  • Some of the actual duelling in the lightsaber duel

• Corrected various subtitle/closed caption errors

• Corrected Dr. Evazan’s name in the credits (thanks LexX)

• Processed text in the ALTA card and end credits to look a bit less digital and a bit more optical. This is honestly one of my favourite things about the video. That look of optically-printed titles is something I’ve long enjoyed in various preservations of the OT, and I’ve wanted an excuse to try to replicate it.

I’m calling this version preview 2 for now, but I think it might be finished. That is, unless anyone can see/hear any remaining issues, or if there are any sources of on-set British voices which I’ve missed?

EDIT: Well it’s been a week with no further issues spotted by me or anyone else, so I’m calling this finished, at least for now.

I’ve also got it up on YouTube, after a fashion. If I upload it as one video, various sections are content-matched as containing Star Wars, and the whole video is blocked worldwide. However, uploading any of the offending sections on their own still matches, but just prevents me from monetising the video, which I wasn’t planning to do anyway. If you see any ads on it, that money is going to Disney/Fox, not me.

I guess the overall video length, or the length of the matched content, is a factor in YT’s content match algorithm? I believe that legally this is a transformative work, so falls under fair use, but I doubt I’d be able to get YouTube’s flawless and logical copyright bots to understand this.

So, I’ve uploaded each scene to YT as its own video, and put them together into a playlist. This loses the Lucas-style scene transitions, but hopefully means more people will see it.

I’m vaguely aware from what actual YouTubers have mentioned in videos that YT tends to promote videos more if there’s a regular release schedule. To try to get it seen, I’ve set the parts to go live weekly, starting today.

Here’s the playlist, the last part should be live on 30th September: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvppJzt15w9Jrw3b9cuf34E2Pged9-Y_L