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Post #1536560

Author
Hydra Spectre
Parent topic
Anyone else think Empire Strikes Back's Special Edition is actually better than the Theatrical Cut?
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1536560/action/topic#1536560
Date created
30-Apr-2023, 4:51 AM

The Special Edition is generally better than the Theatrical Version for most of the film.
I prefer the Special Edition Cloud City, I love how the visual effects were fixed as well as the music cues.
The new 2004 Emperor is amazing, even if you never saw Star Wars before and are starting from the OT.

Temeura Morrison as Boba Fett makes a lot of sense because he is objectively better at delivering his lines than Jason Wingreen did. And it is now canon that Boba Fett would sound like his father as an adult, as established by The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

The new Wampa scene actually heightens the suspense over the original. In the original, you just get faint glimpses of the Wampa and the fate of Luke’s Tauntaun is left up in the air. People already know what the Wampa looks like so there’s no point in hiding it. And it’s actually more suspenseful to show him feasting on the Tauntaun’s carcass, heightening the tension that the Wampa would eat Luke next.

And keep in mind, this is coming from someone who had to track down a GOUT DVD to first experience Star Wars in the Theatrical Versions.

OohTeeDee’s regraded/regrained 2019 Special Edition is my preferred version. It has the best restoration of the film, but with restored grain, and the best overall version of the film. My only complaint would be how Palpatine looks more like how he did in Revenge of the Sith instead of how he looked like in Return of the Jedi. Almost like this was made as test footage to see how Palpatine would look like “scarred and deformed” in Revenge of the Sith. If they made it look more like how he did in Return of the Jedi, I would have no complaints over The Emperor’s New Actor.

That said, the main reason why I think people hate the Special Editions is that George Lucas essentially wanted to erase the Theatrical Versions from existence.
If Lucas (or now, Disney) just released proper restorations of the Theatrical Versions alongside every iteration of the Special Editions the films received, people would be much more forgiving towards the Special Editions.