The opening crawl. As is now tradition for these editions, the stars have been brightened and the text darkened.
Due to the bizarre multi-language encoding of the crawl on the DVD, I was unable to crack the opening shot. I captured the crawl itself analog (eagle eyes will see some dot crawl), which was no problem since it's just text ... and pieced together the opening shot from lots of different short clips visible in what was otherwise a mess of different multiangle feeds. Took a lot of work, but you can't tell, so that's nice.
Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker. Anakin is from the 1997 Special Edition, Yoda and Obiwan from the 2004 DVD. This shot is broken up into two shots in the special edition. A lot of clever work was required to restore it. Missing frames inbetween are covered with a subtle dissolve for Obi-Wan and Yoda, and original footage from Moth3r's transfer restores missing frames of Anakin's face.
A much easier shot. =)
The celebration in general was a really interesting challenge, because the Special Edition version heavily shortens most of the important shots, which kind of ruins Luke's emotional journey. Restoring the original was tough, because I had PORTIONS of each Luke shot, but not the whole thing, and I had to seamlessly dissolve/morph from the clear new 2004 transfer to the muddy old transfer.
I'm incredibly proud with the result. What made it work was color correcting. I spent a lot of time color correcting each shot so that the two versions would match - often very difficult. When that was accomplished, the shots blended seamlessly. On many shots, I can't even notice the change, it feels natural and doesn't stand out. Good stuff.
Sy Snootles rocks out! Most of the original Lapti Nek sequence did not survive for the Special Edition, with a lot of interesting alternate footage from the original shoot being used in its place. For the most part, this scene appears from laserdisc, although again, portions of some shots appear in the 2004 version, and were seamlessly dissolved into the 2004 version .... in many shots, you can't really tell when the extra footage begins ...
Bright white lightsabers! Many people complained that the lightsabers were strangely dulled-down on the 2004 DVDs, coming out looking pink or candy-colored rather than glowing white.
No such problem here - the lightsabers have been brightened, but the rest of the image is unchanged.
Actually in this image I've brightened up the emperor a bit so you can see him better ... you can even see the painted-in "slugs" on his robe!
The 2004 explosion (in the middle) is combined with the 1983 explosion (around the edges) .... to make one heck of a kaboom.
Anakin Skywalker's eyebrows have been restored - this was a painstaking matter. I had some quite clear footage from the 1997 special edition, and carefully put just the eyebrows from 1997 over the 2004 face ... due to frame rate troubles, sometimes the motion didn't quite match, and the eyebrows had to carefully be motion-mapped onto the face frame by frame until it looked right.
I must admit that Sebastian Shaw's acting is much more powerful when you can see his eyebrows properly - he also looks less creepy. An appropriate level of creepy. I'm not sure why you can have sound in space but no eyebrows on an old man.
Pan up to fireworks - a deceptively simple looking shot that's really quite tricky. 2004 footage "dissolves" seamlessly into a combination of three elements .... The trees are from 2004, a still image. The fireworks are from 1983, carefully color corrected to match the 2004 colors, which was very difficult as originally the shot was blue, and now it has a sunset feel. A third element is added - the fireworks themselves are recomposited over the image one last time, so that they appear more white. Otherwise, with the color correcting, they'd be yellow and orange, and not match the 2004 footage.
The result is seamless - we pan up to see fireworks, and that's all the viewer needs to know.
Three shots of Boba Fett were flipped for some reason in the release print. It looks ridiculous. I've flipped them back, to give Fett some respect.
Sail barge from 1983, courtesy of Moth3r. I would have used the cleaner recomposited 2004 version instead, but it was too different from the original to fit in with the footage.
A difficult shot - a "matte" was drawn around the images, to carefully merge the 2004 and 1983 versions. The bottom of the shot is from 1983, but the figures visible at the top are from the clearer 2004 print. This took about 30 tries to get just right.
The 1983 transfer is "juddery", it shakes a bit compared to the 2004 clear DVD, giving it away. Again it was necessary to "motion match" the sarlacc beneath Luke in to match the movement of the camera, on a frame by frame basis. That's the Moth3r Sarlaac and the 2004 Luke.
The sarlaac at the bottom, and part of the skiff floating above it, are from 1983, composited on a 2003 image.
One of my favorite shots. A 2004 stuntman falls into the 1983 sarlaac as the camera pans down, and even I can't tell that anything's changed! It just looks like one shot.
Same with this great shot of a 2004 stuntman falling into the 83 sarlaac ...
The Sarlaac has eaten Boba Fett, in another 2004/1983 merger. As it burps, the left side of the frame is from 1983, the right from 2004.
1983 Sarlaac composited in at bottom left.
1983 Sarlaac composited in at upper left.
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Dec. 29, 2 AM:
I burned off the first test copy of Classic Edition: Return of the Jedi tonight. It has no menus and was just intended to see if the edit worked out.
It did.
Normally, the first test version is terrible, and shows me just how I have to redo everything to make the edit work.
But this time round, it came out perfect the first try. The audio is even in sync, and I had made no effort to put the audio in sync, figuring it was just a scratch track. But I've done this so many times before I guess I've learned all the tricks, and did it right, quickly, first try.
Yeah, it's good. It's a good edit.
What's most amazing to me is seeing how much better the movie is this way. The Ewok celebration at the end, the final moment of the entire saga ... in the Special Edition, it was reedited clumsily, into a choppy mess, removing much of its emotional impact. Putting in the poorly-Photoshopped head of Hayden Christensen turned it into a joke, and it's hard to watch the sequence now and feel anything but frustration. After working on this version for a bit, I had actually forgotten that Hayden was in there, and I felt really creeped out and violated all over again, seeing the shots that way. It was nice to restore the scene, but it was even nicer to realize how the editing suddenly made sense and had a logical flow, giving a great emotional payoff as our heroes reunite for the last time onscreen .... moments cut down to nothing in the Special Edition.
I had always liked the Special Edition version actually, I didn't have much against it.
But seeing it restored with the original music .... in glorious 2004 DVD quality ... ye gods. It gave me chills. It's great.
Aanyway, even though the edit is fine right now, I will go back and redo everything anyway, just because it's me, and I want to wring some more quality out of it. As with Empire, the restored scenes are combined directly with the pure, raw data from the 2004 DVD, and the quality of the 2004 DVD is sharper than you can really recreate on a home system with home equipment. At this point I notice that my own inserted scenes sourced from the 2004 DVD look "softer" than the real 2004 DVD scenes which surround them, and I want to see if I can reduce that feel with careful sharpening.
Also, I used the soundtrack from the Cowclops Definitive Laserdisc, and it sounds great but I'm wondering if I should use the 2004 DVD soundtrack instead for much of it, as it tends to be clearer. I don't think Ben Burtt changed much in Jedi soundwise for the SEs. So I'll see about that.
A few tidbits of info:
This DVD WILL be released also as a dual layer disc, for those interested. The raw movie itself is 6 gigs, and that's too big for me not to want to save the dual layer version. (Which wasn't true for Empire or Star Wars, which fit comfily on one layer - Jedi is a longer movie, and more of it was unchanged and is thus left in straight from the '04 DVDs so that's big on disc space.)
Just for fun, as promised I did leave in the scene of Oola in the Rancor pit, from the Special Edition. It's a nice little bit and contains no CGI, so it fits in well with the 1983 footage. I thought it would be a fun touch to throw in as an extra. I will make it skippable for those who don't like it.
I will also be using Han's line "It's all right, I can see a lot better," from the 70mm and Special edition. It's funnier than "It's all right, trust me."
More news coming ...