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2006 DVD OOT — Page 3

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Knightmessenger said:

they were too lazy to spend any time or money digging up the rest of the stuff. 

Exactly.  That's what pisses me off about it.

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ChainsawAsh said:

The GOUT would be the only way for you to experience the pre-1997 versions.

For Star Wars:

In 1981, the words "Episode IV: A NEW HOPE" were added to the title crawl and the words were re-formatted (including the capitalization of "rebel").

In 1997, the "3D monsters on Tatooine" were added, as was the Jabba scene, the Han/Greedo scene was altered to make Greedo fire when he never should have, the end battle was "enhanced" with extra CG shots, a short scene (that was chopped up to fit with the Vader-as-Luke's-father idea) with Biggs was added on the Yavin IV base, and many other, smaller changes were made.

In 2004, additional changes were made, in addition to incredibly fucked-up colors and a horribly "remastered" sound mix that included swapping the left and right surround channels for the music, for no apparent reason.  All in the name of "deliberate creative decisions."

The GOUT uses the 1993 laserdisc audio instead of the theatrical mono or stereo audio, but other than that every change listed above is not present in the GOUT.

For Empire:

In 1997, more footage with the Wampa was inserted, which arguably ruins the suspense of the scene.  Cloud City had CG "enhancements" added, including the addition of windows throughout the city that sometimes mysteriously disappear when ILM forgot they added some.  Darth Vader's trip to his Star Destroyer was spliced in after the duel as well, using outtakes from ROTJ, again arbuably ruining the flow of the scene (and changing Vader's "Bring my shuttle!" line to "Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival").

In 2004, Ian McDiarmid, while shooting ROTS, re-shot the Emperor hologram scene (originally Clive Reville's voice and an old woman's mouth with monkey eyes) in his horrid ROTS makeup that doesn't look a thing like his ROTJ makeup.  Lines were added to this scene as well that - arguably - ruin it.  Also, Boba Fett's lines were (again, arguably) horribly re-dubbed by Temuera Morrison (clone troopers/Jango Fett in AOTC/ROTS).

The GOUT includes none of these changes, but again, includes the 1993 laserdisc audio.

For Jedi:

In 1997, the Jabba's palace musical number Lapti Nek was replaced with Jedi Rocks, which sounds (arguably) awful, and Sy Snootles (singer) was replaced with a CG model.  Other new CG creatures have been added to the band as well.  Then, the original actress for Oola (the green dancer) was brought in to shoot additional scenes of her actually in the Rancor pit (you still don't see the Rancor).  The Sarlacc was "enhanced" with a CG beak-looking thing coming out of it and extra CG tentacles.  In the end celebration, instead of the Ewoks singing Yub Nub, John Williams re-scored it with a new, (arguably) more appropriate, New Age-y song.

In 2004, Sebastian Shaw's head has been replaced with an outtake of Hayden Christensen from ROTS in the Force-ghost scene.  In the Vader unmasking scene, Sebastian Shaw's eyebrows have been digitally removed (this change I actually agree with).  I don't think there were any other major 04 changes for ROTJ ...

The GOUT includes none of these changes.

So, if the version you grew up with didn't have all this shit in it, then yes, that's what you want.  If you grew up with the 1997 versions, you're shit out of luck, unfortunately, as there is no official release of the original Special Editions on DVD.

The new "Star Wars Original Trilogy" DVD box that contains all 3 movies in 2-disc versions in slim cases with a blue outer box includes both the 2004 SE DVDs and the GOUT.

 

You forgot something probably just as grevious to me of a change in return of the jedi as hayden, jar jar was added to the celebration scene or at least Gungans with a jar jar sound alike saying"wesa free!".

I still think the new celebration scene shown around the galaxy is EU and not canon to the original intent of the films.   It is especially jarring to add coruscant which came from Timothy Zahn's Trilogy an EU concept to return of the jedi, much less the jedi temple in the background which did not exist in 1983.

I don't hate the EU but i think Lucas borrowed way too much from the EU for the special editions and prequels and feel that neither was necessary.

If he could not stick to his original prequel vision or idea and felt the need to change things the least he cld have done was create his own original characters and designs, not appropriate them wholesale from professional fan fiction.

Again i have nothing against Tim Zahn i believe he saved star wars in the early nineties and his books would have made for a better movie trilogy than Lucas prequels.  It is so dissapointing though that he saved star wars just in time so lucas could destroy it, oh the irony.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Though some may say the GOUT was a big assrape to Star Wars or It was the greatest thing ever I am somewhere in the middle. If george lucas released the OOT on blu ray in 1080p fully remastered I would be happy as can be BUT it wont happen and I guess I have to live with it. I can just enjoy the GOUT like i did my VHS's  back when I didn't care how movies looked. But the thing is the films were shot in super 35 film. They should make them look crystal clear. 1080p has nothing on the upscaling capabilities of the actual film. Does george not like us or something. Why did we decide that 1080p was the new standard. We can go much further than that technology hasnt limited us to 1080p. Hell if we are going digital we could atleast take it way up the ladder instead of setting 1080p in stone. Why am I asking questions without using the question mark.

why does george hate his original films so much. He would be just some guy that directed american graffiti if he didnt make them. He would have no legacy. He just ignores them like the holiday special. He wants nobody to remember them the way they were. Ridley Scott released all version of blade runner in beautiful quality. He didn't ignore any version of his film. George will re do star wars and forget about past releases. One of these days the 2004 dvds will be left behind and we will have new special editions that noone will like

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

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ChainsawAsh said:

I'm of two minds about LFL's decision to release Star Wars without the "Episode IV" tag on the GOUT.

On the one hand, I'm very glad, as it means the video side is exactly what was seen in theaters in 1977 instead of more of GL's revisionist BS.

On the other hand, it pisses me off to no end that they clearly have a good-quality print of the original but didn't use it - after all, it's VERY clear that the entire first shot is a brand-new transfer from the original elements, and it looks pretty damn good.  That alone was as much an insult to the fans as the decision to release the 1993 letterbox LD masters was - "Yeah, we *said* this is all we have, but we're gonna show you just a little bit of what we *really* have, just to show you that we *could* do what you ask, but we're not going to."  Ugh.

I always imagined the process of the GOUT to DVD transfer as some fat guy living with his parents with george lucas standing behind his computer chair saying alright I have these laserdiscs could you burn them to dvd. They are a little dirty but the fans wont mind.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

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Just picked up a 95 THX Letterbox VHS set, and am comparing them to the GOUTs. To me they seem much more alive. Plus the pink in ANH is much less bothersome.  Any thoughts? Can't seem to fully enjoy the GOUTs as much as a good letterbox VHS set. Maybe it stems from childhood viewings of SW on VHS.

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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They're from the same master, so I don't see how the VHS could be superior at all.

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skyjedi2005 said:

Again i have nothing against Tim Zahn i believe he saved star wars in the early nineties and his books would have made for a better movie trilogy than Lucas prequels.  It is so dissapointing though that he saved star wars just in time so lucas could destroy it, oh the irony.

Star Wars didn't need saving. We didn't need new films or all the pile of merchandise that came after Zahn's success. If Zahn hadn't re-popularized Star Wars Lucas probably wouldn't have made the prequels or SE and we'd probably have the OOT on anamorphic dvd right now and blu-ray coming up. I could have done without the 90s Star Wars renaissance. Ok, there were still some good things that came out of that era and I have some limited nostalgia for it as the last period in which Star Wars meant the OT not Annie and the cartoon guys. But some people see it as Star Wars's golden age and that just bewilders me.  

 

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It's definitely not the Golden Age (Sadly that's before my time!), but it definitely is the silver period. Ah, how I remember the days of endless shelves fully stocked with Power of the Force Kenner toys-all emblazoned with the red and green lightsaber blades on the front. Not to mention the good Bantam novels (looking at the Han Solo trilogy right above my head.) that actually were interesting and not completely off the deep end. (Still hate the NJO!!!!)

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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Ok. I've officially had it with the stupid garbage matte blobs around every ship. I went back to widescreen tapes-blobs not noticeable (very much.).  They're painfully obvious on the GOUT especially when I blowup the 4:3 frame to 16:9 in VLC.

Now I really have a hard time watching the GOUT.  Wow. Never thought I'd see the day where i didn't want to watch SW.

Time to break out the 97SE Widescreen VHS again......

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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 (Edited)

Well, I like them, but only because they are so much less mangled. The theatrical pacing and performance is just more enjoyable overall. And that's what it's about isn't it? How enjoyable the movie is to watch. I don't know why they substituted lines in the SE with poorer versions that obviously had more takes done for a reason. The sound mix also just seems more dynamic than the almost flattened newer mixes that, for whatever sound quality that is gained is completely discredited by lack of any effort to hide transitions between good quality and bad quality takes. Matrix decoded 3 channel surround sounds almost as good as 5.1 too.

The scenes that were put back in were obviously cut for a reason. The problems the scenes had were problems that were solved 30 years ago. The solution became the theatrical cut. Going back on that means introducing new problems and destroying the solutions. And the new effects don't seem to do much good either, there's a few cool things but mostly these new scenes don't replace old ones that don't work. Most of the time they actually seems to be replacing exactly the effect shots that did work while for some incomprehensible reason leaving the ones that simply just won't fly. The biggest crime of the special editions is ruining the pacing that was so carefully put in place all that time ago. The very thing upon which the success of such a swashbuckling film rests.

On the other hand they did take the fading film and made it look absolutely amazing. The Special Edition is probably the best quality transfer of the OUT you'll ever get anywhere. The question is whether or not the digital master is unmangled enough to support reconstruction of the original film. There's quite a few of the effect shots that apparantly irrepairably destroys the original content of the scene.

And that's what really gets to me with these. The low resolution, heavy grain, ghosting and ... ugh, aliasing is very distracting. At least ESB seems clean enough to be visually enjoyable. Not sure about ROTJ, but ANH is a disaster.

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I think the 2006 OOT DVD releases are satisfying. Yes, they're taken from the Laserdiscs and are non-anamorphic, but I don't watch my films anamorphically enhanced anyway so it's fine for me. The transfers are a little improved over the fan-made ones and look a little bit better in detail (no offense to those who gave us their own preservations). Plus, the original 1977 crawl was recreated with the lower-case "rebel". Hopefully when the Blu-Rays of the films are release, Lucasfilm will learn from their mistakes, and will give the theatrical versions a better restoration treatment.

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Okay so let me start off by saying I love this site and the new petition (although I'd leave out the part about including the SE with the OOT version we're shooting for, but I guess we're just being realistic concerning Lucasfilm...however it'd be bangin' to get JUST the restored OOT by itself! actually it'd be AMAZING...but anyhow)

I was angered to know of Lucasfilm's stance on the pre-special editions that were buried until the 2006 OOT DVD. The OOT is the version I love as I wasn't down with them CGI'ing the hell out the SE's... these are late 70's early 80's movies. How often does someone CGI a movie from that era? Rhetorical question but still I'm sure not often! Anyhow the best I can get this 2006 OOT is using the "Wide-Fit" option on my Samsung which has about 3.5 inch black bar on top and about a 3.15 inch black bar on bottom (or vise versa I can't remember), comparatively the SE have about a 1.5 inch black bar on top resulting in a taller picture for the SE and a slightly squished picture for the OOT. Not too bad of a squish compared to when I tried leaving my TV on Screen Fit (meaning the picture isn't distorted or stretched yet, but small), but then using my PS3's full feature to stretch it which has the black bars on top like 3.75 inches and the picture REALLY squished. So for now it's OOT, Wide-Fit, all the way, until anamorphic OOT becomes reality (optimism!).  

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ThiefCobbler4ever said:

I think the 2006 OOT DVD releases are satisfying. Yes, they're taken from the Laserdiscs and are non-anamorphic, but I don't watch my films anamorphically enhanced anyway so it's fine for me.

Could you explain this please?

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TV's Frink said:

ThiefCobbler4ever said:

I think the 2006 OOT DVD releases are satisfying. Yes, they're taken from the Laserdiscs and are non-anamorphic, but I don't watch my films anamorphically enhanced anyway so it's fine for me.

Could you explain this please?

I think he means he only has a 4:3 SDTV, which can't display all the resolution of an anamorphic widescreen DVD.

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Well, only in my room. My home has 3 HDTVs,1 Plasma, and 7 SDTVs. I'm not a fan of watching films anamorphically enhanced, I like to watch films with the bars.

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What would be the point in watching a smaller picture when you have an HD plasma TV? Just asking.

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ThiefCobbler4ever said:

Well, only in my room. My home has 3 HDTVs,1 Plasma, and 7 SDTVs. I'm not a fan of watching films anamorphically enhanced, I like to watch films with the bars.

Anamorphically enhanced does not mean they crop the picture, it just means it's smartly encoded to display properly on widescreen TVs.

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I know it doesn't crop the picture, I just feel that watching a widescreen film with the bars (Example: 2.35:1 bars on top and bottom) is better in my perspective. But I do agree that watching a film anamorphically enhanced is cool too.

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An anamorphic enhanced  2.35:1 picture will still have the black bars.

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Moth3r said:

An anamorphic enhanced  2.35:1 picture will still have the black bars.

Unless you have a 2.35:1 TV  ;-)

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For me the GOUT DVDs are quite bad, at first they seemed a good enough replacement of the 2004 shits because although they were lacking some resolution when compared to the 2004 DVDs, they were both still just SD and losing just a little over 20% of resolution was a good enough price for watching the original film. But then I got the 1080p versions and the loss of almost 85% of resolution (oh yes, it's that much, just made the calculations) is enough for me to consider watching the  SEs.

I even tried my own little preservation project, which I never published outside of my university's network, but here's an excerpt of the readme file:

 ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
         
     STAR WARS - THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 1980 720p HDTV&DVD WMV

    ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

     Format       : WMV HD
     Video      : 1280x720 progressive
     Audio      : English STEREO
     Subs         : NONE
     Source       : HDTV & DVD (resp. LaserDisc) 
     IMDB         : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/

    ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

                                    ...and then once, while watching the OTT DVD
     release of the second  movie, which is my favourite of the Star Wars
     films, it occured to me, that especially The Empire Strikes Back
     remained for the most part unchanged and that I could make
     a version that would preserve the original scenes, which were
     changed for either the 1997 Special Editon or the 2004 DVD release
     of the SE, using the 2006 DVD as a source and yet keep the high
     resolution in the unchanged ones. And after long hours of work
     the result is finally here. I didn't try to enhance the quality
     of the DVD sourced materials and I also didn't give a sh*t about
     the different soundmixes, the only thing I changed concerning
     the sound were the changed lines (like Luke's "You're lucky you
     don't taste very good" or lord Vader's line "Bring my shuttle"
     and I of course restored the original Boba Fett's voice, so he
     doesn't sound like an Aborigine any more.)
     I also encoded this only in 720p because converting the laserdisc
     sourced low-res materials to 1080p seemed a little too much.
     I am planning of doing the same with the other two films in the
     future but it may take a while and as the original Star Wars film
     had been changed so much in the SE, I'm not even sure if there's
     a point in doing this with it...

So I did this with TESB and the results weren't perfect. I was very happy to have obtained Adywan's colour corrected 1080p Han shoots 1st STAR WARS and 1080p 1997 SE TESB and those are probably the versions I'll watch until there is a superior (in content as much as in quality) blu-ray release of these films. Can't wait for Adywan to release his 1080p no Hayden ROTJ!

Oops, went a little of topic there but well not entirely, it all concerned my view of the GOUT in some way.

Furthermore the GOUT DVDs were not a response to the fans' demand, it was a response to the bootleg market and the massive e-bay reselling of OUT LDs from which Lucasfilm didn't see a single penny. So basically they released a release that would be just a tiny little bit better than all the other versions availabe to public, making all those who'd buy the laserdiscs or the bootlegs reconsider and put their money in Lucas' pocket instead, buying more 2004 DVDs along with it all over again. Very clever marketing.

I'm glad there's a new petition, OUT deserves an HD transfer!

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So what is the best version of the Unaltered OT out there, Dr Gonzo's Laserdisc rips?

“Anakin had those qualities so rarely seen, exuding an unmistakable confidence and yet still able to touch one’s heart in simply knowing how he was so flawed… wounded.”

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I would say probably one of the Custom DVD sets based off the GOUT DVDs.

One day I'd like to do a critical comparison between Pwnage, DJ's GOUT-sourced trilogy project and g-force's latest stabilization script.

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Honestly, the 2006 DVD release is the best presentation of the Laserdisk. Even the raw X0 captures weren't as good. The only thing that exceeds it is virtual OOT re-constructions which use the color-corrected SE as a base, which are fantastic but have some major problems cutting in the original footage sometimes, so it is a mixed bag. Personally, it's all so complicated with all the different attempts tha I am sticking to the GOUT. It sucks, but it blows away every LD rip ever attempted.