Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released) — Page 51

Harmy,

Let me add my voice to praise the work you have done here. I’m 37 years old and the first film I ever saw in theaters was Star Wars. My sentiments regarding the numerous butchering and digital graffiti done to this film (and it’s two sequels) mirrors most others here, so I won’t go into a long diatribe about that. I also detest the prequels and vowed never to lay eyes on them again… so needless to say, I have been a disgruntled fan for some time and it’s been years since I’ve enjoyed Star Wars.

I remember coming to this forum for the first time in 2002/2003. It was then that I grabbed Dr. Gonzo’s DVDs of the Laserdisc ports (then later the Cowclops TR47s and official GOUTs) which were wonderful to have at the time. The influx of so many fan edits/reconstructions over the years got dizzying to me and I couldn’t keep up with them all. I would peak in here from time to time to see if there was a “definitive” version, but that seemed to constantly change, with varying degrees of success. While I greatly respect the work Adywan has achieved, his “Revisted” incarnations were not for me (I could never watch a version of SW with prequel music).

So upon hearing of the latest bastardization of these films with the Blu-ray releases, I decided to pop in here and see if there was any quality version of Star Wars that I could enjoy. I was blown away when I saw your project(s) as I couldn't believe someone has actually accomplished something that I have thought about in my head, but couldn't dream of implementing. To truly de-specialize these films was a monumental task that I didn't think was possible…and yet you've done it. It’s nothing short of a miracle for myself and many other fans… I can’t thank you enough! I spent the better part of last night reading this entire thread beginning to end and I only regret is that I didn't pop on here a few months sooner.

Tonight I watched Star Wars for the first time in about 5 years and it was one of the best viewings I've ever had. Viewing Star Wars in such high quality is a gift that I never thought I would have... it nearly brought tears to my eyes. So many of the annoyances of the Special Editions have been expertly removed and there may come a time where I forget they were ever there!

I admire your strict adherence to the theatrical presentations of these films; you even went further than I would have. Personally, I don’t mind fixes for these films… in fact I welcome them. I just don’t want to change things that don’t need changes. However, among the few fixes I’d elect to keep is making Vader’s saber the proper color in that Death Star shot. That damn white saber has always bothered me going back to when I was a kid watching it on VHS. Since the white saber was clearly a mistake that never got fixed, it's one of the few alterations that I was glad to see got addressed (I can never watch the 2004/2011 versions, so I've never seen it edited into the film sadly). Among the other "fixes", I’d also leave R2’s blue color for the space shots, include the digital guards for the end ceremony (the painting looks dreadful in HD) and leave the correct positioning and coloring of the Imperial insignia's in TESB. I might even leave the brightened shot of Han’s shirt before he’s put in carbonite… but that’s just me, this is your baby and I respect your wishes.

Anyway, I did want to point out two concerns I had with Star Wars since you are working on a 1.2 edition. I don’t think either point has been brought up, but forgive the repetition if they have. The first is a small glitch and I don’t know if it’s a problem of the source material or not. Right after the Death Star explodes and Han says “Great shot kid, that was one in a million”, he sort of jerks to the right awkwardly. Has anyone else caught this before? I played in on the computer and on my PS3 and it happens in both instances.

The other point I’d make is on the credits. It’s so nice to see the unmolested credits again with the proper music cues. I never cared for the addition of the Special Edition credits since I thought they should have credited SE people separately, after the main credits had finished. I think the original credits need to be respected as they were originally in 1977. Now with your release, I found your “Despecialized Edition” credits to come way too soon after the main credits for the film finished. Your credits come up while the music is still playing in fact. If you truly want to honor the original film to how it was played originally, this is an absolute no, no… it’s almost as bad as what Lucasfilm did the credits in 1997.  This is handled much better for your releases of both Empire and Jedi as your credits come on after the music finishes and fades to black (leaving a few seconds before they appear). I’d just like to see the same treatment given to Star Wars if that’s possible.

I hope you take no offense to that, and judging by your past comments, I’m sure you won’t. Again, I am very thankful for your hours of hard work and dedication… unlike the people who worked on the new Blu-ray releases, your work actually means something to people and was not done in vein. So thank you for these wonderful releases, and most importantly... thank you for making me excited about Star Wars again.

-Ginge

Wow! These are another great addition to the tremendous preservation efforts here. I feel truly lucky to have found this place!

However, I've hit a technical snag. How do I go about putting the extracted files on a DVD? Or, how do I create an ISO (I use Toast and it's really easy!)

Thanks.

Thanks for responding! I do use a Mac, and I found a really convenient way to create an .iso using Disk Utility. I do wonder why RotJ was an .iso, but not ANH or ESB...

I downloaded these using jdownloader via tehparadox.com, btw.

sorry if i missed this, but were a list of changes put anywhere for v1.2?

CatBus said:

The Despecialized Credits always seemed a little bit like graffiti to me.  I'd prefer for the credits to be placed on the disc or case art, or if they must be in the disc contents due to how it's distributed, in a text file or even an unused subtitle track.

 

 

I agree with you 100% on this, but like you... I felt a little uncomfortable bringing the issue up. The credits for these releases do kind of take away from the artistry of the work done on the films (by Harmy) as when they appear they look very cheap as if this is just some other fan made project (when it's anything but). Personally, I wouldn't include them at all, but my initial concern is that the credits that Harmy inserted run too close to the end of the credits in Star Wars (with the music still playing). That really bothered me.

Of course credit is certainly due, but if it were my project, I'd have the credits in a separate folder or a in text file... not within the body of the films themselves as I consider them to be an unneeded alteration. I would make high bitrate mkv encodes and have the naming of the files describe the release. But hey... it's not my project and I respect Harmy's decision on this. I just wish Star Wars could be more in line with the other two films in regards to the credits.

Harmy, I don't mind your credits in Empire and Jedi as they're done right... after the main film credits and music fade out and after a few seconds of black, they appear. My issue was with Star Wars when the credits fade out almost too soon and while the music is still playing, your credits pop up. So, I'm glad to hear that's being fixed.

I'm not sure you read my initial comments a few posts back, but I also mentioned a shot with Han that seemed off to me. It occurs right after the the Death Star explosion, when Han says "Great shot kid, that was one in a million"... he kind of jerks to the right awkwardly... I wasn't sure what the issue was there.

bilditup1, thanks so much for the invite!  I am using transmission on my iMac for the torrent.  Not super tech savvy so I hope this program is considered ok.  Look forward to watching!   

Harmy, thank you thank you thank you for all of your hard work on this.  I've downloaded the AVCHD version and only have had time to watch the opening crawl so far, but just watching that has given me goosebumps.

I'm a newbie and not incredibly tech savvy.  Could someone walk me through the steps of burning this on to a disc?  I'm assuming I'll need a DVD9 (double layer) and a burner that can burn to a double layer disc.  What software should I use to burn the DVD, and what are the steps for burning it?

Thanks in advance...

And thanks again Harmy for restoring a bit of my childhood.

I signed up just to thank and applaud you for your efforts. Awesome work, I'm looking forward to the BluRay versions. One question: do you plan on releasing the movies in any other format / container like .mkv?

Don't think Harmy is planning an MKV release, but it is easy to do yourself. You can use a program like BDtoAVCHD to convert an m2ts file to an MKV. I'm sure there are other ways; however, that comes to mind as the most user-friendly.

Converting  AVCHD to .mkv would be dreadful... it would be like transcoding an aac file to mp3. I would personally love a large size mkv with all the audio codecs uncompressed... but they would have to come from the source file. 

MKV is a container. Not a codec. You can take all the video and audio codecs from the AVCHD volume and put them into an MKV container without reencoding.

I was under the impression that there is still a level of reencoding when going from avchd to mkv. Regardless, the best method for mkv would be if it came from the source file. 

You can make a lossless MKV file with BDtoAVCHD. It will be a relatively big size (less than 10GB) but the quality can be fantastic. A lot of the MKVs online are heavily compressed so that's maybe affecting your view of them.