logo Sign In

Preserving the "German" Original Trilogy (Released) — Page 7

Author
Time

One moment please... was the SW logo always black (i.e., intransparent)?

Never noticed that!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Now that's the first time I ever noticed it... far out!

I have a question to some purists concerning German end credits on the original German ANH. I only have seen the 4:3 P&S VHS which kept the German credits - however, it lost the circular wipe from the award ceremony to the credits. I wonder if this has to do with the P&S processing (as the credits are squeezed as opposed to the last shot), or if it has to do with German localization (inability to reproduce the wipe from film to German credits)?

Has the Widescreen version also lost the circular wipe?

Author
Time

TheHutt said:

Now that's the first time I ever noticed it... far out!

I have a question to some purists concerning German end credits on the original German ANH. I only have seen the 4:3 P&S VHS which kept the German credits - however, it lost the circular wipe from the award ceremony to the credits. I wonder if this has to do with the P&S processing (as the credits are squeezed as opposed to the last shot), or if it has to do with German localization (inability to reproduce the wipe from film to German credits)?

Has the Widescreen version also lost the circular wipe?

 

There is no circular wipe to the end credits in the 1993 LD version, which is in widescreen. There just is a cut to the credits starting with "Drehbuch and Regie - George Lucas" (translation of: Directed and Written by)

I don't think any german version had a circular wipe. I can't check this right now, but I suspect the cut is a few frames earlier as the circular wipe.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

R2D2 said:

this is getting better everyday!!! :)

still awaiting the arrival of my ld-player.

can anyone recommend a soundcard with optical digital in?

as the pcm track is @44,1 khz on the laserdisc and this does not apply to dvd nor blu ray standard what do you recommend? resample it to 192 khz pcm?

A few years ago when I was trying to get decent LD conversion with my Sony MDP 850D Player I bought a sound card that specifically supported bitperfect recording via SPDIF.

Most sound cards, even today are not able to make bitperfect digital recordings!

Nearly all sound drivers adjust and manipulate the signal before you can record it.

The card I bought was a Zoltrix Nightingale 6 Pro with a cmedia 8738/8768 chipset. The chipset really is the key factor here. It is crappy for analog, but is one of the few cheap chipsets with true bitperfect digital support. There even is a custom windows driver for these cards:

http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/

http://www.hi-fi-insight.com/the-search-for-bit-perfect-audio-part-two.html

So any cheap PCI sound card with this chipset and optical inputs should work fine.

However since you must resample the audio to 48khz anyway there probably is no point in buying this if you already have a decent sound card (e.g. a recent sound blaster). When I did this a few years ago I had trouble syncing the audio with the video and in the end I just used direct 48KHz recordings made with my Sound Blaster Audigy. It wasn't bitperfect but there was virtually no noise and it was synced perfectly and I didn't need to resample the audio.

 

Author
Time

TK-949 said:

BTW another odd thing: The dianoga scene always had music, as long as I can remember, until 1997 with the SE the music was gone. But the GOUT didn't have the music either. For my version I'll add the music again.

After I read I this decided to check this on my german 1993 and 1995 Laserdiscs (can't check the 198 LD2, because my LD player can't play PAL analog audio). In both versions the music is present. However no other (english) version of Star Wars I checked has this music.

I checked rips of the following:

1982 US LD

1986 Japanese LD

1993 US DC LD

1995 US Faces LD

1995 French THX LD

2002 SE German TV broadcasts (Gkar)

2004 SE Offical DVDs german

2006 GOUT DVDs German and US

2 telecine bootleg copies of the pre 1981 release

Audio reconstructions of the mono and 70MM mix

Not a single one has any music in the scene with the diagona in the trash compactor.

So I am wondering what mix was the german theatrical sound mix based on?

I always assumed it was the dolby stereo mix because the german theatrical release also was in dolby stereo. The german version also had translations of lines that were missing in the original stereo mix but were present in the mono mix (C3PO's line about the power beams coupled in 7 locations).

 

Author
Time

grisan said:

TK-949 said:

BTW another odd thing: The dianoga scene always had music, as long as I can remember, until 1997 with the SE the music was gone. But the GOUT didn't have the music either. For my version I'll add the music again.

After I read I this decided to check this on my german 1993 and 1995 Laserdiscs (can't check the 198 LD2, because my LD player can't play PAL analog audio). In both versions the music is present. However no other (english) version of Star Wars I checked has this music.

I checked rips of the following:

1982 US LD

1986 Japanese LD

1993 US DC LD

1995 US Faces LD

1995 French THX LD

2002 SE German TV broadcasts (Gkar)

2004 SE Offical DVDs german

2006 GOUT DVDs German and US

2 telecine bootleg copies of the pre 1981 release

Audio reconstructions of the mono and 70MM mix

Not a single one has any music in the scene with the diagona in the trash compactor.

So I am wondering what mix was the german theatrical sound mix based on?

I always assumed it was the dolby stereo mix because the german theatrical release also was in dolby stereo. The german version also had translations of lines that were missing in the original stereo mix but were present in the mono mix (C3PO's line about the power beams coupled in 7 locations).

 

Interesting about the difference in music-editing in the mix, is it the music Williams originally wrote for the Dianoga scene or something else? The actual music he wrote for that scene was later used for the added Mos Eisley footage in the Special Edition and can also be found on the soundtrack albums.

According to: http://www.in70mm.com/news/2003/star_wars/index.htm 

"For international release, a fourth format would be available for exhibition: 35mm four-track magnetic stereo."

My guess is that they used the four-track master as the base and continued to build on what they thought was necessary additions in the Mono mix like the tractor beam line, but it's really weird that it contains musical differences. Is the "Close the blast doors" in it as well?

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

Author
Time

TK-949 said:
And in ESB after Yoda's Line "Du wirst Angst haben" came a little piece of music (as the Star Destroyer is shooting asteroids, also gone since 1997), which sounds like a fade out of another piece. Does anyone know what piece that was?

That's another part that have always been without music, IIRC another bold statement of the Imperial March was written for that scene and it can be heard on the soundtrack CD.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

Author
Time

I think the ANH dubs have, in general, been based on the mono mix (even the stereo ones).

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

The german dub is definetly based on the mono mix. "Close the blast doors" is also in there.

msycamore said:

Interesting about the difference in music-editing in the mix, is it the music Williams originally wrote for the Dianoga scene or something else?


It is (was) the original music. I always wondered, why on the soundtrack LP the dianoga scene came AFTER the trash/heroes compacting scene...

(And just another) BTW: There's one scene I actually like better in german than in english:

Luke: Da ist irgendwas Lebendiges hier drin.
Han: Ja, deine Fantasie.

Han's (or better Wolfgang Pampel's (the voice actor)) delivery of that line has so much sarcasm and fits very well to his character, since in the english version he's just saying Luke is imagining things, but in the german version that Luke's imagination is "alive".

Author
Time

There is no circular wipe to the end credits in the 1993 LD version, which is in widescreen. There just is a cut to the credits starting with "Drehbuch and Regie - George Lucas" (translation of: Directed and Written by)

I don't think any german version had a circular wipe. I can't check this right now, but I suspect the cut is a few frames earlier as the circular wipe.

Okay, I guess, it would be too much of a fuss to recreate such a wipe, given that a part of credits interacts with the picture. That's probably also the reason why the differences in the original English credits all happen after the rolling text starts, and not before (the first part of the credits is more or less "part of the film").

Interestingly enough, for "Empire" and "Jedi" the end credits weren't localized, so the circular wipe could be kept. Which created a slight inconsistency in German versions of the trilogy (okay, it's not the only one, considering Kaiser/Emperor et al).

Author
Time

Doesn't the last shot of the ceremony freeze before the wipe (at least in the theatrical version)? In that case it wouldn't be a problem to recreate it for the German credits...

Author
Time

Doesn't the last shot of the ceremony freeze before the wipe (at least in the theatrical version)? In that case it wouldn't be a problem to recreate it for the German credits...

As far as I see, Chewie moves 1 frame before the wipe starts, then it in fact freezes. Also, most interestingly, the quality of the last shot seems to differ - it looks like it's a different film generation than the rest.

How are you planning to recreate the German credits? The quality of the VHS or LD scan seems rather poor.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Haven't thought about the credits yet... since only SW has German ones, I might just as well leave them in English. Or I'll recreate them completely.

Also the quality of the shot differs BECAUSE it's a different generation (since the wipe was done optically back then). Actually this should be true for all wipes in the movies (before they were re-composited for the SEs).

Author
Time

By the way, what I discovered today:

It is quite well-known that the text crawl was created by Lucasfilm specially for each language version. However, one has to wonder who did the rest of the localization, i.e.:

"A Lucasfilm Limited Production"

"A long time ago..."

and the end credits.

If you take a look at this capture of the French intro crawl of Star Wars ("La Guerre des Étoiles"), you'll notice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFg6iMK3ikM

1) The font of "Une production Lucasfilm Ltd" is exactly the same as the German font "Eine Lucasfilm Ltd. Produktion" (which is not the original English font). Also, both the French and the Germans write "Lucasfilm" not entirely in upper case. The only difference is that the French title is left-aligned, whereas the German one is centered.

2) "A long time ago" is in French exactly like in German: split over three lines instead of two. Both use three dots instead of four.

3) The "La Guerre des Etoiles" logo freezes for a moment before it starts to fly away. Same is valid for the German "Krieg der Sterne" logo in ANH (not in TOSB or ROTK!).

So I wonder - was it Lucasfilm responsible for all of these opticals? If it were two FOX subdivisions in Europe, there would not be such subtle similarities. If it is Lucasfilm - why didn't they use the original font for the Lucasfilm logo or recreate the wipe for the international end credits?

Author
Time
 (Edited)

TheHutt said:

(not in TOSB or ROTK!).

The Ompire Strikes Back? Return of the King?

Are you mixing up trilogies here? ;)

Author
Time

Isn't there a band named Omp?

Author
Time

Hey guys. Does any of you have the German 1995 full screen VHS set? If so could you please post photos of it? My uncle used to have it and I last saw it as a kid and I loved the box-set art but when I asked him if he still had it, he couldn't find it. I'd really like to see it again to confirm whether it's really as awesome as I remember it or it's just a false memory.

Author
Time

Do you have the UK Executor Box? It contains these artworks as 20 x 30 cm cards.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Heya,

You mean these:

Star Wars: (hires) http://www.cover-island.com/download_cover-1404082.jpg

Return of the Jedi: (hires) http://www.cover-island.com/download_cover-1404082.jpg

Didn't find one for "Empire", however, here is a clean shot of the artwork (hires):

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/6838/johnalvintheempirestrik.jpg

the composition of the cover can be seen here (lowres):

http://www3.schnittberichte.com/www/SBs/2005824/cov3.jpg