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Info Wanted: Are the 1997 Special Edition releases preserved?

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 (Edited)

I have a fondness for those releases. More or less, they are “My Star Wars”…

I’ve searched the boards, but I’d really like to get up to date information regarding the possibility of finding them in decent, possibly anamorphic quality. The topics don’t have much activity past 2005-06.

Any info would be awesome!

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Something not included on that site is Adywan's Empire Strikes Back AVCHD, which uses the 1997 audio mix and undoes the 2004 further alterations. It's also color corrected and does not suffer from the 2004 colors.

Generally, there are two types of 1997 SE DVDs: laserdisc transfers and digital broadcasts. The old laserdisc transfers often look quite nice and much like early non-anamorphic DVD. While the digital broadcasts seem to be clearer, they suffer from smearing and it can detract from one's viewing experience.

I would personally suggest you check out Lee Thorogood's LD transfers as they have the 5.1 sound and higher resolution of PAL.

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PAL is the issue! I'm in the States, so I think I can only view NTSC.

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Maybe Harmy will do a "De-04ed Special Edition"?

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TK-949 said:

Maybe Harmy will do a "De-04ed Special Edition"?

It's so strange that there is any nostalgia for the '97 versions at all...

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I for one do have a sense of nostalgia for those versions, and would enjoy seeing them in high quality.

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If you don't mind all the smearing, the Reivax version of A New Hope is at TehParadox.

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Asaki said:


If you don't mind all the smearing, the Reivax version of A New Hope is at TehParadox.

and myspleen

"Changing classic movies at all is just wrong." Puggo

"HA, Ha, you r ghey" was probably a hilariously insulting comment in Elementary and Middle School, but its not cooly insulting anymore and its certainly not funny: it makes people who say it look like, well, an "inbred monkey." TheSessler

"I'm still %20 the wiser. It amused me that after doing a google image search for "The Final Milf" the second picture is Roger Delgado followed by lots and lots of porn." Bingowings

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While I consider the 97 editions to be of little significance in comparison to the original theatrical editions, I think that a truly complete BD box set should include restored versions of them as well as the theatrical and 04 editions.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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toho-scope said:

Asaki said:


If you don't mind all the smearing, the Reivax version of A New Hope is at TehParadox.
and myspleen


And Usenet

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Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

While I consider the 97 editions to be of little significance in comparison to the original theatrical editions, I think that a truly complete BD box set should include restored versions of them as well as the theatrical and 04 editions.

I absolutely agree with this. I have some serious nostalgia for the '97 versions, but if we are going to have a million versions, it would be cool to have them all in one place.

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If I remember correctly VCDs are roughly half the resolution of DVDs, so I think that's why laserdiscs and digital broadcasts might be a better source. However, it could be interesting to ascertain whether there's smearing on them. If there is, it seems that the smearing is inherent to the 1997 telecine.

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If you don't mind a german crawl and german alien subtitles I'd recommend the G'Kar version, since it has the best picture of all the SE DVDs out there. Due to compression it's not that good, but it's anamorphic, has better resolution than a VCD, and less smearing than the Reivax or Flunk version.

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On the contrary, in my opinion, the Reivax has noticeably less smearing than the G'Kar. The only problem was that only ANH was released. It should be noted that the Reivax has a French crawl, far less compression, and a 2.0 English Audio Track. If you watch any of the G'Kar DVDs on a 50" and up TV screen, you'll start seeing small macroblocking compression artifacts during fast scenes as the video had to be compressed to fit 3 audio tracks, including a 5.1 mix, which was really just an upmix.

I'm not sure how the Flunk compares to either.

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 (Edited)

 

The reivax and Flunk ANH SE 97 are better quality than the Gkar version. But I still prefer the GKar, because all 3 OT movies are available.

Apparently there is another english 1997 SE from DVB source release that contains all 3 movies. It is called the "TB release".

Info here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/russdawson/gtf/dvd/SE/tb.html

Unfortunatly I never found these anywhere online.

I also have the original Star Wars SE VCDs from Malaysia. Quality is not very good, but If someone is interested I can upload ISOs to the newsgroup.

 

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TK-949 said:

 

toho-scope said:

Asaki said:


If you don't mind all the smearing, the Reivax version of A New Hope is at TehParadox.
and myspleen


And Usenet

 

And my axe.

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TV's Frink said:



TK-949 said:

 


toho-scope said:


Asaki said:

If you don't mind all the smearing, the Reivax version of A New Hope is at TehParadox.

and myspleen



And Usenet

 


And my axe.


Frink you're sooo predictable...

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Some people asked me if I have the GKar Editions. I only got Ep6, my Ep4 and Ep5 discs both have read errors.

I can post Ep6 on usenet. I would be interested in having a complete set of them again. Can anyone upload Ep4 + Ep5?

 

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I have got GKar Episode V (which I was downloading for about 3 months from an ed2k network :-) ), but I haven't got an usenet account.

So I can PM you where you can find the ed2k links or upload it where you wish :-)