Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released) — Page 353

Harmy said:

See, I'm 24, which is just about older by enough to have been exposed to the original version first and that seems to have made quite a difference to my perception of things.

That'd put Harmy at about 8 years old when the SE's came out theatrically, which actually does perfectly land him in a time frame where he'd get good exposure to the close-to-theatrical home videos first.  I hadn't really thought about it until now, but I suppose a birth year of around or just after 1989 is about the cutoff for Star Wars fandom vs SE apathy.  Granted there are exceptions (many of which we'll cause on purpose in the future with Harmy's work), but overall that's probably a good standard to gauge by.

1991. I grew up with "Faces," though. I wore those tapes out. :)

Edit: I actually never saw the SE in theaters, unfortunately. We were very rural and didn't get to the movies much. I say unfortunately because apparently that was the only time the SE looked close to half decent...

Harmy said:

I'm 1988 too :-)

I haven't seen the SE in the theaters either and I do regret that as well, because even altered, it would have been great to have seen the OT in a theater. Plus for me, it would have been the only opportunity for a long time to come to have seen it in widescreen and in English.

Same here. I think I actually remember staying at a friends house while my family went. My mom didn't think I would be interested at the time. I didn't even see Phantom Menace in theater, definitely remember the hype and advertising though.  I did get to see them all at Celebration V if that counts as seeing them in a theater. 

Hoping one day I will get a chance to go to a screening of the theatrical originals, as that would be quite the treat. Hopefully with Disney in control, they will take the chance and release a quality scan of the originals on Blu-ray (Or dare I dream of them making a deal with a TV manufacturer and releasing a 4k scan).

1982....saved up my own grass mowing money to get the faces VHS set.  Although I'm not very good at telling stories, I'm not Spielberg

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

The main issue has nothing to do with the quality of the changes.  History is what it is, and trying to change history is wrong - even evil.  Supressing any cultural artifact that had as big of a societal and technological impact as Star Wars did, is wrong regardless of how it is done.  It should be available 100% intact, warts and all.  Any less is to vandalize an important piece of our heritage.

Just to play devil's advocate slightly, I think the whole thing would not be an issue if the SE had been done tastefully from the start. If all it had been was cleaning up some continuity errors and doing some touch ups I doubt anyone would have gotten worked up. I guess I'm saying there's a parallel Earth out there where the SE is just a well-regarded Director's Cut that sits next to Blade Runner: The Final Cut, the Donner Superman, extended LotR, etc. (And obviously we'd still want the original preserved, too, as in the Blade Runner boxed set that has several versions.)

davextreme said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

The main issue has nothing to do with the quality of the changes.  History is what it is, and trying to change history is wrong - even evil.  Supressing any cultural artifact that had as big of a societal and technological impact as Star Wars did, is wrong regardless of how it is done.  It should be available 100% intact, warts and all.  Any less is to vandalize an important piece of our heritage.

Just to play devil's advocate slightly, I think the whole thing would not be an issue if the SE had been done tastefully from the start. If all it had been was cleaning up some continuity errors and doing some touch ups I doubt anyone would have gotten worked up. I guess I'm saying there's a parallel Earth out there where the SE is just a well-regarded Director's Cut that sits next to Blade Runner: The Final Cut, the Donner Superman, extended LotR, etc. (And obviously we'd still want the original preserved, too, as in the Blade Runner boxed set that has several versions.)

The alternate reality sounds like Star Wars Revisited

I'm 22 and I just missed the original Star Wars. I first saw Star Wars when I was 7 years old in 1997 and unfortunately it was the Special Editions. It was not until I got older that I realized that the Star Wars that I grew up with was wrong and by then it was too late to get access to the older copies. I didn't truly see Star Wars for the first time until December 17th 2012 when I downloaded Harmy's Despecializeds 

Hi Harmy,

How are you?  I'd like to know, if possible, what software and settings you've used to upscale GOUT to match the HD source.  I'm recording from brazillian TV a mini-series, but I've lost one episode due to power failure :(

I've found the episode on Dailymotion (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyotc5_as-noivas-de-copacabana-capitulo-08_creation?search_algo=2#.UWS-OFeybqQ) but its low res compared to the material I've already recorded, thus the question.

Many thanks for any help! :)

michaelkirschner said:

The alternate reality sounds like Star Wars Revisited

That's more or less my point. It is possible to alter the movie tastefully and produce a pleasing result. If this had been done by Lucas from the start, we'd all have needed to find something else to argue about online!

yoda-sama said:

Harmy said:

See, I'm 24, which is just about older by enough to have been exposed to the original version first and that seems to have made quite a difference to my perception of things.

That'd put Harmy at about 8 years old when the SE's came out theatrically, which actually does perfectly land him in a time frame where he'd get good exposure to the close-to-theatrical home videos first.  I hadn't really thought about it until now, but I suppose a birth year of around or just after 1989 is about the cutoff for Star Wars fandom vs SE apathy.  Granted there are exceptions (many of which we'll cause on purpose in the future with Harmy's work), but overall that's probably a good standard to gauge by.

I'm 26, so a bit older than Harmy but I was having about the same exposure I would say. I grew up with the originals on VHS and then later saw the 1997 SE on VHS too, but always preferred the originals as they were the ones I saw the most.

It's great that at present, we have the availability of the original films from many different sources, so much more than what was available to me when I was watching them on VHS, as I was too young to buy my own laserdisc player and my parents also couldn't afford one.

1985 here, and I grew up wearing out a copy of Star Wars that my father taped off TV before I was born. He died when I was very young, so all the tapes of science fiction movies that he had recorded off TV were one of the most concrete things I had to remember him by when I was growing up. Unfortunately when it came time to buy a copy for myself, the special edition was all that was available, but it wasn't what I had grown up with. I can't help but think of my dad whenever I watch one of Harmy's versions, even though I was young enough not to really remember him.

I don't want to sound all depressed or anything, my mom remarried just after I left elementary school, if memory serves, and my stepdad took me to see all the special editions on the big screen when they came out in theaters again. Changes or no, seeing it on the big screen for the first time was really something.

The local megaplex actually does this regularly now, basically showing blurays of older films on their megaplex screens, and I got to see a lot of movies on the big screen for the first time because of this. It's a fantastic program. One per month (voted by customers) called "Most Wanted Mondays" followed by an annual film festival called "The Great Digital Film Fest". I saw Jurassic Park on the big screen for the first time just last year :) still going to see it in IMAX later this week though.