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Just watched The People vs. George Lucas. Which edition should I quest for?

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Like title says, which edition should I buy if I want the original trilogy as I saw them in the theaters in 77, 80 and 83? I currently have the VHS boxed set that is in letterbox with a hologram on the front of the box. These look to me like the real thing but I no longer have a VHS player. I also have the despecialized editions. I was thinking about buying the 2006 DVD editions. Any advice would be appreciated. This doesn’t need to be as confusing as it is!

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To be honest, you can't.  There has never been an official home video release of Star Wars with both the '77 theatrical video AND the '77 theatrical audio.  If you must go with official releases, you have to pick one over the other.  The 2006 DVD bonus discs have the 77 video, but with the revised 93 audio, which I find to be grating.  Empire and Jedi fare better--it's actually possible to get theatrical audio & video on the same release (VHS or Laserdisc), but they still suffer from some more subtle flaws that affected many home video releases of these films.

The despecialized editions, in spite of their flaws, are closer to recreating the theatrical versions than any official home video release.  If you buy the official releases, IMO, you'll be disappointed.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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So.....my VHS letterbox collector's edition 1992 copies of Empire and Jedi are theatrical audio and video but Hope is something else? Or is that in respect to the 1996 DVDs? Should I go get my VHS versions transferred then? I forgot to mention I have laserdisc of Hope and Jedi but Im not sure which release. Would these help me in any way? 

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Any releases of Empire and Jedi prior to 1993 would be theatrical audio, and video too, if it's letterboxed.  Every home video release of Star Wars has had the altered 1981 opening (where the movie is given an episode number and named "A New Hope"), except the 2006 DVD bonus disc, which is the only one with the 1977 theatrical opening where the name of the movie is simply Star Wars with no episode number, just like it was in theatres.

How much the revised Star Wars opening matters to you is up to you (in spite of simply being the addition of some new text, they managed to screw up the edit even then if you watch carefully), but you said you wanted theatrical, and, well, that's a complicated story.  And that's not mentioning the fact that when you saw it in the theatre in 77, chances are you didn't hear the stereo mix which is the only audio mix you have the option of buying officially.  If you want the original mono mix or the six-channel mix, your only option is fan preservations.

Also keep in mind, the home video releases have been through processes that prevent them from looking or sounding quite like the theatre.  At best, they're considerably brighter, less saturated, pink-shifted, and they have compressed audio dynamics.  This makes things like the matte boxes around spaceships a lot more visible than they'd have been in the theatre.  So I can't stress enough--fan preservations are a better representation of what it actually looked and sounded like in theatres than anything you can buy.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Got you. Thanks much.

May the Force be with you.

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Buy the Blu set, put it in a closet, and then get Harmy's Despecialized Editions and watch those.

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If you hide the Blu-Ray set in a closet, people might still accidentally see that you own it. I recommend throwing the boxes away, gluing the discs together (shiny side out), and hiding them in a crawlspace or wall cavity. You can't be too careful.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Buy the Blu-ray discs, then microwave them. You'll be improving them while at the same time enjoying a light show that you wouldn't risk with any discs that you would actually want to watch.

And yes, then go watch Harmy's Despecialized Editions.

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...I smell an oncoming thread about the "Proper way to dispose of an Official Release"...

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Bingowings said:

They belong in a museum!

 So do you!

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I applied for a job in one last week so fingers crossed :-D

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Just an irrelevant aside, if the VHS box set with the hologram in the front is the same one I have (widescreen editions with From Star Wars To Jedi as well), Star Wars has the 1985 mix, so it's not exactly any theatrical version either.

“That’s impossible, even for a computer!”

“You don't do ‘Star Wars’ in Dobly.”

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I grabbed the 1990 boxed set from a thrift store one day, even though I have never owned a VCR, probably will never own a VCR, and my parents haven't owned one since they early 00's.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

END OF LINE

(It hasn’t happened yet)

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Owning Star Wars on at least one dead video format is mandatory around here. ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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Invoking my LGS (Laserdisc Geek Status): that THX card was almost as laughable back then as it is now on a VHS tape.

“That’s impossible, even for a computer!”

“You don't do ‘Star Wars’ in Dobly.”

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It was perceived as cheapening the brand name by some at the time, especially being used for pan and scan tapes.

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Where were you in '77?

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CatBus said:

Any releases of Empire and Jedi prior to 1993 would be theatrical audio, and video too, if it's letterboxed.  Every home video release of Star Wars has had the altered 1981 opening (where the movie is given an episode number and named "A New Hope"), except the 2006 DVD bonus disc, which is the only one with the 1977 theatrical opening where the name of the movie is simply Star Wars with no episode number, just like it was in theatres.

How much the revised Star Wars opening matters to you is up to you (in spite of simply being the addition of some new text, they managed to screw up the edit even then if you watch carefully), but you said you wanted theatrical, and, well, that's a complicated story.  And that's not mentioning the fact that when you saw it in the theatre in 77, chances are you didn't hear the stereo mix which is the only audio mix you have the option of buying officially.  If you want the original mono mix or the six-channel mix, your only option is fan preservations.

Also keep in mind, the home video releases have been through processes that prevent them from looking or sounding quite like the theatre.  At best, they're considerably brighter, less saturated, pink-shifted, and they have compressed audio dynamics.  This makes things like the matte boxes around spaceships a lot more visible than they'd have been in the theatre.  So I can't stress enough--fan preservations are a better representation of what it actually looked and sounded like in theatres than anything you can buy.

 Ok, what Catbus says is true, the 2006 dvd's use the 1993 audio mix. Which I think is very good, but it was not actually in any original theatrical release. And various fan preservations might make you happier.

But I maintain the best official retail version you can get is the 2006 dvd. (or 2008 box set, it's the same discs from 2006 into thinner cases.) It is by far the best single pre 1997 source you can find and is way better than the 1993-95 laserdiscs or vhs can output.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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Knightmessenger said:

But I maintain the best official retail version you can get is the 2006 dvd. (or 2008 box set, it's the same discs from 2006 into thinner cases.) It is by far the best single pre 1997 source you can find and is way better than the 1993-95 laserdiscs or vhs can output.

 …except for the sound. The LPCM soundtracks on the laserdiscs sound much, much better than the anemic Dolby Digital track on the DVDs.

“That’s impossible, even for a computer!”

“You don't do ‘Star Wars’ in Dobly.”

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StarThoughts said:

Knightmessenger said:

But I maintain the best official retail version you can get is the 2006 dvd. (or 2008 box set, it's the same discs from 2006 into thinner cases.) It is by far the best single pre 1997 source you can find and is way better than the 1993-95 laserdiscs or vhs can output.

 …except for the sound. The LPCM soundtracks on the laserdiscs sound much, much better than the anemic Dolby Digital track on the DVDs.

This is not true, the audio tracks on the DVDs are the same mixes as those on the 1993 Definitive Collection & Faces laserdiscs.

Edit: or are you saying that the laserdisc is better because it's uncompressed while the DVD is AC3? If so, I wouldn't say the laserdiscs are "much, much better", most people would not be able to tell the difference.

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Moth3r said:

StarThoughts said:

Knightmessenger said:

But I maintain the best official retail version you can get is the 2006 dvd. (or 2008 box set, it's the same discs from 2006 into thinner cases.) It is by far the best single pre 1997 source you can find and is way better than the 1993-95 laserdiscs or vhs can output.

 …except for the sound. The LPCM soundtracks on the laserdiscs sound much, much better than the anemic Dolby Digital track on the DVDs.

This is not true, the audio tracks on the DVDs are the same mixes as those on the 1993 Definitive Collection & Faces laserdiscs.

Edit: or are you saying that the laserdisc is better because it's uncompressed while the DVD is AC3? If so, I wouldn't say the laserdiscs are "much, much better", most people would not be able to tell the difference.

 The laserdiscs had uncompressed PCM stereo while the 2006 dvd's have dolby digital 2.0 only. But the audio mix is the same. As someone who has dvd's made from the 1993 NTSC laserdiscs with the PCM audio intact, the improvement in video quality with the 2006 dvd is much more noticeable than the compressed audio.

Pick your poison I guess. But I'm sure many people have taken the 2006 video, converted it to 16x9 and added PCM audio options.

My main point is that the best single official retail source for the average person is the 2006 dvd. Not everyone is going to notice the audio differences or other distinctions.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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The reason the 1993 mix sounds good is because it is derived from the version that was used for 70mm prints, which is by far the best audio mix the film has ever had.

Unfortunately, they saw fit to paste additional sound effects on top of it when making the Definitive Collection laserdisc set.   Some of these are beneficial; but others are loud, distracting, and unnecessary.  The 70mm recreation (made by me) removes these additions, and is included in various fan-made preservation projects.

Just recently I did a direct comparison between the uncompressed PCM from the laserdisc and the 192 kbps AC3 found on the 2006 DVD.  By importing both into Pro Tools and time-aligning them, I could seamlessly switch back and forth during playback by soloing one track or the other.  I found that the lossy version holds up pretty well much of the time—during quieter passages the difference was subtle enough that it didn't stand out too much.  But whenever there is music the clarity definitely suffers: there is a distinct loss of detail in the high frequencies, and the louder dynamic sections of the mix sometimes exhibit harsh digital compression artifacts.

Even the tape hiss is affected, for in the PCM it sounds smooth and pleasant, but after lossy compression it takes on a more harsh and garbled quality.  Being essentially random high frequency noise, it is right in the range where lossy encoders start throwing away detail as the bitrate is lowered, and as an ever-present background to analogue recordings this can be a noticeable indicator that the fidelity has been compromised.  Tape hiss may be considered the aural equivalent of film grain, which likewise is difficult for video compression to deal with accurately at lower bitrates.

I compared the two tracks by listening on hi-fi headphones, so the differences were quite apparent.  With speakers the distance from the ear to the sound source is increased, so it may not be as evident, especially if they are of the type that most people tend to own.  When encoding in Dolby Digital, 192 kbps for a stereo track is approximately equal to 448 for a 5.1 mix, and though far from perfect, this level is generally listenable on most material.  Increasing to 320 kbps for stereo (640 for 5.1) is considerably more difficult to distinguish from PCM, since there are no overt problems with the sound quality at all, and any difference will be quite subtle.  Nothing beats lossless for clarity, though, so you should always listen to that if it's available.