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Post #689863

Author
Knightmessenger
Parent topic
Just watched The People vs. George Lucas. Which edition should I quest for?
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/689863/action/topic#689863
Date created
12-Feb-2014, 11:39 PM

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.