logo Sign In

Das Imperium schlägt zurück - Despecialized Edition 2.1 (German) (Released)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

It’s been a while, but we did it. The complete German Das Imperium schlägt zurück - Despecialized Edition 2.1 is finally finished!

Based on Harmy’s The Empire Strikes Back - Despecialized Edition 2.0 (encoded from his lossless raw footage, thanks again Harmy!) we‘ve yet again set out to re-construct the German theatrical experience from December 1980 as closely as possible. Picture-wise this “only” means we had to re-create the German title cards and opening crawl (the latter sourced from a 35mm print of the original crawl - including the ZÜRUCK-typo), as neither TESB nor ROTJ featured German end credits.

So, why is this called 2.1 you might ask? Well, this version is different from Harmy’s 2.0 in a few more aspects: The end credits are now completely sourced from a 35mm scan (no more GOUT-upscale here), plus there’s one shot of Han and Leia in the Cloud City apartment that somehow always bothered me in Harmy’s DeEd. So that shot is now completely replaced with a cleaned-up version from TN1’s Grindhouse release. That goes for a few other shots as well (Harmy, you sneaky bastard!).

Still, most of the work went into synching and editing a selection of German audio tracks (Thanks to cvs and J.J._McQuade for their help on these!), first and foremost a GOUT-based stereo track with missing material re-inserted, to mimic the theatrical audio experience from 1980. Furthermore we’ve added two Laserdisc stereo tracks, the 1993 SilverScreen Edition and the 1995 THX release. As a fourth audio option we’ve included a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track, edited from the 2011 Blu-ray. English 5.1 (by hairy_hen) and 1.0 (by Puggo and Mavimao) are also included, as well as an isolated music track containing only John Williams’ film score. Optional German and English subtitles were added as well, taken from Catbus’ Project Threepio.

Technical Specifications:

      FORMAT:   MKV  
        SIZE:   18.2GB  
       VIDEO:   1280x720p h.264 23.976 fps  
       AUDIO:   TRACK 1) 1980 2.0 @ 384 kbps [German]
                TRACK 2) 1993 SilverScreen LD 2.0 @ 384 kbps [German]   
                TRACK 3) 1995 THX LD 2.0 @ 384 kbps [German]  
                TRACK 4) 2011 Blu-ray 5.1 DTS-HD @ 768 kbps [German]  
                TRACK 5) 1980 5.1 DTS-HD @ 1536 kbps [English]  
                TRACK 6) 1980 16mm 1.0 DTS-HD @ 192 kbps [English]  
                TRACK 7) Isolated Score 2.0 @ 224 kbps
   SUBTITLES:   German, English

Screenshots:








The German Blu-ray-sized covers, labels and inserts can be downloaded HERE.

Author
Time

This is amazing! Thank you Laserschwert!

2 down, 1 to go 😉

Rogue One is redundant. Just play the first mission of DARK FORCES.
The hallmark of a corrupt leader: Being surrounded by yes men.
‘The best visual effects in the world will not compensate for a story told badly.’ - V.E.S.
‘Star Wars is a buffet, enjoy the stuff you want, and leave the rest.’ - SilverWook

Author
Time

Einfach großartige Arbeit! Super vielen Dank! Das muss ich auch noch bei Cinefacts posten!!!
Wie mache ich daraus eigentlich eine AVCHD? Das fehlt noch zum perfekten Glück…

A young jedi named Darth Vader who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil helped the empire hunt down and destroy the jedi knights. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the force.
Author
Time
 (Edited)

Eine AVCHD müsstest du neu-encoden… ich weiß aber nicht, mit welchem Tool das ginge. Kann jemand helfen?

Does anybody know how to create a DVD9-sized AVCHD from the MKV?

Author
Time

Great job! Your releases always look awesome.

BTW, just out of curiosity: is there a significant difference in German between Züruck and Zurück? Or is it just a weird looking typo?

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

Author
Time

It’s a classic typo😉)) Still can’t believe that they released it this way. “zurück” is correct, “züruck” is wrong😉

Glad to have it back wrong…!

A young jedi named Darth Vader who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil helped the empire hunt down and destroy the jedi knights. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the force.
Author
Time

Mavimao said:

Great job! Your releases always look awesome.

BTW, just out of curiosity: is there a significant difference in German between Züruck and Zurück? Or is it just a weird looking typo?

To me, the typo makes it look like the Empire is somewhere between striking back and striking the heart of Switzerland’s banking system. But maybe that’s just me 😉

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Mavimao said:

is there a significant difference in German between Züruck and Zurück?

Yeah, “züruck” isn’t a word, so it’s just a typo and not something with a silly meaning. Since the crawls were (supposedly) created at ILM, I guess no one noticed the misplaced umlaut.

Author
Time

Laserschwert said:

Eine AVCHD müsstest du neu-encoden… ich weiß aber nicht, mit welchem Tool das ginge. Kann jemand helfen?

Does anybody know how to create a DVD9-sized AVCHD from the MKV?

Can be done with BDRebuilder from jdobbs
http://www.jdobbs.com/

But if you want it on a physical disc I propose just to remux it to Blu-Ray with TSMuxer and burn it to BD-R.

Author
Time

Was waiting for this to show ESB to my daughter. Great work. Thanks a lot!

Author
Time

Thanks for the hint with TSmuxer. Do I convert it to BD-Disc or AVCHD? What is better?

A young jedi named Darth Vader who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil helped the empire hunt down and destroy the jedi knights. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the force.
Author
Time

If you have a BD-Burner and BD-R discs, BD-Disc is the way to go. If you can only burn DVDs, tsmuxer won’t work to make the file small enough.

Author
Time

With Laserschwert’s permission, I’m going to upload this to the Spleen once I have it downloaded from Mega (which should be later today. Current time is 10:22am.)

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

Author
Time

There are actually a few more differences in the v2.1 version.
These shots have been replaced with cleaned TN1 Grindhouse shots as well:

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/+HarmyDespecialized/albums/6044645069501365185/6044645073588715346?pid=6044645073588715346&oid=109609428403596349302

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/+HarmyDespecialized/albums/6044645069501365185/6044645833617272594?pid=6044645833617272594&oid=109609428403596349302

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/+HarmyDespecialized/albums/6044645069501365185/6044645846454735938?pid=6044645846454735938&oid=109609428403596349302

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/+HarmyDespecialized/albums/6044645069501365185/6044645851132693298?pid=6044645851132693298&oid=109609428403596349302

And before anyone asks, no there will not be a v2.1 English version - going through all the logistics of putting out a new release just because of these few shots, when I’m planning on having a v2.5 version with a lot more fixes done quite soon simply isn’t worth it.

Author
Time

Man, I didn’t know you’ve used those too… what a nice surprise!

Author
Time

Harmy said:

There are actually a few more differences in the v2.1 version.
These shots have been replaced with cleaned TN1 Grindhouse shots as well:

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/+HarmyDespecialized/albums/6044645069501365185/6044645073588715346?pid=6044645073588715346&oid=109609428403596349302

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/+HarmyDespecialized/albums/6044645069501365185/6044645833617272594?pid=6044645833617272594&oid=109609428403596349302

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/+HarmyDespecialized/albums/6044645069501365185/6044645846454735938?pid=6044645846454735938&oid=109609428403596349302

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/+HarmyDespecialized/albums/6044645069501365185/6044645851132693298?pid=6044645851132693298&oid=109609428403596349302

And before anyone asks, no there will not be a v2.1 English version - going through all the logistics of putting out a new release just because of these few shots, when I’m planning on having a v2.5 version with a lot more fixes done quite soon simply isn’t worth it.

Just curious what your process is for those shots (since I don’t have 2.1). Presumably these are full cleaned 35mm shots and not just rotoscoped elements from them? The color in grindhouse is of course very off. Are you adjusting by hand or using Dre’s tool perhaps?

Curious for the sake of the Battle of Hoth. It would be a ton of rotoscoping. But also a ton of cleanup/color work.