Harmy's RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized Edition HD - V3.1 — Page 27

Well, I guess we better resuscitate this thread. I loved SW and am patiently waiting for the mkv of Empire... But THIS has got to be the one I am most excited for. One, because I love Jedi more than I should for it's first and final acts. Two, because this episode has been horribly mangled in every subsequent edition: Jedi Rocks, then Hayden/broken lightsabers, then Sebulba/NOOOOOOOO! Please, Harmy... v 1.0 was great... but I'm so pumped to see this movie like I saw it before the dark times, only better! (Actually during the dark times, but my parents were too cheap to buy new vhs tapes for the SE... all I had was the faces tapes until '04.)

WedgeCyan said:

all I had was the faces tapes until '04.

Same for me except it was 2010 when I purchased the GOUT DVDs. I still haven't seen any of the SEs.

AntcuFaalb said:

I still haven't seen any of the SEs.

 Lucky!

WedgeCyan said:

AntcuFaalb said:

I still haven't seen any of the SEs.

 Lucky!

Not for long. I'm going with my wife to see a 35mm showing of the 97SE (ANH) at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center on the 30th of this month.

AntcuFaalb said:

Not for long. I'm going with my wife to see a 35mm showing of the 97SE (ANH) at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center on the 30th of this month.

 If you're going to see an SE, be glad it's the 97 one. You'll have to grin and bear it during a few rough spots, but other than that the 97 for Star Wars is nearly enjoyable. My friend had the SE vhs for it and we used to watch it all the time. It wasn't until I watched my tape a day or so after his that I finally realized I was watching a totally different version. What threw me off the most was of course, the godawful hangar scene, of which I shall no longer make mention.

yoda-sama said:

I guess my post couldn't be last forever...  AntuFaalb, I'm impressed you actually haven't seen any of the SE versions this whole time.

It wasn't planned, mind you. Prior to purchasing the GOUT in 2010, I hadn't seen Star Wars in years and years.

AntcuFaalb said:

WedgeCyan said:

AntcuFaalb said:

I still haven't seen any of the SEs.

 Lucky!

Not for long. I'm going with my wife to see a 35mm showing of the 97SE (ANH) at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center on the 30th of this month.

I hope you know enough about the changes to let us know if it was really the 97 version when you get back. I'm not totally convinced it won't be the 2011.

timdiggerm said:

AntcuFaalb said:

WedgeCyan said:

AntcuFaalb said:

I still haven't seen any of the SEs.

 Lucky!

Not for long. I'm going with my wife to see a 35mm showing of the 97SE (ANH) at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center on the 30th of this month.

I hope you know enough about the changes to let us know if it was really the 97 version when you get back. I'm not totally convinced it won't be the 2011.

I'll look at doubleofive's gallery (again) before going.

I'm really excited to see what Harmy does with Jedi once Empire is finished. His work on Jedi is probably more impressive than the work on both Star Wars and Empire simply because of how much Jedi was mangled by the SE's. It was so great to see the original Jabba's palace dance scene again, even though sadly the only way to make the scene look better at this point is to get some kind of film source since every SE release has not included any of the original musical scene. The sarlac pit was incredible too, I honestly couldn't tell that the SE beak thing was edited out at all. Honestly I'd go so far as to say that if someone gave me a disc with the Despecialized Editions on it, and they told me that it was an official blu ray release of the OUT, I'd believe them: that's how good they look. Really the only noticeable part in the whole trilogy was Sebastian Shaw's eyebrows and his greyish skin color instead of the color it was in the theatrical version (which is an incredibly small complaint). I'm assuming he had to take the eyebrows from the GOUT and add them to the Special Edition, which given those circumstances it looked pretty good. I'd take slightly odd looking eyebrows over no eyebrows at all :)

moviefreakedmind said:

It was so great to see the original Jabba's palace dance scene again, even though sadly the only way to make the scene look better at this point is to get some kind of film source since every SE release has not included any of the original musical scene.

Considering how good the film-sourced footage in Star Wars 2.5 and ESB 2.0 looks, and how well Harmy made it integrate with everything else, I'm not worried.

StarThoughts said:

moviefreakedmind said:

It was so great to see the original Jabba's palace dance scene again, even though sadly the only way to make the scene look better at this point is to get some kind of film source since every SE release has not included any of the original musical scene.

Considering how good the film-sourced footage in Star Wars 2.5 and ESB 2.0 looks, and how well Harmy made it integrate with everything else, I'm not worried.

 yes me neither, I just wasn't sure how hard it is to find film prints; if he could get his hands on film-sourced footage for Jedi then he could kill two birds with one stone: Jabba's palace song as well as Sebastian Shaw's eyebrows, since both of those scenes were mangled by the first Special Edition (not just Shaw's eyebrows but his skin color was turned grey as well). I guess the sarlac pit could be upgraded with film-sourced footage too, but honestly I thought the sarlac looked pretty great in the current DE for Jedi. Really the only noticeable sarlac shot was when Luke is standing over it right after Jabba say's "move him into position."

yoda-sama said:

I guess my post couldn't be last forever...  AntuFaalb, I'm impressed you actually haven't seen any of the SE versions this whole time.  Still, the '97 SE isn't as consistently irksome as watching what they did from '04 and on.

Harmy, if you don't get the scenes you wanted from that iTunes book, are 35mm scans of Jedi becoming available instead?  I have no idea how far along -1 is.

As of now, I have no 35mm footage for Jedi and the way it looks, I don't expect to for the near future, so it seems that v2.0 will be using the same sources as v1.0 and the improvement will mostly be only in the over-all picture quality.

Perhaps your next version of Jedi should be 1.8 then, to distinguish the difference from the 2.x set that incorporates 35mm footage?

v2.0 of Star Wars had no 35mm footage.

Well, I do plan to see what else can be done about it but have no specific plan yet.