Info: All Star Wars films released in 4K HDR on Disney Plus: 2019 SE with more changes — Page 3

I disagree because describing the less than 5-10 minutes total of changes to all 350+ minutes of the movies as a “remake” doesn’t seem fair or accurate, even accounting for the flexibility of language.

The 1997 versions are the only ones to be have the title “Special Edition” applied to it, so they’re the only “Special Editions” that have ever existed (they’re also, amazingly, now the most rare versions of Star Wars), and everything else is a version or iteration. There are so many versions of Star Wars at this point the idea of calling most of them “Special Editions” increasingly doesn’t make any sense. The editions themselves aren’t even special anymore. The only one that’s actually in any way Special is the one with that title, that got theatrically released in 1997 and was sold/promoted on the basis of the changes they notified us of in advance, which is still the only time they’ve actually done that. And is, again, now the rarest, hardest-to-find version of the film.

CatBus said:

DominicCobb said:

Doubleofive’s got the definitive collection of SE visual changes, but does anyone have a list of audio changes? I honestly don’t even know what 90% of them are.

I could probably do a highlights reel, but nothing definitive.

Star Wars
85: Threepio’s tractor beam lines added
93: Shattering glass sound effects added in cell bay shootout
97: All kinds of new audio for all the new scenes, most notably crappy knockoff dinosaurs make crappy knockoff dinosaur noises
04: Obi-Wan’s call that scares off the Sandpeople now sounds like the sound effects guy got drunk
11: Obi-Wan’s call that scares off the Sandpeople now sounds like some guy yelling in a parking lot
19: Greedo yells “Maclunkey!” just before Han shoots him

Empire
93: More-or-less good but still flawed attempt to remaster the 1980 audio, missing a sound effect for the snowspeeder crash
97: All kinds of new audio for all the new scenes, most notably the Emperor from the wrong film inexplicably screams offscreen as Luke falls in Cloud City
04: That bit where the Emperor from the wrong film inexplicably screams is removed, and Boba Fett is overdubbed by some dude
11: Can’t think of any audio content changes, but do you seriously think it’s likely there aren’t any?
19: Vader yells “Maclunkey!” just before Han shoots at him

Jedi
93: More-or-less good remaster of 1983 audio, with very slight content differences (thunder during transition to Yoda’s hut)
97: All kinds of new audio for all the new scenes, most notably Jabba’s palace is interrupted by a horrifying music video
04: Jar-Jar yells at the end of the film
11: That guy from Shattered Glass inexplicably screams “No! No!” offscreen as Vader starts to throw the Emperor into the reactor
19: The Sarlacc yells “Maclunkey!” just before Han shoots its tentacle

Start a Google doc!

Weren’t there changes in the mono vs. stereo mixes as well?

From memory, mono mix has:

• Different alarm klaxons on Tantive IV
• Different dubbing for Aunt Beru (either a different actor or different takes)
• Cantina music can be heard through the door before Luke and Ben enter
• Searching troopers say “This one’s secure” instead of “Door’s locked” when Artoo and Threepio are hiding
• Different sound effects when the Falcon is in Alderaan’s asteroid field
• Different sound effects for the DS tractor beam
• Threepio’s tractor beam line added
• “Close the blast doors” added
• Different echo effects in the chasm scene
• Different radio effects for X-Wing pilots
• “Blast it, Wedge, where are you” instead of “Biggs” during the Battle of Yavin

I know I’m missing a bunch, though.

CatBus said:

In my sense of the term (described earlier), it makes sense. Are you talking about the originals or not? “Special Edition” means “not”, so it works for everything from 1997 onward,

You’d have to start with 1981 then. Which wasn’t called a Special Edition either.

The 1997 version is the only one that’s actually a Special Edition. Comparing the Special Editions to MST3K is just hyperbolic. I get not liking all the changes, but the idea that most of the movie got changed really doesn’t make any sense. Most of the movie is still there, and still intact. over 90% of each film is essentially the same as it was when they finished post-production in 77, 80, and 83. Fixing VFX, re-adding deleted scenes, and making VFX content changes on top of the film restoration isn’t the same as writing a comedy script and performing it non-stop over the soundtrack. One is a satirical transformation of the work into a completely different thing. The other is the 1997 release, named as “Special Edition”

All the other editions of the film are just that - variations. It makes much more sense to simply refer to the year their visual changes were adopted than to call half of the editions by a name they never had.

edit: FWIW I know this is some tilting at windmills stuff. It’s a lost battle already. Just like “Han Shot First” and other bits of fandom lore that got cemented in place as the internet made sharing memes the primary mode of fan communication - “Special Edition” is no longer the title of a single re-release made in 1997, but a blanket condemnation on post-release changes in general, applied to ANY film ,and not just Star Wars. I get it.

I think calling all post-97 releases “Special Edition” is completely fair and logical, since they inherent that version’s “Special Edition” changes. Obviously they haven’t been called that officially, but that’s only because they’ve been referred to as something far worse and much more inaccurate - just the films.

We must remember that technically the SE were given their own release and their own name, and everything since has been a variation on those special edition releases, not the original releases. So calling them the SE isn’t terribly inaccurate (at least it is no more inaccurate than calling them nothing at all).

ChainsawAsh said:

From memory, mono mix has:

• Different alarm klaxons on Tantive IV
• Different dubbing for Aunt Beru (either a different actor or different takes)
• Cantina music can be heard through the door before Luke and Ben enter
• Searching troopers say “This one’s secure” instead of “Door’s locked” when Artoo and Threepio are hiding
• Different sound effects when the Falcon is in Alderaan’s asteroid field
• Different sound effects for the DS tractor beam
• Threepio’s tractor beam line added
• “Close the blast doors” added
• Different echo effects in the chasm scene
• Different radio effects for X-Wing pilots
• “Blast it, Wedge, where are you” instead of “Biggs” during the Battle of Yavin

I know I’m missing a bunch, though.

Thanks for the info Ash.

I hate to be the kind of person who requests someone else do work, but I feel like there really should be a comprehensive list of all the audio changes somewhere here (if we’re not going to do it, who will?). I’d take it upon myself but I barely know most of the different versions (let alone the changes) and don’t have most of them on hand. Perhaps it could be a collaborative project but it’s definitely something the community here should consider (I’d also argue the site should consider making a separate tab that just lists all the different versions of the film and all the different changes, pulling from 005 and other people’s work). This site is the primary advocate and resource for the OOT, but most of the info about it is hidden in the knowledge of those who post on the forums. I know we’ve given up on the petition here, but I feel the least we can do is be an educational source.

CatBus said:
I could probably do a highlights reel, but nothing definitive.

Catbus, thanks for the laughs after a long day. This was really funny!

BTW, SE = steaming pile of shit. Post-SE are attempts to polish said pile of shit, and thus are still SEs.

Good Lord, I said I get it. But it’s good to know that you all remember the catechisms after 20+ years. 😃

I’ll grab a pew and say my penance on the way back to the vestibule.

Additional changes made for 4K, according to Bill Hunt at the Digital Bits:

The iconic Fox “fanfare” music has been restored to all of the films (it was removed on some Digital releases). The Fox logo used is the new one (not the vintage one from 1977, 80, and 83), but at least now it’s consistent. And hearing that music again before the start of each of these films is encouraging.

One (and possibly more) sky replacements have been done to the scenes in which the droids arrive on Tatooine. They’re subtle and actually make the scene more consistent, so aren’t especially objectionable.

Some of the SE effects have been tweaked again or redone, for example the shot in which R2 is hiding behind the rocks from the Sand People. The rock positioning has been adjusted and the lighting on R2 has been tweaked to at least make the shot look a little more natural. The SE change is still objectionable, but at least it looks better now.

Lightsaber blades have been tweaked all through the films so they’re now more consistent looking, accurate, and stable. And they are now the correct color consistently—a significant improvement to my thinking.

I also believe that there’s been additional effort to clean up matte boxes and lines, especially in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Again, this is appreciated and an improvement.

Unfortunately, as you may have heard by now, there’s been another change to the Han/Greedo scene. And it’s even more jarring than before. After Han says his iconic line, “Yes, I’ll bet you have,” the film now cuts back to a quick shot of Greedo again, who mutters an additional bit of Rodian dialogue (non-subtitled), before they both shoot at once, Han’s head weirdly shifts to one side, and Greedo falls.

The sequence in Jedi when the Rebels arrive on Endor—which on Blu-ray was oddly blurry (likely caused by some kind of registration error in the film scan)—has finally been fixed.

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/111319-1800

Hah. I was thinking the same thing when I saw that, but then again, IF he read these boards he wouldn’t have written that the Fox logo being used was the “new” one - it’s old now, and it’s been specifically modified on top of that.

JasonA said:

Additional changes made for 4K, according to Bill Hunt at the Digital Bits:

The iconic Fox “fanfare” music has been restored to all of the films (it was removed on some Digital releases). The Fox logo used is the new one (not the vintage one from 1977, 80, and 83), but at least now it’s consistent. And hearing that music again before the start of each of these films is encouraging.

One (and possibly more) sky replacements have been done to the scenes in which the droids arrive on Tatooine. They’re subtle and actually make the scene more consistent, so aren’t especially objectionable.

Some of the SE effects have been tweaked again or redone, for example the shot in which R2 is hiding behind the rocks from the Sand People. The rock positioning has been adjusted and the lighting on R2 has been tweaked to at least make the shot look a little more natural. The SE change is still objectionable, but at least it looks better now.

Lightsaber blades have been tweaked all through the films so they’re now more consistent looking, accurate, and stable. And they are now the correct color consistently—a significant improvement to my thinking.

I also believe that there’s been additional effort to clean up matte boxes and lines, especially in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Again, this is appreciated and an improvement.

Unfortunately, as you may have heard by now, there’s been another change to the Han/Greedo scene. And it’s even more jarring than before. After Han says his iconic line, “Yes, I’ll bet you have,” the film now cuts back to a quick shot of Greedo again, who mutters an additional bit of Rodian dialogue (non-subtitled), before they both shoot at once, Han’s head weirdly shifts to one side, and Greedo falls.

The sequence in Jedi when the Rebels arrive on Endor—which on Blu-ray was oddly blurry (likely caused by some kind of registration error in the film scan)—has finally been fixed.

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/111319-1800

And the “A long time ago…” title cards for the OT have been left as they were in the 97 SE, instead of changed to match the PT.

And to address the SE conversation above, I feel that the SE indicates a set of changes to the films so any subsequent version that has those changes is also an SE version of the film. That is why I use the year with the SE to indicate which version. So 97SE, 2004 SE, 2011 SE, 2019 SE. Where the various changes to the originals are minor and virtually never impact the image or the story. The inclusion of Episode IV A New Hope was the most jarring change to the original versions. While only the 97 SE was labeled as such by Lucasfilm, I don’t think that is a reason to limit calling only the 97 version the Specaial Edition when it contained so many major changes to the films that have remained in following versions.

Re: the 19SE OT looking duller colorwise compared to the 2004 master, there’s a couple things to consider here. For one thing, we’ve gotten so used to the ‘04 look that it seems jarring.

The other thing to consider is the OT’s place in the context of the I-IX saga and how we go from the colorful prequels in the waning days of the Old Republic to the sterile, totalitarian reign of the Empire in the OT. The ST seems more “naturalistic” in its look to me than either of the other trilogies.

Obviously this puts aside how the OT actually looked in its original run and in ‘97, but the consensus seems to be that the new master looks much closer to the original colors than the ‘04 did anyway. The prequels, meanwhile, also seem closer to their theatrical colors than they did in 2011.

Fang Zei said:

Re: the 19SE OT looking duller colorwise compared to the 2004 master, there’s a couple things to consider here. For one thing, we’ve gotten so used to the ‘04 look that it seems jarring.

I actually think the majority of people on this site commenting on the dull color are used to Harmy’s Despecialized or 4K77/83’s colors, not the 2004 colors.

I don’t have a nice professionally calibrated display to watch the 19SE on, so take this with a grain of salt, but is anyone else noticing a jarring color difference between the cg and model shots during battle of Yavin or is it just me? I remember it looking more consistent in ‘97 and 04/11 (they just kinda sucked all the color out for the latter)

The model shots were all re-comp’d digitally in ‘97 IIRC, so they should be newer pieces of o-neg just like the cg shots and therefore not degraded color-wise like the older parts of the o-neg. Maybe what we’re seeing is this modern scan in 16-bit color bump up against the limitations of whatever was rendered out in ‘97? Bill Hunt did mention in his quick take that the ‘97 cg shots now look all the more jarringly dated in the ‘19 version, so maybe this is part of what he was talking about.

I think what we are seeing with the OT is all the 2003 cleanup changes dumped. This is a new scan of the 97 SE negatives using more modern equipment and clean up techniques. The heavy blues in the Hoth scenes are gone (matching the original release) and all the colors are closer to the attempts to restore color to the GOUT and 35 mm film scans. Though all leaning a bit too far to the red (though not near as far as the previous scans). I found the 2003 scans of Endor to be rather lifeless and I think these are far better. And while the reds are reduced in ANH, the yellows are back. Many scenes have far more color than they have before. Just the overall color scheme isn’t as bold and in-your-face. But scene for scene there is more color and more life.

I found what i believe is the first of many grading errors in Star Wars. It’s the scene where luke gets out of the speeder after the mind trick scene. The camera pans up with luke and so does a power window making the sky a shade of brown. Excuse the crummy photo but you can see it here.

I couldn’t see it as much on my Laptop, might be on the Dolby Vision version only.

The desaturation is very apparent on my LG OLED and significantly warmer than my Macbook Pro. Which should be set to the same whitepoint (D65).

Also this is interesting

Star Wars in 4K HDR Dolby Vision on Disney Plus Analysis: Is It Fake HDR?
https://youtu.be/VGZmMjPJiAk

MASTER260 said:

Great. Good thing that the other day I was doing some video editing and took some scenes from Despecialized and put them into the Silver Screen Edition because I prefer Silver Screen Edition’s color grading for the most part but there are a few scenes where Despecialized has it better. No, I’m not sharing it, but I’m just saying that that’ll be my copy of Star Wars, not this. Yes, I have 4K77 too, but I’m not a big fan of it TBH.

BTW, since I made this post, I’ve edited it a lot, and actually used the crawl from 4K77 but it’s gone through a lot of passes and because I kept changing my mind on whether I’d done enough or not, I kept deleting the Kdenlive source files, so the quality isn’t the greatest, but, whatever. Not that it matters to anyone but me.