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Just Saw The Unaltered Trilogy For The First Time...

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I'd heard the unaltered trilogy was coming to DVD, and I looked into it, and began to wonder what all the fuss was about. I thought my 2004 editions were great, but I read all about the unaltered versions and decided to check it out. I scoured eBay and found a set of DVD's that were the laserdisc transfers. I bought them and watched them.

When I finished ANH, all I could say was....

Wow.

When I finished ESB, all I could say was....

Wow.

And When I finished ROTJ, all I could say was.....you guessed it.

Wow.

They were so much better without all that crap added in in the special editions! I was instantly transformed into an original fan. I doubt if I'll ever watch the special editions again. ANH was so much better without crappy CGI Jabba, Greedo shooting first, and other various changes. ROTJ was so much better with the original Ewok song in the end, and no CGI dancers at Jabba's hut. The Saarlac finally made sense to me without a mouth....

So I looked into getting the September DVD releases, thinking it would be cool to have a better transfer and an anamporphic version. (I don't know if my bootlegs are anamorphic or not) Then I saw the news. No remastering. No anamorphic.

I'll stick with my bootlegs, thank you.

I think anyone who sees the original versinos on DVD will like them better than the special editions. Why does George Lucas remain so adament against them? It's just silly! I don't get it.....

Anyway, in short, I just joined this site, and wanted to show that I too am now an orginal fan...
Watch DarthEvil's Who Framed Darth Vader? video on YouTube!

You can also access the entire Horriffic Violence Theater Series from my Channel Page.
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Haha this is great, if George Lucas read this he would cry!

Welcome to the forums! And the OOT!
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Ah, I think I love this guy! Welcome to the good side. ^_~

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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You've taken your first step into a larger world ...

If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to hear about the differences perceived by a SE fan when he sees the OOT for the first time. Did you read a comprehensive list of changes before you saw it? Or did you go in knowing only the big changes? Did you find yourself noticing the dated visual effects? Did you observe any differences in the narrative or the characters?

Cool signature, by the way.
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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Yeah, I'd like to hear that too, if you don't think we're pestering you.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Welcome to the good fight.

There's good in the Original Trilogy, and it's worth fighting for.
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
http://www.myspace.com/harlock415
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Welcome, Darth_Evil. That's a great introductory story. Next time, though, don't buy your DVDs from an ebay pirate. BTW what set did you get?
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Haha this is great, if George Lucas read this he would cry!

Welcome to the forums! And the OOT!






LOL! i can picture GL in his office going: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

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Since you all wanted to hear what it was like watching the unaltered trilogy growing up with the special editions, I'll gladly explain.

I've watched older movies for a long time, and appriciated the special effects in them, even if they do look outdated. I've always thought that some scenes in the special editions seemed out of place, yet I could never really put my finger on it.

After I ordered my bootleg set, I watched the 2004 editions one last time. I went into watching the unaltered trilogy with them fresh in my mind, (I also read a small list of major changes) and here are the big things I noticed.

---No Jabba in ANH. I'd always thought the scene didn't fit with the one in ROTJ, since Jabba was so much smaller in ANH. I barely noticed the scene was gone though, but when I realized it wasn't there, liked it all the better.

---No Millennium Falcon taking off in ANH. I don't know why I noticed this, but I kind of liked it without the taking off scene. The taking off scene seemed a bit cheesy.

---Lightsabers. They looked different. They looked better. watching the 2004 DVD's for a while now, I'd grown used to Vader's saber being pink and Luke's being blueish-green. Darth Vader was all the more evil with a truly red lightsaber.

---No full body snow monster in ESB. I thought this scene was better in the unaltered version, without a full body snow monster. It made it much more mysterious, which was what I thought they'd been going for from the start.

---In the end of ROTJ, the song was different. I really liked it!! It was a better scene without all the cuts to other cities that were celebrating.

---Now this was a change I'd noticed from the 1997 to the 2004. Hayden Christiansen as Anakin in the end. WTF? So much better in the unaltered trilogy.

---Less CGI, more stop-motion. 'Nough said. (It looks more real with stop-motion.)

Those were the changes I noticed on my own. Looking over an in-depth list made me like the unaltered versions all the more. They're so much better!!! I'm proud to be a part of this forum, though disappointed that I never got to sign the petition.

Also, everyone who replied to my post was really nice. Thanks guys! I've never been on a forum where people were truly nice and didn't shoot down all my opinions...thanks.

If there are any other questions, please ask. I'll happily answer.
Watch DarthEvil's Who Framed Darth Vader? video on YouTube!

You can also access the entire Horriffic Violence Theater Series from my Channel Page.
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Oh, I didn't answer some of your questions in my last post it looks like. I don't want to exclude anyone, so let me answer them.

One person asked about the narrative and charecter differences I might have seen.

Well, to start, I saw Han Solo differently in the OOT. When I saw him shoot Greedo first, I saw how ruthless a space pirate he was, and it made his redemption all the more powerful.

Also, in the special editon of ESB, Sidious tells Vader that he is Luke's father. In the OOT, he dosen't, makeing us presume Vader knew Luke was his son from the first time they met. (How could he NOT?) This also make's Vader's redemption more powerful, when he was willing to kill his son so many times before finally finding a love for him. Overall, the charecter's are much more powerful in the OOT.

And to the person who asked what edition I got off eBay, it was just a straight laserdisc transfer. No menu or special features. He had printed out a label for the disks and made the cover art from the original theatrical posters.
Watch DarthEvil's Who Framed Darth Vader? video on YouTube!

You can also access the entire Horriffic Violence Theater Series from my Channel Page.
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That's awesome, dude!

I've always worried that people who had only seen the special editions would think the original films lame in comparison for their supposedly outdated effects and so forth (which is what George Lucas believes people think). For people with no attention span that may be true, but you've proved to me that anyone who actually pays attention to the films and what they're about can see the differences, and decide clearly in favour of the real thing. It's a relief to know that we're not just nitpicking for nostalgia's sake, here. lol

You're right about the Jabba scene--it's so superfluous one does not really notice its absence. I think it was a mistake to even have it in the script to begin with, really. Fortune shone on the film when they couldn't get it work back then. lol

Vader doesn't strike me as being a 'pink' kind of guy, either.

That's interesting about the Emperor scene . . . when I first saw the '04 set in college one other guy remarked it was lame to have him say that Anakin was Luke's father right then, because it interfered with the way that plot went in the rest of the story. It didn't bug me so much at first, because I'd seen it with the original dialogue many times already, but when I realised this was supposed to be a complete replacement of how it had been, it became annoying. Lucas confuses himself with his changes, I think, because he's counting people seeing them and saying "oh that's so much better now that they changed it!" but doesn't take into account the way they come across when trying to mesh with the older elements. Over the time the alterations just don't hold up. It's lame, too, the way the name "Anakin Skywalker" is used in ESB, because that name is never heard at all until RJ otherwise. Using McDiarmid in the scene was in theory a good idea for continuity's sake, and it is nice to see him there, but it also spoils his introduction in RJ, again, because you don't see his face clearly until near the end when Luke meets him for the first time. (I think it even says in the script that Luke's viewing of the Emperor is to be the first time the audience gets a good look at his face.) If they'd just kept the original dialogue and shadowed his face, it might have been better . . .
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Welcome Darth_Evil!!!!

By the way, may I ask your age? Lucas seems to think it's only the over 25s who can appreciate the OOT (Actually, he made that stupid statement a couple of years ago now, so I guess it's only the over 27s, which means apparently I am incapable of preferring the OOT to the crappy SEs. I was definitely under 25 when he made that claim, and remember thinking 'you crazeee').

War does not make one great.

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Yeah, and I would have been 17 or 18 at the time (do you happen to know where that statement came from, YIYF, because I've never read it), and that's definitely not true for me. I know some friends of mine who threw out their Faces '95 set when the Special Editions came out, and my mom was encouraging me to do the same when I got my SE box set, but I wouldn't have it, and even though I've watched my SEs frequently (although I haven't watched those since the DVDs came out), I always watched the original set as much if not more often. Glad I wasn't forced to get rid of them!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Thanks for letting us pick your brain, Darth Evil.
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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Pick away, my friend.

Someone asked my age. I think this will probably shock you, but I'm only 13.

Thing is, I've seen more movies than anyone I know, so I have a really good idea and appriciation of truly great films. For instance, I don't know a kid my age who likes the OT better than the prequels. I not only like the OT, I think the prequels are just plain bad.

The number one reason I appriciate older films and older special effects is that when I was 11, I got a home movie camera and have been making movies ever since. It allows me to do stop-motion animation, and with this, I see the stress older movie crews went through to get the movies done.

So yes, I'm very young, but I love the unaltered trilogy with a passion.
Watch DarthEvil's Who Framed Darth Vader? video on YouTube!

You can also access the entire Horriffic Violence Theater Series from my Channel Page.
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I know exactly where you're coming from, Darth_Evil. I'm 17, and it frustrates me when people tell me how great the 2005 King Kong is, and when I bring up the 1933 Kong (which I love), they go "OLD ONE SUX, LOL!!!11!1".

And yeah, same with Star Wars. My friends think I'm stupid just because I didn't like Episode III (or the other two for that matter).

Come to think of it, they think I'm stupid just because I thought "Da Vinci Code" was lame. Eh, who cares, I'm the one that's trying to make movies for a living one day, not them.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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I'm 15, and I agree with both of you.

Star Wars nerd at large.

I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently.

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I'm 41. Brings a tear to the eye to know that the original trilogy can still effect the young people of today.
There's good in the Original Trilogy, and it's worth fighting for.
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
http://www.myspace.com/harlock415
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The Force is strong with you, young one.
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape

do you happen to know where that statement came from, YIYF, because I've never read it Sorry I don't...

Originally posted by: Darth_Evil

I'm only 13.
...But it's a meaningless statement anyway


In this thread alone we have someone in there early teens, someone in their late teens, someone who is just in their twenties, me who is in his mid 20s, and someone who is in their 40s, and we are all OOT fans - don't try and pidgeonhole us George.

War does not make one great.

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I grew up on Star Wars.

It started with the Special Edition re-release. Loved them, rented them over and over, and loved watching the prequels unfold. (I was very little when the SE came out, about 7. And when episode I came out, I was 9. I loved them both a lot.)
My elementary teacher had to tell me to stop talking about Star Wars because I never got any work done.
Episode II was all right, but I didn't like it as much because it simply did NOT have rewatchability.
And Episode III came out recently, which I loved.

And I edited the prequels to my personal liking, and I'm proud to have them on my shelf. I've always been an OOT person ever since I rented them to compare them to my SE set. No contest.

And here I am. Consider the torch passed.

I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently.

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Right on Darth evil. I actually watched the OOT with a friend at college a month ago, and it was awesome. It was probably the first "actual" viewing of the original trilogy. I am fortunate enough to have a faces vhs set that has Han shooting first and the line "you dont taste too good". Of course, there is a sound mix thing i don't understand, but even though i saw the SE first in the theater, I consider this the trilogy I grew up with.
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I'm 21--not old enough to have seen them in the theatres, unfortunately, but I grew up with them on VHS. First saw them at about 7, I think, and rented them all the time, finally owning them at 10. There was a period there when I watched the whole trilogy every weekend, and I would record sections of the movies on audio tape to listen to in my room. lol

The special editions were cool to me at first, because I was only 12 when they came out and more prone to be wowed by effects and stuff I guess; plus, seeing them in the theatres for the first time was truly awesome, even if they were different then they had been. I was overall okay with the changes until I saw the '04 dvd's--the further alterations, like Fett's horrible voice, were annoying, and I found the audio mix on ANH to be such a botch job that I became truly enraged. Having those audio tapes, the sound was the part of the films I was most attached to, and on the ANH dvd the sound is truly unrecognisable in many places, for having such an overkill level of bass thrown in. Thus I came to detest the continued meddling of Lucas and experience great nostalgia for the originals.

Watching the old versions again is like coming home after a long and torturous journey, to discover that I had not in fact been hallucinating and complaining about nothing for no reason (none of my non-obsessed family like the special editions either, but they can't hear any of the audio stuff I've tried to point out, which is frustrating). I appreciate everything about them so much more now because I can see how the alterations don't mesh and don't belong.

'85 stereo mix all the way, baby.
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I'm 19. I watched Star Wars for the first time in 1999 (so I guess I was 12 or so.) It was right before Episode I came out. My friend had the 1995 Faces version, and I watched them...and it was a while before I watched the original trilogy again (although the next time it was the 1997 SE). I didn't notice the changes except for the ones that GL pointed out at the beginning of the tape.

It didn't bother me that much for a few years when I found myself really wanting to see the originals again. I couldn't even remember what they had been like (except for the obvious stuff like HC appearing at the end of Jedi and stuff like that). Personally, it wasn't an issue of special editions vs. the OOT, I just LOVE film. I've watched many old movies and love them for what they are. Why would GL want to get rid of the very thing that made him who he is today?

I guess it was about a year ago that I first stumbled across this site. I looked at the Fan Preservation discs and thought "that's cool" but decided to pass on them because I assumed GL would eventually release the OOT on DVD. Well, when I found out I was going to get a non-anamorphic 1993 LD transfer for $30 per movie, I decided to give up on it and went and ordered a fan preservation set for myself. I'm expecting them early next week...so I'll get to experience the same thing that you experienced! I'm very much looking forward to it!

Hope I get as much pleasure out of the OOT as you did!!
Forever a Star Wars fan!