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Info & Help Wanted: Return of the Ewok preservation?

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Actually, the whole film is a lot longer.
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Yeah, I got a version of MySpleen which is the high-quality footage combined with cam footage from a showing. It probably originated from here.
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I have that version too, done by OCP, I believe.

He did a pretty good job combining the longer/poorer quality cam version with the shorter/higher quality web version. My only beef is that for some reason, some of the inferior sound from the cam version (with crowd noise that drowns out the dialog) carries over onto the superior web video portions.

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How is it different from the version on FE? I haven't downloaded the one on FE yet, so if this is leading to someone producing a better/alternate version, I'll wait.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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Ziz said:

How is it different from the version on FE? I haven't downloaded the one on FE yet, so if this is leading to someone producing a better/alternate version, I'll wait.


That's the version I have. That's the most complete version available, as far as I know. It uses the shorter web version as shown on Hyperspace (which I assume is the same as the Yahoo version but I can't get the Yahoo one to load) and combines it with the longer version screened at the fan convention.

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yeah the web version though uses an incorrect soundtrack aka willow instead of the music in the original since they would likely have to pay the artists royalties for that song.

some of the better quality footage available on the 4 disc dvd set from 2004 of star wars special edition was not used by ocpmovie because it was outakes or alternate versions of the same scene.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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I find it odd that the music heard on it is from Willow... which is the film Warwick starred in but was many years latter.... lol

but I see that you say it had different music originally.. it's kinda like a... sore thumb though... it's obviously not from the video lol

But hey, it does use the English version of Lapti Nek... is there more of that in the video!?


Is it not sad that in this time, we are more surprised by acts of love than acts of hate?
-Me

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Mielr said:

I have that version too, done by OCP, I believe.

Yep... the project was my brainchild/source material and OCP's editing work combined. I was very pleased with how it turned out, although I wish I'd been able to turn up a better cam source. The only one I've ever been able to find had been projected full-screen on a wide movie screen, resulting in the top and bottom of the image being cut off in a pseudo-letterbox fashion. But OCP did a great job of melding the sources together and making it look as seamless as he could.

He did a pretty good job combining the longer/poorer quality cam version with the shorter/higher quality web version. My only beef is that for some reason, some of the inferior sound from the cam version (with crowd noise that drowns out the dialog) carries over onto the superior web video portions.

Yes, and we had good reasons for that. Since the condensed clip posted on sw.com had an altered soundtrack, we preferred having the original, though inferior sound quality soundtrack over the superior quality altered version. Call us purists if you will. ;-)

Some other notable things we did with the film:

- To try and balance out the poor soundtrack quality, OCP worked hard to incorporate Supertramp's "Long Way Home" song from a quality audio source into the soundtrack exactly where it was included originally.

- There are sections of the film where flashback sequences from ESB are shown. In the original film, they are temporarily edited in as widescreen footage "squashed" to fit a 4:3 picture. We made the decision to edit in that same footage in letterboxed form from a superior video source.

- There were at least a couple of higher-quality clips from the film available (Wicket on the Death Star, Warwick Davis saying goodbye to Luke, Leia, etc.), but as skyjedi mentioned already they were discovered to be outtakes or alternate shots and so were not incorporated into the film. Instead, they were used for the menu screen montage, which seemed to be a perfect place for them!

- OCP included opening and end credits in the film, where there were none originally. For the opening credits and title, it worked out since we were missing part of the image anyway there due to the source material. And the end credits were just an addition that didn't require altering the film.

For myself, I'm just extremely happy to be able to sit down and watch the entire film from beginning to end. I saw Return Of The Ewok for the first time at Celebration I in 1999, and have obsessed over it ever since.

--SKot

Projects:
Return Of The Ewok and Other Short Films (with OCPmovie) [COMPLETED]
Preserving the…cringe…Star Wars Holiday Special [COMPLETED]
The Star Wars TV Commercials Project [DORMANT]
Felix the Cat 1919-1930 early film shorts preservation [ONGOING]
Lights Out! (lost TV anthology shows) [ONGOING]
Iznogoud (1995 animated series) English audio preservation [ONGOING]

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SKot said:

Mielr said:

I have that version too, done by OCP, I believe.

Yep... the project was my brainchild/source material and OCP's editing work combined. I was very pleased with how it turned out, although I wish I'd been able to turn up a better cam source. The only one I've ever been able to find had been projected full-screen on a wide movie screen, resulting in the top and bottom of the image being cut off in a pseudo-letterbox fashion. But OCP did a great job of melding the sources together and making it look as seamless as he could.


Well, it's very enjoyable. Thanks for doing it and making it available to everyone! :-)

One question, though- why was the audio replaced in the corridor scene (when Wicket is visiting the dressing rooms of Harrison, Mark and Carrie)? There's no background music in that scene, so did they add music for the Hyperspace version, or alter the soundtrack in some other way?

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