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What was changed for 1995 THX version?

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I’ve read that the films were digitally remastered for better sound and picture quality, but I’ve also read this was a separate process from the digital scanning/alteration of the o-negatives. So when they digitally remastered for the 1995 release, did they just scan the most recent internegative of each film? I know internegatives are created in order to print theatrical prints; I don’t really know what the process was when movies were released on vhs.

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The 1995 THX version is based on the same scan used for the 1993 Laserdisc (and therefore the same as the GOUT bonus disc). Home video scans weren’t as invasive as they are now, it was just a copy of an internegative (assumedly) in SD. From what I understand, the “THX” of it was just the standard used to get the master onto the VHS/Laserdisc. They didn’t do anything special for that release, they just made sure the copies were high quality.

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Ben Burtt did a new mix which was a amalgamation of previous mixes, according to the notes included with the Laserdisc.
He also added more oomph in explosions etc.

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LeoneNut said:

Ben Burtt did a new mix which was a amalgamation of previous mixes, according to the notes included with the Laserdisc.
He also added more oomph in explosions etc.

“New” in this case means “new in 1993, and still relatively new in 1995”. There’s some minor differences even between different releases of the 93 mix, due to the variability of creating home video masters at the time. Any differences in a 95 release are of the same sort and degree.

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The 1995 CLV discs are nearly identical to the CAV 1993 laserdiscs. Same master. Same noise reduction, same audio.

The only difference i can see is the reduced price of the CLV discs and that you could purchase the 3 films separately without the huge oversized definitive box. The CLV discs are much less prone to laser rot especially if they are the US releases which were pressed in Japan.

Both releases had THX certification.

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One thing I noticed though was the quality of the 1995 VHS masters was absolutely atrocious

They look incredibly faded and worse than VHS standards of the time, it was the first way I watched the movies though, they were even worse than past VHS releases of the same movies

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The 93 masters certainly marked the beginning of that purplish, red-faced cast covering everything that affected most Star Wars releases from that point forward.

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The one thing that no one seems to have mentioned yet is that in 1985 Lucasfilm struck a fresh interpositive of each film. For ANH, this is identical to the theatrical 1981 release. And except for the opening crawl/flyover, it is identical to the 1977 wide release and the international releases. Some previous English Language releases (primarily US, UK, and Japan) have 3 FX shots that are different. So if you compare the 1993/5/2006 version to previous releases you will see a difference in those three shots, but if you compare them to the Silver Screen Edition or 4k77 you will not. TESB and ROTJ are identical to all prior releases. The audio mix was updated, but according to sources here, only ANH had any edits and TESB and ROTJ are indistinguisable. The 2006 DVD releases of this version are unchanged except for in ANH the original 1977 crawl/flyover replaces the 1981 version. So they have the same picture and audio.

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yotsuya said:

The one thing that no one seems to have mentioned yet is that in 1985 Lucasfilm struck a fresh interpositive of each film. For ANH, this is identical to the theatrical 1981 release. And except for the opening crawl/flyover, it is identical to the 1977 wide release and the international releases. Some previous English Language releases (primarily US, UK, and Japan) have 3 FX shots that are different. So if you compare the 1993/5/2006 version to previous releases you will see a difference in those three shots, but if you compare them to the Silver Screen Edition or 4k77 you will not. TESB and ROTJ are identical to all prior releases. The audio mix was updated, but according to sources here, only ANH had any edits and TESB and ROTJ are indistinguisable. The 2006 DVD releases of this version are unchanged except for in ANH the original 1977 crawl/flyover replaces the 1981 version. So they have the same picture and audio.

The blaster shot right before 3PO says, “I’m going to regret this,” sounds different to me on the 2006 DVD than on Despecialized, Silver Screen Edition, 4K77, etc.

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I’ve mentioned this before elsewhwere…on the VHS 1995 THX fullscreen release , there is a gaffe with the lasers on the TIE Fighters being blue instead of green in ESB. It happens right after the Star Destroyers take evasive action and goes into the asteroid canyon chase . It looks more like the laser fire from the Cylon raiders in the original Battlestar Galactica for a few moments , then reverts back to the normal green fire . I wonder what the story behind that was ? Any speculation or definitive answers out there ?

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I brought this up in a different thread a few years ago but Luke’s saber in Ben’s hut has a more greenish tint on the ‘95 P&S VHS compared to the WS LD/GOUT. Not sure off hand how it looks on the ‘95 WS VHS.

‘95 VHS (P&S)

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GOUT

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screams in the void said:

I’ve mentioned this before elsewhwere…on the VHS 1995 THX fullscreen release , there is a gaffe with the lasers on the TIE Fighters being blue instead of green in ESB. It happens right after the Star Destroyers take evasive action and goes into the asteroid canyon chase . It looks more like the laser fire from the Cylon raiders in the original Battlestar Galactica for a few moments , then reverts back to the normal green fire . I wonder what the story behind that was ? Any speculation or definitive answers out there ?

Does anyone have a screenshot of this?

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screams in the void said:

I’ve mentioned this before elsewhwere…on the VHS 1995 THX fullscreen release , there is a gaffe with the lasers on the TIE Fighters being blue instead of green in ESB. It happens right after the Star Destroyers take evasive action and goes into the asteroid canyon chase . It looks more like the laser fire from the Cylon raiders in the original Battlestar Galactica for a few moments , then reverts back to the normal green fire . I wonder what the story behind that was ? Any speculation or definitive answers out there ?

Update - no screenshot, but I did confirm that this exists, after spending most of a morning digging through my closet to find my old VHS player and tapes.

Specifically, there are three affected shots just after Han says “Great. Well, we can still outmaneuver 'em” (in between which there’s the scene where several Star Destroyers nearly collide and an officer shouts “Take evasive action!”).

In the next shot where we see TIEs firing lasers (just after Han says “We’re in trouble” and leaves the cockpit), they’re green. But in the next two shots where TIEs fire lasers (as the Falcon is skimming the surface of the gigantic space-slug asteroid, just before the TIEs slam into the canyon walls), they’re blue again.

All the shots with blue lasers have either three Star Destroyers or the giant asteroid on screen; whereas the shot in between with green lasers (besides the TIEs & the Falcon) has just an empty starfield.

That’s all I noticed so far, though I haven’t checked other scenes on that VHS tape. And I don’t have any other pre-1997 VHS tapes (fullscreen or widescreen), so I don’t know how far this issue extends.

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Off the top of my head, I’d guess it was symbolism of the “triune God” represented by three colossal Star Destroyers/one colossal asteroid. Coupled with an allusion to ancient Byzantium, used to symbolize Heaven the way it does in some of WB Yeats’ poetry; since Byzantum’s two major chariot teams bore the colors Green and Blue, with the Emperor usually bestowing favors on the Blues rather than the Greens. And related to other stuff in the Lucasfilm vaults that uses this symbolism, eg, perhaps some WILLOW sequels.

Other than that, I don’t really have any ideas.

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I could be remembering this wrong but wasn’t there a shot in ROTJ where the 1993 LD/GOUT changed a laser bolt from red to green or vice versa in one of the battle sequences???

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ATMachine said:

Off the top of my head, I’d guess it was symbolism of the “triune God” represented by three colossal Star Destroyers/one colossal asteroid. Coupled with an allusion to ancient Byzantium, used to symbolize Heaven the way it does in some of WB Yeats’ poetry; since Byzantum’s two major chariot teams bore the colors Green and Blue, with the Emperor usually bestowing favors on the Blues rather than the Greens. And related to other stuff in the Lucasfilm vaults that uses this symbolism, eg, perhaps some WILLOW sequels.

Other than that, I don’t really have any ideas.

What? No. It’s an error in the video transfer. Something wonky happened somewhere in the process of transferring the film to video and then producing the vhs copies. There’s no symbolism implied or intended. You often have very interesting ideas, but you also have a tendency to jump to way too many conclusions. There is absolutely ZERO evidence to support any kind of symbolism. The fact that the blue lasers only exist in a few shots of one particular home video release, where they are green in the vast majority of releases (including the actual theatrical 35mm prints I bet!) points to it being nothing more than an accidental flub.

It is kinda cool to see this brought up though. The pan and scan Faces vhs was my primary way of watching the OT as a kid and the blue lasers in the asteroid chase always bothered me!

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canofhumdingers said:

ATMachine said:

Off the top of my head, I’d guess it was symbolism of the “triune God” represented by three colossal Star Destroyers/one colossal asteroid. Coupled with an allusion to ancient Byzantium, used to symbolize Heaven the way it does in some of WB Yeats’ poetry; since Byzantum’s two major chariot teams bore the colors Green and Blue, with the Emperor usually bestowing favors on the Blues rather than the Greens. And related to other stuff in the Lucasfilm vaults that uses this symbolism, eg, perhaps some WILLOW sequels.

Other than that, I don’t really have any ideas.

What? No. It’s an error in the video transfer. Something wonky happened somewhere in the process of transferring the film to video and then producing the vhs copies. There’s no symbolism implied or intended. You often have very interesting ideas, but you also have a tendency to jump to way too many conclusions. There is absolutely ZERO evidence to support any kind of symbolism. The fact that the blue lasers only exist in a few shots of one particular home video release, where they are green in the vast majority of releases (including the actual theatrical 35mm prints I bet!) points to it being nothing more than an accidental flub.

Looks like someone didn’t get the joke.

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There used to be that advertisement where they showed the video before and after they applied the DVNR to the full screen video, where the before image looked better.

The 1995 full screen video was also released on Laserdisc in Hong Kong, and Video CD. I’m almost sure both could have been bootlegs.