Yotsuya's Two Saga Edits

I have been planning two different edits of the saga for a while. I set out on a quest for the materials to do them recently and I think I have now what I need. I, of course, own every release (pan and scan VHS, Widescreen VHS, Faces LD, SE LD, TPM Japanese LD, 2004 DVD, 2006 DVD, PT DVD’s, and the Blu-ray box), but getting good copies to work from is not so easy. But I now have Harmy’s Despecialized editions in 720, the Blu-ray rips in 720, and A New Hope 97 SE in 720, plus everything in DVD quality.

Edit One - My cut of the films

Ep 1 - Basically the Theatrical cut with CG Yoda (that puppet gives me the creeps).

Ep 2 - Remove arguing between Obi-wan and Anakin. Remove C3PO from the Droid Factory and Battle of Geonosis.

Ep 3 - Theatrical cut (my sources tell me the HD broadcast is one edit from that).

Ep 4 - Definitely the hardest. This film was done on a budget and the negative has faded and it was the most altered in the SE. My edit removes a lot of SE content, fixed a lot of things that should have been fixed, and restores deleted scenes included in the SE.
Sound - Update 93 audio to include all mono changes (except “Blast it Biggs”). Include SE audio from 97 version where SE shots are included. Replace 50’s Fox Fanfare with TESB.
Video - Color correct or swap out with better source. Main source is Oteedee’s D+77, with inserts from his companion D+ OTD, then 2011 BR, 4K 97 IV, 4K77.
Video Changes

1. Change Fox Logo, Lucasfilm Logo and A Long time Ago to 80’s versions.
2. Correct angle of crawl. Correct lasers in flyover.
3. Add blue to interior of escape pod to match first and last shots and the reflection on C-3PO
4. Fix retraining bolt position
5. Adjust Deback shot so it is 77 cut, but with 97 FX.
6. Fix 2 shots in Droid sale to remove R5 and bare armed tech guy.
7. Fix double R2 after Jabba scene by zooming in shot so it is less obvious.
8. Add matte of Falcon dis and far side of hanger.
9. Remove phantom Ben when he is supposed to be seated (Adywan).
10. Fix 77 Alderaan shot.
11. Fox 3 R2 cutaways with correct background (Adywan).
12. Fix 3 Falcon in hanger shots where the walls don’t match the other shots.
    Add in one Mos Eisley shot (after begin stopped by Storm Troopers. Add Jabba Scene and change Greedo subtitles to match earlier draft of script as much as possible. Add in Biggs scene.
    (currently working on various touch ups and color correcting to film sources - otherwise most changes are done)

Ep 5 - Mostly the SE, but a few tweaks. Closer to original Wampa, Ian, but original Emperor Hologram dialog (except Young Skywalker replacing Luke Skywalker), remove SE windows that don’t line up with other shots or are just badly done. So SE, but continuity checked. Source is D+80 and D+OTD with other sources as needed.

Ep 6 - Mostly the Theatrical cut thanks to Oteedee’s D+83. But with some SE elements added. Added in the Dug. No enhanced Sarlac and no blinking Ewoks. But 97 SE Vicory celebration (no Naboo). If I can figure out how, morph Sebastian Shaw to Hayden Christensen.

Edit Two - Theatrical version with deleted scenes added (this will only be finished or finishable scenes). This will be only DVD quality due to the sources.

Ep 1 - longest pod race plus other deleted scenes from DVD and Blu-ray.

Ep 2 - finished and includable deleted scenes from DVD and Blu-ray.

Ep 3 - finished and includable deleted scenes from DVD and Blu-ray.

Ep 4 - GOUt with all Luke and Biggs scenes included, Jabba from 97 SE, Jenny and Han, and probably some of the reordered scenes put back to their original order (a la Deleted Magic).

Ep 5 - GOUT with most deleted scenes included. There are couple that don’t fit continuity so they won’t be included.

Ep 6 - GOUT with Luke and Vader and sand storm and a few of the others.

I’ve done the Episode 2 edits just today to start things off. No idea how long it will take me but I’ll probably save most for spring. I might get my edits of the PT done sooner. The video edits should be a piece of cake, but the audio edits are going to be more extensive, especially if I want 5.1 mixes in the final product. The deleted scenes project will be just stereo.

No Creepy Puppet Yoda, no sale.

will the deleted scenes from the OT cleaned?

will your versions only have english language?

benduwan said:

will the deleted scenes from the OT cleaned?

will your versions only have english language?

 I don't have the skill to clean them myself (other than color correcting), so it depends on what I can find. I have a cleaned up version of the pre-Blu-Ray version of the A New Hope deleted scenes, but the quality is inferior.

The audio will be English only. It is going to be a task to edit the English track (and if possible keep them at 5.1 surround). I may be able to include other subtitles. It doesn't help that I am as fond of dubs as some are of JarJar.

I finished the initial edit of Episode I. It worked well except that there are some frames missing from the HD source. I'll have to decide how to handle that. If those are slightly lower quality I don't think it will be noticed, but I'll have to see.

can´t wait for the gout with deleted scenes...;-)

will the deleted scenes be finished with fx,soud,music or else....?

The version with deleted scenes will have fx, sound, music, etc. The video quality may be limited by the source material, but that is no reason not to finish them. It will be challenging for me to work ANH. For that I will use the 97 Jabba, not the original actor in the furry suit. But the Tatooine deleted scenes need a lot of clean up. The few cantina deleted bits I want to include need to be colorized. Fortunately I have most of the original color elements from the finished movie or from stills. That won't be perfect, but it will be better than B&W. Plus I have the script to go by. The blu-ray has some very unfinished scenes that have placeholder animation. I won't be including those unless I think I can do something with them. So it all depends on the deleted scenes themselves, plus how they fit with the film. If they don't edit well, I won't be including them, but as far as I know, all the major deleted scenes from the OT will be included. There are a few that are more extended or alternate that I probably won't include, like the extended dialog between Han and Leia in the corridor on Hoth.

I've also been taking inventory of just what some of these things I want to do will entail. The deleted scene version is pretty straight forward. DVD quality, stereo sound, minor edits. The cleanup will be challenging and time consuming. But my edit will be harder. 720p, 5.1 surround, color correcting the different versions to match, matching grain or lack thereof, fixing some of the sources that come from PAL back to 24fps. That is going to be quite a task for ANH. TESB shouldn't be too bad, but ROTJ has a lot of issues to solve.

For instance, I want all 6 films to have the exact same opening. The starfield should be unique to each film, but the Star Wars fade out should be identical. I'm pretty sure the PT match, but ANH doesn't and I don't think TESB or ROTJ do either. So what I think I'm going to do to practice and to work on the color corrections is to recreate the 2004 DVD and the 97 SE versions using the BluRay and Harmy's despecialized. In the process of watching the different versions I have come to the conclusion that the rock in front of R2 in ANH Bluray is the single worst thing George did. It is the poster child for needless tinkering and it makes no sense. So my first task is to work on creating the 5.1 audio for the Bluray versions and edit out that damned rock. 7.1 is great unless you have older equipment so to start with I want a version that has 5.1 audio that I can enjoy listening to, even as I cringe at certain SE scenes.

The biggest challenges for this are first, color correcting the bluray version (it needs to be de-Lowryed) and second, matching the rock scenes with Harmy's to replace that.

I know that most people refer to the holy grail technicolor prints for color correcting ANH, but I have a different plan. I have 6 movies that share some characters. R2 is in all 6. C3PO, in his golden covering, is in 4, Yoda is in 5. The PT share a similar cast and the OT share a similar cast so skin tones should carry across where the same actors appear. Light sabers also appear, with Kenobi and Skywalker's sabers crossing from one trilogy to the next (and now Skywalker's in the ST). The cores should look like a light source, not like a white rod. I want to watch all six and not constantly be thinking that C-3PO looks orange or Solo looks sunburnt in ANH and that the light sabers look washed out. I also don't want to see those garbage matts again, so that means a unique color correction philosophy. I'm mostly doing this for myself.

yotsuya said:

The version with deleted scenes will have fx, sound, music, etc. The video quality may be limited by the source material, but that is no reason not to finish them. It will be challenging for me to work ANH. For that I will use the 97 Jabba, not the original actor in the furry suit. But the Tatooine deleted scenes need a lot of clean up. The few cantina deleted bits I want to include need to be colorized. Fortunately I have most of the original color elements from the finished movie or from stills. That won't be perfect, but it will be better than B&W. Plus I have the script to go by. The blu-ray has some very unfinished scenes that have placeholder animation. I won't be including those unless I think I can do something with them. So it all depends on the deleted scenes themselves, plus how they fit with the film. If they don't edit well, I won't be including them, but as far as I know, all the major deleted scenes from the OT will be included. There are a few that are more extended or alternate that I probably won't include, like the extended dialog between Han and Leia in the corridor on Hoth.

 that´s sound great.

i have done myself a ultimate cut of star wars with all missing scenes i found.

i have absolutly no skills to do something to make the scenes better.

do you have the scenes from the ebook too?

in the holiday special  are parts from star wars in the opening for " time now for life on tatooine " cantina scene.

I'm going with what is on the blu-ray for the most part. I'm using the 97 SE Jabba scene and the Biggs scene. I'm debating about the additional dialogue they cut about Red Leader knowing Anakin.

In any case, I have my first draft done. It is bey no means final. I must figure out a few things, such as music editing and transitions. I have a temporary fix for the Anchorhead shot with the landspeeder and I haven't addressed the view up from the treadwell scene, other than to use the macrobinocular mask. I also haven't colored any of the B&W shots found in the rough cantina scene. I did find out that there are at least two takes of Han kissing Jenny. I pulled a couple of things from Empire of Dreams, but nothing additional. I'm rendering it right no so I can give it a proper viewing over the weekend.

read here for coloration black & white:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Colorized-Classics/topic/9758/

I have at least a single color image to use for all but two of the scenes I'm going to restore color to. And for those scenes, I have color references so I should be able to achieve accurate colors. It just remains to be seen if I can produce acceptable results with the method I have in mind.

Two of the ANH deleted scenes require effects shots. Luke and Treadwell requires a shot of a star destroyer and blockade runner in battle bracketed with the macro binoculars. The anchorhead scene requires a landspeeder racing through. They were good enough to put a filler in for the star destroyer/blockade runner so for my first draft I just added the macrobinocluar frame. For the anchorhead scene, I found a landspeeder for Google Sketchup and captured and blurred about a 1 second clip. It is passable for a draft. All the shots need to be color corrected to match the rest of the film. I also need to decide what sorts of cuts and wipes to use.

Then there is the audio track. The music is going to be fun to deal with. I just have to do better than they did when they inserted the Jabba scene.

that sounds like a really big project...:-)

can´t wait for the release.

I had a bit of luck this week. I found a PAL HD broadcast recording of TPM. It is the theatrical cut. That gives me 3 copies of it (2 PAL and one NTSC) so I can be sure they line up and I can cut in the missing scenes. I can also quite easily use it to not only create my edit, but also a better HD restoration of the theatrical cut. It also has better blues. I'll pay more about that later. But I should be able to get my cuts of the PT done pretty fast. Then I just need to tackle the deleted scenes.

We'll see if there is a quality improvement in the works. I just ordered the UK DVD versions. If the deleted scenes in the prequels are truly PAL and not just converted, I may even do the extended versions in 720p. I mean, I have to upscale the SE changes from the GOUT and LD versions to 720p already, so I may as well do the whole thing that way. If the pal versions are any higher quality.

After finding more sources, I think I am going to use the HD recording of the DVD version of eps 2 and 3. I want to be a close to theatrical as possible and that version of ep 2 is the Digital theatrical version (if anyone knows where to find a copy of the film theatrical version I love to get my hands on it). Ep 3 doesn't appear to have many changes from Theater to DVD to Bluray. I have a low quality copy of the theatrical version and the DVD has the audio, but the Bluray probably has the video, but I will check it against the DVD and theatrical to get the closest to the original theatrical version. I think I may add the Yoda deleted scene and I may tweak the birth scene, but I'll address that when I get to that one. So, for the PT, it will be the theatrical versions with CG yoda in Ep 1, no C-3PO in the droid factory in Ep 2, and add in Yoda in Ep 3. Pretty minor, but I don't have the complaints some do with the PT. I might have to address CG Jabba in Ep 1. He is too yellow and not red/orange enough. He needs to match ROTJ.

Something that has always bugged me is the 20th Century Fox fanfare on ANH. They re-recorded it for TESB, but they never updated ANH. Just wondering how many people it would bug. I mean, these are going to be semi-special editions anyway. I would like it be be nearly impossible to tell them apart until the episode number and title crawl onto the screen.

My color correction project is coming along to the extent that I might be ready to tackle the video end for the PT and TESB. The audio isn’t going to be as easy. And I still need to finish extracting the deleted scenes from the DVD’s Oddly, I’m having a problem locating the ROTS Yoda landing on Dagobah scene to extract it.

After a lot of work, and watching the films many times, I think I have color corrections for all 6 films (from BR) that brings them into line with each other and the GOUT of the OT. My first step will to be tackle the extensive fixes that ANH needs to just restore the BR version to the right colors in a bunch of individual scenes. The light sabers need work, the explosions, some shots have a high contrast for no reason, some of the darker shots (one in a Y-wing and most of the shots of the Death Star screen showing the approach to the 4th moon of Yaavin) are blue. Plus I’d like to darken the space shots to be truly black and equalize the opening and closing title colors. Once that is done then I can start undoing the SE elements I don’t like. But I have the overall color correction that I needed to get started. I have not finalized all the films, but I have the colors and I just need to tweak the darkness to minimize the crushed blacks (which are nearly impossible to completely undo - but which I might lift some details from other versions as needed).

Well, I actually have progress on this. Eps 1-4 are edited. 5 and 6 are in the works (I dug up this ancient thread to remind myself what my thoughts had been and they haven’t changed much). 4 and 5 will be about half specialized. 6 will have Oola and the Dug, but Lapti-Nek and then theatrical until the victory celebration and then the 97 SE, but with 2019 shots of Coruscant. 7-9 still in the thinking process, but mostly the theatrical.

Ep 2 has cuts to Obi-wan/Anakin debate. Ep 3 has Dagobah scene added.

Zero progress on the 2nd edit including the deleted scenes. That would be max 720p. The SE edits are going to be 1080p and is largely thanks the the D+77, D+80, and D+83 from Oteedee.

I’ve done the rough edits on all 6 films (contemplating edits to the ST). working on the final edits to Ep IV. I consider Ep III done. Eps V and VI shouldn’t take much, neither should Ep I. Ep II needs a lot of audio editing to make the visual edits fit. Ian’s dialog in Ep 5 was edited in surround and downmixed to Dolby Stereo to mix with the 93 LD audio. Eps I and III don’t require any audio editing - the original theatrical audio works.

I’ve found 4 additional shots that were … tweaked for ANH SE. I’ve pulled 5 other shots from 4K77 due to color fading. I am comparing 4K77 1.4, my color correction to the GOUT, a quick color correction to 4K97 IV scan (needs clean up), and D+77. After years of dealing with drastically different colors in different sources, I am amused that these 4 are so close. It really helps identify color issues in the newest scans.

I decided that the best way to check my colors was to compare my work to 3 other versions. 4K77 1.4, GOUT (my color correction), and 4K97 IV (Grindhouse 2). So I laid them out in parallel and reduced each to 1/4 the screen. Mine is based on Oteedee’s D+77.

Oteedee did some fine work, but he didn’t address the flaws in the 2019 source. There are a lot of them. I have been sorting through those more than fixing things that inherant to the original 77 version. Several sequences have been problematic because they are so bad. The Blockade Runner interiors. The Lars dinner conversation. And the Death Star Battle. Other sections I have barely toucheded. Comparing them side by side makes some issues stand out. For instance, today I noticed that just as Han is turning around after corning the Stromtroopes, there is a shot of Chewy that is far too yellow. Now, 4K97 IV being a grindhouse, there is no real set color correction for it, so I’m just going by the general look. But I did find a rough color correction that brings it in line with 4K77 1.4. You can really see that they used the technicolor print as a master for re-color-correcting the negative. It shares some of the same flaws, such as green shadows. But overall it gives a good feel for where the colors should be.

I’ve had to revert quite a few shots to 4K77 because both the 2013 scan and the new scan show extreme fading and bad attempts to correct it. A few others just because they changed the shot. I found 4 new shots in battle sequence that they changed.

I really think I need to prepare a corrected OUT version.