CatBus

PM’s sent.

Looks like 005 is indeed planning to catalogue the new changes (yay!). He just hasn’t posted anything in the gallery yet.

https://starwarsviscomp.wordpress.com/19se/

PM sent.

Is 005 or anyone else currently committed to being the clearinghouse of any new (or reverted) changes in these 4K versions?

This is vital information for any future despecialization efforts, and since the streaming release is well ahead of the physical release, it gives us the ability to already have a pretty complete roadmap of what to do the day the discs come out.

…assuming no additional changes in the physical releases 😉

PM sent.

Broom Kid said:

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.

I would not call anything a Special Edition that did not change a majority of the original film, so the 81 changes don’t qualify. Obviously we don’t share the same definition, and you are free to call the 81 revision a Special Edition, but I won’t.

To be clear, I’m not sure exactly where the line should be. What if 40% of a film were altered? But I do know that I’m comfortable that changing a majority of the film makes it a different film.

the idea that most of the movie got changed really doesn’t make any sense.

There’s the crux of the problem. Most of the movie simply was changed. Whether it made sense to change most of the movie is beside the point.

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”

I agree it’s not a perfect comparison. There’s a big difference between intentionally telling jokes and unintentional cringe humor. If MST3K: The Movie had been written by Sacha Baron Cohen, it might be a better comparison.

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.

It’s unhelpful to call all thirteen versions “just variations”, because they are easily and logically grouped into two sets. One group of revisions changed less than 5% of the original film. Another group of revisions changed well over 50% of the original film, but are within 5% of each other. One set of revisions centers on the “original films”, and one centers on the “special editions”. What terms to use two describe these two different groups of revisions is left as an exercise for the reader.

but a blanket condemnation on post-release changes in general, applied to ANY film ,and not just Star Wars. I get it.

Not quite. I’m honestly not sure if any other film has had a majority of it altered and released again, except for a This Island Earth type scenario. Colorized films would qualify, I guess. But not Blu-ray releases with an extra scene. The Special Editions are different from most other films both because of the scale of their changes, and the unavailability of the originals.

Broom Kid said:

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.

There were 5-10 minutes of changes in the titles, crawl, and credits for each film alone – you’re excluding all of the parts with actors, dialogue, and special effects! If you break it down shot-by-shot or scene-by-scene, I’d say it’s very safe to say a majority for each film were altered (video or audio) for the Special Editions. Some changes were certainly less noticeable than others (Empire had the most changes numerically, but the changes were more subtle than the jarring scene insertions in Jedi).

The fact that some of the original footage remains more-or-less intact doesn’t really mean much to me. IMO This Island Earth and MST3K: The Movie are definitely different films even though they share quite a lot of footage. One is a classic sci-fi film and one is a farce that puts that classic in a ridiculous light. It’s pretty much exactly the same for the originals and the special editions.

The 1997 versions are the only ones to be have the title “Special Edition” applied to it

I believe that was a marketing decision. The term Special Edition was poison by 2004, and the SE’s were considered by Lucas to be the sole version of the films, so they dropped the term, both to boost sales and to prevent brand confusion.

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.

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, with the exception of the GOUT release, which was at least for Star Wars a new edit of the originals that nobody had seen before. If you want to distinguish between Special Edition releases, there’s 97SE, 04SE, 11SE, and 19SE. “Special Edition” is also helpful as a dismissive term. It carries the useful connotation of “Don’t bother with it, it’s not the real thing”. “Want to watch Star Wars on Disney+?” “No, it’s just the Special Edition.” It still works no matter how many times they revise it.

PM sent.

LexX said:

CatBus said:

So are we calling this one the 19SE yet? Dibs!

Let’s see, for Star Wars, ignoring some of the subtler differences (the cloudy composite/altered credits/natural home video variance between releases), we’ve got:

1977: original video (mono mix)
1977: original video (stereo mix)
1977: original video (six-channel mix)
1981 (3): “A New Hope” crawl and flyover, same three audio choices (crudely spliced onto 70mm reels, but still different)
1985: new audio mix, 1981 video
1993: new audio mix with alterations, 1981 video
1997SE: altered audio and video
2004SE: altered audio and video
GOUT: unique pairing of original video with 1993 audio
2011SE: altered audio and video
2019SE: altered audio and video

Star Wars is now weighing in at THIRTEEN distinct versions of the film. And that’s when you exclude the obscure ones!

I’m hesitant calling anything Special Edition that isn’t actually the Special Edition, from 1997. To me, they are the SE, DVD edition, BD edition and now this 4K edition.

For me Special Edition isn’t a particular release, it’s (essentially) a different set of films. More like a remake than a video release. So all of the pre-97 changes are alternate versions of one set of films (the Original Trilogy), and all of the post-97 changes are alternate versions of another set of films (the Special Editions). Just as I include the 1993 release as part of the OOT, I include the 2019 release as part of the SE. Words mean different things to different people, YMMV.

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

Danfun128 said:

“GOUT: unique pairing of original video with 1993 audio”

Don’t you mean unique pairing of 1993 audio and video with 1997 crawl?

No, the GOUT featured the 77 crawl, definitely not the 97 crawl – that was its only saving grace. I’m considering the THX-remastered video still to be essentially the same as the 1981 video (ruddy-hued skintones and four-eyed stormtroopers being a hallmark of the 93 release, but too minor of a change for this list – more an artifact of the troubled home video production process than anything). But yes, it was the 93 video with the 77 crawl tacked on if you like, I just didn’t consider that a distinction worth making. Basically, I was thinking in terms of a seamless branching multi-audio mega-edition, how many cuts would there be? I’m not sure a DVNR-smeared cut would make the grade, but at least thirteen distinct versions certainly would.

So are we calling this one the 19SE yet? Dibs!

Let’s see, for Star Wars, ignoring some of the subtler differences (the cloudy composite/altered credits/natural home video variance between releases), we’ve got:

1977: original video (mono mix)
1977: original video (stereo mix)
1977: original video (six-channel mix)
1981 (3): “A New Hope” crawl and flyover, same three audio choices (crudely spliced onto 70mm reels, but still different)
1985: new audio mix, 1981 video
1993: new audio mix with alterations, 1981 video
1997SE: altered audio and video
2004SE: altered audio and video
GOUT: unique pairing of original video with 1993 audio
2011SE: altered audio and video
2019SE: altered audio and video

Star Wars is now weighing in at THIRTEEN distinct versions of the film. And that’s when you exclude the obscure ones!

Broom Kid said:

Just spitballing: would using the 2020 UHD and 4K77/4K83 to target a 1080p release (much like current DeSpec uses 1080p sources to target a 720p release) be a viable option here?

DeEd targeted 720p originally because it was based on HD cable broadcasts of the 04SE. DeEd actually predates the Blu-rays it’s now based on. When the 11SE Blu-rays finally came out, some of the other footage (particularly the GOUT) was pushing it to get upscaled to 720p, so 720p was a happy medium (it blends better). Only when the GOUT started to disappear as a source did Harmy start seriously considering 1080p. So a 1080p DeEd from 1080p Blu-rays is not only possible, it seemed to be the plan until just now.

Similarly, a 4K UHD could theoretically lead to a 4K DeEd. I’d expect 1080p would make a better happy medium at that point, because our projection print scans, while worlds better than the GOUT and available in 4K, still don’t even have 720p worth of non-grain fine detail and wouldn’t blend well with a 4K scan of negatives and IP’s at higher resolutions.

That’s all my opinion though. YMMV.

It leaves ESB sort of out in the cold until 4K80 gets finished, I guess. It’s kind of funny that the movie typically considered to be the best Star Wars movie is the one that’s taking the longest to get finished. Such is the way of things. The way of the Force…

No, there is another 😉

I don’t know if Poita’s collaborating with the 4K80 team at this point, but whatever preservation is based on his print is the one worth watching. I’m sure others mean well and may even finish first, but Poita spent the stupid amount of money, he’s got the stupid amount of equipment, and he’s got the stupid amount of expertise – and the print he’s got matches all that.

Harmy doesn’t need a complete film scan to make a DeEd. He just needs film scans for the bits he needs to despecialize. Poita’s 4K film print scan has already contributed to the current ESB release in that regard, IIRC. No need to wait.

Danfun128 said:

So, if this is a completely new unreleased master that, additional changes aside, is objectively better than the 2004/2011 master, how will this affect the Despecialized editions and projects like it? Is Harmy going to cancel the 3.0 of ESB and ROTJ, and then do a 4.0 of all three movies based off these new masters (assuming they don’t appear in higher bitrate form on 4k Blu-ray or something in a year or two)?

That’s ultimately up to him, but they seem “better enough” to me to warrant the switch and do-over, even if he sticks to 1080p. Waiting for the UHD is also an option – and since he doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot of time anyway, he may end up waiting that long regardless.

The problem is that all kinds of minor new changes can have slipped in, based on how this was created (re-scanning the 97SE film elements, then re-doing the 2011SE changes over the top, and adding new inexplicable changes). The new color grade needs to be adjusted, even though it’s worlds better, and so on. Starting over using these sources would be a much bigger job than you may think.

IMO the DeEd’s are in a good enough space (well, except maybe Star Wars) where they can afford to wait. Being based on the Blu-ray (i.e. using negatives or IP’s as sources instead of projection prints), they still have the most fine detail of any preservation out there – even at 720p! – and the second two are very close to perfect already, save for the issues imported from the Blu-ray.

Broom Kid said:

I’m still sort of marveling/laughing at the fact we live in a Maclunkey world now.

You’ll see. Maclunkey is the new Rosebud. It’ll all make sense in the end.

yotsuya said:

CatBus said:

Also, I understand this isn’t at the top of everyone’s list, but are there any new subtitle/dubbing languages available? Can someone post a complete list?

I only went into that setting in two movies and I didn’t see anything unusual. Not very many choices. Spanish audio and English, Spanish, and Netherlands subtitles.

Thanks. This may vary depending on your region, may be backfilled later, or may just be a little anemic in its streaming form and will be filled out on a (hypothetical) UHD release. Sounds like there’s not a new Mandarin dub for me to jump on or anything.

Very nice as always, Dre.

Also, I understand this isn’t at the top of everyone’s list, but are there any new subtitle/dubbing languages available? Can someone post a complete list?

CatBus said:

DrDre said:

CatBus said:

IMO, the OOT has been out of circulation for all but the most devoted fans for over twenty years now. On the home video front, it’s skipped three generations of video tech, not including streaming services, where it’s also unavailable. Even old-time fans, unless they’re holding onto a VCR or a Laserdisc player, probably don’t watch it anymore – it’s only an even smaller subset that have ever viewed our preservations (I suppose there’s also the GOUT, but I don’t think that abomination set the world on fire either). And it’s not just missing, it’s been substituted with another product that some certainly think is close enough – so there’s often little sense of a gap that needs to be filled. If it ever did come back, it would be a niche product. Its clear superiority does not guarantee it will overcome decades of sentimental attachment to the only version of the films most of a generation has ever known.

For this reason, I disagree it would be like printing money for Disney. A proper restoration costs a lot, and they’d be getting stiff market competition from their own products. Furthermore, Lucas still expresses a strong desire that the OOT be suppressed, he’s widely regarded as the creator of the OOT, and studios tend to defer to the creator’s wishes for already-successful properties, even if they’re stupid wishes, and when they’re under no contractual obligation to do so. Lucas not being at the helm doesn’t mean he has no influence on the question of the OOT.

So basically IMO we’re waiting for copyright expiration and a public domain release when it comes to the OOT. A couple screenshots in a book is not a sign of the wall crumbling.

I agree. I think the best we can probably hope for, is a far superior SE release in 4K HDR, that can serve as a basis for future fan preservations.

I’d be happy with a far superior SE release in 1080p, but I’d accept that 4K HDR gravy 😉 I believe that’s where the whole Reliance business will end up at, and that’s as optimistic as I get on this front.

To be clear, I didn’t have any advance notice of this. It just worked out this way two days later.

DrDre said:

CatBus said:

IMO, the OOT has been out of circulation for all but the most devoted fans for over twenty years now. On the home video front, it’s skipped three generations of video tech, not including streaming services, where it’s also unavailable. Even old-time fans, unless they’re holding onto a VCR or a Laserdisc player, probably don’t watch it anymore – it’s only an even smaller subset that have ever viewed our preservations (I suppose there’s also the GOUT, but I don’t think that abomination set the world on fire either). And it’s not just missing, it’s been substituted with another product that some certainly think is close enough – so there’s often little sense of a gap that needs to be filled. If it ever did come back, it would be a niche product. Its clear superiority does not guarantee it will overcome decades of sentimental attachment to the only version of the films most of a generation has ever known.

For this reason, I disagree it would be like printing money for Disney. A proper restoration costs a lot, and they’d be getting stiff market competition from their own products. Furthermore, Lucas still expresses a strong desire that the OOT be suppressed, he’s widely regarded as the creator of the OOT, and studios tend to defer to the creator’s wishes for already-successful properties, even if they’re stupid wishes, and when they’re under no contractual obligation to do so. Lucas not being at the helm doesn’t mean he has no influence on the question of the OOT.

So basically IMO we’re waiting for copyright expiration and a public domain release when it comes to the OOT. A couple screenshots in a book is not a sign of the wall crumbling.

I agree. I think the best we can probably hope for, is a far superior SE release in 4K HDR, that can serve as a basis for future fan preservations.

I’d be happy with a far superior SE release in 1080p, but I’d accept that 4K HDR gravy 😉 I believe that’s where the whole Reliance business will end up at, and that’s as optimistic as I get on this front.

IMO, the OOT has been out of circulation for all but the most devoted fans for over twenty years now. On the home video front, it’s skipped three generations of video tech, not including streaming services, where it’s also unavailable. Even old-time fans, unless they’re holding onto a VCR or a Laserdisc player, probably don’t watch it anymore – it’s only an even smaller subset that have ever viewed our preservations (I suppose there’s also the GOUT, but I don’t think that abomination set the world on fire either). And it’s not just missing, it’s been substituted with another product that some certainly think is close enough – so there’s often little sense of a gap that needs to be filled. If it ever did come back, it would be a niche product. Its clear superiority does not guarantee it will overcome decades of sentimental attachment to the only version of the films most of a generation has ever known.

For this reason, I disagree it would be like printing money for Disney. A proper restoration costs a lot, and they’d be getting stiff market competition from their own products. Furthermore, Lucas still expresses a strong desire that the OOT be suppressed, he’s widely regarded as the creator of the OOT, and studios tend to defer to the creator’s wishes for already-successful properties, even if they’re stupid wishes, and when they’re under no contractual obligation to do so. Lucas not being at the helm doesn’t mean he has no influence on the question of the OOT.

So basically IMO we’re waiting for copyright expiration and a public domain release when it comes to the OOT. A couple screenshots in a book is not a sign of the wall crumbling.

Broom Kid said:

But there is most definitely a difference between film preservation, and film restoration, and being able to buy a blu-ray on Amazon. What we’re upset about is a consumerist concern, not a preservationist one.

No, we’re upset about both.

https://savestarwars.com/lucas-nfr.html

PM sent.

TheHutt, yes, there are some extensions to SRT that allow lots of interesting options, specifying fonts and so on, but only if the player supports it. But part of the reason I chose SRT way back when as opposed to ASS or some other subtitling format with very unambiguous support for formatting was because early on I wanted to separate content and formatting – like with HTML and CSS. SRT was the HTML, and the Perl (now Python) scripts were the CSS. And, as the first few pages of this thread will attest, I truly had no idea anyone would actually want to use the SRT files when SUP files were also available. If I thought people would use the text subtitles, I may have gone down a different road from the beginning, and there wouldn’t be SRT files to begin with. But probably not 😉

CrazyNavajo said:

Wow that looks amazing. How does one get a copy? Asking for a friend. Lol. I know I may have asked before but I’m not really tech savoy as most folks.

CatBus said:

Subs from the Navajo DVD:

Subs reconstructed using DeEd, Project Threepio and a little Photoshop:

Navajo text with 1977 theatrical styling – what’s not to like about that?

Well, that’s just a mock-up. I have the subtitles (and the subtitles alone), and I Photoshopped them over a still image from the film. Working them into real video is a wee bit more work, and that’s what Rikter is proposing. As long as he can get the subtitle-free video (which exists – Harmy made the version that Krieg der Sterne is based on), then the video is doable. But I believe he also wants to render a Navajo crawl as well. So getting a copy of the video is still quite some time and quite some work away.

Subs from the Navajo DVD:

Subs reconstructed using DeEd, Project Threepio and a little Photoshop:

Navajo text with 1977 theatrical styling – what’s not to like about that?