Ginge

Harmy, the new subtitle shot looks fantastic, I can't imagine them looking much better than that!

I think Harmy's thought of a 2.0 release using the BR is a great idea, though probably a lot of work. I think there must be a source by now that lists many of the changes made for the BR release, so Harmy wouldn't fall victim to accidentally including some subtle change. Assuming they can be tamed via color correction, I think they can really have potential to look great and improve what was already accomplished. It's a marginal upgrade from the HDTV caps, but it's an upgrade nonetheless... for my two cents, I'd love to see it. 

Wow, the final version looks fantastic. The seems to be a lot of shaking with the credits in the starfield though... is that gate weave? Is it supposed to be that excessive? I've never noticed it before, but it's very noticeable in this version.

Great work once again.

Laserschwert, I have to really commend your efforts on this, I am so pleased with your results! I bet an actual scan of the film print would look remarkably similar to your work. Great job and now I'm even more excited about 1.2!

I know many people don't really think of the end credits, but to me they are really important. I think the original people who made this film need to be honored properly and this is a great way to do it. I love watching the original credits with the untouched music and not having to look at the lousy SE credits crow-barred in. You just made that experience a whole lot more enjoyable. Thank you.

Is there any thought of attempting this with TESB or ROTJ?

I'd love a PM for the link to this set as well... thanks. 

Hey Harmy, I noticed this shot at the very end of your recent YouTube upload. I assume this is a work in progress and obviously won't appear like this... but just wanted to bring it to your attention.

I'm been trusting Neil's ears for a long time... glad he's here tell us these things! I'm pretty sure Neil has the V3 DVD though, not the Blu-ray.

I think the only way to settle this is for a group of us to travel back in time to 1977, see Star Wars in 70mm and take take detailed notes. Better yet, after we see the movie, let's just break into some theater and "borrow" the magnetic tapes used for playback. How complicated could alarm systems be in 1977? 

Probably true... but I've already said my piece on the matter, I won't bring it up again. If Harmy is interested, he can contact me. 

TV's Frink said:

Well, except the part where you keep offering Blu rips.  That's piracy.

You're right, I should keep that kind of stuff to PMs. Noted. 

I'm not saying that we pay for his project or copies of the films... we're just donating funds so our friend can have a new computer. There's nothing wrong with that... and there should be zero legal issues here. 

I don't see $1500 being too far out of reach. Or perhaps we can set up the fund and then use it to buy a top notch laptop here in the states and someone can ship it over. The burner can be a separate usb attachment, the computer doesn't need to have it built in. 

Either way, I'd like you to strongly consider this option. It's not problematic at all, I'm sure everyone who posts here would be willing to donate something. As I said, I'm in for $100 and I know I can recruit others to donate who don't even know about ot.com or this project.

I have rips of the full BRs, the native stream is .ts, but would be easy to convert to .avi for editing. If you don't want to go through the trouble of ripping yourself, I can send you the files. If you do rip yourself, you'll need a program called "AnyDVD HD" which strips away the various protection schemes on the BR.

I think an official donation is in order here. So how much do you think you'll need Harmy? For a new computer that will allow you to work in lossless form and not be constrained or forced to make compromises...

I think we can easily raise $1,000 for you... it's really the least we could do. I'm in for $100, as Stinky said, these films are worth more to me than that. 

Hairy, I'm with you in that I hate "close the blast doors". Like you, I thought it was a SE addition when I first heard it in 1997. No other stormtrooper in any of the three films sounds like that guy! It sounds like it was added later on to give a reason as to why the doors close. I hate it, I know others that hate it and if you do an alternate mix, I really hope it's not included because I wouldn't be able to listen to it.

Harmy said:

On a different note, a friend of mine got the Blus, so I was able to compare them with my HDTV sources and while very small, there is a noticeable difference. The problem is that I had him rip a bit of it for me (I don't even have a BD drive in my computer) and my computer just couldn't handle it.

Harmy,

If you need a better computer to help you with your work, please let us know and we'll happily donate some funds to help the cause.

Also, if you want proper Blu-Ray rips of the films, I can send you the versions that were encoded by the DON group (as they should be the best quality). I believe their 720p encoding of the HDTV rips were your source for your work... so if you need the Blu-Ray version, just say the word and I'll get them to you. I also have the original untouched .ts files as well. 

While I did see SW in the theater, most of my memory stems from watching it on VideoDisc/Laserdisc in the 80s and 90s.

I'm well aware what the intention of the project is, but the choice is still Harmy's whether or not to correct certain errors just as it's his choice to correct garbage matte lines. I really don't need a lecture on what the purpose of his reconstruction is, I was simply making a point in my post.  

Personally, I am full supporter of both projects. I can't wait to get DJ's BluRays as those are truly the untouched, original trilogy masters that I grew up with. He went through great lengths of restoring the problematic source materials so that they can look as good as possible. I for one am grateful and empathetic to the hell he must have gone through. 

Harmy's work is also stunning (obviously), and we're all blown away with the results of his efforts. However,  due to the nature of his work, it allows for a great deal of opinion and subjective criticism. Since there is a great deal of editing, rotoscoping, color correcting, etc... we sometimes think of a what we'd like to see done rather than Harmy's vision. For me it's little things like Vader's white saber saber, for others it's the color scheme...regardless they are Harmy's choices to be made. There are no such debates with DJ's work... they are straight and dead on originals. 

For me, I want both in my collection as I truly respect the worth of both DJ and Harmy. Both projects have their share of limitations, and yet they both somehow went above and beyond in working with those set limitations. To compare the two is ridiculous and anyone who tries is immediately revealed to be a fool. I will watch DJ's version (assuming I eventually get the Blu) when I am on my own and feel like watching Star Wars as I remember it. I will watch Harmy's version when I am with a group of friends or if I wanted to show some girl I am dating Star Wars... since they will look more contemporary and polished. There are benefits and drawbacks to both... but both are beyond awesome in what they accomplish.

I consider DJ's project to be a true preservation, and Harmy's to be more in line with corrective surgery. To call Harmy's a fanedit is a bit unfair, it's so much more than that. For Harmy, the patient has been in a horrific, deforming accident and he's doing his best to restore the patient back to its original appearance. He's a surgeon with limited tools, and he may have to guess in a few spots...  He's putting the original imperfections of moles and warts back on the face (since he's a perfectionist)...but dammit if that patient doesn't look damn good in the recovery room!

Hey Hairy,

This is great news and I know you said it was just an idea, but I for one am a fan of the '93 mix, and if you were to do an alternate mix keeping in the non-offensive additions, I'd be all over it. If it's not too much work for you, I'd love to have it as an option.

Although I respect his talents and his amazing work, I am not really interested in Adywan's "Reconstruction" projects. For me, they utilize too much from the special editions and take too many liberties with the original source material. Like you said, I'm interested in fixes only, not changes. 

Ideally, my perfect versions of these films would essentially be Harmy's de-specialized versions, but with the small, nitpicky fixes applied. Of course you couldn't just paste them in from the HD broadcasts or BR releases since you'd have to match Harmy's color timing exactly... so it would be a bit tricky.

I definitely would prefer a version with "fixes" that were obviously errors in the original. Things such as Vader's white saber, R2's blue panels in space, the revised guards at the end ceremony in Star Wars always look "off" to me. However, it's Harmy's project and I respect his decisions. I would also "fix" the imperial badges in Empire, etc.. but I guess we could always insert that stuff ourselves if we really need to see them that badly.

Hey hairy_hen, I'm very late to this party, but as a 37 year old Star Wars fan, I have to bow at your feet! While most fans have every reason to be disgruntled this weekend with the release of the Blu-Rays, the incredible work yourself, dark_jedi and Harmy have accomplished has given us all a reason to be excited about Star Wars again! I owe all of you a great debt. I can't thank you enough for bringing the true sound of Star Wars back to the masses... I can't wait to check them out this weekend.

I plan to play them with Harmy's editions and unfortunately, I'll be watching at a friend's who has a giant screen, but doesn't have a 5.1 setup. I wanted to grab the stereo files, but the links all seem to be dead apart from the first one. Is there any chance of a re-upload? I'd really appreciate it! 

Thanks again.

Those are gorgeous looking! Do you have versions that can cover up more of the disc (in the clear space) and just leave the hole?

NeonBible said:

Is there any chance of getting smaller 1-2GB MKV versions? I'm not too bothered about 720p at the moment, I just want a decent quality version of the original trilogy.

I suppose the next best thing is the DVD5 version but it doesn't include all the soundtracks.