Harmy

The MKV version is now up too :-)

I didn't need to put it in sync, I cut the video, so that it's in sync with the audio, which did of course come from your BD - the whole point of me waiting before doing this project was to wait for any '97SE project, which has the DTS audio synced to it, so that I can cut the video based on its frame-count. And if you're passive-aggressively implying, that you did that work and not those two guys and so I'm not giving you credit, well I really am sorry about that but I did inquire as to the origins of those audio tracks in your thread and you ignored me, so my only source of information on this was your NFO file and the responses of Jetrell Fo and Schorman19.

It only took like two days, most of which was working on the Jabba scene :-)

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY!

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY!

No, there aren't as far as I know but you can see in Team Blu's version, that once you get rid of the tint added in the home video versions, the '97SE bears clear signs of being timed to the I.B. print.

STAR WARS - RESPECIALIZED EDITION '97

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY!!!

 
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|Fanedits and preservations must not be bought or sold.                                                                 
|Please report every fanedit or preservation you find for sale to webmasters of originaltrilogy.com.                    
|Fanedits and preservations are an artform and to be shared among legal owners of the officially available releases only.
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This can be found at the usual paradoxical place in the same thread as the Despecialized Edition.

This is a little side project of mine, which I had in mind for quite some time but I’ve been waiting for a '97SE project, which has the DTS audio synced to it, so that I can cut the video based on its frame-count and now I finally had all the resources I needed, thanks to Team Blu’s '97SE release.
 

This is a reconstruction of the 1997 Special Edition version of STAR WARS, which was shown in cinemas world wide and had fewer alterations than the 2004 DVD version and fewer still than the BD version. Plus it didn’t have screwed up colors and by all accounts it had a pretty awesome sound mix (unlike the screwed up DVD and BD mixes) which we now have in the highest quality as heard in cinemas in 1997, thanks to Jetrell Fo and CapableMetal, who extracted it from the original theatrical DTS discs and dark_jedi, who synced it and encoded a DTS-HD track from it.

It is a side project to the Despecialized Edition - it uses the Despecialized Edition v2.5 master as its main video source and puts the changes made in 1997 back in, mostly using the Blu-Ray version and in case of 1997 changes, which were redone in later versions, this version combines the BD footage with Team Blu’s (Dark Jedi and You_Too) 1997 version.

The color correction is still based on a fade free 1977 I.B. Technicolor Print, just as the 1997 version supposedly was. The forced subtitles in the Greedo scene were left the same as in v2.5 and the subtitles in the Jabba scene (along with the rest of the 1997 elements of the footage were used from the Team Blu version).

Here are some screenshots: http://postimg.org/gallery/cfmct944/

 
VIDEO SOURCES:

1. STAR WARS Despecialized Edition v2.5

2. STAR WARS Episode IV A New Hope Official Blu-Ray 2011 (Preliminary colour correction by You_Too)

3. Star.Wars.Episode.IV.A.New.Hope.1977.720p.HDTV.x264-DON (2004 DVD Version)

4. STAR WARS 2006 Bonus DVD (sourced from the 1993 Definitive Edition Laser Disc Master - upscales by Dark Jedi, You_Too and Harmy)

5. STAR WARS 1997 Special Edition (Reivax DTV capture)

6. STAR WARS 1997 Special Edition (Team Blu version)

7. Custom mattes, film-cell scans etc.

8. Puggo Grande (1977 16mm print transfer)

MKV:

Technical Specifications:

FORMAT: MKV

SIZE: 10.7GB

VIDEO: 1280x540p H264 23.976 fps

AUDIO: 1)English 5.1 1997 Theatrical DTS            (DTS-HD) (by Jetrell Fo & CapableMetal & Dark_Jedi)
            2)English 5.1 1997 Laserdisc Dolby Digital (AC3)    (by Schorman13)
            3)English 2.0 1997 Laserdisc LPCM           (Flac)   (by Schorman13)

AVCHD:

Technical Specifications:

FORMAT: AVCHD DISC (ISO)

SIZE: 7.2GB (DVD9)

VIDEO: 1280x720p H264 23.976 fps

AUDIO: English 5.1 Dolby Digital (by Schorman13)
 

The ISO image can be burned to a DVD-DL and should work in most Blu-Ray players.

To burn, you can use image burn following thse instructions: http://onlineitpro.com/?p=181
 

I actually do like the new version better but it could well be just because I'm used to it looking more like that.

And I'm glad you tweaked the red markings, it integrates much better now.

Nice!

With the number of changes made across the different versions, it would be very impractical to use branching - you could have two branched discs, one with the 1977 and 1981 versions and the other with the 1997, 2004 and 2011 versions but not all on one disc.

Yeah, ok, so you say yourself that the dialogues are dated - would it be a good idea to rewrite and re-dub them? Today, it wouldn't be that much of a problem to even lip sync the actors' mouths to the new dialog and it would make the film more modern and therefore "better," right?

The movie as a whole is a product of its time - and if one wanted a more modern version of the same story, well, that's what remakes are for.

That is a big YES for me, yes, we shouldn't become a race of cyborgs - that's scary as hell.

Plus it has very little to do with the issue at hand - Revisited is better for you and you keep saying it's simply better and I'm saying it's not - the historical value of SW is IMO like 80% of its actual value - the story and characters are great but by today's standards, they are very much dated, but that doesn't make them worse, if anything, IMO it makes them better.

Well, again, you take one bit of a good post and ignore the rest - he compared Ady's work to modernising a classic work of art like Mona Lisa to today's standards of beauty, which I think is a perfect analogy - it could be a fun little experiment but it sure as hell shouldn't be considered the new definitive version of Mona Lisa.

What the fuck now seriously! NOBO0DY IS DEFECATING ON ADY'S WORK, FOR FUCK'S SAKE! I think Ady's work is amazing in many respects, but I also think (as Ady himself and many others do) that it shouldn't replace the original and that it isn't necessarily better than the original.

And you say with one breath, that you're all for releasing the original version and that releasing the original version isn't really taht important, because "we" already have a better version. NO, you perhaps have a better version, for your own enjoyment but I don't - simple as that.

Downloaded fine for me in Firefox.

This is pointless.

1. I disagree - the droid adds to the menace and makes for a great visual.

2. It's more or less the same principle as with Han shooting first but in reverse, because Ben isn't supposed to be an unscrupulous scoundrel, he's supposed to be a wise Jedi master - in the original, Vader comes in with his saber already ignited, whereas in ANH:R, Vader ignites his sabre in reaction to Ben igniting it first, so Ben make the first gesture of aggression (and with Ben's character that's just wrong).

3. I disagree very strongly - the dinos are obvious CGI, whereas the Wolfman is just that, a Wolfman, real existing object.

4. Yes, we know Tarkin was blown up but you don't seem to understand, that editing isn't just about conveying the information clearly and in the right order - seeing Tarkin's face just before the explosion offers emotional pay-off to the viewer.

Yes, ESB:R will be 720p, but sourced from the shitty 2004 transfer - so I'll say it again: with a proper restoration, the OOT of course has the potential to be of much higher picture and audio quality than the current Blu-Rays (and by extention anything that uses them as a source, including the future Revisited projects, as well as my Despecialized Editions of course, which is a big part of the reason I would welcome an official restoration and don't consider the DeEd an adequate replacement of it either).

But either way, you somehow keep missing the point - all these things you responded to were the minor additional points in my post - the main point was here:

the OOT has great, oscar-winning visual effects, which, unlike modern CGI, have great historical value, so they are more fun to watch - for me anyway, so for me personally, the movie loses like half of its entertainment value just by having the original effects replaced by mundane CGI, but I already said that before. And of course, if you just watch it for the story, this argument gets weaker and some people would say that the CGI effect are more realistic and therfore better, but film-making is an art-form and in art, the technique used is just as important as the content - like, take an oil painting of a horse and a color photograph of a horse - they both show a horse and the photograph shows the horse more realistically, but does that mean, that the photo is better art?

And you completely ignored it.

A) Because we're a bunch of nitpickers and with this level of dedication, it would take so long to "fix" any movie ever made and B) It didn't take six years to "fix" everything in ESB it took six years to alter a whole bunch of things and to fix a few others, which could be considered mistakes - just take the clip Adywan just uploaded - while it certainly looks great, out of like a hundred altered shots, there are very few, which could be considered fixes of some actual mistakes, the rest is just enhancing shots, which certainly weren't actual mistakes in the original.

Lord Haseo said:

Harmy said:

Yes and what I've been saying is, that I strongly disagree with the statement, that we have a better version. We have an alternate version - whether or not it's better is definitely not empirical - I would definitely enjoy watching the original version more than any other possible version, so I don't have a better version and I don't even have the normal version. And I'm sure a lot of people here would agree.

In what ways do you consider the OUT better? Why would it be so worth your time? And saying "because it's the original version" is not a suitable response. 

 Well, for one, it has no electric thingy on the interrogation droid's needle ;-)

But aside from that, the OOT has great, oscar-winning visual effects, which, unlike modern CGI, have great historical value, so they are more fun to watch - for me anyway, so for me personally, the movie loses like half of its entertainment value just by having the original effects replaced by mundane CGI, but I already said that before. And of course, if you just watch it for the story, this argument gets weaker and some people would say that the CGI effect are more realistic and therfore better, but film-making is an art-form and in art, the technique used is just as important as the content - like, take an oil painting of a horse and a color photograph of a horse - they both show a horse and the photograph shows the horse more realistically, but does that mean, that the photo is better art?

And then you also have the more invasive changes, like the addition of prequel music (I don't want to be reminded of the prequels, when I watch the OT - same reason I hate the changes like Anakin being replaced and Boba Fett being re-dubbed in the official SEs), the Ben's hut scene being re-cut (which is fun as an alternate version but it's at least disputable, which version is better in serving the story and pacing), then you have Ben igniting his lightsaber first, which to me is on the same level as Greedo shooting first. There were other things I didn't particularly like, which I don't remember - it's been years since I last saw Revisited.

EDIT: I remebered a few: The shot of Tarkin removed before the DS explosion (which also doesn't look too great IMO) and then some of the bad official SE additions left over in ANH:R, like super-fake CGI dinosaurs and stormtroopers on Tatooine.

Oh, and with a proper restoration, the OOT of course has the potential to be of much higher picture and audio quality than the current Blu-Rays (not to mention DVDs, if we're comparing to Revisited specifically - since you said that in Revisited we already have a better version and the only version of Revisited we already have is standard def. DVD of course).

Wow! My jaw dropped. The new canyon shots look effin' great - the only thing, that stood out to me a little bit was the red markings on the Falcon - in all the other shots they are either very muted or downright monochromatic, so it stands out a bit, that they are bright red in those few shots but otherwise, it's a great job! And the un-zoomed shots look great too.

Yes and what I've been saying is, that I strongly disagree with the statement, that we have a better version. We have an alternate version - whether or not it's better is definitely not empirical - I would definitely enjoy watching the original version more than any other possible version, so I don't have a better version and I don't even have the normal version. And I'm sure a lot of people here would agree.

Oh, hang on, I though the bad idea was to make the needle all electric and stuff, that I think was a horrible idea. The presence of the needle in the original was f*cking genius - needles are scary as hell and it perfectly, without any words, illustrates, that they were using drugs on her during the interrogation but when you replace the needle with some electric doodle, that idea is lost.

That's not the point though, the point is, that the movie has been altered in ways, that can be (and are by many) perceived as changes for the worse, which is fine for a fan edit but not for an ultimate version to replace the original. And yes, you can fault him for doing his best with a bad idea - it was his decision whether to use that idea in the first place.

So? Citizen Kane was released in 1941 and it's still considered a great masterpiece. And by today's standards, the film is very slow but it would just be plain wrong to replace it with a different cut with faster pacing.

Plus, to me, the historical value of Star Wars and its original visual effects are good 50% of the entertainment factor of it. The story and characters are great but I think in reality, they are only a small part of what makes Star Wars a cinematic masterpiece.

I actually started working on the DeEd specifically to be able to show people who've never seen the movie,  the original version, so as not to taint their 1st experience with an altered version or a low quality transfer - I actually remember a generic discussion about the morality of fanedits somewhere and I said, that I think making a making a fanedit is perfectly OK, as long as it's not being passed for the original and as long as the person watching has already seen the original - this, being a generic discussion, was of course taking into account, that a fan-edit can make the movie significantly worse, which I don't think Revisited has done by any means but there are some things in it, which I personally disagree with. And there can be some things in the original cut that you or I may personally not like but unlike any other version, it's still the original cut, which won all the Oscars and made the movie into a world-wide phenomenon.

Lord Haseo said:

lovelikewinter said:

I agree with Tyrphanax 100%.  I just want the movies I saw as a kid.  The one that made me beg my parents to dig my brother's old action figures out of the closet and let me have my own adventures.  Had I been a little older, I would have begged my parents for a laserdisc player to see them in better quality than the old releases that sat on the shelves of my local mom and pop video store.

If Lucas would have just given us a choice, then most of the hard feelings would have gone away.  He didn't for whatever reason.  But now we have the chance to have a high quality release of the OOT.  Something I though would never happen unless Lucas was dead.  

Adywan's Star Wars is a nice variant, but not the Star Wars I and many more will look at the definitive version 20, 30, 100 years down the line.

 I want the OUT on BluRay just as much as anyone of you. But let's not let nostalgia delude us. In editing the OUT is a disaster. HUNDREDS of mistakes per film and outdated technology which of course is charming, but loses it charm overtime as we grow out of adolescence. Now Ady is not only fixing errors, he is filling the imaginative gaps I filled in when watching these films as a child. Just by that alone SW:R is superior regardless of popular opinion.

LOL, the original Star Wars won a friggin' Oscar for best editing! Every movie ever made has little continuity errors but that doesn't make them editing disasters. And the effects were the groundbreaking peak of the technology of its time and sure, they are a little dated but that also doesn't mean that the movie is bad because of it - I mean, Alien has dated effects, 2001 has dated effects, hell, even newer movies like Jurassic Park or even Lord of the Rings have some very dated effects - should they be updated with the latest technology every ten years?

I mean, I have absolutely nothing against Revisited and I enjoy it for what it is - a good alternative version of a classic movie but I don't think it should be a replacement.