You are mixing this up with the SSE. Empire mkv release had a glitch at the end. The empire iso release fixed the glitch. But this is from the raw source again, so unless the raw source also had the glitch… Man, my head is spinning.
That was it.
It would probably create tonal whiplash with a quiet scene intercut with an action scene, as well as the two scenes happening at different times of day. I suppose I could fudge the time, but Yoda would have to be crawling through pipes for quite a while.
Third revision:
Dear Disney and Lucasfilm,
Today is the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, the film that started it all. Yet, where is that film? No, not the special editon, the original 1977 film. The one we grew up with. The one we saw more times than any other film before or since. The film that changed our lives forever.
Whether young or old, whether we saw it in a theater or on home video, it prompted a desire in some of us to make movies or tell stories of our own. George Lucas lit a spark that remains within us today.
One thing we all share are the memories of where and with whom we saw Star Wars, and even of shooting down imaginary TIE fighters out the back window of the car on the way home. For others, it was a brightly shining light in the middle of a turbulent childhood. If Luke and his friends could triumph over their trials, maybe we could too.
All these years later, we would love to revisit the Original Trilogy that we remember, to recapture those memories of a long time ago, in a movie theater or living room far far away. Those of us with families want to be able to show our kids exactly what we saw when we were their age and relive it with them. It should be such a simple thing to do.
Only it isn’t.
We’re limited in our choices to outdated video formats that are increasingly difficult to obtain and inch closer to extinction each year. And the now out of print bonus DVDs from 2006, which utilize ancient video transfers from 1993, are hardly better, if one can find them at all.
None of us ever imagined as kids that these historic versions might fade from memory, ultimately, disappearing from the collective consciousness altogether. To the point where CGI scenes created in 1997 are now mistaken for the innovative groundbreaking FX technology of the 1970’s. Film history is being obscured, if not rewritten. We live in an era in which even “bad” movies are respected enough to be meticulously restored and made publically available. Shouldn’t a movie as loved and as culturally significant as Star Wars deserve the same treatment in it’s original form?
We don’t bemoan the Special Edition’s existence. It simply isn’t the version of the trilogy we fell in love with. The Original Original Trilogy, or OOT, deserves to be seen in the absolute best quality afforded by modern cinema and 21st-century home video formats so that it can be loved again by all.
There is room for all versions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of The Jedi to coexist. And we want to give you our money for them; we really do! Please give us that opportunity. At least give us hope that we will be able to do so soon. Some of us aren’t getting any younger! That is all we ask.
Sincerely yours,
The Staff and Members of Originaltrilogy.com
I like it! I think it’s almost there.
Here’s my take:
Dear Disney and Lucasfilm,
Today is the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, the film that started it all. Yet, where is that film? No, not the Special Edition, the original 1977 film. The one that the world fell in love with; the film that changed movies, and our lives, forever.
Whether young or old, whether we saw it in a theater or on home video, it prompted a desire in some of us to make movies or tell stories of our own. George Lucas lit a spark that remains within us today.
One thing we all share are the memories of where and with whom we saw Star Wars, whether it was shooting down imaginary TIE fighters out the back window of the car on the way home, or whether it was a bright light in the middle of a turbulent childhood. If Luke and his friends could triumph over their trials, maybe we could too.
All these years later, we would love to revisit the Original Trilogy that we remember, to recapture those memories of a long time ago, in a movie theater or living room far far away. Those of us with families want to be able to show our kids exactly what we saw when we were their age and relive it with them. It should be such a simple thing to do.
Only it isn’t.
We’re limited in our choices to outdated video formats that are increasingly difficult to obtain and inch closer to extinction each year. The last time the originals were available for purchase was on the now out-of-print bonus DVDs from 2006, which themselves were a product of video transfers from 1993!
None of us could have imagined that these historic versions might fade from memory. It has gotten to the point where digital effects created in 1997 are frequently mistaken for the groundbreaking model work of the 1970’s. In a very real sense, film history is being erased. We live in an era in which even “bad” movies are respected enough to be meticulously restored and made publicly available. Shouldn’t a movie as beloved and as culturally significant as Star Wars get the same treatment?
We believe that both the Original Unaltered Trilogy and George Lucas’s Special Editions deserve to be seen in the absolute best quality afforded by modern cinema and 21st-century home video formats, so that both versions can be loved again by all.
There is room for all versions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of The Jedi to coexist. And we want to give you our money for them! Please give us that opportunity. At least give us hope that we will be able to do so soon. Some of us aren’t getting any younger! That is all we ask.
Sincerely yours,
The Staff and Members of Originaltrilogy.com
This is a sad state of affairs because Ret. Director James Clapper originally said publicly …
Clapper was also asked on “Meet the Press” if he had any evidence that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russian government while the Kremlin was working to influence the election. “Not to my knowledge,” Clapper said, based on the information he had before his time in the position ended. “We did not include anything in our report … that had any reflect of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report,” he said. “We had no evidence of such collusion.”
Now he is testifying to the contrary? So which is it? LOL
He also explained that he wasn’t given any information at the time, so because he wasn’t in the loop, he would naturally have no evidence from them of the Russia-Trump connection.
Isn’t it just that her clothes were so blue that it could be used for Chroma Key?
There was a version of Grindhouse with an encoding error in the credits, but this was fixed in version 1.6 I believe.
maybe, but I would still like to know what those words in the fine print say.
This is what I got:
Fine Print:
If victim card does not work,
continually claim oppression
and try to silence those who
protest with your brainwashing
by reporting them to get them
shut down, (i.e., censorship)
Precisely. I imagine that this version of the movie is what Obi-wan would have told Luke if he’d gone into detail. Most of Anakin’s viewpoint is taken out, leaving it much more of an Obi-wan centric tale.
That’s a good question. The only scene that could possibly go there is Obi-wan and Padme, and that wouldn’t work for numerous reasons.
Intercutting the fight with him forming the Empire might be cool since both scenes cut away to events that are no longer shown, but again that may be weird.
I think for such an edit any indication of another Sith would create problems, since we have no reason to believe that Sidious has yet another apprentice hanging around, and there’s no indication (yet) that Anakin was betrayed by one of Obi-wan’s students. If I thought there was a way to suggest such betrayal in this edit the scene would probably work with a blue saber, but as it is there’s just not enough to sell that idea.
Also, I don’t think it’s worth it to establish a new location just to show the Separatist leaders being destroyed on screen, since the Jedi state that the war will end with the death of Grievous. It’s cleaner if the Separatists don’t get off Utapau.
Count me as someone who enjoyed the Vader pun. Especially for an hour-long movie, I think it’s perfectly fine.
Also, maybe we could point out the irony of Lucasfilm and Disney making entire shows based on Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art but continuing to have the actual matte paintings from Star Wars missing in action.
GOTG 2 is such a funny movie, helped by the fact that it has arguably the best villain in an MCU movie to date.
Just got back from seeing GOTG 2. My recommendation? Whatever you rated the first one, this gets the same rating. Personally, I quite liked the first one.
As well you should be. Shame! Shame!
This is a good letter. Maybe even a great letter. But it is written from the perspective of someone who was alive back in the 70’s. There are some of us on the forum who haven’t been around that long (yours truly) and have only recently gained an appreciation for the originals as fundamentally distinct from the SE’s rather than just having a few different effects here and there.
Before I saw the photos of the Technicolor film projected at the Senator theater, I never imagined Star Wars could look genuinely beautiful. Before I saw the dozens of matte paintings so lovingly restored by Mike Verta which had been discarded for SE changes, I never really considered that Star Wars was art. But it is, and there are generations of people who haven’t had a chance to experience this artistry firsthand. It is not a case of rose-colored glasses by an old-timer wishing things were like they were back then, since I wasn’t around back then. This is someone who grew up with the VHS tapes and 2004 DVDs and 2011 Blu-rays. There was a point at which I thought the HD broadcast looked GOOD, where I showed it to my friends with excitement because I had never before seen the films in such detail. But that is a pale shadow of what they could be, from someone who never saw the originals or SE’s in theaters.
This is what a lot of people are missing in this discussion, that they think Star Wars is Star Wars no matter the presentation, they see OOT purists as ungrateful curmudgeons, but they simply haven’t taken that first step into a larger world. So including something from this perspective in the letter would speak to more people, I think.
I’m becoming more and more attached to the idea the more I think about it.
Consider: With the new crawl and omissions listed above, it would be possible for someone to watch the prequels in chronological order and still retain the slow point-of-view shift towards Vader that audiences felt in the 80’s.
Since it is now established that Vader began as merely a “pupil” of Obi-wan who betrayed and murdered Anakin, one can construct a compelling narrative in their mind with the help of the prequels. In this narrative, Anakin was briefly tempted by Palpatine with the power to save his wife, but remained in the Jedi Temple and held it against thousands of clone troops, protecting the children. But then! One young Jedi, wishing to save his own skin, turns on Anakin and stabs him in the back. He quickly surrenders to the clones and becomes an Agent of Evil. Obi-wan sees this in the security recordings, and blames himself for his failure as a teacher.
ANH reinforces this narrative, referring to this Jedi as merely a pupil (notably, not an apprentice or padawan!), and Vader himself saying that he was but a learner.
Then comes ESB, where Yoda says that Vader was Obi-wan’s apprentice. Did Yoda misspeak? Was he using imprecise language? And Obi-wan hints at a more personal connection to Vader than merely student-teacher.
What an idea, that the prequels could turn the OT into a more compelling story through this omission.
I’ve listened to “The Starkiller” cue in the soundtrack enough that any change sounds off to me, so the musical splice between the first planet being destroyed and the shot of Sella is quite jarring in that context. Something that Danny Boyle said on the Sunshine commentaries has always stuck with me, and that is that sound is 70% of a movie. That’s why it’s so hard to get right, any wrong note is more unforgivable than even a wonky visual effect. In general, I think the best option is always to present the soundtrack as completely as possible.
Also, I wonder - is the score when Han dies the beginning of “The Starkiller”? They sound so similar, it might just be a case of sliding the cues around to match. This also makes me wonder if there was an edit of the film where the firing sequence happens here just like we’re trying to do.
As it is in Restructured right now, there’s an odd key shift in two places where the ‘Starkiller’ track has been inserted. As well, there’s no reaction from the Resistance, so here I’ve tried to remedy both issues:
https://vimeo.com/215916349
Password: leia
There’s still a discordant sound when Han falls into the pit, but it could be further tweaked.
Thoughts?Just watched this. I would say it all looks good, minus the fade out from Leia to the firing of SKB. I think you should either cut before we see her or hard cut after she reacts.
The reason for the fade was to de-emphasise the fact that Admiral Statura changes position so quickly between shots. I feel like the shot of Leia is essential to the cutaway, so it can’t be cut.
It might be worth it to remove the background characters from her ‘massive disturbance’ shot since they don’t look at all affected by the destruction of the Hosnian system.
Nice colors. I especially like the dark green in the Falcon cockpit.
Ingredient Purist, Structure Neutral.
Found this video on Rey’s food:
I used to make a non-green variant of that recipe for a while, it’s actually pretty good!
Please. That would be ridiculous.
Yuckers!
Some amount of the romance plot is necessary, but it’s very minimal.
The other thing I wanted to ask about was the music restructure video of the end SKB destruction scene. I noticed in one version that you see the falcon and remaining X wings flying away after it finishes imploding and then it just does a swipe transition back to the Resistance base. Is there any reason why the falcon and X wings jumping to hyperspace before the transition was removed? I feel this is an unnecessary change and quite liked watching and hearing them all jump away.
.Val
The reason for this was musical - in the original, the crescendo happens as Poe says ‘let’s go home’, but after that was cut the logical placement was right when the planet exploded into the star. But for that to work, there wasn’t quite enough time in the music to allow for the jump to hyperspace before cutting back to the resistance. Since the score continues uninterrupted long into that sequence, I didn’t want to change that.
Yes, I very much like the interpretation of the duo as pure heroes. I know that a lot of people (myself included) would have liked to see the Shakespearean tragedy of Darth Vader, but since that was so horribly bungled the next best thing would be to see the two of them before the fall, as brothers-in-arms.
Episode 1 establishes Anakin as a selfless hero, and Episode 2 shows enough of his adolescent drama and growing pains even without him murdering a tribe of Sandpeople. Episode 3 would be Anakin emerging out of this awkward phase as the hero hinted at in Episode 1, who despite his fears and forebodings manages to remain loyal to the Jedi until the end, having a tragic death in the Jedi temple. His true legacy, and the last task of Obi-wan, are Anakin’s children. I could even edit out the birth of Leia, but that might be a revelation worth ruining for its dramatic irony.
I actually think that the edit could work as a 1 hour movie. I can think of one shot that would absolutely need effects work - Anakin leading the Clone troopers into the Jedi temple - but everything else could be solved through omission:
Battle to save the Chancellor
(remove Palpatine’s insinuations - Anakin and Palpatine are acquaintances, nothing more)
Padme’s Pregnancy
Grievous on Utapau
(remove Palpatine’s directive to go to Mustafar, as well as rumblings about a new apprentice)
Anakin’s Dream
(remove Palpatine’s council request scene)
Anakin on the Council
(remove Anakin’s disappointment at not attaining the rank of Master)
(remove scene of council’s plan for Anakin to spy on the Chancellor)
(remove Squid Lake scene. This is the most grievous omission, but it must go.)
Yoda on Kashyyyk
Anakin informs the Jedi of Grievous’s whereabouts
(remove references to Palpatine - Anakin asks to go of his own volition)
Anakin and Obi-wan part ways as friends
Obi-wan confronts Grievous
(remove Grievous sending Separatists to Mustafar - the war ends here)
Anakin informs Palpatine of Grievous
(remove dialogue suggesting Palpatine knows about Anakin’s plight. He lets on just enough for Anakin to suspect that he is a Sith, then confirms it)
Obi-wan defeats Grievous
Anakin informs Mace about Palpatine
Anakin and Padme at sunset - this is the last we see of Anakin in this edit
Mace arrests Palpatine
(remove Anakin’s return to the Chancellor’s office - Mace is destroyed purely by Palpatine’s Force Lightning)
Order 66
(remove/replace shots of Anakin leading the clones into the temple)
(remove Anakin’s return to Padme)
Palpatine forms the Empire
Obi-wan and Yoda return to the Temple
(remove Yoda’s mention of lightsaber wounds, and all dialogue referring to Anakin.)
“If into the security holograms you go, only pain will you find”
“Master Yoda, I must know the truth”
“It can’t be…it can’t be” (remove images of Anakin doing the killing) “I can’t watch any more”
“Destroy the Sith, we must.”
“Send me to kill the Emperor”
“To fight this Lord Sidious, strong enough, you are not"
Obi-wan and Padme
"When was the last time you saw him?”
“Yesterday”
“Padme, Anakin has…”
“Not Anakin!”
“I have seen a security hologram…”
“I don’t believe you. I…can’t.”
“He was deceived by a lie. We all were. It appears that the Chancellor is behind everything, including the war. Palpatine is the Sith Lord we’ve been looking for.”
“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”
“He has become a very great threat.”
“I can’t”
“Anakin is the father, isn’t he? I’m so sorry.”
(remove all Mustafar scenes)
Palpatine vs Yoda
(remove references to Palpatine’s new apprentice)
Yoda Meditates
Arrival of Obi-wan and Padme
(remove lines about there being good in him, but all else can stay. This way Anakin’s fears become prophetic)
Denouement scenes
(remove construction of Death Star. All other scenes can stay)