Wumpusroom

Hi, I haven't been on the forums before, but I just downloaded, then watched V2.1 of Harmy's Despecialized Edition. Star Wars is my second favorite movie of all time (The Shining is first.) But I hadn't seen Star Wars in years, because I despise the Special Edition, because it completely wrecks the tone of the movie. Here are my thoughts on V2.1.

I noticed so many details I had never seen before, such as readouts and costumes. And I had no idea there were so many power droids in the background of shots. Harmy, this is a fantastic version, very close to the original.

I am sure I'm going to point out many things that have already been mentioned in the forum, but I haven't read all 300+ pages yet. I apologize if I repeat too much. These aren't all complaints about the version, some are just observations after not having seen the movie for a long time.

0:00 - The registered trademark over 20th Century Fox appears to be superimposed after the fact.

13:07-13:22 - The Jawas look blurry and superimposed, probably due to limitations on the source that was available, because of compression. Probably the best that it can be.

29:03 - Are there chalk drawing behind the landspeeder as the Sandpeople sort through the landspeeder? The detail is incredible in this edition.

33:24 - As Ben lets go of the lightsaber, there is a frame with damage behind Ben's back (blue burn look). This should be fixed.

42:19 - It really sounds like Ben is saying "You will never find THE more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Notice THE, not A.

43:14-43:17 - The red astrodroid the landspeeder goes past is incredibly blurry, and quite distracting to me. Actually, it's the only thing in the entire v2.1 that I find highly objectionable. I understand it's due to the source available, with compression on a detailed scene with movement, but I don't think the original screenings were this blurry. I guess it could be due to the smear from the landspeeder. I looked up this scene in the special edition, and the droid is very sharp. Not sure if it's from the original source, or redone. But of course their version is pure crap. Is there any way to sharpen it slightly using that?

43:37-43:40 - The green lizard in the background is a little too sharply focused compared to the rest of the scene. Yeah, yeah, I know I just complained about a scene being too blurry.

49:06+ - I'll assume Greedo's subtitles in color and font resemble the original release?

53:14 - The mysterious green person behind Han is even more obvious in this HD version, haha.

55:39 - Tarkin has a stray hair on his left side. Kudos on how sharp this image is. The stray hair reappears at 1:50:36. They must have filmed both scenes at the same time.

55:50-55:52 - Tarkin is visually clearly still talking, though there is no sound.

1:00:38 - And here Vader makes hand gestures clearly showing he originally had dialogue, though he is not speaking.

I actually miss C3P0's tractor bean description and the stormtrooper's close the blast doors lines. Hope you have an alternate audio track with them. It's already not the original soundtrack because of Aunt Beru, right?

1:08:39-1:08:55 - Mark Hamill seems to not have dubbed his lines very accurately, his lips seem pretty far off to me.

1:19:54 - Was the stormtrooper hitting his head that obvious in the original soundtrack?

1:22:49 - 1:22:55 and 1:24:13-1:24:16 - This matte is pretty bad, when Ben is on the catwalk. Was the coloring this far off in the original screenings? Other than that astrodroid, this is the only other thing in the entire V2.1 I find distracting. I have an old issue of Starlog, about issue 8, that would show how far off it actually was.

1:46:36 - Noticed the y-wing farthest to the left blinked. When slowed down, saw that it just disappears when it hits the bottom border. Was this in the original release like this? If so, leave it, I guess.

1:54:19 - Did they show a y-wing surviving during the attack? Yes, I know one returns, but who?

Also, I really noticed a couple boxes around TIE fighters until I barely adjusted my contrast, then they completely disappeared, and I don't remember where they were. No, not suggesting a change, but surprised they were still there.

Finally, the chapter stops are terrible, they should be between scenes, not just every five minutes.

I want to congratulate Harmy on an incredible job, finally being able to see a version of Star Wars that lived up to my expectations, and that I can enjoy. Thank you so much!

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