bilditup1

OK, so this is definitely the best version of the original Star Wars I've ever seen. negative1 said cuts from the GOUT were obvious, but frankly I thought they were very well done. No more CGI bullshit in Mos Eisley, no more mysterious blue ring of energy when the Death Star blows up &c.

There are a few sore points with the re-coloring back to 1977 goodness (as Harmy himself admitted already). Purple/pink blaster fire 'blinks' are still in there. Some weird colors reflected onto R2-D2 (green, purple) at odd points (in the desert when Luke goes after him). (Not sure if they're actually supposed to be there though.) Some...I dunno, discoloration? on the right side of the screen in a few Mos Eisley scenes. First few credits look awkward - they fade from old-style fuzzy blue to sharp light blue and back out to fuzzy blue as they fade out. Scrolling credits also look weird: the left half, with the titles, looked like sharp-light-blue surrounded by dark blue fuzz, and the right half, with the titles, was sharp-light-blue.

But honestly, this is nitpicking. We really can't do much better than this, methinks. Kudos, sir.

I'm now seeding this on the spleen.

-e

Good stuff right there. the colors on the 2004/2006 dvds are icky

Aight excellent, thanks!

-e

Totally awesome! I loved the first one because it sort of put Star Wars in its place. Feel more like a period piece, like the one-off it was intended to be.

Hope you're enjoying your break

Hmm. I'm pretty shocked things got this far. Quite the shame about the quality of the prints :( but who knows? Maybe another one will crop up.

Hey Harmy,

I'm dling ESB from the spleen, and don't see any others there. I'm confused: which trilogy have you completed, and which one are you about to finish/release?

-e

I'd actually love a 1997 set, and am dling DJ's v3 from the spleen right now. Can't wait for the Blurays!

This is an awesome idea. The salvage set has at least made Return of the Jedi listenable, but maybe some of us can turn it into a real masterpiece. I don't really have experience ReMastering but perhaps I can think of another way to contribute...

tata...

I'd like to echo support for the sound of Jedi. This was formerly my least favorite score, but I have new respect for it now. Doesn't touch Empire - and while we're on the topic, the OT Salvage Empire doesn't touch the OE's (though some tracks take some getting used to, if you're like me and you grew up listening to the SE version). But this 'Jedi' is actually enjoyable to listen to with the harshness and...I dunno, distance? distortion? hyper-reverb? gone. It's actually more noticeable once one reduces them to mp3s (necessary evil till I can afford/acquire a 32gb microSD.) I've only seen the original Jedi a few times, too (GOUT, TR47, EditDroid) so it's interesting to hear the original atrocious Jabba music (I really detest that whole section of the film) and, more interestingly, YubNub (especially the end of it).

ABC said:

… PUNCH IT !

 

 

J

 

 

 

SWEET!

DL'ing now...

Ha, unintentional humor ;)

Also, the black humor was the most ridiculous part of this thing; it's what gave it its' character...

Well, II may deserve it more, but III has a few redeeming qualities. I enjoyed it. And as none of these had the hype, the cartoon rabbit, hopelessly annoying kid or ridiculously convoluted ending that I had, you could make the argument that I take the cake for 'most frakked up'.

The most galling thing, I think, is that all the 2004 changes etc are made on a 1080p master! I really cannot fathom why GL, a billionaire many times over, didn't go with a 4K or 8K transfer for his most important films! Even the SEs had the advantage of a 2K transfer for the scenes that were augmented, apparently - and that was back in 1997!

The problems are summarized by Michael Kaminski, author of "The Secret History of Star Wars", here:

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html

Yeah, Adywan's AVCHD are color-corrected to something like '97, and use the '97 SE's 5.1 Audio. Empire Strikes Back was returned to the '97 version (old Emperor is back, original voice of Boba Fett is back). But it would be nice to have these versions all the same.

This was one of the funniest things I've ever seen, and the review was right on the money to boot. I even added it to my sig. 

The dude's voice, btw, is hilarious. It's like Signor Cardgage from H*R...just some amazing filmmaking yo. I hope RLM does something like this for Eps II, III and ROTJ...they all deserve this treatment (though not as harshly).

Hey Jay-

I just signed the petition, but had some trouble, because the comments' length limit is just 1000 chars. This is not made clear on the main page, and instead the software kept crashing on me; after I actually decided to use my brain and read the error, I figured it out and cut out some verbiage. But you really should tell ppl that there's a 1000-char limit on comments on the main page, and then do some kinda nice-lookin' try-catch thing if ppl go over the limit.

cheers,

-e

I'm looking fwd to this release, if only for completeness' sake (Adywan's AVCHD is my go-to version right of the 97 SEs right now).

It was clearly Wingreen's. (Thx for the name, btw.) Temeura's voice just sounds so frakkin' out of place - annoyingly thin and completely unmenacing. There's no way you couldn't tell the difference between them, especially if you've already watched Empire dozens of times (like I'm sure most people here have.) Too bad there's no way to edit that dude out of Episode II. 

Ah. Whoops, I guess I took the title of the torrent too literally then...that makes a lot more sense. Restoring of the original Emperor was clean enough that I didn't notice any difference in picture quality vis-a-vis the rest of the movie! I can retire the old Five-Star ESB without shame now.

Everybody here: I recommend quickly switching back and forth between tracks from this and the Sound Salvage release, or just the SEs. The difference knocks you out like faster than a ton of bricks. 

-e

Hey all,

I've just acquired the "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back" AVCHDs; both very impressive releases. I'm especially glad to have "The Empire Strikes Back" since it is based on the 1997 SE which somehow was aired on German TV! Previously I was using the 'Five-Star Edition' I bought years ago off eBay whenever I had the hankerin' to watch this version.

As I'm still travelling, and stuck using an ultraportable laptop, I had a few jiggers getting them to work, but it's doable:

1) If you don't have a DVD+R DL on you, or are too cheap to buy one, you could try mounting the disc with something like DAEMON Tools Lite. If this doesn't work for you initially, it's probably because you don't have the file system drivers for UDF2.5, which a google search for "toshiba udf 2.5 winxp" or something like that should find pretty quickly for ya.

2) If you're stuck using a 2007 vintage ultraportable (with a CoreDuo or Core2Duo ULV) or an Atom-powered netbook, then you want to try to find the CoreAVC codec through the usual conduits for such things, and then set it up as an external filter with Media Player Classic Homecinema, while disabling internal filters for AVC formats.

Can't wait to view these properly when I get home!

cheers

-e

I just got this disc and was very pleased with the results. I have the "Behind The Magic" CD-ROMs, but the enhancements made, especially culling the audio from the Radio Drama for the Treadwell scene but more obviously the generation of frames to get rid of the jerkiness from the BTM discs are very much welcome. I don't really remember the original Deleted Magic that well, and don't have the DVD with me right now to compare.

Ah...the spleen glory days. Wonder people here stopped releasing there. Not wide enough a release? Not enough seeders?

ABC-

I never wrote a review of these things when I first downloaded your set months ago. I simply adore them, and they're a pleasure to listen to through my cheap-yet-colorful Grado SR-60is. I'm also looking fwd to the Optimum Edition of Empire and am downloading the Film Edit one right now. I'm not well-versed in audio editing, and I haven't listened to the tracks 'critically' (e.g. without letting my mind wander into the music too much) so I can't speak to some of the details some people point out here, but regardless - these are phenomenal. Thank you very much for your hard work - it is much appreciated!

-e