johnboy

Yeah, I said it. You can stop crying “BLAPSHEMY!” for now. Forgive me if this has been brought up before, but a few rudimentary searches turned up nothing. For obvious reasons, the vast majority of restoration projects have been for the OT, which Lucas has packed onto in a fashion reminescent of taking a perfectly symmetrical bust and pounding large, unshaped lumps of clay onto one side. Those Lord of the Rings fans here know that the result looks something like this:

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On the other hand, I rather enjoy watching GL play with his creation. I just wish he’d preserve the original in some home video format for posterity. Well, with the advent of OCP’s Classic Edition OT (the first to use DVD-quality footage, if others have informed me correctly), there is one thing that plagues my mind (and a nitpicky mind it is): the PT gets no love . Obviously, the films themselves are inferior to the OT, but they are, for better or worse, part of the Star Wars canon. I think they deserve to have their theatrical versions preserved in DVD-quality.

Does anybody think they can manage it? I can’t, because I lack the equipment necessary, and if I attempted to purchase the equipment necessary, my grandparents would get down on me for obsessing over something fictitious (their belief is that intense fandom is okay as long as it doesn’t cost anything). Such an undertaking would be, compared to preserving the OT, rather easy in the actual execution, yet a tad difficult in preparation. There are far fewer items on the to-do list (note: this list is by no means comprehensive, it is just what I can remember):

Episode I:

-Much to do about the podrace (of all things). Various introductions (such as those of Elan Mak and Mawhonic) need to be snipped, as well as Sebulba’s approach to his pod before he waves to the audience.
-Several segments in the second lap of the podrace, including Anakin outsmarting Gasgano and Teemto Pagalies and the restoration of Watto’s cut “Sebulba!” cheer (it’s worth noting that the cheer is still available in DVD quality in the Extended Podrace Lap 2 Deleted Scene, which is somewhat odd).
-The Twi’lek Senator’s aids need to be restored to the ILM cameos instead of the female Twi’leks.
-The Coruscant cab sequence needs to be removed completely, and the following establishing shot of Queen Amidala’s quarters must be reinstated.

As for where the “restoration” footage is to come from, there are two options: the easier, but lower quality, way and the much harder, but slightly more rewarding way. The easiest way is to buy the widescreen VHS format and somehow get the footage onto the computer before it has any time to degrade. The harder way is to get the higher-quality, but much more elusive Japanese LD. However, if the VHS is fresh, it’s not that big of a deal. The VHS and LD versions preserve the theatrical cut, so a “fine-tooth comb” comparison between either of those and the DVD would reveal other differences that I forgot.

Episode II:

-The scene in which Anakin confesses to the Tusken slaughter was extended for the DVD release. It should be un-extended.
-The sparks and stuff coming from Jango Fett’s jetpack before his demise must be removed.
-When the Clone Trooper awakens Padmé after her fall from the fighter on Geonosis, her original reply of “yes” as opposed to a weary reply of “uh-huh” must be restored.
-Instead of Anakin holding Padmé’s hand at their wedding, in the theatrical version, we simply see his hand, and then the camera pans up.

Well, that’s no fun, now, is it? If our restoration expert were to desire a challenge, about 20 minutes of footage was further cut from the IMAX release (not sure which scenes, though, so I better research it). In my opinion, this would help justify the restoration’s existence, since the above isn’t much (and, technically, the IMAX version WAS a theatrical release). However, before anyone restores anything, there has to be a source for deleted sounds and images. Problem is, the theatrical version of AotC was NEVER released on ANY form of home video. The only solution available is to scour the torrent sites and sharing programs for a bootleg of the theatrical release, but the quality of such bootlegs is often less-than-standard. But if our restoration expert knows where to get one, by all means, find it (just don’t post it here, since the mods probably wouldn’t like it).

Episode III:

-The diagonal wipe from Padmé’s skiff approaching the hospital to Anakin’s charred hand struggling up the lavabank must be restored (in the DVD version, it’s just a straight cut).

Okay, as you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m rather OCD about restoring the movies to their theatrical cuts, but even I doubt the merit of this project. The change is so insignificant that I didn’t even notice it until someone told me. And, unlike AotC, we don’t even have a “super-trimmed” version like the IMAX release to help us differentiate it from the DVD. If someone has a free afternoon, then go ahead, but it would REALLY border on being a bootleg project. No, scratch that, it would be like planting your feet on the border and leaning your upper body over to the bootleg side. As with AotC, the theatrical version never got a home video release, so the footage with the wipe would have to be obtained from a bootleg, which are usually of dubious quality, etc., but it’s almost not worth it.

Well, now the one crucial question arises: Is anyone going to do it? Anyone? Anyone at all?