StarDestroyer.Net BBS

In keeping with the treatment they did for ESB a few days ago, Starwars.com has a comparison of the new limited edition ANH DVD with the original:

Episode IV: What Has Changed?

Holy shit! I had no idea so much was changed. Being born in 1983 I was not introduced to Star Wars until 1997.
I spotted many changes in the films but Obi-Wan's house and the Yavin temple were a complete surprise.
A special dissapointment were the blaster shots in Death Star prison which were "toned down"(I already knew about the infamous Han Solo shooting second scene change).
On the other hand some changes were ceartainly justified such as adding red color to Vader's lightsaber.

In conclusion I would rather that they focused on space scenes and replaced the ship models with CGIs instead of "matching the color of the sky to the ground" or whatever.

I liked the '77 version of this shot better:

Kane Starkiller wrote:Holy shit! I had no idea so much was changed. Being born in 1983 I was not introduced to Star Wars until 1997.
I spotted many changes in the films but Obi-Wan's house and the Yavin temple were a complete surprise.
A special dissapointment were the blaster shots in Death Star prison which were "toned down"(I already knew about the infamous Han Solo shooting second scene change).
On the other hand some changes were ceartainly justified such as adding red color to Vader's lightsaber.

In conclusion I would rather that they focused on space scenes and replaced the ship models with CGIs instead of "matching the color of the sky to the ground" or whatever.

Agreed, though I suppose I'm somewhat of a purist and prefer the straight originals. I had the opportunity to watch an original laserdisc version of ANH a while ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't think that old movies necessarily need to be updated to conform to the way we expect movies that are released today to look and feel. If so, should we re-record the soundtracks to all of the OT movies too? Listen to the title crawl music of ANH vs RotS and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Once again, I'm suddenly happy I grew up on the 97' versions.

Maybe I'm an idiot who can't appreciate old stuff, but I feel that the new versions are just easier to watch, less grain annoyance.

The older version had far better FX, though. Mos Eisley looked far more believeable without the cheap CGI dinosaurs lumbering around. And Wolfman! I loved that make-up. Far more alien looking than the squid that replaced him.

Bounty wrote:The older version had far better FX, though. Mos Eisley looked far more believeable without the cheap CGI dinosaurs lumbering around. And Wolfman! I loved that make-up. Far more alien looking than the squid that replaced him.

True. What was the big deal with Mos Eisley being a crappy little shithole anyway?
It's Tatooine, not Coruscant.

Wow, three of 122 looked better. At least they were honest about putting stuff up.

Jeez, who took some of these screens?



Bask in the glory of modern digital technology, replacing that old 70's set with a dinosaur's butt!!

I may just be an idiot, but why do some pics have two 2004s?

JLTucker wrote:I may just be an idiot, but why do some pics have two 2004s?

They're scenes that weren't in the original at all.

Ace Pace wrote:Once again, I'm suddenly happy I grew up on the 97' versions.

Maybe I'm an idiot who can't appreciate old stuff, but I feel that the new versions are just easier to watch, less grain annoyance.

I have to second the Pace here. So the new stuff has a few slight changes... how the fuck does it really affect the overall story that much? The primary focus was to fix some frankly cheap SFX, and it did that; the story remained largely unaltered. A few scenes were adjusted, and one or two inserted to elaborate upon the original story. Otherwise, it's still bloody Star Wars: ANH.

It still bloody star wars is right. But after 97 and seeing the updated Death Star run, I was hoping for some kickass shit for Episode I-III..

(Bloody worthless buzz droids! Why just dogfight the bastards!)

Cao Cao wrote:Jeez, who took some of these screens?

Bask in the glory of modern digital technology, replacing that old 70's set with a dinosaur's butt!!

See, I thought that the original print was damaged in those sections, and they compensated by putting in shots like that.

What the truth of that is, I don't know.

Seems to me most of them are minor changes in tinting, sharpening up fuzzy effects, small additions to the background, and reshooting some of the ship shots from a slightly altered angle.

¡Qué terrible!

Plus, probably the first and last 5 or so of that sequence consisted of showing how they slightly changed the font of the credits and crawl, along with using slightly different FOX and LucasFilm logos.

Of course, I said it before, and I'll say it again. I pretty much have no problem with the new version beyond the unsightly changes to the Greedo incident.

Oh, and also, they forgot the fix they made in the SE version where they cleared up that tear in the film that caused a large black spot to appear on Leia's forehead for a split second as she was running out of her detention cell.

The flaming-chest shots are the strangest edits in ANH. In the original, 1997 Special Edition, IIRC all of them were removed outright. Then, in the 2004 edition, some were added back in, but not all.

It's fucking retarded.

Seems to me most of them are minor changes in tinting, sharpening up fuzzy effects, small additions to the background, and reshooting some of the ship shots from a slightly altered angle.

Fake CGI dinosaurs, butchering beautiful location shots, adding unneccesary effects (did it really bother anyone that that one speeder was rolling rather than flying?), endless wanking over a CGI Falcon that didn't look half as realistic as the model. I appreciate them removing some artefacts and cleaning up the colours, but the additions don't really add anything, now do they?

butchering beautiful location shots

Actually, most of those were either so-so matte paintings or weren't altered at all.

did it really bother anyone that that one speeder was rolling rather than flying?)

Yes, and I still wonder if the transports in Echo base are supposed to be flying or rolling along the ground. I just care about that kind of thing.

endless wanking over a CGI Falcon that didn't look half as realistic as the model.

I'm pretty sure everyone who bitched about it in flight, didn't realise it was CGI when standing in the DS hangar too. :P

but the additions don't really add anything, now do they?

Actually, I like that the sci-fi cities now look and feel like sci-fi cities rather than Bumfuck desert, Earth or a random enclosed sound stage.

VT-16 wrote:Yes, and I still wonder if the transports in Echo base are supposed to be flying or rolling along the ground. I just care about that kind of thing.

So it's impossible that some desperate Rebels and some guy on the ass end planet of the galaxy would have vehicles with wheels?

Actually, I like that the sci-fi cities now look and feel like sci-fi cities rather than Bumfuck desert, Earth or a random enclosed sound stage.

Mos Eisley *is* a bumfuck desert. Why does it have to be some major starport? It was supposed to be a dump!
Cloud City on the other hand, yes, that was improved a lot.

So it's impossible that some desperate Rebels and some guy on the ass end planet of the galaxy would have vehicles with wheels?

That's not what I said. I like flying vehicles, but I don't like it when they're presented poorly in a film due to limited FX.

Mos Eisley *is* a bumfuck desert. Why does it have to be some major starport? It was supposed to be a dump!

I agree that the original version resembles the more sterotypical Wild West town, but that's also the problem for me, it's basically just a Wild West town that could have been anywhere on Earth. There's nothing really other-worldy about it. At least with ships taking off and landing we can tell it's a port.

God, I hate much of the new shit. All I want is a simple recompositing of the elements and fixing hue/saturation, as well as removing some of the most egregious bad fx like actually being able to see the light rods that Vader and Obi Wan are holding at one point in ANH; the crappy "matted" dust effect under the hoverspeeder in Mos Eisley; not completely resequencing the order of laser blasts, or the order and direction of snowspeeders on Veer's windshield.

Actually, iirc, in the "How long have you had these droids?" scene, there is a brief part where an extra walks by the frame in front of the action. All the Special Edition did was replace him (and the little white droid that came in at about the same time) and insert the big Ronto.

If you could see through (or erase) the Ronto, you'd see everybody standing perfectly still for a moment, until he passes, to make up for the timing.

A similar trick was pulled in the 1997 re-added Biggs scene, where that pilot (with those hoses on his helmet, what kind of Rebel pilot wears those??) walks in front of the camera. They inserted that to create a similar wiping effect so they could edit out Rogue Leader's lines about how he met Luke's father once and how if Luke was half the pilot his father was... (then the rest of the scene).


This part disturbed me though:



Caption:

StarWars.com wrote:The original laser blast was hand-animated to have jagged lightning-like fingers of energy surround Alderaan, which didn't scale convincingly. The Special Edition instead had the atmosphere ignite as it spread from the impact point.

Do you think a certain Vs. commentator will seize on this?



Interestingly, the "censored" Imperial officer/commando chest squibs were ALL censored but one (the guy with the helmet) in the SE. The 2004 Edition retained this gaffe, iirc.

I guess Lucas either didn't like the effect anymore or (more likely) he felt like softening it for the kiddies, since he was now a dad.

One bit of censorship that apparently goofed up, is the digital removal of Oola's nipple (for her costume nipple slip) in the 2004 edition (it was censored in the 1997 edition). Though I may need to check the scene again (somebody once claimed there was a closeup of the slip in the movie that was removed completely and that this is still that way in the 2004 edition, meaning you'd have to pause and zoom in to see it, though it would probably be still quite obvious in the Full Frame edition of the 2004 set, regardless). In fact, her nipples show through her costume for most of the scenes she's in, thanks to the restoration (George, you perv!).




Yep, they didn't fix the glow rod completely in those shots!


I'm reminded of one of the SE changes I truly liked, the redone space battle footage. However much of it is tainted in the 2004 edition by turning the blaster bolts and explosions pink in many shots.


Another example of the wacked out color timing:



Check out the blue tint!

Okay, sorry, last comments...

What's with this shot? The 2004 shot looks "correct" (in terms of color).

But on my DVD (though several frames later), all the color is drained from the DS explosion, and there's a blue aura coming out from the explosion (instead of redish, as here).

What gives? I mean, I wish it looked like that, like it's supposed to...




I'm really tempted to call now...

Do you think a certain Vs. commentator will seize on this?

Uhhh, are you referring to DumbShit? His argument is some bullshit "superlaser effect". That the entire hemisphere is glowing white hot is the reasonable argument.

The fact of the matter is, when you go frame-by-frame on the DVD, you'll see a field extending much farther from the surface than any atmosphere. That's the shield.