Prequel trilogy - theatrical release vs current DVD release

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Prequel trilogy - theatrical release vs current DVD release

Post by El Moose Monstero »

Just a quick question, I picked up TPM and AotC today for a very low cost to complete the collection, but I'm watching TPM again for the first time in about 4 years - but I'd swear that there's been a significant increase in scenes at the pod race, has TPM been remastered? My copy hasn't been claiming to be a special edition or anything?

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Post by Vympel »

The pod race was somewhat extended and a small bridging scene in Coruscant was added for the DVD release. Apart from that, I don't recall.
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Post by El Moose Monstero »

Thank goodness for that, thought I was going mad. Watching it again, I'm still finding large parts of it cringeable, but there are chunks which having watched RotS have major foreshadowing. Anakin and his mother and talking about 'not stopping the change' now seems much more poignant.
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Post by Mange »

Vympel wrote:The pod race was somewhat extended and a small bridging scene in Coruscant was added for the DVD release. Apart from that, I don't recall.
Well, there's also the tiny, tiny change in the Senate scene in which Orn Free Taa's aides (who were human and one of them portrayed by Trisha Beggar) have been replaced by female Twi'Lek aides (one them portrayed by Amy Allen who played Aayla Secura in AOTC and ROTS).
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Post by Srynerson »

I'm pretty sure the spray of blood when Kenobi bisects Maul was also added for the DVD, as I don't recall it appearing on my original VHS copy.
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Re: Prequel trilogy - theatrical release vs current DVD rele

Post by FedRebel »

El Moose Monstero wrote:Just a quick question, I picked up TPM and AotC today for a very low cost to complete the collection, but I'm watching TPM again for the first time in about 4 years - but I'd swear that there's been a significant increase in scenes at the pod race, has TPM been remastered? My copy hasn't been claiming to be a special edition or anything?
All your answers are in the commentariesa on the DVD's
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Re: Prequel trilogy - theatrical release vs current DVD rele

Post by El Moose Monstero »

FedRebel wrote:
El Moose Monstero wrote:Just a quick question, I picked up TPM and AotC today for a very low cost to complete the collection, but I'm watching TPM again for the first time in about 4 years - but I'd swear that there's been a significant increase in scenes at the pod race, has TPM been remastered? My copy hasn't been claiming to be a special edition or anything?
All your answers are in the commentariesa on the DVD's
Hah, give me time, I've only had the copy for about 4 hours - I've just finished watching AotC again.
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Post by Spanky The Dolphin »

Srynerson wrote:I'm pretty sure the spray of blood when Kenobi bisects Maul was also added for the DVD, as I don't recall it appearing on my original VHS copy.
It wasn't added, it was part of both the theatrical print and VHS release.
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Post by Kurgan »

Srynerson wrote:I'm pretty sure the spray of blood when Kenobi bisects Maul was also added for the DVD, as I don't recall it appearing on my original VHS copy.
To support Spanky, it definately was in the theatrical version, if the VCD bootleg I saw after watching the movie in theaters twice (it was clearly captured from a theater on opening night) is any indication. It's something a lot of viewers missed (I didn't even notice it until the DVD version, but comparing I can clearly see it now in both).

There is a short clip of blowing sand before the sandstorm that I don't recall from the theater, but there I could be wrong as well.

The visual quality of the TPM DVD has been criticized by prominent DVD-philes on the internet as being somewhat inferior. Apparently it was artificially "sharpened," moreso than normal, perhaps to give it a less fuzzy picture on small screens. Those with larger screen tv's and monitors have complained that this results in ghosting and grainier images on the bigger format. A simple comparison of this 2001 DVD with all the other official Star Wars DVD's shows its inferior quality. Otherwise the set was highly praised for having such a large collection of extras (so far not equalled by any of the later sets), somewhat making up for the lackluster feature presentation.

Interesting about the replaced senators, I'll have to check that one out next time I watch it! ;)

Anyway, there's two versions of TPM on DVD, the 2001 version was widescreen only, and a full frame version was released later on to coincide with the release of AOTC on DVD. Both versions were recently re-released, but with the exact same packaging, format and features.
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Post by Instant Sunrise »

IIRC, in AOTC C-3PO's line in the arena was changed from "Die Jedi scum!" to "Die Jedi dogs!"

The Japanese TPM Laserdisc release IS the theatrical cut, and is the only Laserdisc release to use Dolby Digital EX 5.1
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Post by Srynerson »

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:
Srynerson wrote:I'm pretty sure the spray of blood when Kenobi bisects Maul was also added for the DVD, as I don't recall it appearing on my original VHS copy.
It wasn't added, it was part of both the theatrical print and VHS release.
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Post by Master of Ossus »

Regarding the Pod Race, the theatrical release actually only included two laps. The third lap was created for the DVD, through some creative editing and by adding in a few more challenges for Anakin to deal with.
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Post by Cykeisme »

I can confirm that Maul's bloodspray was present when TPM was in theatres. It surprised me somewhat, seeing how the preceding portions of the movie didn't have a single drop of blood shown (not even Qui-Gon's stabbing).
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Post by Kurgan »

Yeah. Many fans have complained over the years that Lucas needs to "fix" the "error" in ANH wherein Panda Boba's (fake!) arm bleeds from a saber wound... along those same lines. They say that bloodshed "doesn't belong in Star Wars" and that sabers will always instantly cauterize the wound.

The EU mainly supports this idea, but not always (for example the graphic novel versions of the Thrawn trilogy).

I always thought that Luke's saber not cutting people up (except Vader) in ROTJ was an "error" until seeing the end of AOTC and then ROTS.
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Post by JME2 »

Might as well also point out a minor change to the ROTS DVD. After Obi-Wan blasts off Mustafar, there was a wipe back to Anakin which implied a good deal of time had passed before Palpatine and the cavalry arrived. The wipe was elminiated in the DVD, making it seem now that Palpatine arrived just as Obi-Wan escaped.
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Post by playloud »

Kurgan wrote:The visual quality of the TPM DVD has been criticized by prominent DVD-philes on the internet as being somewhat inferior. Apparently it was artificially "sharpened," moreso than normal, perhaps to give it a less fuzzy picture on small screens. Those with larger screen tv's and monitors have complained that this results in ghosting and grainier images on the bigger format. A simple comparison of this 2001 DVD with all the other official Star Wars DVD's shows its inferior quality. Otherwise the set was highly praised for having such a large collection of extras (so far not equalled by any of the later sets), somewhat making up for the lackluster feature presentation.
A detailed description of the poor image quality on the DVD of TPM can be found here.

http://www.videophile.info/Review/TPM/TPM_01.htm
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Post by Vympel »

Normally I'd lock the thread for necromancy, but in this case the contribution is worth the thread continuing. Here's hoping for a superior DVD to be released when they release the version with bad-puppet Yoda replaced with CGI-Yoda.
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Post by Tychu »

i will once again take my time to mention that me and my friends have also noticed that theres a scene missing from all other versions of TPM that appeared .....at least to us.... in the theater. The 3 people in question all watched TPM at diffrent times and days in the theater. Now it was 7 years ago and i was 13 but its kinda hard to not think about it

Wasn't there a scene in the theaters that had the Bongo going to the planet core and actually trying to make its way through underwater lava and rocks? Me and my friends all remember this scene, but no one believes us of its existance, maby some of you out there in Stardestroyer.net world can help me out
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Post by Drooling Iguana »

I don't remember anything like that when I saw it in theatres.
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Post by playloud »

Vympel wrote:Normally I'd lock the thread for necromancy, but in this case the contribution is worth the thread continuing. Here's hoping for a superior DVD to be released when they release the version with bad-puppet Yoda replaced with CGI-Yoda.
I have noticed that most Lucasfilm titles have a fair amount of edge enhancement. The original trilogy had more edge enhancement than I care for, as did Willow. It is really a shame, as they do a great job restoring the print itself.

Out of curiosity, how old does a thread have to be before a post is considered Necromancy. In this case, it was only about two and a half weeks since the last post (which doesn't seem long to me).
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Post by Doctor Doom »

Wasn't there a scene in the theaters that had the Bongo going to the planet core and actually trying to make its way through underwater lava and rocks? Me and my friends all remember this scene, but no one believes us of its existance, maby some of you out there in Stardestroyer.net world can help me out
I certainly don't recall any such scene in the theatrical release. It would be an interesting scene, though. I don't think the novelization even has a scene like that (IIRC).
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Post by zombie84 »

post-theatrical release changes to TPM:

extended podrace--both opening grid and second lap (however an even longer version can be seen in the deleted scenes)
air taxi through coruscant
trisha biggar replaced with Twilek

also, because of the air taxi sequence, a rather beautiful establishing shot of palpatine's apartment has been exercised.

AOTC had similar changes:

Anakin's "I killed them all" confession extended
The line "take the one on the right and i'll take the left" or somesuch that Obi Wan says as they are about to be executed (right before he says Padme is "on top of things") that appeared in some theatrical prints has been replaced with the more common "just relax, concentrate" which most saw in theatres
Jango Fetts rocket pack is clearly malfunctioning after he is run over
Anakin robot hand takes Padme's in the wedding ceremony (as opposed to just twitching)

these last two changes also appeared in the digital projection version of the theatrical release, which was released at a later date and had more refined FX. Supposedly there are hundreds of invisible improvements but those last two are the only noticable changes.

ROTS DVD ommitted the wipe which transitions from Obi Wan to Anakin's burned hand clawing up the lava bank (i guess to show that he wasnt there for a really long time).
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