Star Wars - The Definitive Edit

[Borgholio]

When George Lucas came out with the Special Edition of Star Wars, it was a mixed blessing. On one hand, he updated many of the special effects and did it nicely. The Death Star battle, for instance, is much more engaging with updated effects. Fixing the 70's era optical matting is also a good thing. On the other hand, he also made several edits...a few of which were horribly done and attracted much criticism. The biggest one by far is changing the cantina scene so Greedo shot first. Not only did it mangle Han's character development, but it was shoddily done. Then there were also several other things such as Luke's color changing lightsaber and the pyrotechnic ring when the Death Star exploded.

So, I fixed it.

I ripped both the Special Edition and the Theatrical editions from DVD to my computer and used Windows Movie Maker to replace the botched scenes in the SE with the original ones. The aspect ratio doesn't quite match, the sound and picture quality is different, and since Lucas made small changes to the length of the musical score, the sound is a bit off where I made the cuts.

But my god...it's beautiful. I was able to keep the good stuff from the SE and mostly fix the shit parts.

Now I have to get to work on the other movies. TESB is ok, it doesn't have any bad scenes. ROTJ is going to be problematic due to the total reworking of the ending party scene...but I'll make it work somehow.

Now if only Disney will do the same in a far more professional fashion that I am able to do...

[mr friendly guy]

I could have sworn someone was doing this already and had a downloadable site.

[Darth Lucifer]

It sounds to me like you're using the GOUT (George's Original Unaltered Trilogy) bonus DVD from the 2006 re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD which would explain the drop in quality you describe above. That version of the films was created using the same master as the LaserDisc verson and therefore inherited all of its problems such as aliasing, motion smearing from digital noise removal, faded colors as well as being in a non-anamorphic format.

If you can find the fan-made De-specialized edition on the internet, that would be a better source for original SW footage. Because the only official release of the unaltered trilogy is, unfortunately, still the GOUT bonus DVD's from 2006 with all of their flaws and imperfections. Due to forum TOS, I can't tell you specifically how and where to get the De-specialized edition, but it's not difficult to come across.

[Borgholio]

I could have sworn someone was doing this already and had a downloadable site.

Me too, but doing it this way is considered fair use, since I know my ISP monitors piracy and such.

It sounds to me like you're using the GOUT (George's Original Unaltered Trilogy) bonus DVD from the 2006 re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD which would explain the drop in quality you describe above. That version of the films was created using the same master as the LaserDisc verson and therefore inherited all of its problems such as aliasing, motion smearing from digital noise removal, faded colors as well as being in a non-anamorphic format.

Yeah I figured that was it. I'm not really disappointed in the results to be honest. It's the principle of the thing afterall. :

[NecronLord]

Wrong forum. Moved.