Star Wars - Limited Edition

[ffutures]

In a discussion of laserdiscs a couple of days ago I mentioned that while the laserdisc of Star Wars was (for a long time) the only way to see the original film without "improvements," there had been one DVD release. nojay asked for more details:

Star Wars A New Hope Limited Edition
Bar code 5039036028288
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Wars-IV-Limited-Edition/dp/B000FMH8UI

Mine has a cover sticker (not shown on the picture on Amazon) that reads "Limited Time Only Includes The Digitally Remastered Movie Plus the Original Theatrical Version"

Disk 1 is the new "improved" version with various commentaries.

On disc 2 you get the "Original Theatrical Version" which is fairly obviously a transfer from laserdisc - it's letterboxed 4:3 format. The quality is quite good, they've obviously gone to some trouble to clean it up, but that's what it is. The title is given as "Star Wars" not "A New Hope" and Han shoots first. It's also four minutes shorter because there's no CGI Jabba, no fireworks parties, etc.

Considering how easy it would have been to upscale this to the width of a 6:9 screen it's fairly obvious that Lucas really doesn't want people to prefer the original version. But he's the director, I guess he gets to make that call.

There are similar sets for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Comments

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

I have a vague feeling I've only seen the original version, never seen the upgrade. Saw it lots of times in the year or so when it came out, but never seem to have had the enthusiasm to see it since. (And I've never seen the episodes 1-3 films, either.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The changes do NOT improve it. Really don't blame you for not liking 1-3, they're crap.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

I can hardly claim to not like 1-3, as I've never seen them. I have no opinion of them whatsoever. :-)

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

In the world of Star Wars fan edits there was a fascinating project recently by fans to try to recreate a clean HD version of the original theatrical Star Wars film using a wide variety of sources, one of which, for some shots was the laser disc version. They took it quite to extremes, even re-processing the Blu-Ray version to get the colour balance back more like the original, cutting in fragments from the special effects DVDs, re-scanning 35mm stills, and even creating custom mattes to cover some of the CGI Special Edition elements from individual shots. It's called the "Despecialized Edition".

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing this does not have Lucas approval!

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

You would be correct in this assumption. Though Lucasfilm does have a very open attitude to fan films, as long as they are totally non-commercial and recognise the copyright, I think this is not what they had in mind with that policy. I would love to see a copy of the fabled recut version of the Star Wars prequels into a single 85 minute film that the actor Topher Grace did.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good idea, especially if they eliminate JaJa Binks!