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The STAR WARS Saga (on blu-ray)
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DougRed4
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Joined: 18 Jan 2013
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Location: Seattle, WA

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2022 5:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Couldn't agree more with your assessment: I also don't get why some minor little thing makes one consider throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I would prefer that he didn't monkey with a few minor things, too, but the overall cleaned-up graphics and stunning visuals more than make up for these minor quibbles.
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Whill
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Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10286
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2022 7:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DougRed4 wrote:
Couldn't agree more with your assessment: I also don't get why some minor little thing makes one consider throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I would prefer that he didn't monkey with a few minor things, too, but the overall cleaned-up graphics and stunning visuals more than make up for these minor quibbles.

The only things I strongly oppose is Greedo getting a shot off. Han shooting first helps the drama of him later leaving the Rebels and dramatically returning to save Luke and make the Death Star's destruction possible. But it only hurts first time viewers, which is why when I showed ANH to my son for his first time, I showed him the blu-ray version but live edited out Greedo's shot. After the movie, I used parental guidance and we talked about the implications of Han shooting first. Greedo's shot has no effect on people who have already seen the movie and know Han returns at the end. While the "Han shot first" movement is a valid complaint about the edit for first time viewers, the forefront of the movement were a bunch of winers who had already seen the movie and made it much bigger deal than it should have been. Greedo's shot is really the only problematic edit Lucas made.

For me, the "Whatever, George" edits are only a handful. "Jedi Rocks," adding more rocks to Artoo's hiding place, changing Obi-Wan's dragon call, re-dubbing Boba Fett's voice, etc. These aren't necessary and may even be slight negatives at worst, but don't really have any significant impact to the films. The 4K version of ANH, which includes unfinished edits Lucas was making when he sold SW to Disney, added "Ma klounkee!" which was good for a meta-laugh but really unnecessary.

Quibbling over the above things is throwing out the Baby Luke with the bacta water, for sure. All the rest of Lucas' edits in all versions (SE, DVD, blu-ray, and 4K) were clearly improvements I am thankful for. It all started with the Special Editions 25 years ago.
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ThrorII
Lieutenant Commander
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Joined: 12 Jul 2019
Posts: 186

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2022 8:08 pm    Post subject: Re: The Star Wars Special Editions at 25 Years Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Whill wrote:
Classic Trilogy ~ Version Release History (last 4 versions)

1. Special Editions (VHS & laserdisc 1997)
2. DVD Versions (2004, often erroneously referred to as "Special Editions")
3. Original Theatrical Versions (adapted to DVD 2006)
4. Blu-Ray Versions (2011)...





The Star Wars Special Edition rereleases were in the theater 25 years ago. I thought it was awesome to be able to see these movies in the theater again (a few times each), since I had only seen each of the original releases exactly one time each in my childhood. And this time it was with my friends. And this time, it was not long after R&E came out and theses re-releases had an RPG sourcebook companion that was also full-color glossy like R&E. And it lead to the start of a new SW D6 campaign with new players, my first with the R&E combat rounds and movement rule updates.

I loved most of the film updates. I loved them adding the Yavin hanger scene with Biggs, which makes his death more meaningful. I loved the addition of Jabba to ANH since he is one of my favorite Star Wars characters. It's wasn't great that he was rendered in Nintendo 64 graphics or that the practical filmed elements weren't cleaned up, but hey, the first Jabba was a 6-man muppet. Replacing "Lapti Nek" with "Jedi Rocks" in Jabba's Palace was a head-scratcher, and of course the infamous addition of Greedo's unnecessary shot was stupid. I felt the general fan reaction to these things was very disappointing because these were small fractions of otherwise still great films. I sincerely questioned the fandom of these people having toddler meltdowns over 1% of classic films being different (even years later). If teeny things could ruin the whole movie, how much could they have liked the movie in the first place?

The most important update for me was the Battle of Yavin having all the slow moving shots of fighters being replaced with dynamic CG fighters. The best scene in the best movie was very much improved. This alone made it worth the price of admission. Greedo couldn't possibly ruin something so awesome. But more important to any updates, was getting to see any version of these again in the theater.

Of course, these wouldn't be the final versions of the films. I've haven't watched any Special Edition since getting the DVD versions in 2004, but I still have my SE Trilogy VHS box set for sentimental reasons – It was my CT for 7 years of my fandom. Since I had already seen the OT on VHS 100 times by the time the SEs came out, it was nice to have something slightly different to watch in those 7 years (in addition to a couple new SW movies in that timeframe).


I for the most part agree with you on all of this. I think if the Ep. 4 "special edition" changes had not 'added' to any of the Tatooine scenes, it would have been perfect. I think all of the changes to Empire were great (although I do miss "Old Boba's" voice....I only object to the "special edition" Jabba dance number in RotJ, as well as the removal of "Nyub-yub" as the ending song.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14022
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2022 3:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Since i seem to have bad luck with blueray, so far BOTH players i have had over the past year, seemed to crap out, on reading / recognizing blue ray disks, though DVDs still play, i guess i will not be able to ever enjoy any of the spec stuff, that comes with blueray...
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