Behind The Squared Circle
General Discussion => Geekville => Topic started by: DocSavage on May 27, 2017, 11:43:10 PM
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Recently found out about these "high definition" fan versions of the original trilogy.
Basically, once it appeared there would never be an official release of the original trilogy in unaltered format fit for hd sets, some fans decided to make their own.
The most popular is a series called "Harmy's Despecialized", with all three films done by Harmy. What he does, is take most of what's available on blue ray, then splices in from other sources like the laserdisc versions available on the 2004 dvd sets, upscaling and doing his best to remaster them to match the hd content.
Obviously, there's going to be some quality differences no matter what, but the clips are either space battle or short scenes, so they blend in pretty well.
The alternative, called Silver Screen Edition, only covers episode IV, and involves a single source of film that's been cleaned frame by frame so it ends up looking much better then what you'd see on laserdisc or vhs. There's more grain then Harmy's version, and the color's are less saturated, but some consider it the more authentic version (Including Harmy himself, at least before his latest release where he used some of SSE's footage.)
Since this is a "grey area", I won't tell you how to get these, but they both look excellent on hd sets. If you wanted to introduce your kids/grandkids to Star Wars as you remember it, this is definately the way to do it imo (Or even just for nostalgia's sake.)
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Just one more fyi:
The Silver Screen Edition people managed to get a 35 mm copy of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and are working on that now.
Took over three years just to clean up A New Hope, so don't expect them anytime soon. (And imo, the episode IV is really the only movie that suffered from the special editions. Empire was better for it, and Jedi wasn't all that bad either.. Even the Jabba palace scene was meh,Jedi Rocks had comedy value.)
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This is something the "Re-Release The Original Trilogy" people have to understand. The original masters either don't exist, or are locked up in 20th Century Fox's dungeon.
In order to re-release the Original Trilogy, Disney would have to remaster prints owned by Fox. Fox owns the marketing rights.
There hasn't been a Disney Star Wars Saga Blu Ray Release. There's a reason for that. Every Classic Star Wars release has been Fox.
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Indeed. That's how Lucas got his funding, by promising Fox exclusive rights forever for the first film, and for a very very long time for the second and third.
Lucas still probably could have done better then the "extras" from the laserdisc sets, though. At least upscaled and re-did the aspect on them or something, so they looked watchable on widescreen sets..