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Detailed Changes In Star Wars DVD Release w/Pics
JSDopefish writes "DVD news site dvdanswers.com has written a pretty cool article on the changes in Star Wars: Episode IV. A list of changes is nothing new, but this version has detailed screenshots and comparisons between the 1977 original, the 1997 reissue, and the 2004 DVD version. He plans one for Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi, but they're not out yet."
The link in the story seems to be dead for me already...but here is another one that I was reading a few weeks ago, similar content.
a nges.html
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews3/starwarsch
George Lucas talks about this on the extras DVD. He says it was primarily to make them the movies they were supposed to be. So, I suppose you could say, it's for the art.
http://neokosmos.blogsome.com
But in 1977, there was no movie ratings, but now we do have them.
ummm... the ratings system was introduced in November 1, 1968. That's 9 years before Star Wars came out. At the time of Star Wars, however, there was no PG-13. Perhaps that is what you are thinking of.
Looks like google has cached the page for us.
I've been thinking.. and this is the 5th instance of this.. why can't Slashdot auto-Coralize the links that they use in the articles?
If $ARTICLE_SUMMARY has a URL in it, split the domain off, append .nyud.net:8090 to it, and then post it publically. Thats exactly what the NYU Distribution Network was designed for.
In this case, this would be:
http://www.dvdanswers.com.nyud.net:8090/index.php? r=0&s=8&c=28
trust me, it's not.
http://www.dvdanswers.com.nyud.net:8090/index.php? r=0&s=8&c=28
I believe most nerds have already googled for the cache but here it is.
Episode IV
Episode V
Episode VI
I'm not experienced on this topic at all. But, I believe you are allowed to excerpt certain portions of copyrighted works for the purposes of reviewing them. IE, you can quote books, but you can not take a whole chapter and claim it as your own. IE, you can show a couple 5 second clips of a movie while you criticize the movie. I think this comparison could easily fall under this category.
According to one of the DVD extra features, there were multiple remixes of the audio for the original feature. They tried to get theaters to upgrade to THX Audio, but weren't entirely successful - some theaters were in plain stereo, and many were just plain monaural.
Thus, they had to redo the audio track several times, and some small things were changed a bit from one version to the next. So it's quite possible that you couldn't hear a line or a sound effect as well in the version that went to laser disk as in the version that played at whatever theater you went to 50 times.
On the other hand, maybe you just imagined it. Can you give an example of a specific C3PO line you think was dropped?
I play Nerd-Folk!
A couple of years ago I was in Morocco. Not quite Third World, yet i was with a large group of 17-22 year olds and none had heard of Star Wars.
The looks we got whilst trying to demonstrate light sabres were priceless.
The most egregious in my opinion is Greedo shooting first. That could have easily been done in 1977, however, that wasn't the story as presented then. If it really is about the rating of the movie, I wish he'd just say that from the horse's mouth. I'd at least accept that, and then be angry with silly movie ratings board (along with the fact that I know Lucas would know how to schmooze his way past that if he tried).
The musical number and dance sequence in ROTJ could have easily been added then. No problem. It wasn't, probably for two reasons, one time was probably running out, and two nobody really likes it except for George.
You have to remember several things. First off, Lucas is famous for changing his tune on Star Wars movies. He's changed how many movies their were supposed to be. I've seen interviews where he claims it's supposed to be 6, and I've seen interviews where it's supposed to be 9. Both of them with Lucas being the one describing the original history. I trust George about as far as I think George can throw himself.
Second, this is the George Lucas who when DivX was still a viable option, said the original Star Wars trilogy would never ever be released to a standard DVD. It would only be released on the "pay per play" DivX system that was still around in 1995 and 1996 primarily supported by Circuit City. I decided on the day I found that out, I'd never ever pay for a Star Wars movie. I'd never pirate a copy. I'm still looking for a LaserDisc or VHS widescreen copy that I can use to create a new DVD from even if it's a home brew setup that uses a TV Tuner card. George Lucas uses Star Wars fans to make money, there's no other reason to decide to relase it on DivX and only on DivX. That ain't about art. It's my understanding that the movies we're pretty close to being released back then, but DivX collapsed as a collosal failure. Now he's bringing out the movies. The timing I'm not so sure why now. He's dumb as rocks if he things the DVD market is going to dry up.
I'd really like a widescreen copy of the original movies, as shown in the theatres. It was one of the greatest movies every made, and now it'll be lost to the sands of times. The movies that are out, aren't the movies that made it famous. This is what people lament about copyright. Lucas will probably successfully destroy all the known copies of the original movie. That's like losing the original manuscripts to Shakespear. They are part of the culture of a generation of people. I'd like to see them released if only to preserve them. It's not like we destroyed the original "King Kong" movies just because they look horrible. They are what they are. They should be preserved if only for historical purposes.
It's one thing to clean up the frames, and make the images look sharper. It's a whole different thing to add and remove scenes. To change scenes that defined charaters. I really don't care about the stuff that involves linking the original trilogy with the new episodes. I suppose if Lucas wants to act like they are all one big original coherent story that's his business. However, they weren't and aren't. For the most part, that stuff is in portions of the movie I really don't care about.
Kirby
Pretty much right, since you have to account for motion out there, nothing's static.
GL goes over this in the DVD extras and his point was that you couldn't simply go from point A to point B since you'd have to miss all the planets/stars/junk in the middle or run headlong into something at an enormous rate of speed.
So... his point was that the route between point A and point B might actually be a longer distance than the straightline distance. Han's pride was in having a navigational computer that could come up with a route that only covered 12 parsecs.
Apparently Han fires twice.
Just for the record, David Brin is a well known American author of science fiction. He is the winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and has been both a NASA consultant and a physics professor, known for his sharp criticisms of not only George Lucas and Star Wars, but science fiction at large. I personally find the above comment the most Insightful text about Star Wars I have ever read on Slashdot, certainly more worth reading than every +5 post in this story combined. I honestly think that moderating it as Troll is insulting and we can really do better than that. Is it Offtopic? It is more on-topic than anything, as it's the deepest and most interesting analysis of Star Wars I have ever read, which all of the intelligent answers seem to prove. Please keep that in mind while moderating. Thank you.
C3PO line you think was dropped?
On the regular VHS version that I have, when R2 pulls up the directions that obiwan will take to the tractor beam thing and the camera zooms to the video screen, C3PO explains what obiwan has to do. "the beam is powered by these three things, and if you take out one the beam will be disabled." But in the widescreen VHS version, that line isn't present.
Not a C3PO line, but in the scene where Adm Tark is told that there is a security alert in the detention area, Darth Vader is there and he says a couple of lines, but then stops talking and continues shaking his finger. It's clear there was more dialog there. This is easily explained though by the fact that all of vader's lines were dubbed.
1. On the DVD when the storm troopers come rushing into the control room that C-3P0 and R2-D2 are hiding in, one hits his head on the door as its rising and falls down. This was always a little blooper that made it in. Now there is a lound *thunk* sound, which had me rolling.
2. No one ever seems to complain about it, but i think the worst change made to the trilogy is in RotJ, Jabba's Palace, the singing and dancing scene. It was fine as it was, but the new song and dance routine with the cgi-creatures and backup singers makes me want to retch.
"They're butchering the classics. John Williams must be rolling over in his grave!"
in bed.
They also left the "Luke! Carrie!" bit from the celebration in ANH in there. I think lots of stuff was left like that for nostalgia's sake.
Actually, one of the books (supposedly canon) explains that the Kessel Run is a smuggling route which skirts close to "The Maw," a cluster of black holes. The closer one navigates to the black holes the greater the distortion of normal space, and the shorter the route turns out to be. I'm not a astrophysicist, and thus can't judge the story's plausibility, but it sure seemed like an entertaining explanation for what was originally just a mistake. :)
And I can't believe he didn't mention the changes to the musical score.
In some of the most dramatic moments (such as the Death Star run), the music is ramped down so it's barely audiable, in favour of the sound effects. This is due to the sound effect guy doing the final mix.
Also, all the music in ANH has the rear channels swapped. It's fine in ESB and ROTJ, but it's definitely wrong in ANH. Not a problem unless you're listening to it on your 5/7.1 system with some sense of where the instruments are on the sound stage. Then it just gives you a headache. There's no point in just swapping your rear channels over, since then all your sound effects are the wrong way round.
The worst thing is that although the channels are clearly wrong, Lucasfilm have stated this is a "deliberate creative decision".
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Well if you also make an assumption that hyperspace involves bending space then the falcon's ability to bend space to the point where a 12 parsec jump route is available would be impressive compared to other ships that can't bend space as efficiently.
While Captain Solo is known to make boastful claims that seem to defy the basic laws of space-time physics, in this particular case, an understanding of the mechanics of the Kessel Run illuminates this statistic.
The Kessel Run is a contest of speed and endurance for smugglers. Those who undertake it must deliver specified cargos (usually illicit in nature) to a series of divergently moving transport vessels. The smuggler must deliver the cargo before the transports wander out of the free trade lanes into restricted Imperial space.
Solo's record is impressive, since the transport vessels covered less than 12 parsecs of distance during his hurried run between them, a testament to his piloting and the speed of the Millennium Falcon.
There is more than one way to smuggle spice out of Kessel. According to one tale, Solo left out the middleman and ferried the stolen goods himself, skirting dangerously close to the Maw Cluster, a baffling congregation of black holes. In doing so, he shortened the distance for the run, achieving an impressive record of under 12 parsecs.
Using either methodology allows Solo's claim to stand, but there are many, including the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, who felt that the Corellian captain was just blowing hot air.
This guy just pasted this from here.