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."

Comments

Cost Benefit

[erick99]

These changes seem like they would be time consuming and quite expensive. Does the studio recover these costs in new sales of the updated DVD? Or, does Lucas do this partly for the art?

Re:Cost Benefit

[nadamsieee]

It's not for the art. George Lucas is all about the money and his ego. I submit two choice quotes from an AP/Yahoo! article mentioned previously on Slashdot:

Money:

AP: Why did you change your mind and decide to put the original three movies out on DVD now? Lucas: Just because the market has shifted so dramatically. A lot of people are getting very worried about piracy. That has really eaten dramatically into the sales. It really just came down to, there may not be a market when I wanted to bring it out, which was like, three years from now. So rather than just sit by and watch the whole thing fall apart, better to bring it out early and get it over with.

Ego:

AP: Do you pay much attention to fan reactions to your choices? Lucas: Not really. The movies are what the movies are. ... The thing about science-fiction fans and "Star Wars" fans is they're very independent-thinking people. They all think outside the box, but they all have very strong ideas about what should happen, and they think it should be their way. Which is fine, except I'm making the movies, so I should have it my way.

Episodes IV through VI were great because either somebody else directed them or George wasn't fat headed enough at that time to always get his way. Watch the behind-the-scenes making of the special editions and you will see a whole lot George-ass-kissing-yes-men.

Re:Cost Benefit

[HTH NE1]

The most egregious [changes] in my opinion is Greedo shooting first.... If it really is about the rating of the movie, I wish he'd just say that from the horse's mouth.

MPAA ratings may have also been a factor in the shooting of imperials and why some show the impact flash and others don't. The site claims there's inconsistency. I think there is consistency: the impacts are only removed for the characters who weren't wearing body armor.

So it's as if they were told they can show armor evaporating in a flash of light, but not flesh. So you get left with the implied searing flesh and not the (FX-simulated) sight of it.

Granted, I haven't watched my box set yet to see if my theory is correct.

Still, even if it is the MPAA restricting him in theaters, he could have restored it for an unrated DVD "director's cut" release. (Although that release might be kept out of Wal*Mart.)

I boycotted Star Wars DVD Release

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for a long rant... It will probably be modded down in no time, just because it is not a trendy thing to say here, but what the hell: I boycotted Star Wars DVD Release -- for an entire week.

Why? What's to boycott? Isn't "Star Wars" good old fashioned sci-fi? Harmless fun? Some people call it "eye candy" -- a chance to drop back into childhood and punt your adult cares away for two hours, dwelling in a lavish universe where good and evil are vividly drawn, without all the inconvenient counterpoint distinctions that clutter daily life.

Got a problem? Cleave it with a light saber! Wouldn't you love -- just once in your life -- to dive a fast little ship into your worst enemy's stronghold and set off a chain reaction, blowing up the whole megillah from within its rotten core while you streak away to safety at the speed of light? (It's such a nifty notion that it happens in three out of four "Star Wars" flicks.)

One of the problems with so-called light entertainment today is that somehow, amid all the gaudy special effects, people tend to lose track of simple things, like story and meaning. They stop noticing the moral lessons the director is trying to push. Yet these things matter.

By now it's grown clear that George Lucas has an agenda, one that he takes very seriously. After four "Star Wars" films, alarm bells should have gone off, even among those who don't look for morals in movies. When the chief feature distinguishing "good" from "evil" is how pretty the characters are, it's a clue that maybe the whole saga deserves a second look.

Just what bill of goods are we being sold, between the frames?

- Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.
- "Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.
- Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.
- True leaders are born. It's genetic. The right to rule is inherited.
- Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.

That is just the beginning of a long list of "moral" lessons relentlessly pushed by "Star Wars." Lessons that starkly differentiate this saga from others that seem superficially similar, like "Star Trek." (We'll take a much closer look at some stark divergences between these two sci-fi universes below.)

Above all, I never cared for the whole Nietzschian Übermensch thing: the notion -- pervading a great many myths and legends -- that a good yarn has to be about demigods who are bigger, badder and better than normal folk by several orders of magnitude. It's an ancient storytelling tradition based on abiding contempt for the masses -- one that I find odious in the works of A.E. Van Vogt, E.E. Smith, L. Ron Hubbard and wherever you witness slanlike super-beings deciding the fate of billions without ever pausing to consider their wishes.

Wow, you say. If I feel that strongly about this, why just a week-long boycott? Why see the latest "Star Wars" film at all?

Because I am forced to admit that demigod tales resonate deeply in the human heart.

In "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," Joseph Campbell showed how a particular, rhythmic storytelling technique was used in almost every ancient and pre-modern culture, depicting protagonists and antagonists with certain consistent motives and character traits, a pattern that transcended boundaries of language and culture. In these classic tales, the hero begins reluctant, yet signs and portents foretell his pre-ordained greatness. He receives dire warnings and sage wisdom from a mentor, acquires quirky-but-faithful companions, faces a series of steepening crises, explores the pit of his own fears and emerges triumphant to bring some boon/talisman/victory home to his admiring tribe/people/nation.

By offering valuable insights into this revered storytelling tradition, Joseph Campbell did indeed shed light on common spiritual traits that seem shared by all human bein

Re:I boycotted Star Wars DVD Release

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I was with this up until this point:

But then, in "Return of the Jedi," Lucas takes this basic wisdom and perverts it, saying -- "If you get angry -- even at injustice and murder -- it will automatically and immediately transform you into an unalloyedly evil person! All of your opinions and political beliefs will suddenly and magically reverse. Every loyalty will be forsaken and your friends won't be able to draw you back. You will instantly join your sworn enemy as his close pal or apprentice. All because you let yourself get angry at his crimes."

Not WILL- MIGHT. Examples abound- The Bolshevik revolution is my favorite expample. Human rebels have a tendency to imitate the worst in what they are fighting against- WWII is another example. A primary feature of facism was the joining together of governmental and corporate power to oppress the citizenry- and here in the United States we created the Military-Industrial Complex to fight the Nazis, which eventually grew up to oppress the citizenry.

In other words, getting angry at Adolf Hitler will cause you to rush right out and join the Nazi Party? Excuse me, George. Could you come up with a single example of that happening? Ever?

Not quite right- more that getting angry at Adolf Hitler will cause you to rush out, create a military industrial complex, and then eventually create the House Unamerican Activities Comittee to silence the voices that are complaining by labeling them "communists". It happened. Right here in the United States. George W. Bush himself is the inheritor of Adolf Hitler's fascism- through a lot of twists and turns.

I agree with everything else you had to say- but like your book The Postman you irk me with the stuff you did not know. (The Postman irked me because I was going to school in Klamath Falls at the time- and I knew you got the order of towns on Hwy 58 completely fouled up). Oakridge is EAST of Springfield, damnit).

Re:I boycotted Star Wars DVD Release

[Rakarra]

But then, in "Return of the Jedi," Lucas takes this basic wisdom and perverts it, saying -- "If you get angry -- even at injustice and murder -- it will automatically and immediately transform you into an unalloyedly evil person! All of your opinions and political beliefs will suddenly and magically reverse. Every loyalty will be forsaken and your friends won't be able to draw you back. You will instantly join your sworn enemy as his close pal or apprentice. All because you let yourself get angry at his crimes."

I disagree with David's interpretation here fairly strongly. It's been some time since I've last seen the movies, but my recollection was not that anger and hatred simply switched you over to the dark side, but that acting through it hurt you as well as the ones that you strike down. The emperor was pleased that he could feel hatred inside Luke, but did that instantly make Luke evil? No.. the emperor was constantly urging him to follow that hatred, to be spurned to violence because of it. Essentially to let that fear and hatred become dominant in him. That might not instantly turn him into the next Vader, as Anakin's off-screen killing spree didn't suddenly switch all his allegiances either.. but the idea is that such actions from those motivations damage the spirit, making it the next time even easier. A slippery slope arguement.

There are a number of ideas that David scoffs at that are fundamentally Christian too.. the idea that a good action for the wrong reasons is still damaging, the idea that even the worst of people can find complete redemption if he truly wishes to change, to come to the light. These are hardly "evil" ideas, and David goes a little overboard in his desire to paint Lucas as a villain for the ideas of Star Wars.

Re:It worked!

[Anonymous Coward]

imagine Picasso rushing into the museeum to add little bits here and there just because ...

Its not unheard of. Some artists are notorious for trying to do this.

Missed Change in Episode V: ESB

[Jtheletter]

I preordered the DVDs, and while I did go straight home and watch them all I haven't scrutinized them for every change. However I did notice that one of the big "errors" from the originals still remains in Empire Strike Back.

In the fight scene between Vader and Luke in the Carbonite Chamber, after Luke turns of his saber and jumps off the platform to follow Vader he lands on a trampoline (since the set platform was ~10 ft high) and when he rebounds his head reappears in the shot. Surprisingly Lucas missed editing out Luke's head as he bounces back into frame.

I find it hard to believe Lucas didn't have a check list of fixes for the re-remastering; both personal, and culled from the endless fan forums that at this point have probably documented every mistake there is.
Oversight? Or perhaps a little piece of nostalgia left in there on purpose?

Re:To be honest

[Morrigu]

I realized this myself 8 years ago.

Second year at college, first day back, and I was setting up my room in the honors dorm. I got a tiny little single-bed room, but it was all mine. Threw up an Star Wars Episode IV and an Indiana Jones poster on the wall, sat down, hooked up my PC, and was happily downloading crap off the 'Net or wasting time on IRC or something.

Two new freshmen guys come down the hall, chattering back and forth, all excited. They set up shop four doors down on the right, and then one of them sticks their head in my room: "Hey! You're a Star Wars fan too?!"

I grunt or nod or something, a little taken aback by his excitement. At that point I had nearly forgotten the Star Wars poster hanging on my wall. His roomie comes by at that point and sticks his head in too, all smiling and happy.

"Who's your favorite character from the movies?" the first one asks. I think for a second, not quite sure since it had been a little bit since I sat down and watched all of 'em on VHS (maybe the previous Christmas or something), and come up with "Han Solo, I think."

The first one looks kind of disappointed - what a pedestrian choice! - but the other guy chimes in, "Oh, I like Greedo. And Muftak!" Greedo I recognized, but Muftak? Who the hell is Muftak? He kept grinning at me like some sort of deranged hyena, waiting for a response.

Realizing that I was talking to people who had spent more time involved with the movies than I spent on, say, my senior-year Computer Science class in high school, I nodded, said something polite, and smiled. They moved on, and I knew deep down that I wouldn't be winning the award for Biggest Star Wars Fan in Thomas Hall that year, despite the cardboard stand-up Yoda I still hadn't unpacked.

Re:site not found

[flosofl]

a parsec is 3.26 lightyears, and thus a measurement of distance...

Over the years I have thought long and hard about the Kessel Run statement in the movie (it always bugged me). The only semi-satisfactory explanation I could come up with was this:

Since the Millenium Falcon mostly travels in Hyperspace, the only real space it travels in would be too and from jump points and planets. I am making a HUGE assumption that in the SW universe you can't make arbitrary jumps from point A to Z. You could argue that he discovered a highly efficient jump pattern that required only 12 parsecs of travel in real space. Therefore, this is more a testament to his skill as a Navigator than how fast the ship is.

It would make sense... but, if I remember correctly, the statement is made reagrding how fast the ship is. While the trip would obviously be faster (because its covering less real space), the comment is not about the efficient navigational plotting but the inherent speed of the Falcon.

Damn! Now its back to bugging me again.