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Detailed Empire Strikes Back DVD Change List
JSDopefish writes "The DVD news site DVDanswers.com is back with Part 2 (of 3) of the series by Chris Gould showing in detail the changes between some the various iterations of the Star Wars original trilogy movies. In Part 2, Chris covers The Empire Strikes Back, showing such important changes as the color of Han Solo's jacket before he's frozen in carbonite, as well as other things like the change in actor for the Emperor, and more on light saber colors. Chris has screen captures from the original, the 1997 remaster, and the 2004 DVD versions, plus some audio clips for you to check out. There is an existing Part 1 covering A New Hope, and a forthcoming Part 3 covering Return of the Jedi." Very detailed synopsis. Worth a read if... well, you're me.
Does Boba get swallowed (by the Sarlacc) first???
The first story from that site with their Ep IV breakdown killed the server before a handful of comments were up. Noooo... let's try it again with another link to the Ep V review! Surely it'll be better this time around!
Sheesh...
Trolling is a art,
http://www.schnittberichte.com/sw.php Although this is in german, the pictures speak for themselves. They also have Episode 1 as well as Episode 4/5/6.
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
I feel a great disturbance in the force, as if suddenly a web server had thousands of requests, cried out, and then went silent.
Three minutes and the server has already been blow to bits by the Death Star-like fanboys (and fangirls) of Slashdot.
Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
I blame MST3K
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Site's been slash-elipsized ("/....").
sigs, as if you care.
I read the first part and am (hopefully) loading the second one. To me, it's fascinating, as many of the changes they make, I never would have noticed. I never really stopped and thought too much about lightsaber colors or the funky shadows below a landspeeder. And honestly, had I not read all the vehement discussions on the ramifications of Greedo shooting first, I might have passed over that change. (Well, not entirely... at least on the first remake, his head looks really weird when he dodges...) By opening my eyes to things I might not have noticed before, I think these articles are serving a valuable purpose.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
So apparently the entire movie was replaced with a splash screen?
Basically, the baddest changes occured with Boba Fett's voice now dubbed by Temura Morrison. Also some changes in dialogue for Vader that helped with continuity, plus an extended scene with the Emperor.
Visual changes include details shots of the Wampa, Cloud City exteriors, and a scene of Vader heading back to the Star Destroyer recycled from Outtakes from RoTJ.
... that this topic will be 95% filled with people complaining about Lucas.
Before - After
At last, Lucas made a change that makes sense. He fixed a continuity problem. Han Solo's jacket appears and reappears in different shots before they freeze him in carbonite. (Neat trick since he was wearing handcuffs.)
i suspect that my definition of "important" seems to vary considerably from that of the submitter.
I really like this guy's work. He's spot on regarding the far inferior delivery of lines with the new and improved Boba voice.
/shrug
One disagreement I have with him though: the line change for Vader from "Bring my shuttle" to "Alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival" was a bad idea.
I know it doesn't bother him much, but I think that the original line and delivery better contributed to Vader's character arc, as the voice always sounded morose to me...like he was either angry with Luke or himself, and the curtness of the line was appropriate if that was the case.
Karma: Non-existant. Due mostly to the fact that you smell funny and nobody likes you.
"showing such important changes as the color of Han Solo's jacket before he's frozen in carbonite"
OK, it's official: Someone is in desperate need of a girlfriend.
Tip for first date - don't wear the Y-Wing pilot uniform, try a t-shirt. Also Yoda-speak does not make ladies hot. Unless they're into small green muppets. In which case send me their phone number.
Empire was directed by Irvin Kirschner, not Lucas, so he'll take the blame, or rather credit. Actually in my opinion, Empire is the only one of the whole series that is actually good. Not coincidentally, it is also the least re-edited of the originals. The acting and dialogue didn't suck, the use of color and light was far more sophisticated, and the plot had many twists and turns without being overly cliched.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
1 | 2
Shocking stuff how they could miss that while redoing it almost frame by frame, and now all my childhood memories of that creature looking real have been ruined. I hate you George Lucas :(
I know I posted the same thing when the story for a New Hope came out here on Slashdot...but if they make repetitive front page stories, I get repetitive posts.
a nges.html
Here's another site that has detailed changes as well that I was reading a few WEEKS ago.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews3/starwarsch
I was thinking, maybe George Lucas can use his magic movie editing powers for good instead of evil.
For example, instead of doing idiotic things like making Greedo shoot first or inserting Jabba the hut into a scene that was rightfully left out from the original Episode IV, perhaps Mr Lucas can remove Jarjar Binks entirely from Episodes I and II.
Or maybe he can graft some character onto Anakin Skywalker in Episode II.
You listening George??
Here we see the original approach to Cloud City, as the Millennium Falcon, flanked by a pair of clod cars, makes its way towards the floating city.
I want my flying cars you insensitive clods!
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Now that we know the changes, can we back this one out?
Am I the only one who thinks the Wampa (ice creature) looks an awful lot like the abonimable snowman from the children's Christmas special?
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
"maybe George Lucas can use his magic movie editing powers for good instead of evil."
He could, except that he's evil.
What we need now is for his apprentice to throw him over the edge into the Death Star 2.0's core, and restore balance to the Force.
But the clod cars weren't insensitive enough...
Karma: Good. I'm hoping in the same way as pizza is 'good'...
Lucas is a posterboy for anti-corporate success, having financed Ep. V & VI himself, so he could maintain his artistic vision. That's pretty cool in my book. There are many similarities (in spirit, mostly) to OSS and blogging culture, if you think about it. There was a system in place that did not make sense to someone who deeply loves his craft. Lucas had the drive to do it differently, overcoming great obstacles. He hired SFX guys laid off by the corporate crew that took over the studios some years before, and gave the whole industry a new perpective. He fought the law and _he_ won.
Lucas looks at his craft much like a technology-type, (Google-Lucky ILM & non-linear editing) so why shouldn't he be able to release version 1.2? He can do whatever he wants, it's _his_ story, so only he can decide when it's done. Go buy the original off eBay or something if it irks you, or don't buy the reworked films.
Lots of people bitch and moan about the changes, (some posts are quite hilarious, though). But, before you jump on the smack-the-changer-of-the-story train, stop and think about it. Maybe there's some inspiration in the story of it all.
Yes, I think that the wisdom of William Shatner applies to this story (s/TV show/movie/g):
Original version:
"Join me Luke, we can rule the galaxy"
DVD version
"Get a life. Move out of your parents basement. You've turned a movie from 1977 into a colossal waste of time"
You'd think after being slashdotted the last time that they would figure out that they were going to be slashdotted on parts 2 and 3 and get a bigger server....
They are 0 for 2 right now. What are the odds that they'll get their problems resolved for part 3?
My money is going on 0 for 3.
What's a sig? Pete Brubaker
In the original release of the movie, when Luke threw himself to his apparent doom after his duel with Darth Vader, he did so silently and with dignity. You can listen to this scene by clicking here. For the Special Edition release of the film, a scream was added as Luke fell. You can hear the new sound effect by clicking here. ...I'm of the opinion that it sounds terrible. Thankfully the scream was removed for the 2004 DVD release.
Interesting information and well researched, but the writing is a tad amateur. Above is one humourous example.
I'm sure that on the 23,127th frame the shadow behind the guy standing 3/4 of the way across the frame is now casting a shadow that has a slightly bigger blue component than in the original movie. But I may have misremembered it.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Anyway, I'm still going to be thrilled to have the "original" trilogy on DVD, my VHS copy is wearing out!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Now I have to sulk about how he is so heroic in every way and I can never be a good Jedi like him and will have to turn to the dark side instead.
I think that this pretty much says it all.
haven't you heard of adblock?
For the love of God... no more Star Wars...
Let's stop talking about Star Wars while I still think it's still good.
No more changes, no more new edits, no more extra scenes. I just want my Star Wars in plain old vanilla flavour!
Oh, and I think CG is a terrible replacement to actual live models and puppets.
Live forever, or die trying.
"the line change for Vader from "Bring my shuttle" to "Alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival" was a bad idea."
Agreed, for the reasons you mention. Also, he's freakin' DARTH VADER! "Alert my star destroyer for my arrival"? Yeah right. His entire staff would be like terrified meerkats passing the alarm, constantly alerting each and every station sector whenever Vader was about to even pass by, much less arrive at his destination.
You think Patton ever said, "Alert my carrier for my arrival"? You think Genghis Khan ever said "Alert my Horde for my arrival"?
Lucas has the dialog skills of the Zero Wing translation team.
I'd say the worst change pointed out there is the re-dubbing of Boba Fett. The new voice sounds horrible; it's weak and delivered badly. Shit, I could do a better job. The accent doesn't work, either. With the original voice, he didn't have to say too much because when he did speak, it had the tone of "F with me and you'll regret it before you know it." The voice was the main thing, it made you feel the character, and it got bastardized.
The new voice makes me think "WTF is Vader listening to this wimp for?" whereas before Boba Fett sounded like someone who was as equally badass as Vader.
this is my sig
A friend of mine is a lead compositor at ILM. He worked on the Special Edition of Empire, and did the Cloud City scenes (among other things). To make some of the interior shots more realistic, he added slight reflections on the windows. He showed it to Lucas, who said thoughtfully,
'Lose the reflections. In Cloud City, they use force fields to keep the bugs out.'
The Boba Fett action figure was available in some Kenner promotion before The Empire Strikes Back came out. It was hyped as a new character from the next Star Wars movie and it had some ridiculous requirement (mail order only with 5 barcodes from other figures plus money or something like that).
While I may not recall the details of that merchandising campaign well, it WAS Lucas or his licensees that hyped Boba Fett as a big character before the movie came out. I think that he's being a bit coy by saying he didn't expect Boba Fett to be a popular character. Maybe he's telling the truth though, maybe the sales indicated a low interest in this guy and so Lucas had his part minimized in the movie. Who knows.