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Return of the Jedi DVD Detailed Changes
JSDopefish writes "The DVD news site DVDanswers.com is back with its final installment (3 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. Chris has screen captures from the original, the 1997 remaster, and the 2004 DVD versions, plus some audio clips for you to check out. One of the best lists of changes, mostly because of the pictures. Some of the changes listed here are The Sarlacc monster, Lightsaber consistency (again), as well as new things like even more celebrations added to the end, and an appearance by Hayden Christensen. There is an existing Part 1 covering A New Hope, and a Part 2 that covers The Empire Strikes back as well."
I believe the official answer to this is because Lucas wanted to represent the Jedi Spirit as they where when they died. Since Christiansen was young when he went over to the Dark Side the younger version was put in. That's why Obi Wan isn't represented by Ewan McGregor.
Chewie does not get a medal. Come on, George. Can a Wookie get a medal?
A very good job going over each scene, describing the differences and a short opinion as to like/dislike.
His review should be the first place people go to when deciding whether to buy the 2004 release.
Of course, I still haven't seen the second prequel but then the ads didn't impress me that much so maybe I'm not missing anything.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Chess_the_cat. Banned. Again.
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Ok.. so you took away some of the content and added more advertisements? That's a great way to STILL GET SLASHDOTTED.
If your site's dead, you don't get ad revenue.
Not at all. I work with Mal who authors the DVDanswers site. The server is mighty busy at the moment, but hes cleverly made the code automatically switch over to the lower bandwidth, non-dynamic, advert laiden version when the traffic increases beyond a particular threshold.
When your site gets slashdotted 3 times in a couple of months you're prompted to take such measures.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
One question about those. Were the movies touched up at all for the laserdisc? I've seen those and in my old VHS copy I could see through parts of the speeders on Hoth, as in looking from the cockpit if it flew by a walker you could see the legs of the walker right through the bar at the side of the window. Also in space I could usually see colored boxes around the Tie Fighters and probably other space ships. In the rips from the laserdiscs I don't see any of that.
Contentwise it is original though.
What you're supposed to feel is an iresistable desire to run and get your parents to buy you some merchandising.
If only Lucas hadn't made the mistake of getting a real director to make the second/fifth one, no one would be confused into thinking these were movies rather than adverts.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
The first time I saw it in the theatre, I most distinctly remember Han saying "trust me" to Lando when he was about to shoot (as Han was recovering from hibernation sickness and was blind up until this point). I remember this because by this time in Harrison Ford's career, that line had become something of a trademark for him (sorta like Schwartzenegger's "I'll be back" line).
The second time I saw it in the theatre, and in fact every time I saw it in the theatre after that, the line was changed to a not entirely confidence inducing line of "It's all right, I can see a lot better now." Again, this struck me distinctly because of the association I had made with Harrison for to the "Trust me" line.
When I bought Jedi on VHS, Han said the "I can see a lot better now" line. Yet when I bought the remastered version on VHS (still original), several years later, the line was back to "Trust me".
Then when I saw saw the "Special edition" in the theatre, the line was again, "Trust me". It was "Trust me" every time I saw it in the theatre.
When I bought the VHS of the special edition, the line was again, suddenly back to the "I can see a lot better now" version.
So... I dunno what the heck is going on, and I probably never will... I'll just sit back and enjoy the story anyways.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'