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."

Comments

RoTJ v2.0 ??

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Or is this still a sub-release?

Hated End Part

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst change by far is the adding of Hayden Christiansen to the 3 ghosts Luke sees at the end of the movie. Obi Wan didn't look like Ewan McGregor after he died, why did they make Anakin look like Hayden? Awful.

Re:Hated End Part

[Zog The Undeniable]

The corollary to that is that Darth Vader redeemed himself before he died (by heaving the Emperor into a big hole) and therefore he *should* appear as the Sebastian Shaw version of Anakin.

Re:Hated End Part

[ALeavitt]

Supposedly, the logic behind Anakin looking like Hayden Christiansen rather than Sebastian Shaw (who played the unmasked Anakin) is that the Jedi ghosts would appear as a light Jedi did at death. When Anakin became Darth Vader, the good Jedi who was Anakin was destroyed. Therefore, from a certain point of view, when Anakin "died" he looked like Hayden Christiansen, hence the ghost of Hayden.

Re:Hated End Part

[blowdart]

I believe the official answer to this is because Lucas wanted to represent the Jedi Spirit as they where when they died.

That may be the official answer, but of course we all know that the real answer is "Well we changed it because we can, and when we release an 'original' DVD set in a couple of years everyone will rush out and buy it again. Then Lucas will finally have enough money to get a custom made real doll shaped like jar jar."

Re:Hated End Part

[Liselle]

I usually post this comment as AC whenever /. covers Lucas and his treatment of the original trilogy, but today the mods can spend some points elsewhere. It's a quote from the introduction of Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley:

"Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address youself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.

Art also has its morality, and many of the rules of this morality are the same as, or at least analogous to, the rules of ordinary ethics. Remorse, for example, is as undesirable in relation to our bad art as it is in relation to our bad behaviour. The badness should be hunted out, acknowledged and, if possible, avoided in the future. To pore over the literary shortcomings of twenty years ago, to attempt to patch a faulty work into the perfection it missed at its first execution, to spend one`s middle age in trying to mend the artistic sins committed and bequeathed by that different person who was oneself in youth - all this is surely vain and futile. And that is why this new `Brave New World` is the same as the old one. Its defects as a work of art are considerable; but in order to correct them I should have to rewrite the book - and in the process of rewriting, as an older, other person, I should probably get rid not only of some faults of the story, but also of such merits as it originally possessed. And so, resisting the temptation to wallow in artistic remorse, I prefer to leave both well and ill alone and to think about something else."

Honestly, it requires no further commentary.

Re:Can you still get the original trilogy?

[Zog The Undeniable]

I believe there is a .torrent floating around that was ripped from the original laserdiscs, all ready for burning to DVD.

Re:Can you still get the original trilogy?

[nearlygod]

That's a great idea. How come no one else has asked for this? Does any one have Lucas' number?

What he doesn't notice.

[gowen]

That's quite a good run through but theres one thing he's missed. The reason all the vibrancy has been removed from the lightsabres is for added consistency ... with the dialogue.

The biggest change is...

[Xpilot]

...this time, Endor shoots first. Making the whole Rebel attack unnecessary. So to fill in for the gap, Lucas decided to put in an hour of digital dancing Ewoks, to make the film "more in line with the prequels"

Steal them...

[wickedj]

Seriously, I have half a mind to buy some bootleg DVDs of the original trilogy out of Hong Kong. If Lucas is intent on stealing my childhood, I might as well steal them back.

I understand his need for perfection. I like to go back and tweak old code I've written. But not if millions of people are already adore the originals. If I were him, I would have at least left the option to have the original cuts on the DVDs.

The Sarlacc

[10Ghz]

"Here we have a shot of Luke Skywalker standing over the Great Pit of Carkoon, nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc. The creature is basically a gigantic mouth, with rows of inwardly facing teeth and a number of sticky tentacles that it uses to snare unsuspecting prey."

Oh come on! It looks like an anus! You know it, and I know it!

Re:who cares

[aacool]

I wish Kevin Smith would do a DVD on the Star Wars DVD set - his riffs on Star Wars in his films are just marvelous

I know he's supposed to be making a Star Wars TV Series, but that still won't compare to thoughts on Contract Labor on the Death Star, Silent Bob trying to pick up the tape through the use of the force and so many other references.

Film-crit is a time-honored tradition - DVD-crit is more recent, and possibly debatable.

WHAT???

[julesh]

Here it is in all it's glory, complete with Gungans shouting 'Wesa free!'...

I could just about tolerate everything else he's done to it, but that's the limit.

Re:Return of the Slashdotted Server

[onion2k]

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.

you know you're cool when...

[torrents]

you participate in the slashdotting of a star wars site...

what's even worse is if you use that achievement as a pickup line...

The shadows are wrong

[Jim Hall]

I wish when they re-did ROTJ for the DVD release, someone at ILM noticed that the shadows are completely wrong on the Tatooine segment where Jabba's sail barge moves flys across the dunes.

Look at this photo

Note that on the sail barge, the light source is somewhere forward and to the left.

Look at the dunes in the background. The light source is clearly somewhere behind and to the left.

Well, I suppose Tattooine does have two suns. They're special - one sun only illuminates ships, the other only illuminates natural landscapes. :-)