Remastered original Star Wars trilogy

[CharlesInCharge]

I grew up on Star Wars and find it to me one of the most culturally signifcant works in cinema. Sadly, the originals are unobtainable commercially and Lucas has vandalized his own masterpieces. I really do not like the fact Lucas tampered with these masterpieces, and the originals have been unobtainable. I find the tampered with versions difficult to watch, and remove the enjoyability. I was thankful to accidentally stumble upon the Harmy fan-created de-specialized versions which are free to download. Fans went thru painstaking efforts to create and restore the original prints, removing all the garbage "CGI" and fixing a lot of color issues. I've watched Episode IV so far, and it is incredibly well done. I'm including here the Wiki explanation, the Youtube 20 minute video detailing the work process, and the link to the download archives where you can locate all three in the first trilogy. I saved these to my computer hard drive and burned them to a DVD disk for future watching. I did not know this was a thing, but was a happy accident to find it.

Enjoy!

Harmy's Despecialized Edition - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ctechbob]

I have Blue Ray copies of the despecialized versions somewhere in my archive. Sitting right in front of my purchased copies that will probably never be watched again. The people that did the version I have did an excellent job with their editing. There's a few spots where the only footage available was SD, but all-in-all it is pretty seamless.

 

[Bobaloo22]

I still have my old VCR tapes.

 

[Ignatius]

How many of these are we going to have? I have the original VCR tapes and the THX tapes. There has been an insane amount of different variations of the original Star Wars trilogy produced on DVD, Bluray, etc and at this point I wish it would just all stop.

 

[Zaedock]

Han shot first.

 

[Hermann]

I still have my old VCR tapes.

Same here

 

[DwightFrye]

I like the Family Guy version better

 

[Ignatius]

Han shot first.

Greedo NEVER shot anything

 

[mk378]

Greedo NEVER shot anything

And if he had fired, he wouldn't have missed.

 

[PandaBear]

Interesting, how did they not get sued for copyright violation if they are free to watch?

 

[CharlesInCharge]

Yeah, the Greedo sceen where he shoots at Han makes absolutely no sense, and it's absurd that this skilled bounty hunter would miss stationary Solo from 5' away, and miss him by about 5'. It would only be explainable like a negligent discharge or something. It's one of the most poorly thought out, pointless additions that materially changes Solo's character. I absolutely hate that vandalism to the film.

Other scenes I don't care for is Jaba waiting for Solo at the Falcon. It makes no sense, in the context of "Jaba put a price on your head so large that every bounty hunter in the galaxy is looking for you..." and then minutes later Jaba and his crew of bounty hunters lets Solo go? It's another really poorly thought out scene, and the CGI did not date well either.

In ROTJ, there's some scenes I detest, notably the final scene with the ghosts of the 3 dead Jedis where they replaced the old Vadar with the young Vadar. It's yet another needless change, and the actor the played Vadar and his wonderful expression of gratitude is eliminated and replaced by that atrociously cast Vadar punk actor with a very blank look on his face.

These aren't the only changes, but overall Lucas did a bewildering dis-service to his masterpieces and what is more puzzling is that they don't capitalize on releasing the originals without the edits. They'd make millions of dollars overnight.

Interesting, how did they not get sued for copyright violation if they are free to watch?

The Wikipedia entry addressed this point.

 

[tshephard]

FWIW, I've read lots of traffic on this for years on LaserDisc forums.
What they call the "Faces" editions seem to be the best and truest, and no wear and tear.
(Large faces on cover - of Vader, Trooper, Yoda.)

 

[y_p_w]

How many of these are we going to have? I have the original VCR tapes and the THX tapes. There has been an insane amount of different variations of the original Star Wars trilogy produced on DVD, Bluray, etc and at this point I wish it would just all stop.

I've had several versions like the original CBS/Fox Home Video CV LaserDisc of Star Wars, then the later CLV THX versions from 20th Century Fox Home Video. I had a Blu-Ray version although Lucas stopped calling them "Special Editions" since he considered them definitive. There was also a ton of controversy

But there have been changes going on for years, like the renaming of the original Star Wars being renamed "Episode IV: A New Hope". When I got that 90s LaserDisc copy, there were some complaints that it was edited with C3PO talking when a display screen shows how to get to a location on the Death Star. Back then some claimed it was Lucas tinkering with something that wasn't there originally, but it was really that the audio wasn't properly placed in the first home video versions that people had seen in theaters.

The removal of the 20th Century Fox fanfare was really controversial. I'm pretty sure they put it back after Disney bought Fox Entertainment. Even when they put it back, the Lucasfilm intro takes up half the time, plus the 20th Century Fox intro uses a newer digital animation version and not the original.

There were little bits of tinkering going on even before the "Special Editions". George Lucas always thought of his work as unfinished, where he would refine it - mostly when effects technology got better.

 

[blupupher]

I did not know there was the complete Trilogy redo.
I have Episode IV download on an old hard drive somewhere from a few years ago that I enjoyed.
Need to look into these to see how they all look now.

I think some of the special effects/edits were not too bad, but some tinkering done was just too much (mostly the Mos Eisley scenes, all the "extras" when entering town, the Han/Greedo scene in the cantina and the whole Jabba scene, and then the replacing of Vader in part VI).

 

[Rand]

can someone highlight where to get these? I looked for 15min and gave up. I do "own"them on DVD and blu ray.. so I'm covered there.

 

[CharlesInCharge]

can someone highlight where to get these? I looked for 15min and gave up. I do "own"them on DVD and blu ray.. so I'm covered there.

If you follow the link in the original post it will take you there. Or google Harmy's despecialized, and you can find all 3 there in the archive.org site.

Here are the links for the three films and free downloads. Click on the little icon in the top right corner of each, and it takes you to the site.

 

[Rand]

Ah I guess something is busted on my end then. I'll check it out tomorrow.
on the download link I get a blank player that does nothing.