Special Editions: Yea Or Nay?

If you are looking at this pic and all you can think about is his mustache, we need to talk... I hadn't even noticed he was in the pic until you mentioned that

 

I would say I'am divided, but ist more like a 30/70, I dislike 70% of the changes.
I like some small minor changes, very near to say No.

 

I don't mind the special editions, but there are a few things that annoy, like vaders noooo, and that first jabba cg scene they added in to ANH, glad they redid that in a subseqaunt edition, looks more like the puppet now.

 

Most of the changes I don't care about. The new emperor in ESB for the 2004 blu-rays I liked. Vader yelling "NOOOO" I hated. Everything else I'm pretty neutral about.

 

I agree with the Vader NOOOOO!!! part they should have let him destroy the droids in the room with the force that's it. I thought the emperor in ROTJ was better than the one in TESB.

 

I think @alex is talking about Vader's "Noooooo!" at the end of ROTJ, when he throws the Emperor to the pit. It was added on the latest Blu-Ray edition.

 

Yes, this is what i was referring to. It was added on the blu ray release to "rhyme" with the ending of rots.

 

It certainly seems to have been. The problem was, the ROTS "Simpsons ending" for Vader usually got an unintended laugh from the audience the times I saw ROTS in the theater. That wasn't exactly a high point of the movie that really needed to be "rhymed" in the OT.

 

I voted no mostly because alot of the changes where pointless ended up messing up alot of scenes like Han walking over Jabbas tail for instance.George went over board with so called "imperfections" ended adding changing way many things for the worst imo.

 

I need to disclaim that my understanding of changes is still c.2004. I don't own nor have seen the blu-rays. I don't have a blu-ray player.
My view is mixed. I find Mos Eisley a lot livelier place. Biggs is back. And that god-awful Endor victory song has been replaced by a piece John Williams can actually be proud of. The Krayt Dragon Roar actually sounds terrifying now.

I also like the little minor CGI 'world building' things: X-wing pilots, the Wampa, the cloud city flybys and citizens; really gives the universe a life.

The cloud car fly-in sequence to start the third act of The Empire Strikes Back is golden. Works wonderfully with Kershner's fly-out aboard the medical frigate.

But then you have Greedo, lackluster voice acting by Temura Morrison(I prefer his voice for Boba Fett but there's no pep in his delivery), pink engines (which ties into the inexplicable color correction problem), and Hayden Christiansen's "portrayal" that makes no sense and just plain sucks.

And then you have what should have been done but wasn't. You could have used this opportunity to save Boba Fett from a crappy death. You could have brought back Tosche station and not have our main character wait 17 minutes for his intro into the story. You could have added a scene with luke constructing his new lightsaber. I mean, its no surprise anymore that Artoo has it in his head.

My view on "Jedi Rocks" vs "Lapti Nek" is a coin flip; they both suck. But I do like the extra Oola scene in the SE.

Since I've seen the 2011 "No!" edit on YT, I'll comment: I like the FIRST "..no..", the very quiet and resolute one. That was perfect!
But alas, "Part Time!" kicks in again and the second "NOOOOOOO0000oooo!!!" is just fail.

 

Watched my ESB DVD last night for the first time in awhile. I have to say, the ONLY change that I like in that one is the opening up of the backgrounds in Cloud City. Everything else just grates on me. Badly.

The wampa scene starts it off. Yes, I realize some folks want to see moremoremore of everything, but the problem with the additional wampa shots is that they just don't go along with the rest of the scene. For one thing, the scene as originally shot is a Jaws-style suspense thing, where something is coming, you don't see it, but you know that Luke has to get out of there before the wampa arrives. The drop-in shots of the wampa sitting ten feet away munching on tauntaun kill this dynamic completely.

But the bigger problem is the sound. Throughout the scene you can hear the wampa vocalizing off in the distance - again, creating the impression of a distant yet approaching threat. Turning around then and showing the wampa sitting there just across the "room" doesn't match what we're hearing at all.

And don't get me started on how little the big round SE wampa looks like what we see of the wampa in the original film.

And that's just the first problem of many. Replacing the original Boba Fett voice with Temuera Morrison's doesn't work for me at all. I understand the need to retcon the voice to maintain continuity with the Jango Fett bits in Episode II, but the problem is that Morrison's voice is so tepid that it removes virtually all traces of malice (or even emotion of any kind) from Fett's delivery. Personally, I'd have either kept the original voice, or else directed Morrison to mimic the original delivery of each of Fett's lines - and perhaps even reminded him that he's playing a villain, and not Darth Vader's accountant.

The redone scene between the Emperor and Vader is also jarringly bad, and the shame of that is that it was such a missed opportunity. I think that Ian McDiarmid was one of the few things about the PT that actually worked well, and it was a great idea to redo the ESB scene with him. Unfortunately, the ROTS Emperor makeup looks like a cheap Don Post Halloween mask, the rewritten dialogue doesn't work as well as the original, and... god love him, but Ian's delivery on this is just flatter than highway roadkill. I really wish they'd gotten this bit right.

And for cryin' out loud, what's with the pointless cutaways to Vader flying back up to his star destroyer?! This one has bugged the hell out of me ever since 1997. The original shot of Vader striding down the hallway, seething with rage as he growls, "Bring my shuttle!" was perfect. It wasn't just exposition, it showed Vader's reaction to how badly things had just gone with Luke. The new line is delivered with none of that boiling rage, doesn't really add to the preceding scenes the way the original did, and serves ONLY as exposition to explain why we're about to see a bunch of shots of Vader returning to his star destroyer - none of which we need to see, and all of which breaks up what had been a smoothly flowing escape sequence. Now the sequence and the music are all chopped up, and all for these shots that essentially add nothing more than a few superfluous visuals.

This was the first time in at least a year or two that I'd watched ESB, and even though I've never been a huge proponent of the SE changes, I was surprised at how badly I found myself disliking the majority of the ESB changes this time around.

 

Honestly if you fix the delivery of both the Emperor's lines and Morrison's you fix most of the movie for me. Morrison reads it like a robot. I wish they would try that over again because it's terrible. As for the emperor the makeup is so far off from how it looks in ROTJ and looks like a cheap recreation. That's one thing people feel GL has a talent with. Somehow having infinitely better technology but it still looking worse than doing it how they did in the late seventies and eighties.

 

I still don't understand how they got the Emperor's makeup so horribly wrong in ROTS (and in the new ESB hologram scene). In ROTJ, most of Ian's makeup was based on a thin layer of latex over most of his face. You can see it in the scene where he first arrives aboard the Death Star... the thin latex layer on his chin has begun to pull away from his skin and is all wrinkled. But it's obvious that the ROTJ makeup was paper thin. Then when you look at the ROTS/ESB makeup, the latex is clearly a LOT thicker and heavier, which sets his eyes about ten miles back into his head compared to how he looked in ROTJ. This, of course, makes it harder for Ian to convey facial expressions, and it just looks like he's wearing a mask.

How did they blow it THAT badly with something this fundamental?

 

The fact that some people actually think the original versions shouldn't be restored makes me feel sick. If you think the Special Special Editions are better, that's absolutely fine. I think a lot of the restored and redone effects look superior myself. But the originals should be preserved for historical purposes. The effects, regardless of how they look now (and with the exceptions of a handful of shots, I think they hold up damn well), were simply groundbreaking at the time, artifacts and all, and paved the way for everything we see today. Just as important, millions of people grew up watching them that way and want to experience them as they remember, and not sit through something that they hate. It isn't fair.

Myself, I grew up watching the '97 SEs and, with the exception of the stupid things that most people complain about (Greedo, Jabba in ANH, Jedi Rocks, etc) I really don't mind the changes - I actually like most of them. The only 2004 changes that bugged me were Temuera Morrison as Boba and Hayden in ROTJ, but I could live with them - the rest I liked. Despite those blunders, they would probably be my go-to version to watch were it not for A. The injustice of the originals not being preserved, and even more importantly, the vomit-inducing color timing. Blue EVERYWHERE, crushed blacks, pinks instead of red - it hurts my eyes, and looks so unnatural and inaccurate that it's a travesty.

Ideally, we should get the 2004 versions with proper color timing (all of the Blu-ray changes that weren't fixes were bull in my opinion - If I had to pick the absolute worst, stupidest, most cringe-inducing, disrespectful, just overall wrong of the changes, it would be Vader's "No" without a doubt.) and the properly restored originals. Because why not make everyone happy? It wouldn't end the fighting over which is better, but at least we can all watch the versions we enjoy.

 

I voted no,because the only changes I thought ok were the Emperor in ESB(That's a sensible change to match it up with the rest) and the opening up of Cloud City as they ran through the hallways.That was nicely done.Other then those,I don't think anything else was needed,and to be honest,they really weren't needed IMO.

 

I'm not sure if anyone else has posed this question. The Special Editions were edited by ILM in the mid 90's and released in 97, correct?
These effects do not stand the test of time, so my question is this:

What if they went back and edited the special effects from the SE OT and made them look much better with today's technology? What's everyone's stance on that? Would it change your opinion of the special editions at all?

 

For the most part I would've loved that. (And I would've loved it if they reintroduced other cut scenes as well, to make extended geek versions available alongside restored originals and such. What the OT really needs is a 20-disc box set or something)

 

Lol "Special offer! Get the 120 disc box set of star wars today, for 16 easy installments of $39.99! Act now!!"

 

I wish they would. The cgi from 1997 was so terrible for jabba in ANH that they updated him in 2004. Get rid of the stupidest changes and update the effects. Or better yet, pay Adwyn and just release Star wars revisted.

 

I haven't read all the posts so this might have been mentioned already but I'll say it anyway because it bugs me.

Why go to to all the trouble of adding and changing stuff when they don't bother to sort out the worse effect in ROTJ? That's the image of the dead rancor when his keeper is blubbing over him. It's a flat image which ironically sticks out like a sore thumb.

End rant