CT Does the "new" stuff take you out of the movie?

For me, some of it does, some doesn't. As someone very familiar with the original versions, I tend to notice alterations, but in some cases, after a few viewings, I don't give the changes a lot of thought. In other cases, though, no matter how often I watch, the new material is glaringly 'tacked on' and jolts me out of setting rather abruptly. The CGI additions to Mos Eisley in ANH are a good example of the latter situation.

 

I'm not sure I'm ever fully "pulled into" any Star Wars movie to begin with anymore. As I get older it's harder for me to view the series as particularly immersive anymore compared to some other stuff.

 

This. Completely this. And in fact, the Mos Eisley additions were the first things to pop to mind. *Every* single time my roommate and I watch a ANH, we collectively groan at that part. "Jedi Rocks" for it's cringe-worthiness, and Han's shooting second (aside from how it diminishes the "coolness" of the scene, it just LOOKS weird), are other obvious examples. But stuff like the "wampa shot" and the upgraded digital effects in the Death Star battle, those I have grown pretty used to at this point, and I don't really think twice about them.

 

I grew up with the SE, so most changes don't really take me out of the film. The only time it did was when that giant cg animal that blocked your view when stormtroopers were coming up to Luke's speeder in Mos Eisley. Well,also Lepti Nek was rather embarrassing to watch and took me out of the film for a bit too.

 

no i love it. it keeps it fresh for me. i have the 2004 dvds though.

 

Jedi Rocks takes me out of the movie by making me skip the scene.

 

it's like a minute long and just as absurd as lapti nek.

 

For me they're enjoyingly goofy and in a way somewhat catchy.

 

That's why I just watch the Despecialized editions. No crappy Jedi Rocks.

 

lapti nek is better?

 

I reckon it is. Napti nek isn't Star Wars' greatest moment, but Jedi Rocks is just beyond awful. To each their own.

 

The aliens were pretty bad in Lapti Nek but the song fit the scene better. Jedi Rocks is catchy but the aliens were way too much.

 

Some of the visuals look nice and add detail but it clutters the sparseness particularly of SW and I like that it is not always 'busy'. Too much business is one of the biggest gripes I have with the PT.

I prefer the original effects and shots of the DS1 run and of the personnel. Yes, the changes are jarring to me as I can spot a great many and they *change* what the OT is.

 

Lapti Nek is awesome. The singer was a computer programer (I think) of Lucasfilm who was involved in the amateur punk scene. Its kinda dark and sleezy, and fits the tone of Jabba's Palace



Jedi Rocks on the other hand is pure camp. It is loud and bright, like a cartoon, with badly aged CGI. 83 Sy Snootles looks a hell of a lot better than 97 Snootles even with the limited motion. The Yuzzem is annoying, like a proto Jar Jar. It is kiddie-fare, which lowers the quality of the picture.




You could probably get away with playing Lapti Nek at a dance club, but Jedi Rocks would get booed.

Here is an article that I got off of originaltrilogy that I found really interesting about the history of Lapti Nek, saved from a now defunct website.

“Lapti Nek”: The Star Wars Disco Hit That Never Was
By James Greene Jr. on May 4, 2011 @ 12:18 pm
Today is May 4th, which in recent years has become an unofficial Star Wars holiday (MAY the FOURTH be with you, yuk yuk yuk!). In honor of this deliciously nerdy observance, Crawdaddy! has decided to look back at “Lapti Nek”, a vanished musical gem from everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away. As any Tusken Raider worth his gaffi stick can tell you, “Lapti Nek” is the sleazy disco song Sy Snootles and the Max Rebo Band originally performed for Jabba the Hutt in 1983′sReturn of the Jedi before Luke Skywalker showed up dressed like Johnny Cash to harsh Jabba’s sweet Tatooine mellow.
Although their screen time proved fleeting, Expanded Universe literature would later posit the Max Rebo Band as one of the most popular musical groups from Endor to Hoth. In real life, “Lapti Nek” was sung in Huttese by Lucasfilm sound engineer Annie Arbogast, who wrote the phony alien lyrics herself. Famed Star Wars orchestral composer John Williams penned “Lapti Nek’s” backing outer space funk and arranged the entire song with son Joseph and Hardware Warsdirector/producer Ernie Fosselius. The trio succeeded in giving “Lapti Nek” a grimy feel perfectly suited for Jabba’s dark and foreboding palace.
Arbogast’s spirited, Cyndi Lauper-like take on “Lapti Nek” would never see any sort of commercial release outside Return of the Jedi’s theatrical and VHS runs; Lucasfilm apparently lost that recording’s master reel before it could be included on any corresponding soundtrack albums. Luckily, around the same time, the company commissioned an extended version of “Lapti Nek” by professional session singer Michele Gruska specifically for the dance circuit. That smoother, sexier “Nek” was released on PolyGram in 1983. While Gruska’s anonymous five minute “Lapti Nek (Club Mix)” brought the Max Rebo Band to full fruition outside Jedi, the single failed to blow up disco charts like the Death Star.

Michele Gruska also recorded a version of “Lapti Nek” with English lyrics penned by Joseph Williams prior to Return of the Jedi’s completion. This “Nek” scratch track was inexplicably dubbed “Fancy Man”, even though the official line from Lucasfilm is that “Lapti Nek” translates to “Work It Out” in English (which of course means that famous Public Enemy song could be called “Brothers Gonna Lapti Nek”). “Fancy Man” can be heard below in the background of assorted ROTJbehind-the-scenes vignettes (including Warwick Davis’s never-completed or released movie-within-a-movie Return of the Ewok).
Naturally, Italian disco demigod Meco Monardo—who shot to fame in 1977 with a boogie-oogie interpretation of the original Star Wars main title theme—had to have his own go at making “Lapti Nek” a crossover hit. Strangely, Meco made almost no alterations to the Michele Gruska “Club” version when he got his hands on it, basically rereleasing the same recording with louder drums and some flourished instrumentation. Meco’s “Lapti Nek” stalled at #60 on our Billboard Charts, effectively cooling Monardo’s movie-related music hot streak. In Thailand, however, this “Nek” was apparently one of ’83′s biggest hits.

If you think the milking of “Lapti Nek” ends with Meco, you’re more mistaken than Han Solo in Cloud City. A 12″ single called “Lapti Nek Overture” was also released in 1983 on Warner Brothers by one-off group Urth. Not surprisingly, Urth was fronted by Joseph Williams, taking a break from his adult contemporary meal ticket Toto. “Lapti Nek Overture” is not only the rarest and funkiest of all “Lapti Neks”, it’s also the most satisfying. Urth was smart enough to mix in snippets of the elder Williams’ beloved Star Wars score as well as a few bars of Lucasfilm sound wizard Ben Burtt’s highly contentious Ewokese “Yub Nub” song. Variety is the spice of “Lapti Nek”!

Still, America balked, and Urth’s version of “Lapti Nek” was the third strike in George Lucas’s attempt to put Sy Snootles on the level of Blondie or Pat Benetar. To Joe/Jane Sixpack, this latest slice of booty-shakin’ space music just did not have the same je ne sais quoi as the first Star Wars film’s much-ballyhooed “Cantina Band”. Yet “Lapti Nek” made an indelible impression on scores of younger, less seasoned Star Wars fans at the time. Check out footage below of a wee Snoot wannabe lip synching to “Lapti Nek” shortly after Return of the Jedi’s release.
Indeed, “Lapti Nek” held a place in our geeky hearts, which is why it was so appalling to see the tune completely excised from Return of the Jedi in Lucasfilm’s 1997 “Special Edition.” In “Nek’s” place was an excruciating R&B exercise called “Jedi Rocks”. The Max Rebo Band was expanded to include a troupe of “sexy”/tacky extra-terrestrial dancers and a squat, furry embodiment of digital annoyance called Joh Yowza. To paraphrase Tom Bissell, “Jedi Rocks” is the most unspeakable sequence in all the “Special Edition” Star Wars films, a moment in history almost too depressing to discuss at any length. Even Greedo shooting first wasn’t this painful.
“Jedi Rocks” has remained in all versions of Return of the Jedi since 1997 (including the just-announced Blu-Ray release), forcing a new generation to come up in a Star Wars galaxy utterly void of “Lapti Nek’s” funky dance floor goodness. Thankfully, the Internet will always be able to preserve on some small scale the genius George Lucas abandoned in favor of pure insanity. Here’s looking at you, Max Rebo. In our world, you’re playin’ “Lapti Nek”—an Apex Award-winning composition(!)—all night long with no gross alien bimbos or hairy CGI abortions cluttering your landscape.

 

That Lapti Nek sounds dark and sleezy is why I prefer it to Jedi Rocks. It sounds alien and creepy, and it adds this gross vibe to Jabba's palace. Jedi Rocks doesn't accomplish that, and the expanded sequence makes the song and digital aliens the focus of the scene, shifting it away from Oola's attempted escape.

 

Not at all.

 

I find it's the complete opposite. Lapti Nek is an upbeat disco workout song. Jedi Rocks is a sleazy hypersexualized pop rock song that blends perfectly with the scenes of Oola being degraded and subsequently murdered by Jabba. I'm pretty sure that was the intent all along, but it didn't come across that way at all because Lapti Nek just had the completely wrong vibe to it.

 

to me one is just as silly as the other so it doesn't bother me.to act like one is more sophisticated than the other is ridiculous. i grew up with lapti nek and yub nub and i'm fine with the newer ones as well.

 

Also worth noting is that later added new footage of Oola in Rancor' s pit which wasn't in the theatrical cut.

 

A gigantic, resounding yes. I watched the OOTs so many times as a kid, any change would take me out of it. But a bunch of obnoxious, unnecessary CGI just screams "THIS IS A NEW SCENE" to me. Jedi Rocks might be the worst offender.

 

The 2004/2011 colors, the lightsaber miscolorations, the Rontos, Vader's "nooooooo", and Christensen take me out of the movies. The colors make them unwatchable for me.

 

What is being pulled out of the movie? Noticing something that you didn't notice before? ****, I see that often with plain ordinary films that haven't had new material added. New stuff that wasn't there before? You can get used to it over time.

 

I'd define it more as being jolted from a consistent sense of plot, character, setting or visual perception.

 

Yes.Thank god when I decided to try star wars I was too cheap to buy the dvds and bought the 199(4 or 3?)vhs tapes at a car boot sale.Weird thing is I remember Jedi rocks being on my ROTJ.....must be because I lost my ROTJ and had to get a 1997 special edition out of desperation.HOW DO YOU PEOPLE LIVE WITH THAT ABOMINATION CALLED JEDI ROCKS!?Sure my VHS star wars have annoying flickers.......But they don't have any dinosaurs blocking scenes or absolutley pointless scenes where Jabba repeats greedos lines(Greedo is even in the backround of that scene)or WESA FREE!Its been 2 years since I saw rotj.......Must go to car boot sales.....

 

You get used to it. I've owned the SE since I was a kid, so I had plenty of time to get used to it.