CT Classic Trilogy Special Effects Failures

I'll let this TVTropes article explain what I am talking about:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpecialEffectFailure

Basically, what special effects goofs, bloopers, mistakes, or half-assedness have you noticed, or have bothered you, from the Non-Special Editions?

The one that I have noticed, and has always bothered me, was during the Vader/Obi-Wan Duel this large scar on the wall appears just before Vader slices into it.



And it not only appeared in this shot, but in several shots at the beginning of the duel too.

 

In the Wampa cave, Luke's lightsaber makes the deactivation sound effect, but doesn't deactivate. This goof remains even in the Blu-ray release and bugs me EVERY time.

 

The wire visible in Alec Guiness's sleeve
The white lightsaber on the Falcon
The awkward frame jump the first time Luke activates his saber
The somewhat shoddy stop motion of the taun-taun
Puppet Yoda

 

I'd just like to point out:

Now, Star Wars has plenty of goofs in it, but I don't think many revolve around cheapness; rather just stuff that the eagle-eyed fan finds upon multiple viewings.

Still, I can kinda see what you're getting at; once you see something that was neglected, it can't be unseen. Obi-Wan's battle with Vader definitely has a few. Obi-Wan's saber looked like it was shorting out. Not really a goof for me, I just thought it was because it was old. Anyways, there's one particular shot where the tip of Obi-Wan's saber is pointed towards the camera, and you can clearly see the rod, without the added white core. I've heard about Obi-Wan and Vader switching lightsabers, but watching it normally, I could not pinpoint that error. Meanwhile, after Vader kills Ben and notices Luke, his lightsaber clearly hasn't been rotoscoped.

Another one is the severed arm effect and confusion. A lot of it comes from the later films, though, when we see that the lightsaber cauterizes wounds.

 

And you can't quite see it in this pic but:



If you watch the film you can see a tranparent tube holding up the Falcon.

 

The sound was not in the original theatrical presentation. It was added for either the Laserdisc or SE.

For reals? You prefer CGI to this amazing puppet and the masterful work of Frank Oz?

 

By a long shot

 

I'd rather have a few "less than perfect" bloopers in the movies than entire movies based off of nothing but special effects.

 

The most obvious flaw are the poor lighsaber effects in ANH, especially during the Ben/Vader duel on the Death star; these flaws really take me out of the film.....

Thankfully, these were slightly improved in the 2004 DVD & even more in the 2011 Blu-ray...

 

That's cute people applying 21st Century critical eyes watching movies frame-by-frame on a 70 inch HD widescreen TV to a low budget, late-70's sci-fi film.

Anyone that gets "pulled out of the narrative" watching the original E4 just doesn't bleeping get it.

 

That Obi-Wan lightsaber shot has driven me nuts for decades, that's really the only FX flub in the entire OT that I don't like.

There's this odd fuzzy glob thing under Luke's landspeeder that I read somewhere that I think Lucas and the crew nicknamed "the Force field".

 

Some people like to interpret SW as more than just sci-fi film

 

Also, these "failures" didn't appear to have any impact on the original positive reaction and critical acclaim.

Not sure what that has to do with the topic.

 

None of these are actually special effects failures. Signs of their time, definitely, but not special effects failures.

Even George Lucas doesn't get this - in the DVD commentary track 1 he says that if they'd done ESB now they'd have had CGI Yoda "running and flipping" alongside Luke during the training on Dagobah.
Fortunately Kershner, Oz, Hammill and Freeborn understood what was happening.

 

That's perfectly fine, but holding an almost 40 year old movie up to the modern day FX standards is absurd.

 

I'd have done that too
You seem to be treating this as an objective matter of right or wrong, which is a trat I simply don't understand. This is where I'd normally link to Dictionary.com's definition of "opinion," but I've done that enough times now, haven't I?

I was replying to Beezer's statement

 

But nobody is doing that here. We're just pointing out, don't get me wrong they're superb films, the the flaws and anomalies we've noticed over the years. The only one around here who's comparing old and modern effects is you.

 

Anyhoo, another thing that always bugged me, that was thankfully fixed in the SE, was just before Han says "You're all clear kid" there was a shot of the Falcon floating lazily across the screen.



Not very dynamic.

 

Unless you're of slightly different tastes and you say you would prefer every single thing, from Jabba to Admiral Ackbar, to be CGI I dont believe you and I dont think you really mean that when you really think about it. You're just saying that because Computer Yoda replaced the puppet in Phantom Menace Blu Ray. But that was done cos the puppet looked dreadful, not because it was a puppet

 

Fixed implies it was broken....was it really?

 

The shot of the Star Destroyer crashing in the second Death Star in Jedi has never been quite up to par and I wish they had re-shot that sequence or done something different for the Special Edition. In reality, I don't think Lucas went far enough in fixing most of the effects shots.

 

In general in the OT it was just some matte lines and optical composite problems , in the PT it was CGI that looked too cartoony or things that just seemed to lack weight or tangibility .

and both trilogies have some really bad puppets - max rebo and TPM Yoda .

 

I think that shot was enhanced for the SE , the explosion was made larger I think .

 

Oh really? So when people talk about the poor work done on Obi-Wan's lightsaber or puppet-Yoda or the Falcon "floating lazily across the screen", they're not comparing old effects with modern effects?

Can't say I agree with you there.