CT Special edition - worst and best changes

For the most part I enjoyed the changes in the Special Editions and I still remember how excited I was to go and see them in 97. Not sure I enjoy the further tweaks Lucas has mad since then, especially in ROTJ.

Some that I didn't like were

ANH

• Obi-Wan's scream at the Sandpeople, the original was fine so why keep changing it on every OT release.
• Obviously one, Greedo shooting first. Totally unnecessary and took away that ruthless edge from Han Solo.
• Solo and Jabba scene, the original scene is a great addition for bonus material but again this was unnecessary for the film and takes away from the introduction to Jabba in ROTJ and the mystery of the underworld boss.

TESB
I really can't think of anything that bothers me too much and I enjoyed most of the additions.

ROTJ

• Jedi Rocks, again no need for it as it serves no purpose for the film.
• Sarlacc addition, makes it look like Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors.
• Darth Vader's "No"
• Undecided on "Victory Celebration" and the additional scenes at the end as I didn't see anything wrong with Yub Nub.
• Young Anakin force ghost, why? Again an unnecessary change which doesn't make sense.

I've not watched the OT SE in a while so I'm sure I've forgotten a few.

 

Did this scene ever make it into any version of ROTJ at all? I remember it distinctly from the 1983 glossy photo storybook that came out. We used to have a book club at primary school where you could order books from, and we all bought this.



This was the book, for those that remember it

 

None that I am aware of in public circulation.

 

There was a moment where Luke was going to force jump out of the Rancor pit and grab the trap door but the Jawas were hitting Luke's hands with their guns. But to answer your question no it never made it into the finished film

 

It's a shame we never got to see it. Is there any footage of it all does anybody know?

 

I had this book! Back when they would sell movie storybooks in the theater lobby.

 

I think most people of a certain age did lol

(I got it recently on amazon for just £2.00)

 

I also had the ESB orange comic book that looked like a paperback book.

 

Well there exists this, The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.
Which are also called "Moral Rights".
Which was debated quite bit in the late 80's in the US and Lucas was one of several filmmakers that spoke before a Congress committee about it.
Arguing that the US legal protection of works of art was insufficient and US companies were a) altering films that they only had the copyright to but were not the creator of. Even over the objections of said creator. And b) that US companies were not taking sufficient care of older films and letting them decay in vaults without proper care or attention.

His argument was that no one but the creator of a work should be allowed to make alterations to it but also that works of art must not get lost through alteration or negligence.
That if that happens, the cultural heritage of the nation is made poorer for it, That works of art ultimately belongs to the american public.
He also argued that even "hired" artists should have some protection through moral rights.

Lucas has also said that he wants his children to be able to see the films he saw as a child.
And;

So film preservation essentially.

Which was echoed by his friend Spielberg when he said;
"Let generations yet unborn see the films produced by our film artists as they were released."

Which is why some take Lucas to task over his reluctance to preserve the OOT and making it available to current and future generations.
The issue isn't him making changes, even if it to films that other people directed.
The main issue is the treatment of the OOT.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Or he's playing both sides of a conflict he himself has helped to stoke. Rather like a certain Sith Lord.

 

I had this one as a kid

 

I didn't own it but I first learned the story of ROTJ through a scrapbook type book with Jabba the Hutt on the cover. It must have been older, because its final page featured a shot of Sebastian Shaw with the other Force ghosts. I was about four or five, but I don't remember it well, but the TESB book of the same edition as the ROTJ had Yoda on the cover (I read that one too). If anyone has something that looks like those books, I'd appreciate maybe seeing a picture if possible.

About the SE changes, I somewhat like the scene of Oola inside the rancor's pit. I don't hate Jedi Rocks, but it feels out of place nonetheless.


Edit: I have found it online. Return of the Jedi: A Storybook by J.J Gardner. All three of these adaptations came out in 1997.

Nowadays, adaptations using the old Anakin's likeness are hard to come by, and I appreciate this edition for that. Not to mention my first exposure to both TESB and ROTJ.

 

I also had all three of those storybooks

 

I had the SW storybook and put all my stickers from the cards on the front and back pages.

 

A couple ways the Special Edition improves the Battle of Yavin. Here's one comparison:




The original version alternates between frantic, fast-paced interior views of the cockpit to slow-as-molasses exterior views where both pursued and pursuing ships look like they're moving at barely five miles an hour. The tone and pace of the scene is wrecked each time we switch to this external view. It doesn't flow together naturally, and it's clear that this scene was planned differently and only turned out this way due to technological limitations. Looking at Ralph McQuarrie's concept art, we can deduce that Lucas was going for something much more like this:



And what do you know, that's exactly what we get in the new version of the scene:



In the new version, the energy of the exterior shots matches that of the interior shots. Not only that, but the exterior action now matches what we see in the rear cockpit window, whereas before it was completely disconnected. The scene flows much better and as a result the tension is retained all the way through. It's a clear improvement and obviously much closer to what Lucas would have done had he simply had more time and money. It's much more faithful to the concepts he worked on with McQuarrie.

This is more of a minor improvement but worth mentioning:




The original shot of the X-wings descending is mainly just boring, but it's also pretty awkward. Lucas was essentially trying to fit a vertical composition within the horizontal frame that is traditional for cinema. This is a problem that he's confronted with a lot in these types of movies, and he handles it okay here, but not amazingly. This is almost certainly the main reason he updated the shot, which unlike others still holds up pretty well from a realism standpoint. This is why you can see that in the new version, Lucas has re-positioned the camera to give us more of an angled top-down view of the X-wings descending, a view which makes much better use of the horizontal frame in addition to being more visually interesting.

It also functions much better as the last step in what seems to be a deliberate progression of shots showing a rear view of the X-wings as they descend closer and closer to the surface of the Death Star:






Again, looking at McQuarrie's concept art, this seems to have been a very strong visual concept in Lucas's mind:



This aspect causes me to suspect that this was actually the original intention, and that time and/or budget constraints again forced Lucas to go with a simpler shot.

And while I'm on the subject of vertical compositions within horizontal frames, allow me to go back to the original comparison for a second:



This is just an ugly, awkward shot that makes extremely bad use of the horizontal frame.



The McQuarrie-derived shot is, unsurprisingly, much more dynamic and pleasing from a compositional standpoint.

 

the Battle of Yavin was definitely improved. ANH was in most need of a graphical overhaul.

 

While we're talking about the Battle of Yavin, I do like the modern Death Star explosion much more than the original, it visually feels more climactic and captures the magnitude of both Luke's victory and the threat that the Rebels were up against.

 

Yeah, the updated fx on the DS explosion are pretty cool.

Overall, I like all the various versions, you know, it's SW after all.

Cloud City being opened up a bit was nice. Prefer the line "you're lucky you don't taste very good" though from the OOT.
Boba's voice change is good for continuity, but the original actor read the lines better. It doesn't bother me much either way, as I like Jango too.
Updating Ian as the Emperor makes a lot of sense obviously, but the dialogue changes are odd, imo. Most of the dialogue changes in the SE seem unnecessary.

Obviously, cleaning up the matte lines and whatnot at the Hoth battle is an improvement. Any type of clean ups on the fx like that are welcome, as they make the films look more realistic.
Funny though, parts of the Rancor fight in RotJ still look fake no matter how much GL messes with it lol, especially when the monster picks Luke up. Anyhow, it doesn't matter, it's still awesome as hell in any version.

Changing the songs in Jabba's palace was the thing that annoys me the most. Jedi Rocks is literally the worst thing in the history of SW. I can't even watch it anymore. It's absolute garbage.

The SE ending sequence to Jedi is nice, with that JW score, but they really should have tried to keep Yub Nub in there too somehow dammit.

The approach to Mos Eisley in AHN was cool back in 1997, but all that extra crap they added is kinda annoying now when I see it on blu ray.
Like, it was neat to see that stuff when it was new, but now that we're stuck with it and can't watch the original version on blu ray it pretty much sucks, imo. And let's not even rehash the Greedo shooting first deal; that change is so ridiculous.
Han shot first people!
I'm indifferent about the added scene with Han and Jabba. Boba breaking the 4th wall is kinda neat lol. Plus more Boba is always good.

All in all though, I dig all the versions, and a lot of the changes in the SE are pretty sweet. But some of them really leave you wondering, wth?

 

Thanks for the comparison images @The_Phantom_Calamari !

I agree that the improvement on the Battle of Yavin is the best SE change in ANH. It's really well done without altering the scope of the battle, nor the editing of the sequence, just substituting some really awkward shots with new ones that give a much better sense of the scale.

In the case of Empire, I'd say the best improvement is the added vistas on Cloud City. It looks much much better, and closer to the original intention.

In the case of Jedi, I've always liked the new Sarlaac more; I always found the original hole a bit... "empty". But I'd say the best change is the ending montage and the new music (even though I really like the original song as well!).

 

Yes, when it comes to the destruction of Alderaan and both Death Stars, the addition of the shockwave really helps sell the notion that these are massive, cataclysmic explosions of planetary scale. They needed something to set them apart from all the other explosions we see.

No problem!

I can see both arguments with the sarlacc. I understand the people who found it scarier when it was just an empty hole--the fear of the unknown and all that--but I also understand why Lucas wanted it to feel more alive. There's one overhead shot in the original that I like, but I think most of the other shots do suffer from just being a hole. Having an actual creature screeching and snapping its maw makes stuff like the shots of Lando being pulled in much scarier, IMO.

And that ties in to why the new wampa shots in TESB are such an improvement. People like to make the argument that not seeing the monster is a perfectly effective way of instilling terror--again, the fear of the unknown--and I would agree with that to an extent. But what people forget is that there's more than one way of instilling terror. There's the fear of the unknown, and there's the fear of the grotesque. And most monster movies take full advantage of both. For most of a monster movie, we usually only get fleeting glimpses of the monster, but at the end, during what is usually the final confrontation, we usually get to see the monster in all its terrifying glory.

People often compare the original version of the scene to Jaws, citing how scary it was not to see the shark. But what they forget is that, at the end, we finally do get to see the shark. From the time it devours Quint to the time it makes its final charge towards Brody, Spielberg doesn't hold back. He doesn't hide the shark at all. This is because this is the payoff to not getting a good look at the shark for the whole rest of the movie.

The wampa subplot in TESB is supposed to be like a miniature monster movie, in two parts. The first part is when it attacks Luke, and true to form, we only get fleeting glimpses of the wampa. But for the second part, which is the final confrontation, Lucas again follows convention (in the Special Edition) by revealing the monster. It's much scarier this way, because we can see exactly what it is that's about to attack Luke, and we can clearly see it moving closer and closer as Luke struggles. In comparison, the original version feels incomplete and cheap. It's perfectly obvious that there really is no monster to see, which pulls you out of the movie and reduces the sense of menace.

The original version was a creative workaround which worked well enough, but it would have worked way better with an actual functional monster--and it does, as we can now see.

 

The worthwhile changes as seen in the Special Editions are definitely the vehicle / spaceship effects shots, which Lucas obviously couldn’t achieve in 1976 because of the technology available to him. That’s one area you and I can agree on TPC

I’m not a fan of the beaked Sarlacc. The slimy, tooth-rimmed, black hole to god-knows-where was scarier I thought. You got more of a feel that if you fell in, you were never coming out,

 

The subtle technical tweaks worked imo. Not really a fan of the major changes.

 

In fact, originally the wampa WAS to be revealed. As you say, the idea was that we wouldn't see the full Monster at first (both while it attacks Luke and when Luke escapes), but then the wampas would invade the Hoth base, and would be fully revealed.
Obviously, the failed to get the second part, so they ended up with the first parte of the "wampa subplot", in which you never saw the full Monster.
It's clear that Lucas always intended to reveal the full wampa at some point, and used the SE to get that.

 

It’s the unnecessary dialogue shoe-ins that I dislike. I know some people think the complaints are silly, but they irritate me no end.

Another is during the lightsaber duel in the Carbon Freezing chamber. Luke rolls down those steps and Vader jumps down after him. I hated that they added Luke making that noise as he rolls down the steps. The silent roll worked better imo, it just did. It felt a bit more deliberate.

 

We've been over this. For A New Hope, the dialogue you don't like is from the mono mix that was produced shortly after the original mix in 1977 and contained minor changes. For The Empire Strikes Back, it's actually the original dialogue from the originally released version of the film. Blame Ben Burtt for the mixes used in the Special Editions onward, because he was in charge of that.

The silly part of your complaint was the part where you blamed Lucas and claimed these "shoe-ins" were somehow evidence of notable hackery on his part, when really they're nothing more than marginally consequential audio mix variations.