What are the best original versions out there

[jedisearcher]

George Lucas has come out with a few baffling comments over the years, but his stubbornness really comes through on this one:

"I'm not going to spend the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it."

The baffling bit is that he's talking about half a completed film, and the SE added what exactly? New celebration scenes, new Mos Eisley scenes, tidied up Special Effect scenes but that's hardly the "other" half of a film is it? I get that he's stubborn, I get its his baby, but the "**** you, forget what you saw in 77, you'll have what I want you to have" attitude in this and other quotes about different things is annoying to say the least.

 

[kingshearer]

I wasn't joking earlier in this thread..!!……I've also recently had the urge to watch the original releases.
I did a little research and found that the cheapest but oldest version of the films to buy were the fox video's 'all time greats' released in 1988.
(I think they were the first mass produced releases, if not, certainly one of the earliest).
I managed to get ESB and ROTJ for about a fiver each and I've just bought SW for the princely sum of about £10. A few days ago I bought locally a dvd/video combi player for £20 and have now watched the ESB and ROTJ in full screen and HI-FI sound I have to say there's something really special about watching them on video again. The picture is not too bad the sound seems just as good if not better (a bit like records v cds).
Can't wait for SW to arrive and complete my collection. I'm determined to not start collecting videos again and will just stick to the SW collection (although when I bought ROTJ it came with 1991 widescreen versions of SW and ESB so I might hunt out ROTJ).

 

[peekaygee73]

Another vote for Harmy's Despecialised versions. Fantastic stuff.

There's also Team Negative1's Full HD restorations to look forward to.....

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starw...s-Preview-of-Reel-3-of-the-Original-Star-Wars

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/te...-version-release-details-and-updates/id/14590

SW 35mm theatrical version has now been released. I'm currently downloading it but even Harmy's saying it's superior to his 2.5. Exciting stuff!!

 

[Dantooine]

Anyone got a link? Can't find one in the thread. Pretty please?

 

[Dublinjeff]

Cheeky plug, but I'm selling a set of Original Trilogy films on VHS at the moment....
http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=28533#p382428

 

[peekaygee73]

Anyone got a link? Can't find one in the thread. Pretty please?

The only place I know of is MySpleen which is a private tracker. I don't know if it's open for invites at the moment - www.myspleen.org

 

[stormcab]

I wasn't joking earlier in this thread..!!……I've also recently had the urge to watch the original releases.
I did a little research and found that the cheapest but oldest version of the films to buy were the fox video's 'all time greats' released in 1988.
(I think they were the first mass produced releases, if not, certainly one of the earliest).
I managed to get ESB and ROTJ for about a fiver each and I've just bought SW for the princely sum of about £10. A few days ago I bought locally a dvd/video combi player for £20 and have now watched the ESB and ROTJ in full screen and HI-FI sound I have to say there's something really special about watching them on video again. The picture is not too bad the sound seems just as good if not better (a bit like records v cds).
Can't wait for SW to arrive and complete my collection. I'm determined to not start collecting videos again and will just stick to the SW collection (although when I bought ROTJ it came with 1991 widescreen versions of SW and ESB so I might hunt out ROTJ).

Was it these ones? I would like to get the online ones, but this sort of technical stuff makes my head hurt.

 

[kingshearer]

I think these are the special edition or remastered widescreens from the early 90's so no although they'll be the original films I think Lucas made some 'enghancements' I dig out a picture of the one's I've bought.
The problem with this download version is that it's digital and I just think the HI FI sound of the videos is better but that is just me.

 

[peekaygee73]

The SW and ROTJ VHSs in the picture are the first widescreen releases from '91, but the ESB is the later re-release (I had the '91 release of all three films, and ESB had a different cover - you can also tell because ESB has 'Digitally Remastered' at the top of the cover). However, they are all the pre-SE versions so are tinker-free

 

[kingshearer]

It looks like it says Special Edition above and below WIDESCREEN so not sure what specialness occurred. That's why I've went for the 1988 editions and they're full screen which I prefer.

 

[peekaygee73]

It looks like it says Special Edition above and below WIDESCREEN so not sure what specialness occurred. That's why I've went for the 1988 editions and they're full screen which I prefer.

It actually says 'Special Widescreen Edition', which is how they were promoted in '91 as it was the first time Fox released a batch of films in Widescreen on VHS. They're all 100% the original versions, but I can see why the layout makes it confusing.

 

[kingshearer]

It looks like it says Special Edition above and below WIDESCREEN so not sure what specialness occurred. That's why I've went for the 1988 editions and they're full screen which I prefer.

It actually says 'Special Widescreen Edition', which is how they were promoted in '91 as it was the first time Fox released a batch of films in Widescreen on VHS. They're all 100% the original versions, but I can see why the layout makes it confusing.

Ahhh I see, nice one that makes sense now. So all they did in this release was widescreen it.

 

[peekaygee73]

It looks like it says Special Edition above and below WIDESCREEN so not sure what specialness occurred. That's why I've went for the 1988 editions and they're full screen which I prefer.

It actually says 'Special Widescreen Edition', which is how they were promoted in '91 as it was the first time Fox released a batch of films in Widescreen on VHS. They're all 100% the original versions, but I can see why the layout makes it confusing.

Ahhh I see, nice one that makes sense now. So all they did in this release was widescreen it.

Yes, they just used the masters of the originals without having to do 'pan and scan' which they'd done for the full screen releases.

 

[Mrleemur]

I've been looking at the Despecialized Editions recently... Oddly the 2006 DVD looks worse since i got an Xbox One rather than the PS2 I was using as DVD player.

I was following the instructions for downloading it, installed the software and went to the website which it turns out is on a government black list, and i didn't fancy going down that route, even though you can probably get round it with a proxy. Really not keen on torrenting either.

i know they (rightly) say it shouldn't be sold, but i was wondering if anyone had it, would they burn a copy for the cost of materials/postage?

Also dug out the VHS last night, as well as the widescreen Special Editions, i've got the '95 Widescreen versions, which were the first ones i got, and left me wondering, were there any changes between VHS releases, and what's the picture quality on the VHS like compared to the 2006 GOUT version?

Looks like i'll be buying a VHS player tomorrow

 

[peekaygee73]

The reason it looks worse on the Xbox One is the Xbox is much newer, so it's much better at reproducing the (lack of) quality in the DVD releases.

As I recall the 1991 VHS widescreen releases were done at the wrong speed, which was corrected for the 1995 release.

 

[Mrleemur]

I should have started here really

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases

Looks like it was the Laser Disc that was sped up to fit it on to one double sided disc.

 

[peekaygee73]

Brilliant link - I've been looking for a list of the differences between the 35mm and 70mm soundtracks for a while now! I remember wondering why the VHS release had audio differences compared to the ITV version I knew backwards.

 

[db94]

the ITV version I knew backwards.

Smiled when I read that - I love that I have a lot of my childhood toys but something I haven't got is that Scotch 180 vhs copy of Star Wars that I watched everyday when I came home from school. That would take pride of place in my collection.

 

[peekaygee73]

the ITV version I knew backwards.

Smiled when I read that - I love that I have a lot of my childhood toys but something I haven't got is that Scotch 180 vhs copy of Star Wars that I watched everyday when I came home from school. That would take pride of place in my collection.

Ditto that, except ours was on a Betamax 750 tape

 

[Grant_C]

the ITV version I knew backwards.

Smiled when I read that - I love that I have a lot of my childhood toys but something I haven't got is that Scotch 180 vhs copy of Star Wars that I watched everyday when I came home from school. That would take pride of place in my collection.

Yeah Man! I still got my jedi tape. Need to convert it. Summer project I feel.