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Star Wars - Despecialized Editions. Harmy's v2.5 of A New Hope released


Bliz

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I started a thread about these a few years back that is now archived, you can see it here.  http://es.redskins.com/topic/345700-attn-star-wars-fans-these-are-the-versions-youve-been-looking-for-screened-behind-the-scenes-of-harmys-star-wars-despecialized-editions/

 

 

This is a meticulous shot by shot recreation of the original theatrical release, a fan edit by a guy known as Harmy.  He uses various sources, from different official releases of the movies to custom built mattes to "despecialize" the special editions and restore the movies to their original glory.  It is as close as you will ever get to a blu ray quality version of the original without all the special edition terrible CGI revisions, until and unless Lucas decides to stop playing with our emotions.

 

The quality and attention to detail are nothing short of mind blowing.

To download the torrent, go to the Pirate Bay and search for "despecialized" and you'll find it.
 
More information can be found here, including instructions on how to burn it, if you need help, examples of shots, and links to the current versions of the despecialized Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (neither of which are as far along in the process, but both look pretty darn good anyway):
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Harmys-STAR-WARS-Despecialized-Edition-HD-V25-MKV-IS-OUT-NOW/topic/12713/

Harmy's comments on what's new in this version:

This is a reconstruction of the 1977 theatrical version of STAR WARS. The original shots were painstakingly restored using various sources and thefilm received an extensive shot by shot colour correction based on a fade free 1977 I.B. Technicolor Print.
The remastered version (v2.0) represented a significant improvement in picture quality over the earlier version.
Version v2.1 further improved upon the previous version mainly by refining the colour correction but also by replacing many of the despecialized shots with higher quality ones.
Version v2.5 offers few more little tweaks to the picture and contains an unprecedented number of audio options, including lossless DTS-HD tracks for the original mixes (the original 70mm six-track was recreated by hairy_hen, the original stereo mix was captured from LaserDisc PCM and fixed up by hairy_hen and the original mono mix was restored by Belbucus from a VHS recording), an isolated score, four different commentary tracks, dubbing tracks in ten different languages and dialects and a British commentary for visually impaired.
 

This is a fan preservation made for culturally historical and educational purposes.                              

Fanedits and preservations must not be bought or sold.

 Please report every fanedit or preservation you find for sale to webmasters of originaltrilogy.com.                      

Fanedits and preservations are an artform and to be shared among legal owners of the officially available releases only.

 Do not support piracy.                                                                                                   

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GOOD!

His CGI add ons were absolute sh***** - pointless cartoonish garbage.

Lucas had a great overall concept/vision, but he's a gawdawful director and a bad filmmaker.  It's no coincidence that by far the best of all the SW movies Empire Strikes Back is the one he was least involved with.

At least when James Cameron went CGI, the effects were fantastic and ADDED to the story, rather than some gratuitous dung heap thrown in just so Puke-us could say "ooo - look what I just did there."

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The only issue I had with the special editions was Han not shooting first. The other stuff was not that big a deal IMO. That being said, I will buy the original versions when they come out. I will not forsake the others though. Too many people had their childhood ruined by Star Wars. I don't get it.

I still own an original unopened vhs of the original.

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The only issue I had with the special editions was Han not shooting first. The other stuff was not that big a deal IMO. That being said, I will buy the original versions when they come out. I will not forsake the others though. Too many people had their childhood ruined by Star Wars. I don't get it.

I still own an original unopened vhs of the original.

 

That was certainly the worst, but not the only issue, for me.  I think my biggest problem with most of the other stuff is that it was done poorly.  If you're going to do it, the goal should be that the CGI would be so crisp it would fit seamlessly into the movie.  They failed miserably.  The CGI is terrible, looks fake, and sticks out like a sore thumb.  It's distracting, and with rare exception either adds nothing or is a net negative (I do like the extra footage of the hoth ice cave monster though).  I had an earlier version of Harmy's despecialized, and these are what I watch.  The specialized dvds gather dust.

 

Also they will probably never release the original versions.  Not if Lucas has anything to say about it. 

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That was certainly the worst, but not the only issue, for me. I think my biggest problem with most of the other stuff is that it was done poorly. If you're going to do it, the goal should be that the CGI would be so crisp it would fit seamlessly into the movie. They failed miserably. The CGI is terrible, looks fake, and sticks out like a sore thumb. It's distracting, and with rare exception either adds nothing or is a net negative (I do like the extra footage of the hoth ice cave monster though). I had an earlier version of Harmy's despecialized, and these are what I watch. The specialized dvds gather dust.

Also they will probably never release the original versions. Not if Lucas has anything to say about it.

I've read multiple times that they are going to now that Disney owns lucasfilm. Why wouldn't they? More money. SW isn't on iTunes either. That will be coming soon. Indy Jones is already there.

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The only issue I had with the special editions was Han not shooting first. The other stuff was not that big a deal IMO. That being said, I will buy the original versions when they come out. I will not forsake the others though. Too many people had their childhood ruined by Star Wars. I don't get it.

I still own an original unopened vhs of the original.

I'm probably (ok, definitely) an old fogey stick in the mud, but I just can't get past the words "Episode IV".

And I still own the original 3 on VHS, too. And don't own a VHS player, any more.

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I've read multiple times that they are going to now that Disney owns lucasfilm. Why wouldn't they? More money. SW isn't on iTunes either. That will be coming soon. Indy Jones is already there.

 

I hadn't heard that before, but on 5 minutes quick searching, I see the rumors but no official confirmation.

 

The reason they wouldn't is that it would be an extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming undertaking, unless the Lucasfilm PR folks were not being entirely truthful around the time of the DVD box sets some 8-10 years ago.  Then, they said the negatives of the movies were permanently altered for the creation of the Special Editions, and existing prints of the first versions were in very poor condition. 

 

 

So I guess either they've been hard at work on doing a great job of it and spending a lot of money, which would be awesome, or what they release will be the same crappy laserdisc version you can buy for $50 on Amazon where space looks brown, or the rumors aren't exactly true.

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The only issue I had with the special editions was Han not shooting first. The other stuff was not that big a deal IMO. That being said, I will buy the original versions when they come out. I will not forsake the others though. Too many people had their childhood ruined by Star Wars. I don't get it.

I still own an original unopened vhs of the original.

 

I would say the scene with Jabba before Han boards the Millenium Falcon was pretty bad.   Why would Jabba let Han go after sending Greedo to kill him?  Makes no sense...

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