[Chefelf]

If anyone has any suggestions of things that I should add in my Star Wars Special Edition reviews, feel free to post them here. I'll be writing the reviews over the next few days and, for to be as complete as possible, I want to know what you all think are some of the "low points" of the Special Edition.

I have finished watching all three movies and taken all my notes.

Feel free to list anything you'd like. I may include your suggestions, I may have already noted it, I may not include it all. But I thought I'd give you all a chance to sound off before the reviews are finished.

[Vwing]

Just one thing Chef, though we would all like your review to be more negative than positive, don't leave out the good stuff in the DVD. The fact is, the quality is great, "Empire of Dreams" is fascinating, entertaining, and enlightening, and basically, all the good stuff that makes this Star Wars is still there. As Brooker says in his review, its a bit less obvious, but its still there, and these movies are still Star Wars movies, and I can still watch and love them.

But please, other than that stuff, rip them all you want My biggest complaints are that the Greedo scene still sucks (and now it doesn't even have to suck, if they shoot at the same time, then its just like Han shoots first, so why not leave it as it is!), the emperor scene in ESB is terrible, the ending to ROTJ is still, well, eh, unlike it was originally with the Ewok song and without the stupid CGI Tatooine, Cloud City, Coruscant, and now Naboo, (plus Chrstiensen's insertion looks SO fake), and there are a couple small places in ANH where the music is supposed to be very powerful, but its drowned out by the sound effects and you can't even hear it. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of other stuff though.

[Garth Vader]

I think lucas put hayden christensen and naboo into the trilogy to deliberatly target star wars fans who hate the prequels. It certainly got to me, just being reminded of those dreadful films when watching the dvd's.

[ernesttomlinson]

With all the attention given to "Special Edition" changed that sucked, I can think of one that worked: Lucas added a small scene back to "Star Wars" where Luke meets Biggs before the final battle. "It'll be just like old times; they'll never stop us." Even though the scene's only a few lines long it immediately makes Biggs more than just another expendable fighter pilot.

Don't forget:

1. The Big Stupid Ring. Someone tried to rationalise this by speculating that the equatorial trench on the Death Star would have directed the explosion into a plane, but watch the scene again: the BSR is not in the same plan as the equator.

2. The pointless interpolation, smack in the middle of the final chase scene of "Empire Strikes Back", of a clip showing Vader walking to his ship, saying "Tell the Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival," or something like that. It breaks up the action and the flow of the music.

3. In the short film on the Special Edition of "Empire Strikes Back", an animator talks about the difficulty of matte shots against a white background (Hoth) and, how, to counter it, they increased the transparency of the fighters to reduce the visibility of the matte lines. The increased transparency was visible in a few shots, though, where you could see through the walls of the fighters; this problem, said the animator, was now fixed.

OK, no problem, right? Except, to illustrate the irksome matte line effect, they used a clip from "Return of the Jedi" of Luke's fighting the whatever it was in Jabba's palace. The matte lines there are, indeed, extremely bad. So why the heck did they go to the trouble of fixing a barely visible error in "Empire Strikes Back" while leaving the much more jarring faults of that fight scene in "Return of the Jedi"? The same scene they used to show how bad matte work could look? What were they *thinking*?

A final comment. Did Lucas get rid of the added-in scream when Luke allows himself to fall to almost certain death at the end of "Empire Strikes Back"? That was one of the most hated SE changes. Yet, when I was shopping at a local department store some days ago, "Empire Strikes Back", presumably the new DVD version, was on all the TVs and it was playing just that sequence. (Some timing, eh?) Luke did _not_ scream. Can anyone confirm this change?

[Vwing]

Actually, the matte lines on the rancor in Jabba's palace have been removed, as has the scream after he falls in ESB. Like I said, its not all bad.

[Michel Orla]

The Rancor definitely looked better.

I'm sure you'll do a great job again Chef, I'm just hoping to see you point out some of the continuity errors. I hate it when Lucas (and even Mark Hamill. That pained me) say don't take these movies seriously. That's no excuse for such blatantly bad inconsistancies in plot and characters from the O.T. to the P.T. :angry:

This post has been edited by Michel Orla: 29 September 2004 - 07:46 PM

[Madam Corvax]

The thing that irked me a lot in SE is the addition of those stupid lizards Stormtroopers ride in Tatooine. This is so idiotic I just could not stand it. It was added for no purpose at all, just as another eye candy, just because Lucas COULD this time. These is no logic to these lizards at all

- Were they kept in local garrison or brought on the ship?

- why exactly would anyone ride a creature like that, it was slow, rocking
and probably uncomfortable as hell

Please include these lizards. Please tell me I am not the only one who hates visual masturbation

[Just your average movie goer]

On the subject of the lizards, when Luke and Obi Wan are pulled up by the stormtroopers, there's this CGI dinosaur inserted into the sequence. It actually walks across the frame in the foreground, completely blocking the screen for a few seconds. For Lucas, it seemed that seeing a CGI dinosaur bum was more important than the actual exchange between the Obi Wan and the stormtroopers.

On the whole idea of adding in silly little things like that, I would mention the silly flying droids that are EVERYWHERE in the new Mos Eisley scenes. That is screen pollution!

A different matter is the removal of the wolfman from the cantina. WHY did they take out the wolfman? What was wrong with him? He looked cool. He fitted into the surroundings well. Is there any conceivable reason for it?

Oh wait! Maybe Lucas thought the wolfman would scare the kiddies so he took it out perhaps. Well he better take out Grand Moff Tarkin as well then... because he's scary. And while he's at it, he ought to replace the really nasty looking torture devices in the films with wiffle bats.


Showing the wampa monster.

I'm sure this wouldn't escape your attention as this has so many things wrong with it. It takes away the tension of the scene. The blood covering the creature's face seems really hypocritical in light of other changes that are designed to make the film more friendly for kids. I mean, Han doesn't shoot first anymore but we can show lots of gore with the wampa creature?

However, one thing that really irks me is that the new wampa creature they insert into the film lookings nothing like the old one. It has a different face, smoother fur... and the fur is actually a completely different colour! The old wampa has yellow stained fur and this new one is pure white. And yet, they put the new footage and the old footage side by side and expect us not to notice.

Two really dumb changes with the audio.

When the rebels are evacuating Hoth, there was this message over the loud speaker "The first transport is away. The first tranpsort is away."

Now in the original version of the film, this announcement was made by some guy with a deep voice. In the Special Edition, they changed this voice. WHY? I am racking my brain here but I cannot think of any logical reason why someone would bother with this.


Next - when Luke is climbing into his X-Wing after the battle of Hoth, Wedge calls out to him "Good luck, Luke. See you at the rendezvous."

In the original version of the film, I could hear him loud and clearly. With the Special Edition, they adjusted the volume of his voice so that now you can hardly hear him. This is just incredibly stupid.


The butchering of the end sequence of The Empire Strikes Back.

They made a mess of this. For some reason, the soundtrack is completely out of synch with the film now. When Boba Fett gets away for example, originally the music had stopped at this point and this worked very well with the scene. In the Special Edition, the music is still going for some reason and then it is abruptly cut off when they cut back to Luke and Darth Vader fighting. This little edit in the film seems like the work of an amatuer.

Also, the final sequence has this irritating interruption with Darth Vader landing on his Star Destroyer. We knew he was going to land on his Star Destroyer - we don't need to see this. What's more, it completely throws off the pacing of this beautiful ending sequence. Once again, the music here is not edited into the film properly. The music is cut off abruptly and then a new music score starts immediately afterwards as Vader's shuttle lands. Then this new music is cut off again (abruptly of course) and the previous music starts up again.



As for changes to Return of the Jedi, I don't think you'll need any help from us there (ahem BIG STUPID MUSICAL NUMBER WITH THE MUPPETS)....

One thing I did like there was seeing the herd of bantha on the dune sea. That was a nice change. It didn't take anything away from the film and it was blended in nicely.

Also, I'm one of those people who actually doesn't mind the celebrations on the different planets. Sure it's just completely illogical but it's nice to get away from the ewoks just for a few moments. Same with the new song - sure it's not Star Wars but in my opinion, it's a lot preferable to "Yub Yub!".

However, this was in the 1997 Special Editions. Now with Naboo included among those planets, I am not happy about it. Anytime Lucas brings the prequels into the original movies, to taint them with their shittiness, it is a terrible travesty.

Words fail me when I try to express my disgust at how George is inserting things from the prequels into these films. He knows full well that there are millions of people out there who love the original films and detest the prequels. Just keep them seperate, George. That way, everyone can watch the films they enjoy.

If you like the prequels, you can watch the prequels.
If you like the prequels and the originals, you can watch them both.
If you like the originals, you can watch the originals.

In Lucas' decision, he has basically cut off millions of fans. I must stop here... it's becoming too painful....

[jariten]

If you like the prequels, you can watch the prequels.
If you like the prequels and the originals, you can watch them both.
If you like the originals, you can watch the originals.

well put. of course, all problems would be resolved if he`d only release the O-OT too. hopefully he`ll have a change of heart in the future.

[Just your average movie goer]

Let's drink to that.

[Chefelf]

The thing that irked me a lot in SE is the addition of those stupid lizards Stormtroopers ride in Tatooine. This is so idiotic I just could not stand it. It was added for no purpose at all, just as another eye candy, just because Lucas COULD this time. These is no logic to these lizards at all

The dewbacks are actually in the originals. They aren't CGI or nearly as prominent but in the "Look sir, droids" scene you can see a stormtrooper on a dewback in the distance. Granted, many more have been added as well as an INCREDIBLY fake looking CGI stormtrooper descending from one's saddle in Mos Eisley.

On the subject of the lizards, when Luke and Obi Wan are pulled up by the stormtroopers, there's this CGI dinosaur inserted into the sequence. It actually walks across the frame in the foreground, completely blocking the screen for a few seconds. For Lucas, it seemed that seeing a CGI dinosaur bum was more important than the actual exchange between the Obi Wan and the stormtroopers.

Didn't notice that one, but got a nice screencap of one in the cantina. Probably the same race. Just looks like a dinosaur smoking a bong.

A different matter is the removal of the wolfman from the cantina. WHY did they take out the wolfman? What was wrong with him? He looked cool. He fitted into the surroundings well. Is there any conceivable reason for it?

In Lucas's defense he never did like that scene. I don't mind removing the wolfman (as it was nothing more than a werewolf mask they got at a costume shop) but they should have replaced him with an established race rather than creating a dinosaur or what have you. How about a Sollustan or a Mon Calamari? Anything.

Thanks for everyone's input! I got a lot of those thigns but some have sent me back for further investigation.

[Just your average movie goer]

Goddamn it! I just spent ages getting all these images to demonstrate something, made a nice long post and when I hit "Add Reply", it wouldn't load up. After ages of nothing happening, I hit "refresh" and lost the whole thing.

[Just your average movie goer]

Okay, I'm frustrated as all hell here by that computer/internet stupidity... but I'll try again...

QUOTE (Just your average movie goer)
On the subject of the lizards, when Luke and Obi Wan are pulled up by the stormtroopers, there's this CGI dinosaur inserted into the sequence. It actually walks across the frame in the foreground, completely blocking the screen for a few seconds. For Lucas, it seemed that seeing a CGI dinosaur bum was more important than the actual exchange between the Obi Wan and the stormtroopers.



Didn't notice that one, but got a nice screencap of one in the cantina. Probably the same race. Just looks like a dinosaur smoking a bong.

Okay, here it is.

We can see Luke and Obi Wan being pulled over by the stormtroopers.



Our CGI dinosaur now begins its strut for the camera.



It is now blocking the entire scene.



It is now on its way off the stage. If you look carefully at the screen, you might be able to see the main characters somewhere in the background. I couldn't see them though.



But don't blink or you'll miss them because here comes a droid, having its moment of stardom.



I'm glad Lucas did this. I remember when I first watched Star Wars, I thought "This is a great movie. But if only it had more yellow astromech droids..." Now, my prayers have been answered.



And while we're at it, here's one of those little Imperialistic flying droids that take over Mos Eisley and the camera in the Special Edition.



Forget about the Empire. It's these little flying droids you've gotta watch out for.

[Just your average movie goer]

Oh while I'm at it, here's the wampa.

"We'll use this new wampa..."



"... with the existing footage..."



"... and no-one will be the wiser!"

Geez. Well I can't see the difference.... can you?

[Just your average movie goer]

Wait! Here's another one! I can't believe I forgot this one.

Exhibit A - Vader's Super Star Destroyer in The Empire Strikes Back.



Exbibit B - Vader's Super Star Destroyer in that tacked on Special Edition scene at the end of the movie.



Does anyone else notice something a little strange about this? Did the team at Lucasfilm even try to make the additional material blend in with the existing film?