Star Wars

[ciphergoth]

lovelybug has never seen Star Wars! And last weekend we were supposed to watch The Empire Strikes Back on TV, only I managed to screw it up. I should fix it. But I need your help. Original, as remastered from a Laserdisc, or special edition with whizzy digital special effects and Greedo shooting first?

[Poll #1306123]

Comments

[ditzy-pole.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen Star Wars so can't help...

[barking-watcher.livejournal.com]

The original version un-adulterated, because everyone knows Han shot 1st.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Yes, THAT.

That said, the special version has some great moments, like when Han runs around the corner on the Death Star, screaming, then sees a whole batallion of storm troopers and runs in the other direction. Classic.

But yes. Han totally shot first.

[simont]

That's in the original too!

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Not the version I've known and loved. Maybe it's in a UK-release?

[simont]

Having just double-checked both editions, I think we're both right :-) I was right in thinking that the original edition (at least as it exists on the bonus DVDs in the UK Limited Edition release) does contain a scene matching your description. However, you're right in saying that the special edition has a huge crowd of stormtroopers in a way that the original edition doesn't: the corresponding bit has about four times as many stormtroopers pasted into the shot as Han comes round the corner. Han and the central troopers behave in recognisably the same way in both, though, so I think we were thinking of the same scene.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Geeks FTW!!!

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I haven't seen it either.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I don't know how I managed to leave out the "I don't know" option, since it's the one I wanted myself!

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

Actually I think I saw 1, 4 and 6 when I was a child, and I do remember enjoying it. I should get round to taking them out and watching them.

[skx.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed at the number of people who haven't seen them (the original trilogy; I regard the prequels as an abomination, although I only suffered to watch the first two).

Seems like a lot of films I regard as classics of their genre many people these days haven't seen. (e.g. Alien, Aliens, Terminator, etc)

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

You might want to watch the third one... I thought it was somewhere in-between episodes 4 and 6 for coolness personally - certainly more worth watching than episode 1 (and let's face it, cabbages are more worth watching than episode 2).

[skx.livejournal.com]

On the one hand I agree. It'd be nice to see how they tied up the lose ends, and made the whole story mesh.

On the other hand I went to the cinema to see the first one expecting good things. I didn't enjoy it. I then followed up and went to see the second one at the cinema and if anything enjoyed that even less - so I decided to avoid throwing good money after bad and didn't see the third.

If I can find a cheap second-hand DVD of the third I'll see it, but I'm not in a huge rush.

[yoyoangel.livejournal.com]

I can't believe her education is so lacking! Poor love.

I voted original version first, because it makes seeing the special edition exciting in a 'spot-the-difference' way, and because, actually, the original versions are pretty bloody impressive, effects-wise, and are an interesting historical document for that reason.

[haggis.livejournal.com]

That was my reasoning too - watch the originals for the plot/characters then watch the special editions to see the special effects. Otherwise the original might look less impressive in comparison.

[martling.livejournal.com]

I think it's worth seeing the special edition of the first one at least, because it actually fixes bugs rather than just adding glitz. Like Jabba being a fat dude rather than an alien slug because they couldn't afford the effects.

[zotz]

Jabba isn't in the first one at all, is he? He doesn't show until Return, and only made it into Star Wars when the special edition came out about ten years ago.

[martling.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia confirms you're right. I remembered seeing the original and CGI versions compared at some stage but didn't know the scene didn't make the original edit.

[deviblue.livejournal.com]

watch the originals them the prequals followed by the re-remastered(because it too two gos to get jabba right in a new hope

[andrewducker]

The remastered DVD is different from the remastered movie - Han and Greedo shoot at the same time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first

[simont]

The limited-edition DVDs containing the original theatre versions: they're OK except that they're in letterbox rather than anamorphic widescreen. So on a 4:3 TV you wouldn't know the difference, but on a widescreen TV you'll see a tiny image in the middle of the large display. If your TV (like mine) has a zoom feature to correct precisely this problem, you can use that, but in Ep4 and Ep6 this will have the undesirable side effect of pushing Greedo's and Jabba's subtitles off the bottom of the screen.

I corrected this at one point by reading the original movies off the DVDs, mucking about with mencoder, and burning myself new DVDs in which the picture has been expanded into anamorphic widescreen. So one can watch those DVDs on a widescreen TV with the subtitles in the right place, or they work fine on a 4:3 TV too. Also, it turned out the result looks noticeably superior to using my TV's zoom function on the original DVDs, because mencoder's picture-scaling algorithm is much better than the real-time one running in my TV.

So, those are the DVDs I'd recommend to anyone wanting to watch Star Wars. I could in principle lend them, except that I expect the logistics would be horrendous.

[zotz]

There is a DVD version of the original cut of Star Wars. It came out a few years back as an extra with some multidisk edition of the film.

The Han-shooting-second bit undermines the character, in my view - you're not really supposed to trust him at that stage, so him being heroic at the end comes as more of a surprise.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

B/c of the Han first thing I'd go for original for Episode IV, but I really liked the change of the party scene in Episode VI at the end, and thus prefer the special edition.

[redcountess]

I have videos of the original films, if that's of any use?

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

We have the lot on video, and this has inspired me to re-watch them [grin] Though I suspect if I offered to lend you my videos you'd snort at me in derision, so I won't :-p

[sahilaelf.livejournal.com]

Just see THE MOVIE...if you didnt see it first time round you cant travel back in time ...they/s/he missed a great movie Its like hearing an LP in 1970 vs a CD which has been remastered and removed all the scratches you loved but didnt know were there until someone changed the format. I vote for the original...enjoy

[babysimon]

I can "lend" you a 1080p 2.33 AC3 H264 rip of all three if you like. It's the special edition though. I don't have a huge opinion on original vs special edition (apart from the Greedo thing); I don't think the differences are too significant.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

It's Star Wars, and as such, either version is fine. Both are brilliant.

[trishpiglet.livejournal.com]

I don't think the differences significantly alter the film xxx

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

*twitch*

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Rips of the original laserdiscs any use?

[lovingboth]

There's a fanedit which removes some of Lucas's crap, keeps the better 'Special Edition' effects and gets "who shot first" 'right'.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

*searches*

Is that the "Darth Editous" edition or the "Adywan - Revisited" edition?

[lovingboth]

The former is the one I have, but I'm not surprised others exist and looking at the list, they've clearly got too much time on their hands done a good job too.

Episode I is the one where the fanedits are vastly superior to the original, in comparison the IV ones are tweaks.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! *makes mental note to download*