Goddamnit, George Lucas

[Stryfe]

I've since come to find that my favorite version of the film isn't even an official release at all: it's Adywan's "Star Wars Revisited."

I've never heard of these fan-edits, but I will definitely take a look at them now.

[pixel]

I'm watching the Adywan edition right now. Take a peek in the Special Features for a good breakdown of each edition during the Death Star run. Also, check the extended Alderaan destruction scene. Wow.

[DaMadFiddler]

Impressed?

[Lartrak]

I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but there's a number of really good things about the edit and some bad ones...

Bad:

He added music to a variety of scenes without it - almost all of these were poor choices in my opinion. The re-edit of Vader/Obi-Wan duel plus music just wrecks it. I think he did a good job of working with the footage available - as in, he couldn't have done it better with what was available. But, now it just looks awkward and strange. Also, the shots where he shows a full body shot of both of them turning their sabers on (originally they just walk) just doesn't look right and doesn't match the other saber shots at all. And yeah, the shot of Obi-Wan getting cut and poofing is a change I think is actually dumb. It always seemed to me Obi-Wan was disappearing before he got killed, and I always assumed that was deliberate.

Also, while well-done, the new movement of Greedo isn't needed and doesn't add anything. I preferred him without it.

Something about the new sabers just seems off to me. I think it may be due to the DVD sources used though.

Don't like the new Alderaan explosion.

Don't like his re-edits of the Death Star attack. I don't really get his motivation on that one - the whole final sequence is an editing marvel, why try to alter it?

Good:

A lot of the repainted lasers, etc, look good. A lot of misc fixes to stuff like hue/saturation are good too. I like how he toned down the CG elements of the special edition while retaining some of their better touches (like improved FX work on the landspeeder, etc).

Basically, I like a lot of the small fixes and alterations, but don't like any of the major changes I've seen.

It's a fascinating piece of work for sure - the amount of time put in is mind-boggling to me. Definitely into the thousands of hours.

[melancholy]

Just watched the Adywan version. Beyond the great recoloring and the tons of little fixes he did, I really like how he incorporated the Special Edition CGI scenes that felt natural while removing the ones that didn't fit at all. Actually, I pretty much enjoyed all of his edits, even the final Death Star battle.

The only part in the entire movie that I disagreed with was the new Obi Wan vs Vader battle. As Lartrak pointed out, everything he did with this scene feels off. The music doesn't quite fit the rest of the movie, let alone the scene, and Obi Wan getting cut down was the goofiest edit in the entire movie. This whole scene was pretty much a downgrade.

Everything else, though, was great.

[Quzar]

Chewie got a medal.

I really enjoyed the Adywan version. Highlights for me:
* Obi-wan/luke discussion about father/vader/force. It felt sooo much better reorganized as he did it
* Han is the only shooter.
* Vader/Obi-wan fight. Except for the death scene it felt much more antagonistic and fast paced. I didn't quite like the music choice, but think it went well enough. Before it really felt way too pointless. It felt like there was no real jeopardy for either of them, and to me that was confusing. Yes, Obi-wan was stuck in the Death Star and escape was pretty much hopeless so it somewhat made sense for Vader to just want to toy with him, but the fact that they did so down a huge series of hallways for quite some time never made sense, you'd have thought they would have at least spoken more if that was the point of the scene. The faster pace here really helps push the notion that it was Obi-wan controlling the whole situation and legitimately holding against Vader in order to possibly escape outright (with the backup of self-sacrifice).
* Both the Death Star fighter scenes were better paced and more animated than before.
* The sound mixing seemed much more appropriate throughout.

He seems to have really dug in and, while making 'risky' re-editing decisions that can change the mood and flow of the movie (ala Lucas), made a strong point to address a large number of actual technical errors in the movie that Lucas has ignored. Overall I think it was a much better go than the special edition. It contributed to the film in considerable ways and I feel that if such a thing were undertaken with professional budget and original material the end result would be fantastic.

[DaMadFiddler]

Sounds pretty much like my own feelings when I watched it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the only thing I didn't like about it was the new Obi-Wan death animation. And yes, the added music leading up to that scene felt a little off, too.

But this edit really is brilliant overall, and does pretty much what the Special Edition could have done in an alternate world where Lucas was self-critical and competent.

Adywan's "Empire" comes out next year, and his "Jedi" is slated for 2016 (yes, he spends a VERY long time on these; I think that's apparent in the work itself). And if the other two films are approached with the same care and workmanship as this one, I really do think these will be my go-to versions of the Star Wars films.

[Jeeba Jabba]

Just got the Bluray set the other day. Only watched Phantom Menace so far, and beyond being once again reminded (as I am every few years when I see it) how awful of a film it is. Adywan would have to cut literally 30+ minutes from it to make it a Star Wars film.

Also, in 1080p, the CGI is horrifically dated. All live-actors on screen look like they've been dropped into a Pixar film. The worst moment was the initial scenic approach of the Jedi Temple. The surrounding landscape of skyscrapers is literally a patchwork of flat textures. However, animated Yoda was a very good choice.

[Lartrak]

Also, in 1080p, the CGI is horrifically dated. All live-actors on screen look like they've been dropped into a Pixar film

It's made worse by the flat lighting often used and bland camera angles. Everyone pops out of the background more than they should because of that. Revenge of the Sith has the same problem, but it's significantly worse in Attack of the Clones and especially TPM.

But yeah, the real location work and real sets of the original trilogy look a lot better than many of the green screened scenes of the prequel trilogy. It's kind of funny that way, isn't it? I think most of the ship sequences look better too, at least in the Special Editions (which removes all the matte lines). It goes without saying that as action sequences the ship stuff in TOT is better.

Also, a man named harmy has just finished releasing a "reconstruction" which attempts to make a complete theatrical cut of the original films in 720p using a variety of sources. I've only seen clips from Return of the Jedi, but generally his work is stellar. It uses the Adywan edit as a basis for a lot of stuff in Star Wars. The only poor choices I've seen him make thus far are bits where he overlaid obviously lower quality SD bits into stuff from much better transfers - like he overlays Vader's eyebrows back onto his head (one of the less offensive changes, in my mind) at the end of Return of the Jedi, but they don't match because it's obviously from a lower res source. A couple shots of the Sarlac Pit also do this. I think he would have been better off just having an entire shot look lower quality than having matte cutout stick out like a sore thumb

Still though, it's the best way yet to see the original theatrical cuts.