Star Wars - Despecialized Edition

[Lancelot]

Watching the original Star Wars trilogy in their unedited form and in a great quality. Harmy, along with many other devoted fans, made this dream become reality.

It's a non-profit project and available to download for free. Harmy also clarified that, to prevent piracy, you need to have at least one of the official video releases, such as the Blu-rays or DVDs.

The videos are in MKV format and contain many (reconstructed) official dubs in different languages. It's interesting to watch in Japanese. 

 

This video shows how the Despecialized Edition of A New Hope was made. Because this video is restricted on this site, you have to watch it on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHfLX_TMduY

 

I watched the Despecialized Edition of The Empire Strikes Back a few months ago. It was great to watch it in the way it was released back in 1980. They really did a great job.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

Watching the original Star Wars trilogy in their unedited form and in a great quality. Harmy, along with many other devoted fans, made this dream become reality.

It's a non-profit project and available to download for free. Harmy also clarified that, to prevent piracy, you need to have at least one of the official video releases, such as the Blu-rays or DVDs.

The videos are in MKV format and contain many (reconstructed) official dubs in different languages. It's interesting to watch in Japanese. 

 

This video shows how the Despecialized Edition of A New Hope was made. Because this video is restricted on this site, you have to watch it on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHfLX_TMduY

 

I watched the Despecialized Edition of The Empire Strikes Back a few months ago. It was great to watch it in the way it was released back in 1980. They really did a great job.

Are you aware of the REVISITED versions by Adywan by any chance, Lancelot? I have two words for the A New Hope Revisited version: Kick-A**.

[Lancelot]

@

If I understood it correctly, many issues were "corrected" and the visual aspects were enhanced in A New Hope Revisited. It's not a bad idea actually, especially for ones who want

a "cleaner" look of the film. It could be considered as a fanmade Special Edition without the whole mumbo-jumbo of the 1997 Special Edition.

 

And this is why I love the Despecialized Edition: Instead of enhancing or correcting something, they are making the complete opposite of it. They just want to give us the experience of

the theatrical version.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

@

If I understood it correctly, many issues were "corrected" and the visual aspects were enhanced in A New Hope Revisited. It's not a bad idea actually, especially for ones who want

a "cleaner" look of the film. It could be considered as a fanmade Special Edition without the whole mumbo-jumbo of the 1997 Special Edition.

 

And this is why I love the Despecialized Edition: Instead of enhancing or correcting something, they are making the complete opposite of it. They just want to give us the experience of

the theatrical version.

Yes, you are correct. One of the things that I loved that Adywan did was improve the Death Star Battle, particularly when the Tie Fighters enter the battle. If it were up to me, I'd personally make Adywan's versions of the OT canon. Of course, I'd also have the despecialized versions put on Blu Ray as well for those who wanted to enjoy the original theater experience again in their homes.

[Cerez]

Guys, you do realise that the original theatrical release has been available on torrent shares for quite some time now, right? (Can't link due to forum rules.) And isn't Disney in the process of re-releasing the original trilogy in its original, theatrical release as well on DVD/Blu-ray?

[Lancelot]

@@Cerez

The theatrical releases found on those sites are, in fact, the Despecialized Editions.   If I recall correctly, somebody involved in that project pointed that out.

 

And yes, it has been rumoured some time last year that the Star Wars trilogy will be officially released in its unaltered form in HD. But no further informations have been given since then.

[DrXann]

These were converted from the VHS tapes non 1997.If people born during the 70s and 80s want their low quality movies they can have them.I prefer the specialized editions and the DVD releases because the quality is better.

[Onysfx]

I really like the revisited editions. Especially the EP4 deathstar attack in revisited, it's way better IMO.

[Lancelot]

Not really related to the Star Wars Despecialized project, but something related to fan-preservations of the Original Trilogy.

 

Team Negative One is currently working on a 4K restoration of A New Hope, by scanning the 35mm prints of the film.

The results are impressive:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCVpYwj4Ubs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTPU8rY0ZF8

[Barricade24]

I grew up with the special edition of the Classic Trilogy so that will always be Star Wars as I know it. Must of the changes I don't mind, but the absolute worse thing was having Vader yelling "no" in Return of the Jedi. That special moment was ruined by that line.

[Lancelot]

Team Negative 1 posted a huge chunk of update on their blog some weeks ago. In May, after a while of back and forth, they've finally completed restoration of the theatrical version of A New Hope.

They created a 1080 as well as a 4K version of it, with the latter being the main goal of the whole project.

 

http://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/page/Project-4K77

[the_raven]

I don't get why everyone's so obsessed with 4k video when the originals work well enough. But fan devotion is fan devotion, I suppose.

I actually found the original ending of RotJ on youtube (maybe it's from the de-specialized edition?), and people there are fighting over which ending is better. Personally, I'm for the original ending, save for the music - the music in the '97(?) re-edition was far better. Sure, Wub-nub (or whatever) fits the scene, but it's a terrible choice for ending an iconic trilogy.