Ten best, and worst, changes to the Star Wars Special Editions
Sometime around July I wanted to make a list of the changes to the Star Wars Trilogy that I thought were good and bad. I decided to wait until the Blu-Rays were released before creating this list. Now that the Blu-Rays are almost here, some eager beavers were diligent enough to discover what the new changes are and post them on the internet. Listed below in no particular order are those changes.
The Good
The Millennium Falcon blasting out of Mos Eisley
In mid-January of 1997, my friends and I got tickets to a private screening of the Star Wars Special Edition at the Ziegfeld in New York City. Not one change to the Special Edition got as many applauds as this one. Originally, you just saw a very wide shot of the Falcon taking off, but in the Special Edition, Lucasfilm filmed a high shot of Stormtroopers shooting at the Falcon as it took off, and composited it with a CGI Falcon blasting off. An excellent change.
Searching for the droids
Another scene filmed specifically for the Special Edition was the search for the droids on Tatooine. Originally done with a cardboard cutout, Lucasfilm brought members of the United States Army into the desert, put them in Stormtrooper outfits, and filmed them looking for the droids. Add in some CGI Dewbacks and you’ve got a great change to Star Wars.
Biggs
Fox was worried that Luke’s appearance so late in the film (near the end of reel one) would turn people off since he is the main character. To counter Fox’s worries, Lucas filmed scenes involving Luke and his best friend Biggs in Anchorhead. In the final cut of the film, Biggs is only mentioned in passing while Luke is cleaning the droids and we never get a sense that Biggs was important to Luke when he’s killed during the attack on the Death Star. With the addition of this scene in the Special Edition, it’s still not obvious that these two are very close, their meeting seems to be more of “hey, you’re here too?”. Still, it gives a better sense of loss when Biggs dies.
The launch of the rebel ships
The original film had a far shot of the ships quickly flying away from the Rebel base. The shot was so far away that you couldn’t tell what was flying away. In the Special Edition, ILM put in CGI ships, showing them take off like ships probably should.
Approaching the Death Star
In the original version of Star Wars, ILM started with a static camera shot from the rear of approaching X-Wings and Y-Wings, followed by another essentially static shot of those same ships. In the Special Edition, that was changed with a dynamic shot of rebel ships passing by the camera.
The sound mixes
Originally, Star Wars was released in mono, 35mm Dolby, and 70mm 6-Track Dolby. For the Special Editions, the mixes were cleaned up and in some places greatly enhanced. The opening of Star Wars, which wowed audiences in 1977 with its flyover of the Rebel Blockade Runner and Star Destroyer, now sounds infinitely much better. All three movies now benefit from DTS 6.1 mixes.
Changes to Cloud City
The original set of Cloud City was rather modern, but closed. ILM opened up Cloud City for the Special Edition and made the city less claustrophobic.
Blinking Ewoks
Similar to what was done to the Gorn in the new CGI additions to the Star Trek episode “Arena”, Ewoks now blink in the Blu-Ray version of “Return of the Jedi”. Not a major change, but I like it.
The end of “Return of the Jedi”
To show how far reaching the death of the Emperor really was, Lucas added some scenes into the end of Return of the Jedi showing celebrations of freedom on Tatooine, Bespin, Coruscant, and Naboo. The end music was also changed from the silly “nyub nyub” song.
CGI Yoda in Episode I
Let’s face it – the puppet in Episode I looked bad. VERY bad. How it was so bad when the job done in Empire was so GOOD is beyond me. Either way, ILM changed Yoda in Episode I to be a CGI Yoda. Here’s an animated gif of the differences (from millenniumfalcon.com)
Honorable mention
From Star Wars: Ben’s hut, far shot of Mos Eisley, changes to the Sandcrawler shots (specifically, the sky).
The Bad
Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad. In 1997 we were hoping that so much would be fixed such as matte lines and such, but instead we got other changes. For the Blu-Ray,
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Lucasfilm reps said they worked four years on the Blu-Ray edition. It’s hard to see where that hard work went. We’re still getting 2004 scans of the films, edge enhancement, and some DNR. I haven’t watched the movies myself, but these are the reports we’re getting. I’ll know more in 10 days. Still, these are the changes we do know about.
Artoo hiding in rocks he can’t fit in
After Luke is attacked by the Sandpeople, Artoo hides in nearby rocks. Lucas decided to put Artoo inside a group of rocks he can’t even fit into. This change makes no sense because even though Lucas hid Artoo well, Artoo’s still beeping at Luke, so even though Lucas hid Artoo, Artoo’s still noisy which makes the whole point of the change silly. Take a look at the rocks. How in the world can Artoo fit not only between the rocks, but squat down to get in there?
Krayt Dragon
When Ben finds an unconscious Luke, surrounded by Sandpeople, he lets out a scream that’s supposed to be a Krayt Dragon. In the new Blu-Ray it sounds more like someone getting their lips surgically removed from George Lucas’ ass.
Greedo
After getting the charter to Alderaan, Han is cornered by Greedo, hell bent on getting the money that Han owes Jabba the Hutt. Greedo shoves a blaster in Han’s chest and keeps it pointed at him the entire time, threatening to kill Han. In the original cut, Han secretly takes out his blaster from under the table and shoots Greedo dead. In the most hated change to Star Wars, Greedo now shoots, and misses Han, even though he’s two feet away from him. Over the years the scene has changed, mostly getting shorter and shorter, but still not as believable. I don’t care what Lucas says, this change is just ridiculous.
Jabba
Jabba not only looks bad, but his existence in Star Wars is redundant and pointless. For starters, most of his dialog is the same as what Greedo just said to Han in the cantina. There’s no real resolution here, and lines from Empire more or less tell the viewer that Han has to pay Jabba back anyway. What’s worse is that when the scene was originally filmed in 1976, Jabba wasn’t supposed to be a slug. His description in the novel and comics make him to be more humanoid, so when Harrison Ford walks behind the actor playing Jabba, ILM digitally altered Ford to step on Jabba’s tail. The result is not convincing. Finally, Boba Fett looking right at the camera at the end of the scene takes the viewer out of the movie.
Censorship
This I don’t understand at all. In Star Wars, when our gang takes control of the control room above the Millennium Falcon on the Death Star, and when they attack the detention center, the shots that hit the Imperial guards have been shortened by a few frames.
Bad CGI
There are some shots during the attack on the Death Star which are just atrocious. Bad lighting, bad movement, unbelievable flying, even for a fantasy movie. I wonder why these changes were made when the originals worked just fine. Removing matte lines would have been a better change.
Vader landing on his Star Destroyer at the end of Empire
This is one of those shots where I believe Lucas said “the audience is stupid, we need to show every step Vader took to make sure we know how fast he got on the Executor”. In the original cut, Vader asked for his shuttle while Luke was hanging on for dear life. Now, in 30 years I never once questioned how or why Vader got on board his ship so fast, but Lucas seems to think that was a problem. Hence, we have a reused shot from Return of the Jedi. Silly.
Noooooooooo!
The day Return of the Jedi was released, some friends and I went to see it, even taking off from school to do so. At the end of the film when Palpatine is trying to kill Luke with lightning, you can see Vader’s contemplation of what’s happening simply by his body movement. As with the above change, Lucas felt we needed to hear him say “Noooooooo!” before he picked up Palpatine, echoing what he said at the end of Revenge of the Sith. So unnecessary and shows that less can sometimes be a lot more.
Dialog changes
There are some dialog changes that make no sense at all. The least offensive is Han saying “until I can get the shelter up” instead of “…shelter built” when saving Luke on Hoth. It doesn’t change anything except what I remember from the original cut.
One change that was quite funny is when Artoo is shot from the swamp on Dagobah. Luke now says “you’re lucky to get out of there”. Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. The original line was “you’re lucky you don’t taste very good”. That line was funnier. Why was it changed?
One of the worst changes was when Lando’s getting pulled in by the Sarlaac. Han, who still can’t see right from his hibernation sickness, is trying to shoot the tentacle that’s got Lando. Han now says “it’s alright, I can see a lot better”. Meh. The original line was simply “trust me”. Far funnier, and matches Han’s character.
Jar Jar wasn’t removed
‘Nuff said
Honorable mention
Matte lines still plague the entire original trilogy.
So that’s our list of ten best and worst changes to Star Wars. What are yours? Leave a comment here or post on our forums.
Category: Entertainment
