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The Special Editions

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Wriiten by Chris Walters (asst. Jeff Walters)


With the lull in Star Wars mania that seems to be occuring now that the Special Editions have been and the long wait ahead for the Prequels, it is perhaps timely to review the updated trilogy and answer the question - was it all worth while? Released in Australia on March 20, Star Wars returned to the big screen with promoters urging the cinema going public to "see it again, for the first time". In actual fact, trailers for the movie first appeared in Australia when Independence Day opened here at midnight August 28th 1997, so it took half a year for the buzz to build.

Star Wars 'A New Hope' Episode IV, first appeared in 1977 with the updated trilogy actually all being a part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of this release......I can hear sarcastic choruses of "You don't say" but I had to set the scene. So, what has 20 years of waiting granted us? On paper at least, four minutes of new extra footage and the original film remastered (alledgely the original print had 'gone blue' with age) with upgraded special effects.

Mos Eisley
The new Mos Eisley is much larger and busier than the old one.

Probably the most famous addition is the 'Jabba' scene. Originally shot with an actor standing in for Jabba, this scene - where the crime lord confronts Han Solo in Docking Bay 94 - was dropped when lack of funds saw George Lucas unable to add a stop motion Jabba to the footage in post-production. Other new footage included in Luke running into Biggs in the hangar just prior to the final battle, although, much to the dissappointment of many, there was no footage added of Luke and Biggs on Tatooine just after Luke witnesses the Star Destroyer in orbit which was in the book, but left out of the original.

Battle for Yavin
This pre-battle scene is an example of an upgrade that worked perfectly.

The scene upgrades include a much enlarged Mos Eisley, Dew Backs (those wierd looking large reptilian creatures) in the early desert shots, a different view of Ben Kenobi's place and an almost completely revised Death Star battle. Of the three, the first film has seen the most improvement....rightly so as it was finally starting to show it's age FX wise.

Although of high quality, the improvements aren't always seamless. The Han Solo/Greedo confrontation looks pretty ridiculous after Lucas was overcome with a bout of morality and made Greedo shoot first (his aim is worse than a bad guy in a Bond movie). I'd say the changes here were mostly worth it, with the only thing left showing it's age now being Leia's haircut.....but the technology to fix that is still beyond our grasp.

The new edition Empire Strikes Back, however, doesn't seem to work as well. The second installment of the trilogy has received the least amount of upgrading. Extra footage in the Wampa cave and a more detailed Cloud City are pretty much it. The battle on the ice planet Hoth has almost nothing new except a smoking speeder falling from the sky in a few scenes. I would have liked to have seen some work done to the scene where the walker that Luke brings down blows up as it looks too minature. In Bespin, where as before Lando, Leia and company are running through closed corridors in a effort to evade imperial troops, there are now huge windows everywhere - nice in moderation but they seem to be too common.

Bespin
These frames show the Falcon's progression through the new Bespin scenery

The really big mistake in ESB: SE and the worst flaw of all three upgraded movies was the scenes showing Vader returning to his Super Star Destroyer 'Executuor', as some footage has been directly lifted from Return of the Jedi here and it's extremely obvious.

Return of the Jedi works better in that the new scenes, for my mind, blend in well. There's not a hell of a lot that could have been done to enhance the look of the film as the special effects in the third installment are still a standard setter today. Extra footage in Jabba's palace and on Tatooine are where most attention has been paid. New CGI at the end showing celebrations on Bespin, Tatooine and Coruscant are interesting as this is the first instance of Coruscant appearing on film.....this is an interesting fact concidering that most of the new Star Wars books released over the last few years have been centered on this planet. Although not as much has been done here as there was to A New Hope, it would seem that by the time the film makers reached the third film that they had perfected adding new scenes to old as it looks more natural here.

Celebrate Good times....
The Emperor is dead....rah rah.

But was it all worthwhile? Depends on your point of view really (as Obi-wan would say). George Lucas wasn't satisfied with what he'd done first time around and hopefully is now. Twentieth Century Fox is still making millions off a film released two decades ago, but what of the film going public? One word, divided. Some feel that the new effects in particular (the Jabba scene seems to get the thumbs up generally) ruin the atmosphere. Some feel the work was needed and pulled off beautifully. Some can't understand all the fuss. Personally, I liked the original idea.

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