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[ Star Wars Despecialized Edition Remastered (v2.5) ]
[ Introducing the Sources ]
This featurette will give you a quick look at the various sources used to recreate
the original 1977 version of Star Wars
in the Star Wars Despecialized Edition Remastered.
The main video source of the Despecialized Edition Remastered
was the official Blu-ray release of the heavily altered version of the film.
The Star Wars trilogy came out on Blu-ray in 2011.
To the disappointment of many fans,
this release was sourced from the same master as the 2004 DVDs
and inherited most of the 2004 release's problems.
Such as crushed blacks,
heavily altered color palette,
and automated digital cleanup resulting in a slightly artificial look of some scenes.
Luckily, the higher resolution and bitrate of the Blu-ray format
allow for these problems to be corrected to a certain degree.
An overall color correction was first performed
by an OriginalTrilogy.com member called You_Too,
who wrote an AviSynth script
to fix some of the worst color issues of the 2004 master,
mainly the ever-present magenta tones,
which are especially visible in laser fire flash frames,
but in other instances as well.
In the end, a shot-by-shot color correction was done
based on the colors of a well-preserved Technicolor print.
Another major source used in the Despecialized Edition
was the 2006 bonus DVD containing the original version of the film.
This DVD is commonly referred to as George's Original Unaltered Trilogy,
or "The GOUT" for short.
Even though it uses a non-anamorphic transfer from 1993,
it is unfortunately still the highest quality of the original version officially available.
Aside from its low resolution, this 20-year old transfer is also plagued by many other issues,
such as motion smearing
caused by a primitive digital noise removal method
used when making the transfer in the early '90s.
This is clearly visible here,
where the speeder leaves a trail of its own shape from previous frames behind it.
The transfer also suffers from badly faded colors
and severe aliasing.
Sometimes, only small elements were used from the GOUT
to cover up Special Edition changes.
But in other instances, entire shots had to be replaced by GOUT upscales.
Upscaling this obsolete transfer
and having it look acceptable next to HD footage was no easy task.
And that's why "Project Blu", an HD upscale of the GOUT DVD
done by an OriginalTrilogy.com member called dark_jedi, was used in most cases.
Usually it was further enhanced and, of course, color corrected
to fit together with the surrounding high definition footage.
dark_jedi is now cooperating with You_Too on making
an even better upscale for a new version of Project Blu,
and a few work-in-progress shots from this new effort
were also provided by them for the Despecialized Edition Remastered.
Another source, used for the Despecialized Edition Remastered
was the aforementioned 2004 DVD version.
The source used for the Despecialized Edition, however, wasn't the DVD itself,
but an HDTV broadcast which used the same master as the 2004 DVD.
This HDTV source was used to undo some of the changes made for the 2011 Blu-ray release.
It was also the main source of the first Despecialized Edition
and was therefore carried over in the shots which weren't redone in the Remastered version,
or shots that were redone prior to the release of the Blu-ray.
To undo some of the changes done in the 2004 release,
a capture of an anamorphic, standard definition PAL digital broadcast master tape
of the first Special Edition from 1997 was also used as a source.
Again, sometimes only some elements were extracted from this source.
But sometimes, whole shots were used.
For the most recent versions of the Despecialized Edition,
a great new source became available.
A scan of the first part of the Mos Eisley scene
from an actual low fade LPP 35mm print
done on a home built scanner by a group of dedicated fans
called "Team Negative1".
The print, while in a fairly good condition, still had too much grain and dirt
to fit along side the Blu-ray footage which was scanned from the original negative.
So first, an automated cleanup was performed in AviSynth,
by another OriginalTrilogy.com member who calls himself "Laserschwert".
Then the footage was further enhanced and color corrected,
especially where the entirety of the frame had to be replaced,
but also where only elements from the scan
were used to cover up the Special Edition changes.
Puggo Grande, a homemade capture of a 16mm print of the original film
was also one of the minor video sources.
For example, in this shot it was used to minimize the aliasing
present on the wings of the X-wing fighters in the GOUT.
It was also used as a reference
for the theatrical timing and placement of the Greedo subtitles.
The last group of sources used was a variety of still images.
Many 35mm cell scans and screen photos of varied resolution and quality
were obtained from several different sources,
some of which wish to remain anonymous.
The condition of the film in some of those scans was often quite rough
and required cleanup and enhancement in order to fit with the Blu-ray footage.
These images were usually used to restore original matte paintings,
to enhance GOUT footage,
or to create custom mattes to cover up Special Edition changes.
Sometimes, animation had to be employed
to create the subtle movement present in the original footage.
And rotoscoping had to be used to put the foreground elements in front of the mattes.
Custom mattes were often created from other sources
such as several consecutive frames
or a combination of HD and GOUT images.
It was the combination of all these sources
that made it possible to recreate the experience of watching Star Wars
as it was originally released.
And a debt of gratitude is owed to the people who provided these sources
by all those who will enjoy the Despecialized Edition Remastered.
[ Special Thanks to Harmy for creating the Despecialized Editions and this documentary. ]