Another “Special Edition” of Star Wars?
Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 3:05 pm Category: Blu-ray, Movies, News, Star Wars, Top
I am usually working when The Forcecast is live and I haven’t dipped my toe into many podcasts, so it was interesting to catch a really big news piece on the one time I listened to the show in the last few months.
Last week, host Jason Swank (no relation) interviewed Matt Wood who is one of the bigshots in audio over at Lucasfilm. He was also General Grievous in Episode III and he Clone Wars cartoons. During the interview he dropped this tidbit about Obi-Wan’s Krayt Dragon call in A New Hope:
And, to be honest, that sound effect has been changed again. So at some point the audiences will be hearing that scene again with the new sound effect.
He also talked about how whenever they get a chance to remaster the audio for A New Hope they try to do so because it wasn’t recorded with longevity in mind. Over the years they’ve worked to clean the audio and replace stock sounds.
Some have been wondering what they could be once again remastering and tinkering with the audio for and I think it’s pretty obviously the Ultimate Blu-ray collection.
I think we’ll see other changes to the films for the Ultimate edition as well. There have been rumblings of a digital Yoda replacing the puppet in The Phantom Menace and I’ve even heard a crazy rumour (that I doubt is true) about a revamp of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s fight in A New Hope.
The biggest change I’d like to see that I think would create the most goodwill of fans is to see the scene in the Cantina fixed once and for all. Han fires first.
(For more frequent Star Wars updates, you can visit me on The Examiner)
Aside from that, what would you like to see changed in the new edition?
Responses to “Another “Special Edition” of Star Wars?”
You can see the Phantom Menace digital Yoda in either in the Star Wars: A Musical Journey dvd or at Star Wars in Concert (same footage used). It’s specifically the “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering” clip.
I knew I’d seen it somewhere, but I couldn’t place where. And it was definitely both of those places.
Thanks for the catch, Larry.
If by revamping the ObiWan-Vader fight, I hope they mean fixing the rotoscoping on the lightsabers so Obiwan’s blade doesn’t just disappear…
That was one of the things that needed to be fixed and wasn’t and it has always bugged me.
What I REALLY want, though, is the option to see all versions. I’d like to see, side by side or back to back, the different iterations of some of these scenes. Have the Jabba scene with the fat guy in the fur coat. Have the 1997 digital version. And a new 2010/2011 newer digital Jabba that doesn’t looks so terrible and more, say, like the Jabba in TPM.
I’ve always wanted the option to make my own “very special edition.” Essentially I’d like to pick and choose the source for each scene before I start the movie. Like I want Han to shoot first, but I still want the extra Jabba scene. I think most blu-ray players have the memory to handle it. And, if most of them don’t, I know mine does (ps3).
I hear that they’re going to replace all of the blasters with communicators and add more banthas to the background and foreground of every scene.
[...] next clip is something we have confirmation they changed. Matt Wood from ILM spoke about this on the Forcecast and confirmed it in July of last year. Does that mean the sound has changed and there’s a good reason for it? Yes. Does that [...]