The Empire Strikes Back, Part 1
The first several minutes of the movie showcase the different theses of the Despecialized (restoring the theatrical version, warts and all) and my edit (synthesizing the best-looking footage from multiple sources).
The audience is now deaf
This is such a minor thing, but I’m putting the THX “deep note” at the front of this edit. It’s on the Blu-ray so it’s an easy add. That’s a classic part of Star Wars for me and it’s missing from the Despecialized.
I’m also keeping the Blu-ray versions of the Fox and Lucasfilm logos. They’re not the originals, but those look pretty dated and bad.
Futzing with frame edges
The next thing that needs attention is the shot of the probe droid flying away. It’s been recomposited from the original — the droid is positioned higher and seems to have had a slight motion blur added. At first I thought the original miniature footage had been replaced with CGI completely, but the trailing leg still gives a telltale hop as the droid exits frame left.
This shot does stick out a bit to me, but the alternative is to use the DE footage, which is grainy in the extreme even at 720p. So, what looks better? The Blu-ray.
However, the Blu-ray still has an issue with both this shot and several subsequent ones: a black edge on the right side of the frame. It seems that at some point in the process (either the original or a subsequent remaster, I’m not sure) the compositing of several shots were slightly misaligned, resulting in some extra black edges and corners.
Fortunately, this is a pretty easy After Effects fix — just masking that side of the frame and stretching it horizontally to cover the black.
Here’s a comparison of all three versions in motion:
The same issue happens intermittently through Luke’s introductory scene, so I took the whole scene into After Effects and:
- Hid the black area with a mask
- Feathered the mask edge to fade it gently
- Duplicated the layer
- Moved the bottom layer down and left a bit to fill in the masked-out space
Blink and you’ll miss it! It’s the small black rounded area in the bottom left corner of the Blu-ray image. Splitting hairs, I know, but it was an easy fix.
The wampa glove
Luke’s introduction also includes the perfect example of how the Despecialized goes to somewhat bizarre lengths in the name of preservation. In the theatrical version, when the wampa attacks the tauntaun, you can barely see that the wampa arm is just a very long glove on somebody’s sleeve. (Bottom left corner of the shot, only visible for maybe 5-10 frames total.) This was fixed digitally in a subsequent re-release.
The Despecialized edited the sleeve back in.
Again, I have huge respect for the Despecialized, and technically restoring that sleeve is in keeping with the Despecialized’s mission statement of restoring the theatrical version. But to me this represents extra work that only makes the movie look worse — restoring what was obviously a mistake just for the sake of purism.
In the grand scheme of Star Wars edits, this one is very minor. But for me, this was one of the key overly-purist instances that decided me on doing my own edit. Since my edit is based on what looks better, I’ve gone with the Blu-ray, and fixed the lower left corner as well:
Here’s a comparison of all three versions in motion. I’ve slowed it to 50% so you can see the difference more easily.