Like many, I was unhappy with a lot the changes that were made for the Special Editions and the 2011 blu-rays.
Harmy's Despecialised Editions are great for those that want to see the films exactly as they were when they were originally released theatrically, but some of the changes (especially the updating of special effects) actually make the films better IMHO, so I decided to make 'Semi-Specialised' editions of these films to remove what I considered the bad changes while keeping all the good changes/additions.
With this V3 release I have used the newest Star Wars blu-ray as my main video source because it has far more natural looking colours than the previous bluray that has very oversaturated colours, a strong blue tint applied throughout the whole film and the fleshtones have a very strong reddish magenta push that makes characters look permanently sunburnt.
Another change with this V3 release compared to V 2.5 is that Luke's lightsaber while he is training with Obi-Wan on the Millenium Falcon is now blue as it was in the original theatrical release of Star Wars.
I have also reduced of the brightness of the garbage compactor scene because I felt that it was a little bright on the newest Star Wars bluray and the added brightness IMHO robbed the scene of some of its atmosphere and menace.
I have made two changes to V2.5 compared to previous releases, I have replaced two specialised shots that I have always found distracting when watching previous versions of the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition.
The first shot is where the CG dino creature walks across the frame covering the whole screen as Luke and Ben are being stopped by Stormtroopers in Mos Eisley.
The second shot is a very silly over the top scene where Han is chasing the stormtroopers in the deathstar and in the Special Edition he comes round the corner and there are hundreds of CG stormtroopers in a docking bay waiting for him, while in the theatrical release it was just a dead end with the six stormtroopers he'd been chasing waiting for him, a very funny scene in the theatrical release that just looks very silly and fake in the Special Edition.
I used TeamNegative1's Silver Screen Screen Edition as my video source to reinsert these two scenes into this V2.5 (thank you so much TeamNegative1 for creating this wonderful release and sharing it with everybody). I also adjusted the colour grading of the two replaced shots to make them more seemlessly match the colour grading of the rest of V2.5 and also removed the more distracting spots and dirt that appeared here and there.
Also included in this release is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 upmix upmix of Belbucus's fantastic Star Wars '95 PCM two channel audio track and the Cinema DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track created to fit this Semi-Specialised Edition. The video bitrate has also been boosted compared to previous versions to better fit the 23GB space available on a writable bd-25 disc. All edits/changes have been kept exactly the same as the previous releases. Enjoy!
Thank you CapableMetal for syncing the Cinema DTS 5.1 tracks split by reels to the '97 release and then providing me with them, I couldn't have created these Cinema DTS MA 5.1 tracks without them! Chapter timings from the blu ray have also been included in this release.
Below is a brief summary of the changes made to this film:
Star Wars:
Audio changes:
Original Krayt Dragon call restored
New lossless pcm audio track created to fit this semi-specialised edition, based off Belbucus's excellent 1993 Star Wars PCM audio mix
Video Changes:
Luke's lightsaber while he is training with Obi-Wan on the Millenium Falcon is now blue as it was in the original theatrical release of Star Wars
Silly CG droid and jawa antics when they enter Mos Eisley have been removed
Jabba scene removed
Han shoots Greedo first with no awful CG head dodging action
Lightsabers made more consistant so they are not constantly changing colour, Vader's lightsaber is now red all the time rather than turning pink.
Here are some screencaps release:
Regraded 1:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/yqssRbm/01regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 2:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/93WbP4t/02regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 3:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/c3mT4sh/03regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 4:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/hFSDT87/04regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 5:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/VprtwsH/05regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 6:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/m6k8Mkx/06regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 7:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/92LNb26/07regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 8:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/n0qcCdQ/08regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 9:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/wCmtb0M/09regraded.jpg[/img]
Regraded 10:
[img]https://i.ibb.co/nMYg7w5/10regraded.jpg[/img]
Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : [email protected] Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, RefFrames : 4 frames Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Duration : 2 h 3 min Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 22.0 Mb/s Maximum bit rate : 31.0 Mb/s Width : 1 920 pixels Height : 804 pixels
Audio #1 ID : 2 Format : PCM Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT Duration : 2 h 2 min Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 1 536 kb/s Channel(s) : 2 channels Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 32.000 FPS (1500 SPF) Bit depth : 16 bits Stream size : 1.31 GiB (6%) Language : English Default : Yes Forced : No
Audio #2 ID : 3 Format : DTS Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems Format profile : MA / Core Mode : 16 Format settings, Endianness : Big Codec ID : A_DTS Duration : 2 h 2 min Bit rate mode : Variable / Constant Bit rate : 1 690 kb/s / 1 509 kb/s Channel(s) : 6 channels Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF) Bit depth : 16 bits Compression mode : Lossless / Lossy Stream size : 1.44 GiB (6%) Language : English Default : No Forced : No
Audio #3 ID : 4 Format : DTS Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems Format profile : MA / Core Mode : 16 Format settings, Endianness : Big Codec ID : A_DTS Duration : 2 h 3 min Bit rate mode : Variable / Constant Bit rate : 2 321 kb/s / 1 509 kb/s Channel(s) : 6 channels Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF) Bit depth : 16 bits Compression mode : Lossless / Lossy Stream size : 2.00 GiB (9%) Language : English Default : No Forced : No