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Harmy'sDespecialized Edition is a fan-createdfilm preservation of the original Star Wars trilogy films: Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). It is a high quality replica of the out-of-print theatrical versions created by a team of Star Wars fans, with the intention of preserving the films, culturally and historically. The project was led by Petr Harmáček, an English teacher from Plzeň, Czech Republic under the online alias Harmy.

The original Star Wars trilogy was created by George Lucas and released theatrically between 1977 and 1983. For the 'Special Edition' theatrical re-release of the films in 1997, Lucas introduced noticeable changes to address his dissatisfaction with the original cuts. These included additional scenes and altered dialogue, and new sound-effects and computer-generated imagery. These changes were included in subsequent releases of the films for home viewing. As of 2020, the original theatrical releases are not commercially available, and have never been released in high definition.

Some of the alterations were met with a negative response from both critics and fans. Harmáček felt that altering the films in this way constituted 'an act of cultural vandalism'. In 2010, he began to create a high definition reconstruction of the films' theatrical versions. Harmáček and a team of eight other fans used the 2011 Blu-ray releases for the majority of material, the lower-definition 1993 LaserDisc releases as a guide to the original version, and various other sources. The first version was published online in 2011, and updated versions have been released since.

As a derivative work, Harmy's Despecialized Edition cannot be legally bought or sold in the United States and other countries with treaties respecting US copyrights, and is 'to be shared among legal owners of the officially available releases only'.[1] Consequently, the films are mainly available via various file sharing methods. Reaction to the project has been positive, with critics generally praising the quality and aesthetics of the work.

Background[edit]

Star Wars logo

The original Star Wars trilogy was a Lucasfilm production released theatrically by 20th Century Fox between 1977 and 1983, and was subsequently released on home media during the 1980s and 1990s. The films were distributed by CBS/Fox Video on several formats, such as VHS, Betamax, and LaserDisc.[2] In 1997, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Star Wars, Lucas re-released new cuts of the trilogy to theaters, naming them the 'Special Editions'. The purpose of this release was to alter the films to meet Lucas' ideal vision that he could not achieve during their original productions. A number of changes to the original releases included additions of enhanced digital effects, previously unreleased scenes, altered dialogue, unreleased and newly recorded music by John Williams, updated sound-effects by THX and Skywalker Sound, and entirely new CGI sequences from Industrial Light & Magic.[3]

Reaction to the 'Special Edition' versions remain controversial with commentators praising the picture and sound restoration, but criticising unnecessary additions such as computer-generated characters, creatures, and vehicles as well as alterations to the essential story;[4] most notably a short scene involving the bounty hunter Greedo shooting at Han Solo from the first film drew significant ire.[5] Further changes to the series were added to the DVD release in 2004 to establish continuity with the prequel trilogy and to the Blu-ray releases from 2011. The final release of the theatrical cuts was in 2006, when unrestored masters used for the 1993 'Definitive Collection' trilogy on LaserDisc were added as a DVD bonus feature to a limited run – fans named this release 'George's Original Unaltered Trilogy' (GOUT).[6]

Despite a high demand and many online fan petitions, Lucasfilm has refused to release the theatrical versions of Star Wars in a high quality. In 2010, Lucas stated that bringing the original cuts to Blu-ray would be a 'very, very expensive' process;[7] as of 2020, the films are still only widely available in their altered versions.[8]

Production[edit]

Conception[edit]

Petr Harmáček (known online by the alias 'Harmy') had watched a dubbed version of the original cut of Star Wars at the age of six, and had then seen the Special Editions of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi on their 1997 release.[9] Although initially admiring them, he became disappointed when he learned how much the films had been changed retroactively; he argued that replacing the original effects with re-composited digital effects was 'an act of cultural vandalism'.[10] A fan of the original trilogy, he had written his undergraduate thesis on their cultural impact.[11] After seeing a trailer for Adywan's cut of The Empire Strikes Back, Harmáček was inspired to create a version of the film that 'undid' the post-1977 changes and restored the theatrical releases in high-definition.[12] He described his motivation as: 'I wanted to be able to show people who haven't seen Star Wars yet, like my little brother or my girlfriend, the original, Oscar-winning version, but I didn't want to have to show it to them in bad quality.'[10] Harmáček's edits were the first to recreate the theatrical releases in HD.[9]

Editing[edit]

'Look at this awesome film that was made in the '70s ... I want to show that to people. I wanted to show my brother. He was three when I started working and I showed it to him when he was five and he loved it.'

Harmy's Star Wars Despecialized Edition Hd V2 7.0

— Petr 'Harmy' Harmáček explaining his motivation for creating the Despecialized Edition[11]

Harmáček began creating his new cuts in 2010.[7] At the time, he was working as an English teacher in Plzeň and had no professional experience with film editing.[9] Instead, he taught himself programs such as Avisynth and Adobe After Effects as the project progressed, beginning with Photoshop skills that he had developed in college.[3][11] To remove the post-1977 changes, Harmáček was required to go through the film frame-by-frame, correcting colors and rotoscoping.[2][13] Undoing some shots took only an hour, while others took hundreds. Lightsabers were color-corrected, shots of the Millennium Falcon cockpit were un-cropped, Boba Fett's original voice was restored, and CGI characters and backgrounds were removed.[3]

Sources[edit]

Most of the source material used for Harmy's Despecialized Edition was taken from Lucasfilm's official Blu-ray release of the films in 2011, while other sequences were upscaled from previous home video releases.

These include:

  • The 2-disc 'Limited Edition' DVD release from 2006. This set contains a low resolution copy of the theatrical cuts on a bonus disc. Harmy refers to this disc as 'George's Original Unaltered Trilogy' (GOUT).[14]
  • The official trilogy on DVD box set from 2004, primarily the HDTV broadcasts of those versions of the films.
  • The 1997 'Special Edition' re-releases, most notably digital broadcasts of those cuts along with their LaserDisc releases.
  • The 1993 LaserDisc 'Definitive Collection' box set.
  • Digital transfers of a Spanish 35 mm Kodak LPP and 70 mm film cels, a 16 mm print.
  • A collection of still images of the original matte paintings.

Harmáček edited these sources together using programs such as Avisynth and Adobe After Effects.[10]

To help, Harmáček was assisted by a group of like-minded fans from the website OriginalTrilogy.com. In total, the project took thousands of hours of work between them.[10] In 2011, one year after the project had begun, the first version of Harmy's Despecialized Edition was published online;[15] new and updated versions were created regularly in the five years that followed.[5] As of February 2017, the most recent 'despecialized' versions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are v2.7, v2.0 and v2.5 respectively.[11] As a result of the project, Harmáček was able to quit his teaching job and in 2015 was hired by UltraFlix to prepare and restore a library of 4K-encoded films for sale and rent. He has since joined UPP, a Prague-based VFX house, as a 2D digital compositor and worked on such projects as Blade Runner 2049, Wonder Woman, and AMC's The Terror.[3][7]

Legality[edit]

The legality of downloading Harmy's Despecialized Edition is contentious.[2] As a fan edit, the cut cannot be legally bought or sold, and treads a line between fair use and copyright infringement.[16] OriginalTrilogy.com states that the edits are 'made for culturally historical and educational purposes' and that they are 'to be shared among legal owners of the officially available releases only'.[7] Consequently, the films are only available via various BitTorrent trackers and through specialized rapid download programs using file sharing sites.[4][17] Harmáček himself remarked: 'I'm convinced that 99% of people who download this already bought Star Wars 10 times over on DVD.'[11] As of January 2020, he had received no legal challenge from Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, the owner of Lucasfilm and 20th Century Studios, over the Despecialized Edition.[10]

Alternate projects[edit]

Team Negative 1[edit]

Star Wars 4K77 is a fan project where original 35mm prints of Star Wars from 1977 were scanned and restored by a group of dedicated fans. The project takes its name based on the high quality of 4K resolution and the film's release year of 1977. In 2016, a few 35mm prints managed to be located and donated to group of fans called 'Team Negative 1' (TN1), who took these prints and scanned them in 4K. After two years of painstaking restoration, TN1 released the film online on May 18, 2018, first in the form of a 4K UHD file and then a 1080p downscale. According to the Project 4K77 website, 97% of the restoration came from a single print that contained a Spanish dub. The other 3% came from an alternate print and some frames were upscaled from the official Lucasfilm Blu-ray. Nothing required upscaling from any of the DVD or VHS releases. [18]

TN1 followed up 4K77 with Project 4K83 based on an original 35mm print of Return of the Jedi was that was discovered and scanned in 4K. According to their website, the print that was utilized for this restoration for the third film required little cleanup and was finished and released before their completed restoration of The Empire Strikes Back on October 18, 2018.[19]Project 4K80, a restoration of The Empire Strikes Back, is currently being restored by TN1 as of 2020. The prints to the 1980 film required a lot more cleanup and are expected to take at least over a year to complete, despite only having 6 reels of film to clean up.[20]

Reception[edit]

Reaction to Harmy's Despecialized Edition has been universally positive. Writing for Inverse, Sean Hutchinson placed it at number one on his list of the best Star Wars fan edits, and described it as 'the perfect pre-1997 way to experience the saga'.[5] Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker called the edits 'the best version of Star Wars you can watch', and named them 'the version of Star Wars we've all been clamoring for the last 20 years'.[4] Similarly, Nathan Barry of Wired praised the films as 'an absolute joy to watch',[13] while Gizmodo described them as 'very, very good'.[15] In an article listing Ars Technica's favorite Star Wars items, Sam Machkovech selected Harmy's Despecialized Edition, calling it 'a treat'.[17]

References[edit]

  1. ^'The Ultimate Introductory Guide to Harmy's Star Wars Trilogy Despecialized Editions'. docs.google.com. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  2. ^ abcGoldberg, Matt (December 14, 2015). 'Yes, an HD Version of the Unaltered 'Star Wars' Original Trilogy Lurks Online'. Collider. Archived from the original on December 21, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  3. ^ abcdMiller, Daniel (December 2015). 'Restoring Star Wars'. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on December 14, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  4. ^ abcGordon, Whitston (December 14, 2015). 'Watch the Original Star Wars Trilogy As It Was Before George Lucas Screwed It Up'. Lifehacker. Archived from the original on December 14, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  5. ^ abcHutchinson, Sean (January 22, 2016). 'These Are the 5 Best 'Star Wars' Fan Edits'. San Francisco: Inverse. Archived from the original on January 27, 2016. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  6. ^Smith, Chris (December 15, 2015). 'How to watch the original Star Wars trilogy from before George Lucas altered it'. Boy Genius Report. Archived from the original on December 16, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  7. ^ abcdBrew, Simon (May 20, 2015). 'Star Wars: Fan creates 'despecialized' original trilogy'. London: Den of Geek. Archived from the original on May 23, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  8. ^Hutchinson, Lee (May 10, 2014). 'Could Disney finally give us the remastered, unedited Star Wars we want?'. Ars Technica. Archived from the original on May 11, 2014. Retrieved April 19, 2016.
  9. ^ abcJun, Dominik (November 8, 2014). 'The Czech guerilla restorationist battling to 'save Star Wars''. Prague: Radio Prague. Archived from the original on November 13, 2014. Retrieved April 25, 2016.
  10. ^ abcdeHosie, Ewen (November 17, 2015). ''Star Wars: Despecialized Edition' Restores the Original, Unedited Trilogy'. Vice. New York City. ISSN1077-6788. OCLC30856250. Archived from the original on November 18, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  11. ^ abcdeEveleth, Rose (August 27, 2014). 'The Star Wars George Lucas Doesn't Want You To See'. The Atlantic. Washington, D.C.: Atlantic. ISSN1072-7825. OCLC783915762. Archived from the original on August 28, 2014. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  12. ^Johncock, Benjamin (December 21, 2015). 'On Star Wars, The Craft of Writing and What Novelists Can Learn From 'The Force Awakens''. The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on January 27, 2016. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  13. ^ abBarry, Nathan (February 12, 2013). 'Star Wars – The Fandom Editors'. Wired. Archived from the original on October 31, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  14. ^Barry, Nathan (May 2, 2013). 'Star Wars – The Fandom Editors – A Real New Hope'. GeekDad. Archived from the original on May 5, 2013. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  15. ^ ab'Two Entirely Different Ways to Watch the Original Star Wars'. Australia: Gizmodo. December 18, 2015. Archived from the original on December 21, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  16. ^Broughall, Nick (December 18, 2015). 'Awakening the Force in my son was easier with the Harmy Despecialized Editions'. TechRadar. Archived from the original on January 27, 2016. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  17. ^ abMachkovech, Sam (November 26, 2015). 'Star Wars beyond the films: Ars' staff picks its fave games, toys, more'. Ars Technica. Archived from the original on November 29, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  18. ^'Project 4K77 | The Star Wars Trilogy'. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
  19. ^'Project 4K83 | The Star Wars Trilogy'. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
  20. ^'Project 4K80 | The Star Wars Trilogy'. Retrieved 2020-10-04.

External links[edit]

Harmy

Star Wars Despecialized Editions

  • Harmy's channel on YouTube
  • Star Wars Trilogy Despecialized Edition on Facebook
  • Why watching the best version of Star Wars is actually illegal via Looper
  • Star Wars: Despecialized Edition Remastered V2.5, Introducing the Sources on IMDb

Harmy Despecialized Star Wars Download

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