How I Fell in Love With Star Wars All Over Again!

May 5, 2014 by warzan

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I'll be honest, I was really starting to struggle with Star Wars. I bought the Blu Ray releases of the OT (Original Trilogy) a few weeks back and I have been gradually introducing them to my little girl, and boy was I looking forward to all their HD Glory.

But something is just not the same, I hate to say it, but it started with the prequels, and as I discovered over the weekend, cumulated in the special editions. Even though Lucasfilm went to great lengths to add stuff to the OT, however they managed it, I felt there was something missing. My enjoyment of 'A New Hope' was kinda gone, and I couldn't explain why, sure it had all the extra wizzy bits (that in general I'm not opposed to!) but on the whole the movie no longer felt the same.

I thought I had out grown it... I'm delighted to say was wrong!

During the comments in 'The Weekender XLBS' @chillreaper (who I owe eternal thanks to!) made a strange reference to 'fan edit of A New Hope: Revisited' by someone called 'Adywan'.

Old news to many of you I'm sure, but I had never heard of this and when he said... 'I refuse to watch the Special Edition now because his version is sooooo good' something clicked in me and I had to have a look.

I thought i was going in search of one of those ropey low res re-cuts, where most of Luke Skywalker's scenes had been removed from the movie...

... I couldn't have been more wrong!

It's been out for some time now, and requires you to go hunting around the torrents or Usenet to find a copy (and please if you do download it make sure you have an original copy of the DVD or Blu-ray, to try and at least bring some shred of legitimacy to the act of downloading it!), and while I may be waaay behind the times in knowing about it, there must be others out there in the same boat as me who need this movie (or version of) in their lives.

Let me show you just a hand full of the HUNDREDS of changes made.

Having watched it all I can say is WOW, my love for the movie is back and stronger than ever. (We hope to expect the same treatment for Empire Strikes Back this year!)

So why is this so much better?

That's a difficult one to answer, for me its a darker and grittier film, closer to the original cut, storm troopers get shot in the face and had shoots first. It also loses the unnecessary slapstick, and add-ons for the sake of add-ons, that rather than add to my enjoyment, kept punching me out of the zone.

I think most of all, it was a joy to watch something that was worked on by someone who clearly loves the movie, the colour correction and remixed audio is outstanding, and his attention to little details (the number of moons around Tatooine, the number of markings on an X-Wing and the positioning of the rebel planet in the final battle scenes etc) just made it something very very special.

So I've had a wonderful Star Wars weekend (i'm happy like a room without a roof!), made all the richer by a magician called Adywan, check out more at these links:

Star Wars Revisited

Massive Comparison Album

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