Review of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (With Original Theatrical Version)

Introduction

I`ve never been thrilled with this "Episode IV: A New Hope" thing. I always felt that the sequels were just cashing in and that George Lucas had achieved a pretty much perfect piece of filmmaking with the 1977 original. It pained me that with the exception of the first videotape I ever owned (long lost) and the forty minutes or so of 8mm digest of the film were the only times I could view that wonderful original. The tinkering started with the reissue of the movie alongside its 1980 first sequel, and it went on for the next twenty-six years and doesn`t look like it`s going to stop. The movie that I fell for and which meant so much to a teenage me was called Star Wars, and it didn`t include any extremely dodgy shot of Han Solo ducking a shot from Greedo, or that half-ton slug called Jabba. There was also a wonderful musical riff of the Rebel theme over the X-wings dive into battle that used to raise the hairs.

I`m not one of these types who goes on about George Lucas raping my childhood. He`s the creator of these movies and it`s his prerogative to tinker with them (even if it is an ill-considered precedent). I`m not still as in-love with the Star Wars franchise as I was when I was fourteen, but I like to revisit every so often.

I was really jazzed when they announced the release of the original theatrical edition, and incredibly disappointed when we all found out about the non-anamorphic transfer. I`ve protested about the whole anamorphic issue `til I`m blue in the face. I`ve explained anamorphism to the argumentative and hard-of-understanding, I`ve rolled my eyes at people who`ve seen the transfer and said it`s good or better than they expected.

Well, I`ve had a chance to look at bits of both editions. And I don`t know if I can write the really hostile review I`d anticipated. I still think we`ve been shortchanged with the release. It`s really just an exercise in dumping overstock of the 2005 reissue and pimping the Lego game.

The main disc is, of course, the 2004 redux of "A New Hope". Nothing has been done to correct the "creative decisions" complained about by fans, but the demographic that matters to Lucasfilm - Lego-buying youngsters - will be most familiar with this version of the movie. The picture, along with the sequels, is reviewed as part of the box set which can be checked out by clicking on the link to the left.
This review, right or wrong, is concerned primarily with the bonus disc. Is it the disaster the fans and home theatre enthusiasts predicted?

Watching the bonus disc, two things came to mind. If I`d got the disc back in the days when I started out on DVD, I`d have been really really chuffed with it. The movie is the version I fell for back in 1977, without any of GL`s revisionist tweaks. There`s no Jabba, Han shoots Greedo and there`s the Rebel fanfare over the Death Star dive. I`m a happy bunny on that score.

Imagewise, I`d still have expected an anamorphic release. It is 2006, after all and at least in the UK, widescreen tellies are becoming the norm. Having said that, the picture isn`t so bad. I expanded the picture to fill the screen, which introduced a little line structure, but as I got into the movie, I didn`t really notice it. The print the transfer was taken from is obviously a couple of generations off the Oneg, as certain scenes are quite grainy in comparison with their 2004 touch-up, but I think that`s down to those crappy Eastman stocks used back then. Personally, though, the transfer looks just the way I`d expect a 1977 movie to look in 2006. If anything it looks quite good. There`s a bit of print weave obvious which would have been introduced between printing generations as well.

The other striking thing I noticed about the movie was the difference between the letterboxed 1977 version and the anamorphic 2004 version. Or the lack of it. Now, before any techie readers take me to task, there is more detail, sharpness and colour in the 2004 version but the difference isn`t as radical as I`d expected. I`d conned myself into thinking it would be like SD versus HD, but really the tricks pulled in making an anamorphic image don`t add up to such a difference.

Now, I`m going to make a few generalisations that will probably infuriate any techies around, and my Maths aren`t that great, but:

A PAL video frame is 720x576 pixels at 4:3. That`s a constant. The picture can be stretched by a quarter to produce a 16:9 picture, but no additional definition is added. A 2.35:1 picture is displayed within the standard video frame as (roughly) 720x310 as a letterbox image and something in the region of 720x480 as an anamorphic image. The key figure is the vertical resolution - maybe 150 extra lines of information, or about 25%. It sounds a lot, but it doesn`t really make that vast a hike in resolution. There was a 35% hike in resolution when television switched from 405 lines in the 1960s to 625 lines, and HD is a 47% increase over standard definition.

The people who will notice the lack of resolution will be home theatre enthusiasts - people with large screen displays. People with standard 4:3 televisions won`t notice any difference between the two versions, as depending on their setups, either their player or their television throws away the additional definition provided by an anamorphic transfer.

Video

2004 Redux - 2.35:1 aspect ratio rendered as anamorphic widescreen. The movie looks better than it has in years. The picture is sharp and looks as if it was shot in the last couple of years. Current thinking is that Lucasfilm altered the colour timing of the movie before they handed the materials over to Lowry Digital for the cleanup work. Viewed side by side with the Original Theatrical Version (OTV), colours and contrast are very different. The Redux is darker, flatter and whites are shifted towards the blue.

1977 OTV - 2.35:1 aspect ratio rendered as letterboxed 4:3. The movie looks exactly how you would expect a 1977 movie to look in 2006 (although the transfer was actually made in 1997 for a Laserdisc release). There is some print weave and dirt on the image, but not undue amounts. Colours are bright, contrast is higher than the Redux version and grain is more visible - and I would expect to see quite conspicuous grain on a 1970s movie to be frank.

Audio

2004 Redux - 5.1 Dolby Digital sound and 2.0 Dolby Surround, mixed to THX standards. Sound effects are very beefy, drowning out much of John Williams` seminal score. Most noticeable is the disappearance of the Rebel Fanfare over the X-Wing attack run. The rear surrounds remain, I believe, transposed but I honestly can`t tell.

1977 OTV - 2.0 Dolby Stereo as seen in theatres in 1977. Sounds great, all the bits like the fanfare are in the right place and the balance between the score and the sound effects is better. A 5.1 mix would have been a mistake.

Features

2004 Redux - An audio commentary with George Lucas, Carrie Fisher, Ben Burtt and Dennis Muren.

1977 OTV - The Lego Star Wars II video game PC demo and trailer.
Both versions of the movie are subtitled for Hard of Hearing and Scandinavian viewers.

Conclusion

To paraphrase a comment made on another site, I put the disc in my DVD player, and for two hours I was transported back to being fourteen again. Star Wars is one of those movies that means a lot to people who saw it in their formative years. It is a classic of the cinema and should rightly be listed alongside The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca and Gone With The Wind. While I think as the author, George Lucas has the right to tinker with the movie and its sequels and prequels, the OTV of the movie is an important document of its time and the reduxes merely copies. I don`t mind what he does with the reduxes, but I do think that the original theatrical versions of all the movie need to be preserved for future generations.

I`d have liked a state-of-the-art high-definition transfer made of the OTV, and given the restoration that other classic movies have enjoyed, but George Lucas has seen fit to make this release instead. I`m glad to have it rather than a bootleg copy, but unless ultimately there is a full and proper restoration made of the OTV in the style of, say, The Wizard of Oz then this is the last money George Lucas will make out of this little black duck.