To the Introduction of the Triology:
*To Empire Strikes Back Introduction
*To The Return of the Jedi Introduction
George Lucas discusses changes made for the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition.
The Print:
"The most obvious thing that's happened is we've gone back to the original negative, cleaned it up considerably, redone a lot of the optical effects, the wipes, the dissolves and improved the quality of the film, because it was deteriorating. One of the things I wanted to do was preserve the film so that it could still be a viable piece of entertainment in the twenty-first century. Films do deteriorate, and they disappear. This one had deteriorated a lot more than anybody expected in twenty years. So that was the primary concern. The audience will get a brand new print that's very clean and actually better than the original release in terms of technical quality. It's less grainy, it's less dirty, and it's just a better print. Then on top of that, I've taken a lot of the special effects shots that weren't really as good as I'd hoped they would be and improved them. ILM has added that little difference, which for me is what makes a shot special. I've done it with a lot of the end battle shots and I've done it with various special-effect shots, especially the entry into Mos Eisley. Unfortunately, in the original I couldn't make it into the bustling spaceport that it was supposed to be -- it looked like a little tiny town because I only had a half a street to shoot on and no real special effects or matte paintings to work with. Now we're able to travel through the town, see how big it is, see that it's a spaceport, and make it a more interesting experience. That's something I've always wanted to do. I've also added the Jabba the Hutt scene with Han Solo, which was a scene that had been cut out due to time and money constraints. When I finished the third film, I really wanted to go back and put that scene back in because it was relevant to what happens to Han Solo at the end of the movie. And I really wanted to be able to connect the first with the third film the way it was meant to be."
Audio and Soundtrack :
"With the audio and the soundtrack, we've gone back to some of the original tracks and obtained the cleanest copy. Now we're re-mastering it digitally, so this will be the first time the film has been released in digital sound. Before, we were always constrained by the limitations of the optical track. The seventy-millimeter prints had magnetic tracks, and you could hear it in its full glory, but most of the venues where the film was shown had optical tracks, and they just didn't have the same sound quality that the seventy-millimeter prints had. Now we're able to deliver even better than the seventy-millimeter quality with the new digital release in a range of sound that was not possible before."
