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.
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:
Regraded to remove blue tint running throughout the whole film that was introduced for the first time in the special edition DVD and was carried over to the blu-ray
R2D2 no longer hiding behind a CG rock when Obi One Kenobi appears
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 screencap comparisons for this release:
Blu-ray 1:
Regraded 1:
Blu-ray 2:
Regraded 2:
Blu-ray 3:
Regraded 3:
Blu-ray 4:
Regraded 4:
Blu-ray 5:
Regraded 5:
Blu-ray 6:
Regraded 6:
Blu-ray 7:
Regraded 7:
Blu-ray 8:
Regraded 8:
Blu-ray 9:
Regraded 9:
Blu-ray 10:
Regraded 10:
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames : 4 frames
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2 h 4 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Nominal bit rate : 21.5 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 30.0 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 824 pixels
Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration : 2 h 4 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
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
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2 h 4 min
Bit rate mode : Variable / Constant
Bit rate : Unknown / 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
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
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2 h 4 min
Bit rate mode : Variable / Constant
Bit rate : Unknown / 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
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
