For the completist:
Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope Revisited by Adywan
This one is the best of both worlds and is what the special edition should have been. Adywan keeps all the good sections added in Lucas’ special edition, but removes most of the silly ones. So we get the beautiful shot of the Falcon blasting its way out of Mos Eisley, but no Jabba. All of the crazy CGI beasts around Mos Eisley, but no shot from Greedo. Every shot has once again been color-corrected and all the mattes fixed, but Adywan goes that extra mile and actively fixes errors than Lucasfilm and ILM left in. Did you ever notice that the explosion that cripples the Tantive IV at the beginning actually occurs in a different place from where the laser blast hits it? Not anymore; Adywan re-positioned it and this is just one example (of over 250!) that shows the insane attention to detail he has given to his version.
He also actually created additional shots and effects himself to improve the movie even further. Establishing shots of the Death Star are enhanced with additional Star Destroyers and ships, and it floats above new planets and moons. The shaky and very basic computer animation of the Death Star plans has been completely replaced with a much more ‘modern’ looking one, which closely resembles the schematics shown in Attack of the Clones. The final battle above the Death Star is peppered with extra TIE Fighters and X-Wings, and bigger explosions! And Chewie even gets a medal at the end!
There is barely a scene that hasn’t had an improvement of some kind, and because of this, the Revisited version is now my version of choice. The only downside to it is that it was made before the Blu-rays were released, so it’s not in HD. Adywan is currently working on a Revisted version of Empire and from the screenshots released so far it looks like it’s going to be just as good, and this time it will be HD. For Empire Revisited, he has enlisted what has become known as the “2nd and 3rd Units” to help him out and they have even built their own models and re-filmed some parts, including new shots of Rebel Troopers to add some more bustle to Echo Base. It’s a slow process (not helped by hard-drive crashes and house moves), but it should be finished sometime this year. When it’s done, Adywan plans to tackle Jedi, the prequels and A New Hope all in HD, all at the same time!
For the comedian:
Star Wars – Episode I: The Ridiculous Menace by TV’s Frink
The Phantom Menace was a pretty ridiculous movie if you think about, and faneditor TV’s Frink takes it to a whole other level of silliness. His quest is to turn all six movies into Airplane-style spoofs and he’s off to a good start with The Ridiculous Menace. Loads of dialog is rearranged, cut up and repeated, sometimes turning it into nonsense. Some voices are completely replaced by different characters (TC-14 is now Bender from Futurama and ‘GOB’ Bluth from Arrested Development voices C-3PO) and Obi-wan refers to himself in the third person at all times. Battle Droids talk like ’80s videogames. Subtitles are all over the place – Artoo has them again, and Jar-Jar’s lines are also translated for our entertainment, even Anakin and Sebulba are now friends thanks to the change in their subtitles.
In a great nod to Airplane, the classic “White zone is for immediate loading” announcement plays out and the cruiser first lands on the Trade Federation Battleship, and there are unexpected cameos from Bill Murray, Peter Graves and General Zod! “Darth Darth” entertains himself with a little Rick Astley while his droids search Tatooine. In short, it’s a laugh from beginning to end, even if it is a little too long. At the time of writing you can watch it all on Vimeo: Part 1 and Part 2. And “Attack of the Ridiculousness” is out now as well.
