Title says it all.
I have the 1990s remastering on VHS, but my VCR doesn’t work anymore
I have the original phantom menace on VHS and original versions of 2 and 3 on DVD
so what do I have to search to find those?
Wow! I’m pretty sure that I have the original trilogy on VHS tapes.
What you want is 4K77, 4K80, and 4K83.
These are not official releases that have been “despecialized”. These are fan made 4K scans of the theatrical release film (film that was actually shown in a theater).
https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/project-4k77/
It is the best way to watch them, because it is basically as close to what you would have gotten in the actual theater as possible, film grain and all.
(Idk about the prequels, sorry.)
Project 4k is awesome and highly recommend for any star wars fan
Star Wars Despecialized
The one, true release.
EDIT: seriously these folks love Star Wars more than George https://youtu.be/dHfLX_TMduY
I have the 4K77/80/83 releases in DNR and no-DNR on my server, along with classic despec, Harmy’s and one fan-edit that re-cuts the films.
Which fan edit?
I think is was Harmy’s despecialized editions…
https://archive.org/download/star-wars-1977-despecialized-720p.x-264.-ac-3.5.1
I’m on mobile atm, so not totally sure if those are actually the full files available right on archive.org, but it sure looks like it.
They’re both excellent. I prefer the 4kxx since it is more original but I’ll watch both.
Bonus points for a Laserdisc version of the OG trilogy if anybody has tips…
Loving all these comments. I’m going to come back and investigate later.
Wasn’t there like a silver screen edition or something like that ages ago? If I recall it was from 35mm film. And I only remember one film with all the fanfair.
But that was a long time ago in a torrent far, far away.
Oh wow! I was out of the loop! Super thanks!
there’s also 4k80 and 4k83 for the other films, and they are all available with or without noise reduction. the no-dnr versions have incredible detail (to the extent of seeing flaws in the sets and costumes in some cases) but the film grain varies in size and contrast pretty wildly from scene to scene due to having various sources so it can be distracting, the DNR versions are oversmoothed IMO so I just watch with the grain intact.
They have some issues where there are colour and contrast variances scene to scene, again thats from having multiple film sources of various ages and generations, and their intent to do minimal colour correction. sometimes better quality film is found and the releases are updated with that.
They dont intend to be “perfect” but they are sourced directly from projection copies that people watched in the day, which may include some flaws that other versions like Harmy’s aim to fix.
