The second biggest complaint Star Wars fans have about George Lucas‘ later involvement in the franchise is the prequel trilogy. Those who saw one or all of the original films in theaters weren’t the biggest supporters of The Phantom Menace after its release in May 1999, but their kids loved it. Hence the biggest problem with Lucas — the alterations he made to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi with the pre-prequel “Special Editions” released to theaters in 1997 and further post-prequels edits. Not only did these changes dramatically alter the movies fans had cherished since childhood, but they also prevented older generations from sharing their experiences from May 25, 1977, May 21, 1980 and May 25, 1983 with the next.
Even if parents held onto old VHS tapes or LaserDiscs, their children will never see high definition remastered versions of the original films cleared by Lucas. DVDs released in 2006 included the original versions — but in non-anamorphic SD transfers. Rumors persist that Disney’s ownership of Lucasfilm means original Star Wars Blu-rays are on the way, and maybe this will happen in homes or theaters sometime soon. As Lucas’ recent Washington Post interview points out, however, “he’s a passionate defender of an artist’s right to go back and tweak his work.”
Enter Petr “Harmy” Harmáček, one of the most famous Star Wars fans to come out of OriginalTrilogy.com — an online forum dedicated the preservation of its namesake — and the creator of the Star Wars “Despecialized Edition.” Since 2010, Harmáček and others like him have worked to recreate the theatrical cuts in HD. These efforts are often collaborative, with one editor picking up where another stops. However, after the Czech Republic native released his first Despecialized Edition in 2011, he became the face of Star Wars fan edits the world over.
He doesn’t mind the attention, especially because it has had such a positive impact on his life and the lives of those he cares about. In a YouTube video titled “Introducing the Despecialized Edition and Its Sources,” the English Cultural Studies major says his little brother was three years old when he first began the painstaking process.
“I wanted to show him the original version when he was old enough to watch Star Wars,” he says. “My little brother got introduced to the adventures of Luke Skywalker at the age of five using the Despecialized Edition version 2.1, and he totally loved it.”
While Harmáček discusses his younger brother, the image of the excitable sibling wearing a Darth Vader helmet appears on screen. It calls to mind those who weren’t lucky enough to see Star Wars untouched by digital effects, additional scenes and continuity changes. The sentiment behind it, of sharing what Lucas first brought to life in 1977, is why the Despecialized Edition resonates so strongly with fans. Not just because they can relieve their own childhood, but because they can share it with their children.
“He’s doing God’s work,” said one Uproxx editor. “His are the versions I’ve been showing my kid.”
Harmáček describes his early life in former Czechoslovakia as one of democracy and “Hollywood blockbusters, which had been forbidden under the communist regime, including Star Wars.” He proudly waves the flag of fandom fast and high, claiming to be a part “of the original generation of Star Wars fans” in the post-Communist Czech Republic.
“I never had a chance to see the original Star Wars in cinemas, but I remember seeing it on TV when I was about five years old,” Harmáček tells Uproxx in an email. “I have a distinct visual recollection of seeing the trench run on TV, but I must have seen the whole movie, because I remember playing Star Wars with my friends afterwards. Even though we didn’t remember the names of the characters, so we just called them ‘The Boy,’ ‘The Man,’ ‘The Girl,’ ‘The Hairy One,’ ‘The Old Man’ and ‘The Black One.’ We had some epic lightsaber battles, too.”
An old VHS copy of the film came into his possession, but Harmáček watched it so much he “totally wore it out.” He didn’t see The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi until the first “Special Editions” were released. That’s when he realized changes were made, so he set out to find VHS tapes of the originals.
“It was one of the greatest Star Wars moments when I finally got to watch the original versions of all three films,” he says, “though it made me pretty angry when I realized that some of the special effect shots I admired so much were actually re-composited digitally. They had lost so much of their historical value.”
Lucas’ blatant use of CGI inspired Harmáček to try and find the highest quality versions of the theatrical cuts possible. He wanted to see and hear the groundbreaking, Academy Award-winning visual and sound effects work in its first form.
“When I started university in 2008, I discovered the high definition versions available on the 2004 DVDs. Suddenly, watching a Laserdisc-quality copy of Star Wars just wasn’t good enough. Since I wanted to see the original, I began looking for HD versions. Fans had already combined the ‘Special Edition’ DVDs with Laserdisc transfers to recreate the films in higher quality.”
That’s when he stumbled upon OriginalyTrilogy.com user Adywan’s reconstruction of Empire Strikes Back. It wasn’t HD quality, but it was close enough for Harmáček. Yet no such versions had been made of Star Wars or Return of the Jedi. So, when he pestered Adywan incessantly about the possibility of making both, the latter replied, “If you want it so bad, why don’t you do it yourself?” So, he did.
Harmáček sourced unaltered footage from the “GOUT” (George’s Original Unaltered Theatrical) version of the film released on the 2006 non-anamorphic DVDs, TV broadcasts captured and digitized by OriginalTrilogy.com members, and 35mm and 16mm film print scans shared by budding preservationists. By combining the best selections from these with shots from the 2011 Blu-ray release, he was able to layout mostly HD versions of the original Star Wars films. Unfortunately, the unaltered footage was plagued with problems and required repair.
“I used various techniques to clean those up — from automated cleanup in a free command line-based program called Avisynth, to doing meticulous manual cleanup of dirt and scratches in Adobe After Effects. Some reels were also severely pink-faded, so I had to pull out the original colors.”
Depending on the quality of the footage, as well as how much restorative work previous fan edits had already accomplished, Harmáček took anywhere from a few months to a year to recreate each movie in HD. Sometimes the process was repetitive, but quick, whereas others — like the technique of rotoscoping, which Lucas used in the original films — took much longer. In the end, it paid off with the initial 1.0 versions of all three. Since then, he has upgraded Star Wars to 2.5 and Empire Strikes Back to 2.0. Return of the Jedi sits at 1.0, though Harmáček just released a work print of 2.0.
Of course, there’s always the elephant in the room when it comes to the legality of fan edits. Whether or not what Harmáček does constitutes piracy is not a debate this article is going (or wants) to settle, but the subject is never far from his mind. Not because he feels guilty about it, but because of how much he values it.
“Owning official Blu-rays or digital downloads is actually one of the conditions advertised to those who want to download the Despecialized Edition,” he says. “Of course, there is no way to enforce this rule, but I am convinced that 99 percent of people who download my restorations already own them. Besides, the studio isn’t really losing any money over this since it helps keep a rather disgruntled fanbase reasonably happy and willing to buy more Star Wars-stamped products.”
Again, Harmáček can’t prove any of this. Yet the quality of his work, and his devotion to continuously creating better HD copies of the theatrical releases, suggests a character who isn’t trying to take a dime from Lucasfilm. That’s something he can definitely prove, especially because his Facebook page (and all other websites) is littered with anti-piracy warnings. If anything, the only monetary gain he’s made from the Despecialized Edition is his being hired by UltraFlix to put his restoration skills to good use.
“The masters studios give us, especially for older titles, are often in need of cleanup and color correction. So, UltraFlix remasters them to make sure they compress smoothly and bring customers the ultra-high definition experience they want,” he says. “I also get to work on external projects, like improving archival footage quality for new documentary films.”
Turns out there’s quite a bit one can do with a master’s degree in English.
Interviewing the Czech Republic’s number one Star Wars fan necessitates at least one question about The Force Awakens. Of course, Harmáček beat Uproxx to the punch with a new YouTube video last Friday, “Preparing for The Force Awakens!!!”
“I’ve been avoiding getting too excited about it because it could still suck,” he says rather bluntly. “There are some really nice things that I like about it, but none of the trailers managed to get me really hyped for the movie. They look too generic. It looks like every other blockbuster these days.”
When asked for further clarification, Harmáček explains that his “not getting too excited about The Force Awakens” serves as a “kind of a defense mechanism” against crushing disappointment.
“I’m still going to see it opening night, but if I go to the movie with lowered expectations, I can only be pleasantly surprised. I can enjoy it all the more if it’s actually good, then,” he says. “I’m very happy they are using more practical effects and shooting on film, though what gives me the most hope is knowing who is involved and who isn’t.”
