Harmy's Despecialized Edition

The original Star Wars trilogy was a Lucasfilm production released theatrically by 20th Century Fox between 1977 and 1983, and was subsequently released on home media during the 1980s and 1990s. The films were distributed by CBS/Fox Video on several formats, such as VHS, Betamax, and LaserDisc. In 1997, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Star Wars, Lucas re-released new cuts of the trilogy to theaters, naming them the "Special Editions". The purpose of this release was to change the films to meet Lucas' ideal vision that he could not achieve during their original productions. A number of changes to the original releases included additions of enhanced digital effects, previously unreleased scenes, altered dialogue, unreleased and newly recorded music by John Williams, updated sound-effects by THX and Skywalker Sound, and entirely new CGI sequences from Industrial Light & Magic. Reactions to the "Special Edition" versions remain controversial, with some commentators praising the picture and sound restoration, but criticising unnecessary additions such as computer-generated characters, creatures, and vehicles as well as alterations to the essential story; most notably, a short scene involving the bounty hunter Greedo shooting at Han Solo from the first film drew significant ire. Further changes to the series were added to the DVD release in 2004 to establish continuity with the prequel trilogy and to the Blu-ray releases from 2011. The final release of the theatrical cuts was in 2006, when unrestored masters used for the 1993 "Definitive Collection" trilogy on LaserDisc were added as a DVD bonus feature to a limited run – some fans pejoratively termed this release "George's Original Unaltered Trilogy" (GOUT). Despite a high demand and many online fan petitions, Lucasfilm has refused to release the theatrical versions of Star Wars in HD quality. In 2010, Lucas stated that bringing the original cuts to Blu-ray would be a "very, very expensive" process; , the films are still only widely available in their altered versions. ==Production==

Conception Petr Harmáček (known online by the alias "Harmy") had watched a dubbed version of the original cut of Star Wars at the age of six, and had then seen the Special Editions of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi on their 1997 release. As a result of the project, Harmáček was able to quit his teaching job and in 2015 was hired by UltraFlix to prepare and restore a library of 4K-encoded films for sale and rent. He has since joined UPP, a Prague-based VFX house, as a 2D digital compositor and worked on such projects as Blade Runner 2049, Wonder Woman, and AMC's The Terror. Legality The legality of downloading ''Harmy's Despecialized Edition'' is contentious. As a fan edit, the cut cannot be legally bought or sold, and treads a line between fair use and copyright infringement. OriginalTrilogy.com states that the edits are "made for culturally historical and educational purposes" and that they are "to be shared among legal owners of the officially available releases only". Consequently, the films are only available via various BitTorrent trackers and through specialized rapid download programs using file sharing sites. Harmáček himself remarked: "I'm convinced that 99% of people who download this already bought Star Wars 10 times over on DVD." ==Translated versions==

In 2013, Italian blogger "Leo", from the blog DoppiaggiItalioti.it – which discusses Italian adaptations of foreign films, both satirizing dubbing and translation errors and endorsing good dubs – worked on an Italian-language version of ''Harmy's Despecialized Edition for the original Star Wars'' movie, together with other people, and with Harmáček's permission. He used original 35mm prints of the localized Italian-language edition, as well as a rare 1991 VHS copy, to reproduce the opening crawl, subtitles, and end credits (even preserving some typos) of the film, as they were seen in Italian theaters. This version is no longer available, since it is based on an outdated version of Harmáček's work, although an update to the blog post assures that when a "definitive" edition is released, the localization will be adapted to that one. The update also refers to another "multilanguage" version of the Despecialized Edition, featuring several audio tracks – the Italian one is taken from the Italian version of the 2006 limited edition DVD – over the original English-language video. The project also restored the original Italian trailer for the film, which Leo produced using the video from the original US trailer and audio from low-definition copies, as well as completely remaking the text sections. ==Team Negative 1, Project 4K77, and subsequent restorations==

Although Harmy's Despecialized Editions have been widely praised, some have remarked that they are still technically reconstructions using digital effects and upscaling of low quality sources, rather than truly unaltered preservations. This led to subsequent attempts at improvement, such as the Silver Screen Edition and Skywalker Edition. One of these efforts, Project 4K77, is a fan project to scan and restore original 35mm prints of Star Wars from 1977. TN1 followed 4K77 with Project 4K83, based on an original 35mm print of Return of the Jedi (released in 1983) that was discovered and scanned in 4K. TN1 released a subsequent improved V2.0 of this restoration in 2023, which contains more "theatrically accurate" colors due to a technical error when encoding the original release. Project 4K80, a restoration of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), It was released in February 2024. ==Reception==

Reaction to ''Harmy's Despecialized Edition has been almost universally positive. Writing for Inverse, Sean Hutchinson placed it at number one on his list of the best Star Wars fan edits, and described it as "the perfect pre-1997 way to experience the saga." Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker called the edits "the best version of Star Wars you can watch," and named them "the version of Star Wars'' we've all been clamoring for the last 20 years". Similarly, Nathan Barry of Wired praised the films as "an absolute joy to watch", while Gizmodo described them as "very, very good". In an article listing Ars Technicas favorite Star Wars items, Sam Machkovech selected ''Harmy's Despecialized Edition'', calling it "a treat." ==References==