Harmy's Despecialized Edition: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:18, 28 June 2023

Revision as of 15:48, 29 June 2023

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'''''Star Wars: The Despecialized Edition''''', also known as '''''Harmy's Despecialized Edition''''' is a [[Fan edit|fan-created]] [[film preservation]] of the [[Star Wars original trilogy|original ''Star Wars'' trilogy]] films: ''[[Star Wars (film)|Star Wars]]'' (1977), ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'' (1980) and ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' (1983). It is a high quality [[replica]] of the out-of-print theatrical versions, created by a team of ''Star Wars'' fans with the intention of preserving the films, culturally, and historically. The project was led by Petr Harmáček, then an English teacher, from [[Plzeň]], [[Czech Republic]] under the online alias ''Harmy''.

The original ''Star Wars'' trilogy was created by [[George Lucas]] and released theatrically between 1977 and 1983. For the franchise's 20th anniversary in 1997, Lucas introduced noticeable [[Changes in Star Wars re-releases|changes]] within the films to address his dissatisfaction with the original cuts. These versions, promoted as the "Special Edition", included additional scenes, altereddifferent dialogue, new sound-effects and [[computer-generated imagery]]. These changes, along with more changes added in 2004 and 2011, were carried over into subsequent home video releases. {{As of|2023}}, the original theatrical releases are not commercially available, and have never been officially released in [[High-definition video|high definition]].

The new changes were met with a mixed to negative response from some critics and fans. Harmáček felt that changing the films in this way constituted "an act of cultural vandalism". In 2010, he began to create a high definition reconstruction of the films' theatrical versions. He and a team of eight other fans used the 2011 [[Blu-ray]] releases for the majority of material, the lower-definition 1993 [[LaserDisc]] releases as a guide to the original version, and various other sources. The first version was published online in 2011, and updated versions have been released since.

As a [[derivative work]], ''Harmy's Despecialized Edition'' cannot be legally bought or sold in the United States and other countries with treaties respecting US copyrights, and is "to be shared among legal owners of the officially available releases only".<ref>{{cite web |title=The Ultimate Introductory Guide to Harmy's Star Wars Trilogy Despecialized Editions |url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yLsvexWBVM8IYSGopKuSfsGk5YIgCwQWd23bqb5ryD4/pub |website=docs.google.com |access-date=20 May 2020 |archive-date=22 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222122728/https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yLsvexWBVM8IYSGopKuSfsGk5YIgCwQWd23bqb5ryD4/pub |url-status=live }}</ref> Consequently, the films are mainly available via various file sharing methods. Reaction to the project has been mostly positive, with critics generally praising the quality and aesthetics of the work.

==Background==