This article is a preview of WIRED magazine 01.16, our Star Wars special issue featuring J.J. Abrams, on sale from December 10 2015. Follow ourStar Wars: The Force Awakenshub page for all of our web, print and behind-the-scenes coverage.
WIRED tracked all the changes between the 1977 release of Star Wars and the 2015 version (now called A New Hope).
George Lucas has tinkered with Star Wars so much you can't actually view the original screened versions any more. Thankfully, fan Petr Harmacek has done what Lucas deemed "too expensive": created an HD version of the trilogy, but with all of the changes stripped out.
The "Despecialized Edition" took Harmacek, 27, six years, combing through old negatives, DVD materials and custom mattes in order to refine and restore each original scene. "To suppress the originals is to bury the work of artists who spent thousands of hours working on effects and other art," says Harmacek.
Click here to download a high-res chart of all the changes.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
