Disc
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Star Wars Special Edition, DVD, Bootleg, China 1998
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This is a bootleg of the 1997 "Special Edition" of Star Wars, coming as early as 1998 (The VOBs are dated Dec. 1998.) Rather than being sourced from the superior Laserdisc from 1997, this appears to be digitized from the 1997 US Widescreen VHS.
The movie is in widescreen, but not anamorphically enhanced. The menu gives you the option to watch the film in surround or in stereo, but I suspect both soundtracks come from the same source. Instead of giving you a language selection screen, they have duplicated the menu screens for each of the two soundtrack options. There are Closed Captioned English subtitles in the top black band, and non-removable Chinese subtitles adorn the bottom of the screen. There don't seem to be any English subtitles for the alien languages, neither on the image or in the Closed Captioning. Either the bootleggers covered up the subtitles in the bottom letterboxed band, or the subtitles were never present on the source tape. At the end of the film follows a 10-minute excerpt from the Making of Star Wars Special Edition documentary focusing on the first Star Wars film. (You can also access this by selecting "End movie" on the Chapter menu.) The excerpt is also Closed Captioned. Additionally, you can access some short "production notes" from the main menu, but they don't amount to much (how many mistakes can YOU find?). I give the bootleggers a few points for at least trying to add some bonus material.
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DVD main menu
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Chapter menu
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Production notes
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Fox fanfare
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A long time ago...
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Title card
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Opening crawl
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Star Destroyer
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Droid spa
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Binoculars
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Greedo subtitles (No English)
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Jabba subtitles
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Ben's saber
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Praxis effect
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End credits
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End credits
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End credits
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Making of Star Wars SE Excerpt
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Making of Star Wars SE Excerpt
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Making of Star Wars SE Excerpt
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