Synopsis:

“The Story of Star Wars ” was an audio LP following the adventures of Luke Skywalker during ANH. Now this recording has been visualized using movie scenes and images. Spectacular!

Intentions:

1977... The time before VCR’s and the home video market. The best way to enjoy Star Wars at home was to listen to the LP record “The Story of Star Wars”. This album was a condensed version of the film containing the original actors’ dialogue, sound effects, John Williams’ musical score, and wonderful narration by Emmy and Tony Award winning actor Roscoe Lee Browne. The album was quite successful in its own right, achieving gold record status. Countless numbers of young fans came to know this version of Star Wars actually better than the film itself. If you were one of those kids that wore this album out on your parents’ HiFi, flipping along with the picture booklet exercising your imagination, this is for you. This DVD is what you dreamed of having back then. The album’s audio has been synced with a variety of video sources to create quite a different way to experience Star Wars, an enjoyable one that will surely take you back...

Change List:

This project was created entirely on a 2003 Apple 17? iMac G4 1Ghz with 768M RAM, running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. It took 5 months to make. Software used: Final Cut Pro HD 4.5 Still Life MacTheRipper MPEG Streamclip DVD Studio Pro 3 LiveType Cinema Tools A.Pack Compressor Quicktime Pro Player Photoshop 7 Illustrator CS Apple DVD Player ScreenCaptureGUI MovieCal Apple TextEdit Apple Dictionary HandBrake Imandix cover (Virtual PC) Cool Beans NFO Creator (Virtual PC) QuickSFV (Virtual PC) The vinyl capture mp3?s released by Scotty Balls are the foundation and inspiration of this project. In order for the vinyl capture audio to sync with dvd film sources, it had to be slowed down around 1.5%. This audio was then synced to clips from the 2004 NTSC, Citizen NTSC dual layer, Darth Editous NTSC, and GKAR PAL dvd’s. Where editing required, pans and zooms from still screenshots were used, mainly in narration passages. Because pans and zooms were necessary, the project’s aspect ratio had to be cropped from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1. To keep the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, black bars would have had to been added to the pan and zoom shots. This additional reduction of image just did not work. There was not enough of the frame visible once it was zoomed and had bars added. That being said, The video quality is pretty good considering it’s, in effect, “blown up” from the original 360 lines of resolution. The 2004 footage has been color corrected to help improve the bizarre dark blue cast of that release. The audio is a great mixture of dialogue, alternate takes, sound effects, and music that needs to be heard by all Star Wars fans. There are 2 audio options available. The default is a hybrid vinyl/2004 dvd mix. There are only 2 places where ’04 audio is mixed in: 1) When the troopers blast into the Tantive IV, and 2) TIE fighter roar after Ben says “Ninety-Four” in the cantina. The other option is the pure vinyl only. The default is really the most enjoyable way to watch, but the other one’s in there too. Ending credit and menu music clips come from the original soundtrack. Most of the ridiculous SE video elements have been removed using the previously mentioned sources. This is by no means an attempt to recreate an OOT version of Star Wars. Instead, it is a unique way to enjoy Star Wars that you might have visualized while listening to the album all those years ago. I hope many people enjoy this.

Additional Notes:

Other Sources:

Special Thanks:

Thanks to: Scotty Balls, Rebel11_38, Citizen, Darth Editous, ocpmovie, russs15, Zion, and SKot for their direct or indirect help with the creation of this project.