Star Wars Revisited

Star Wars Revisited is a fan-edited version of the movie Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The film was re-edited by British amateur artist Adrian Sayce of Shrewsbury, UK, whose internet pseudonym is adywan. Sayce's original intentions were to make color corrections to the 2004 DVD release of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition and to remove or revise some of the changes and new special effects that were not present in the original theatrical versions of the films. Sayce's final version contains substantial continuity editing, re-cuts of some key scenes and entirely new computer graphics special effects.

Sayce's re-edited version has been praised by some fans as the definitive version of the original Star Wars film and is unofficially titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Revisited.

Versions
Four versions of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Revisited currently exist on different digital mediums. They are available for download via the internet, mostly through BitTorrent clients such as Vuze and Wyzo.

The DVD-9 version contains a few further corrections not found in the previous Xvid and DVD-5 versions, (e.g. the correct severed arm in the Mos Eisley cantina scene), as well as some additional bonus features. It is considered the completed final cut of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Revisited.
 * Version 1 on Xvid (1.66 GB)
 * Version 2 on DVD-5 (4.5 GB) (PAL 576p/NTSC 480p) for single layer DVD
 * Version 3 on DVD-9 (7.7 GB) (PAL 576p/NTSC 480p) for dual layer DVD
 * Version 4 (Purist Edition) on DVD-5

The Purist Edition version was also created to remove some of the more artistic edits of the other versions. It attempts to keep the film closest in line to the original, while still making the critical color and continuity corrections.

History
In May 2006, Adrian Sayce, whose internet pseudonym is Adywan, set out to make a fan edit version of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Sayce was dissatisfied with the color mapping of the 2004 DVD release of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition. In a November 5, 2008 article in The Meridian Star, Sayce said:

"“I began work on Episode IV Revisited about May-June 2006,” Sayce said. “It all started with color correcting the 2004 DVD. For some reason the coloring of this set had a strange blue tint to it and this made things look unnatural and not how the film had always looked before coming to DVD; so I had a lot of work to do on that. Then there was the task of fixing many errors within the movie, mainly continuity errors, and I also enhanced all of the visual effects and created some new effects shots and sequences to bring Star Wars into the 21st century and bring the visuals closer to those seen in the prequels to help the two trilogies blend together better.”"

Sayce also wanted to remove some of the less popular revisions to the movie's 1977 theatrical release. What began as a minor color correcting and editing process became an intense two year endeavor that resulted in a major editing overhaul of the officially released versions Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Awards and Accolades

 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Revisited was awarded "Best Special Edition of the Year for 2008" from fanedit.org
 * It is the highest rated fan-edited movie on fanedit.org with an average rating 9.96 stars out of 10 (based on 122 member votes) and was categorized as a "True Fan Edit" in August, 2009. A comment upon the page describes Sayce's version of the film as follows:

"“Star Wars: Revisited represents perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated of any of the fan edits of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Inspired by the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, fan editor Adywan has created a breathtaking and powerful version of the film. Star Wars: Revisited not only fixes errors and technical limitations to the film that should have been made in the first Special Edition, but gives us a whole new vision for the movie, tying it to the rest of the Star Wars saga while correcting many of the excesses of the original Special Edition. Shots are re-mastered and restored, special effect shots are re-composited and whole new sequences are created, giving the viewer a taste of what the Special Edition could have been. Accompanied by a new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, Star Wars: Revisited provides an exciting new visit to a galaxy far, far away.'"


 * Clips of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Revisited were featured in the 2010 documentary film The People vs. George Lucas. Alexander O. Philippe, the director of The People v. George Lucas, commented upon the fan edit movement and Adywan in an interview with Meredith Woerner of io9 saying:

"The whole fan edit movement is a whole other thing, but [Adywan] spent two and a half years working on his recreation of Star Wars the way it should be, according to him. It's just a tremendous amount of work. But you look at some of the stuff he's done, for instance, we actually show a shot, a comparison, between George's version and Adywan's version. In George's version there's maybe five critters [on screen] and Adywan's only has two. And I say, If you had a problem, if you had an issue with those critters, why didn't you just remove them all? But he wanted to keep [two of] them. It's so nit-picky, it's really interesting. That's how passionate they are. They have this vision of Star Wars and they appropriate it and it becomes theirs. And in fact, all of them talk about it in terms of 'this is in my Star Wars.' It's a very personal thing."

Future Projects
Sayce currently re-edited the film Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. By December 8, 2008, he had completed color correction and was working on special effects editing. Sayce released his re-edited version in 2013. Sayce also intends to complete re-cuts of the remaining Star Wars films, including Episodes I, II, and III.