The '97 Special Edition (and later releases). There was a deleted scene added where Luke runs into his old friend Biggs in the hangar before the attack on the Death Star. Then Red Leader comes over, Biggs vouches for Luke's piloting ability, and they all part. There was a bit cut from the middle of the scene where Red…

You really need to take a hard look at those waxy fake cheekbones and hairline on the Episode III Tarkin. Best case, then end up doing at ton of CG clean up and end up with pretty much what we got. Possibly worse, since the prosthetics would've blunted the actor's facial movements and given the animators less…

Leia had a credited actress, and since her only line was one word that could've been clipped out of any number of prerecorded bits, I'm assuming the actress was there doing what little movement and expression there was in the scene. It's also much easier to do a CG replacement if you have something that's close to…

I thought his suit looked weird in the first scene. I could tell they were recreating the original ANH suit as opposed to the later versions by the lack of blinky lights on his chest, but it looked even cheaper and more ill-fitting than that one. Maybe it was just the way the cape covered him so much, but even his…

I went into it more upthread but, yeah. I compared it to the video game tie-in that can't afford to license the real theme, so they compose something that's almost, but not quite, the Rebel Fanfare or the Imperial March.

Based on this and his Star Trek work, I think Giacchino is a little disinclined towards using preexisting themes. More than he should be. For Trek, I thought it might've been a money thing (I'm pretty sure Paramount has to send Alexander Courage and Gene Roddenberry's estates a solid-gold wheelbarrow full of money…

In this case, time was of the essence, so Vader rampaged through the ship personally. In ANH, they'd captured the corvette. No one was going anywhere. He could afford the time to send wave after wave of his own men to their deaths to take the ship. And they'd do it! Right, men?

I had the opposite reaction. I thought he sounded a lot more Vader-y here than he has on Rebels.

It happens more than you think. Justin Lin was still doing final color-grading (and maybe audio mixing? Some amount of polishing) on Star Trek Beyond when it was released, so the home video version is slightly different than the theatrical release, even though you'd probably never be able to tell.

My favorite part of the novel was the idea that the Republic stole the plans for this big fucking sphere, with a big fucking divot in it that's plugged into the main reactor, but had no idea what the dish was supposed to do or how it was supposed to do it, and then tried building it anyway. That really should've made…

IIRC, the EU also said that, ironically enough, Stormtrooper armor was bulletproof, which is why everyone uses blasters.

You can also see the Ghost landed near the end of the first sequence on Yavin, in the big overhead shot looking down at all the landed fighters when they're walking towards the U-Wing. It's just peaking in at the top left of the frame.

I wonder if his American voice actor from the first two films is any more available/enthusiastic. He's probably more "Wedge" than Lawson, in a way.

It also provides an added contrast demonstrating Vader's power. It took him seconds to clear that corridor, while his troopers spent several minutes getting past a comparable group of security men.

Of course she was swinging by to pick up Kenobi. She says as much in her message, which makes the Death Star plans sound like an afterthought. It's not like it was her good fortune that Vader caught up to her over the one obscure planet where her dad's war buddy was hiding out.

Diplomacy is founded on BS, as well. I doubt Leia's personal corvette was squawking its legitimate ID codes in the middle of an assault on a government installation. Yes, it was probably too much to hope for that the space-equivalent of changing a car's license plate would've convinced Vader he'd found the wrong ship,…

This time, yes.

It ties into something I'd always believed, and that… someone involved in TFA said in an interview last year. Maybe Abrams? Can't remember.

Many of the video games had opening crawls, and they just had the title as a single line instead of

The voice doubling was pretty good (I'd say about two-thirds of Tarkin's lines sounded nearly-exactly like Peter Cushing), but my instinct with the fighter pilots is that the new line was from a trim or alternate take from the original film. Judging by the kind of love put into this movie, I'd bet even the generic…