A unique music video edit of the Death Star sequence VFX from Return Of The Jedi at 1/4 speed set to Vangelis’ song, L’Enfant.
This one is stylistically a very fun discovery. And I can’t take credit for it, because it was first made by my brother, Gary. He had the idea to slow down the VFX scenes from Return Of The Jedi to one-quarter speed (I think it’s one-quarter – maybe it’s one-half?). It was done via the 1990 Fox LaserDisc release of the film, which had the final side of the disc in CAV format. Typically, LaserDiscs were in CLV format which gave you one hour per side. CAV format gave only 30 minutes per side but allowed you to do genuine frame-by-frame things in a perfectly clean way, including being able to slow down playback. Since there was less than a half-hour left for side 3, they put that in CAV format. And since the Death Star attack sequence was fully on that 3rd CAV side, this video was possible.
I’m guessing as to when this video was made. Gary had made his edit of it, which was in lower quality due to equipment used. I reproduced it as close to the original, shot-by-shot, as I could do, using the complicated method of editing LaserDisc to S-VHS, clip-by-clip (see my post about the 1995 version of my 1812 explosions video for details on that process). I’m not sure if the original copy he made still exists. This is a capture of my recreation of it, which I did a few months after he had made his. My best guess is that the video was made at some point in 1993. Perhaps as early as 1992 or as late as 1994, but no later than that.
Music in the video is “L’Enfant” by Vangelis from his score to the French nature documentary, Opéra Sauvage.
Credit for the video title goes to Gary. Figuring it out in context to the content of the video might take you a bit…
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