Project 4K77 is a restoration project of the original cinematic cut of Star Wars (now Episode IV). I was really curious about it, so I found a copy, which took me a full 4 days to download and the resulting 24GB file was too big for my old netbook to handle, so I spent another 3 days trying to burn it to DVD, which failed, but I did get a working 4.2GB VOB file, so eventually I got to watch it! I've since put it through HandBrake to get a 720p at 3.98GB. And yes, it took literally days.

My computer is so slow!

The image quality was really good. One thing that stood out the most was Luke's hair colour was consistent. It bothered me on the DVD release that his hair would range from honey blond to dark brown from scene to scene. In this one, his hair colour stays within the honey blond range. Comparing the DVD to 4K77 side by side, you can really see the difference.

(Not gonna lie, I'm so proud of accidentally getting the exact same shot.)

Like this, 4K77 looks overexposed, but while watching it, it didn't seem to be the case at all. The video quality was consistently high, and bear in mind, this is after I'd condensed it down to a VOB file.

One thing I noticed is that Vader is listed as "Lord Darth Vader" in the credits, which again, shows that his title was Lord, and his actual name was Darth:

Anyway.

Notable differences in the cut:

• That dewback (?) that took over the whole damn screen in Mos Eisley wasn't there, and the scene was so much better for it. Of all the extra tinkering George did, this was just the dumbest. No added CGI animals at all.
• Han shot, Greedo didn't shoot at all.
• The Jabba scene wasn't in this one. That was added to later releases with CGI.
• Biggs's Yavin scene wasn't in this cut.
• All the explosions seemed to be footage of real explosions. I'm not sure that I didn't actually prefer them!

I can't tell you where to get it, but I'm sure you can work it out for yourself. Don't download it unless you already own at least one legal copy of the film. You have no excuse: you can get the whole trilogy second hand for under a tenner.

So some parts of the cut were better, but I really did feel the loss of the Biggs scene. Of course, I still cry for the Biggs Tatooine scenes. If I had a PC fast enough, I would make my own cut including them.