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Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Current status as of November 13th, 2023: Project files updated to version 15.0

Supported Languages: English, English SDH, Mandarin (Simplified & Traditional), Cantonese, Hindi*, Urdu*, Spanish (American & Castilian), Arabic, Metropolitan French, Canadian French*, Indonesian, Malaysian, Russian, Bengali, Portuguese (Brazilian & European), German, Japanese, Iranian Persian, Afghan Persian (Dari)*, Tajik (Cyrillic)*, Swahili*, Turkish, Korean, Vietnamese, Italian, Thai, Polish, Ukrainian, Uzbek (Latin)*, Burmese, Romanian, Dutch, Azerbaijani (Latin)*, Serbian (Latin & Cyrillic), Croatian, Bosnian*, Greek, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Albanian*, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovak, Catalan, Georgian*, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Latvian, Basque, Estonian, and Icelandic.

Subtitles for languages marked with an asterisk (*) are partially or completely based on machine translation

If you want to get the subtitles, check for downloads on MySpleen, thestarwarstrilogy.com, find the secret decoder ring with my name on it, or PM me for a download link. This will be the complete set of project files, so it is a big download. If you need help, send me a PM or post your questions in this thread and hopefully someone will be able to help you.

PROJECT THREEPIO SUBTITLES

The goal of Project Threepio is to provide high-quality subtitle options for preservations of the Star Wars “Original Original Trilogy” – Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in their unaltered forms – and to provide a framework with which anyone can add or change subtitles as needed for any other purpose. I hope that this will broaden the appeal of our preservation efforts beyond the English-speaking world.

Project Threepio’s subtitles work best with audio and video that have the following characteristics:

  • All films synced to the full theatrical releases of the trilogy, or within a few frames of that
  • For all films, English opening crawl text, English audio, and burnt-in theatrical English subtitles for alien dialogue
  • Video format: 2160p(4K)@23.976fps, 1080p@23.976fps, or 720p@23.976fps
  • Aspect ratio: approximately 2.37:1 (35mm) or 2.2:1 (70mm), letterboxed in a 1.78:1 frame

Examples: Harmy’s Despecialized Editions, 4K77–4K83 35mm Preservations, D+77–OTD83 Theatrical Reconstructions, SW Silver Screen Edition v1.6, ESB 16mm Duplication Print, Harmy’s ROTJ Grindhouse 35mm LPP

Utilities and detailed instructions are included for modifying the subtitles to work better with audio and video sources that have different characteristics, such as non-theatrically-synced film scans, international versions, cropped video, DVD video, etc.

SUBTITLE IMAGE GALLERY

All images below are based on Harmy’s Despecialized Editions using Project Threepio’s PGS subtitles. The appearance of subtitles when using SRT subtitles can vary a great deal.

Subtitles are moved to the top of the frame for titles and crawls, to prevent overlapping onscreen text as much as possible.

Project Threepio: Crawl with German subtitles

Subtitles for multiple speakers are formatted to align along one side.

Project Threepio: Spanish double-dialogue
Project Threepio: Arabic double-dialogue

Translations for burnt-in alien subtitles are also moved to the top of the frame. In rapid back-and-forth dialogue, the entire exchange is shifted to the top to prevent the viewer from having to repeatedly switch from reading the top to the bottom of the screen. If your video doesn’t have burnt-in alien subtitles, Project Threepio contains utilities that allow you to shift these subtitles back down to the bottom of the frame.

Project Threepio: Thai alien subtitles

SDH subtitles use a dark background for increased readability.

Project Threepio: SDH subtitles

Included utilities can resize subtitles, while retaining all formatting and layout (i.e. for large projection screens).

Project Threepio: Yoda with Czech subtitles

You can even use subtitles in two different languages simultaneously.

Project Threepio: C-3PO with Basque and English subtitles

Specially-designed “matching” subtitles mimic the appearance of theatrical subtitles (first screenshot has theatrical alien subtitles, second has Project Threepio’s matching subtitles).

Project Threepio: Theatrical alien subtitle reference
Project Threepio: Matching subtitles

FUTURE PLANS

English-only preservations don’t do much to help many of the people out there who want to be able to see Star Wars, but are instead afflicted with the Special Editions. I would love for every new Star Wars preservation to include these subtitles by default, to increase the international accessibility of these historic films.

At just shy of five dozen languages, Project Threepio still lags quite a bit behind its namesake. I am always accepting contributions of good-quality subtitles for additional languages, and improvements to existing subtitles.

THANK YOU

I’d like to thank the following Star Wars fans for their contributions to Project Threepio:

Feallan, Sadako, schorman13, pittrek, ArdaYlcn, Laserman, a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous, none, morgands1, williarob, Teesel, You_Too, laozi, RashadShehadeh, bttfbrasilfan, LexX, Kaz47, Rina, roback214, Leoj, Hostmaster, Rondan, kylefan, spaceghost, lexsanor, msycamore, IronMagus, Harmy, daboka, Laserschwert, csd79, ZIPC, B2D2, thxita, hot noodles, pmc3, Leonardo, Anuj, stormpack, aserdaryakut, sf999, carlosmon, frater, lucaslslopes, coolman756, Kloky, jl8, wayphat, carlosmon, DevilWing, Faithwyn, ChainsawAsh, CAL0901, alexp120, negative1, Doctor M, dahmage, marvins, bilditup1, Chewtobacca, Darth Mallwalker, towne32, Diego, TheHutt, Mavimao, TV’s Frink, Possessed, and Collipso.

LOGOS FOR PRESERVATION PROJECTS

Also included in the Project Threepio resources folder are some high-resolution logos for various preservation projects, suitable for T-shirts or whatever you like. Preview images shown with a solid black background are provided with a transparent background for more printing flexibility.

Official Project Threepio Images (album art mashups: The Clash and Operation Ivy)

Project Threepio: Project Threepio logos

May the Force Be With You in multiple languages (white, black, or yellow text)

Unofficial Images For Other Preservation Projects (album art mashups: The Police, Negativland, and Pink Floyd)

Project Threepio: Other preservation logos

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Well, no one else has replied so I'll chime in. Thanks for the work man! Subtitles are one of the little things that I feel fan edits / preservations should have to add a feeling of legitimacy, so these should fit the bill. 

May the Force be with you.

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sounds great. I mean reads great:)

looking for HDTV of the  Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.  Also HDTV of The Lord of the Rings trilogy

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Thanks.  That's exactly what started this--a deaf friend who couldn't watch a fan preservation due to lack of SDH subs, and it all kinda spiralled out of control like a lot of geek projects tend to do.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Good work on this project.  I hope this is a value to the editors out there.  It certainly sets the bar a little higher for upcoming fan edits.

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Thank you for starting this project, CatBus.  Owing to illness and working long hours, I still haven't had any time to work on the subtitles for the X9 project.  (I loathe working on subtitles anyway.)  I shall have a look on tehparadox and maybe send you a PM.

By the way, Project Threepio is a cool name. :-)

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Cool project! I think it was You_too who posted a couple of random screenshots in Harmy's thread a while ago with the Greedo subs layed over. Ever since then I've had an urge to watch the entire OT with Greedo-style subs (translated in swedish)! :) I'm gonna check this out :)

“Stargazing wizards, stare into the night,
Hurricanes and blizzards, here comes the final fight”

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@Memorex: Unfortunately, there is no font that matches the Greedo subs perfectly. It had to be customized in photoshop to look like the original.

On the other hand, the original theatrical subs in sweden didn't look like that. Check Puggo's swedish 16mm version.

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Looking at various .srt files for SW found online and one of the things I noticed is that although it's the same subtitle the timing was different between languages.  Probably because each language was most likely done by someone from that background or more realistically timed to that languages dub.

Another thing with subtitles and the projects around here is they don't always conform to one timing, some are GOUT sync'd others might be LD, DVD, BD sync'd.  I think it should be possible to modify the start-end times in a spreadsheet so that the re-timed start-end can be calculated for a different project.

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Good point, none.  FWIW all of my subs all use the same timings, except where part of a line isn't subtitled.  i.e. "Uh, slight weapons malfunction." might be subbed in another language as "Slight weapons malfunction.", and I'd try to shift a foreign sub like that so that the subtitle doesn't appear on the "Uh", unless the line is spoken so quickly it's not relevant.  Mine were definitely all timed to go with English audio--foreign dubs were not considered except that I made forced subs (crawl+alien only) available for them.

But yeah, if you have some sort of transform function from GOUT->other, I'm sure you could convert them to other formats as needed.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Fortunately, I gave the Portuguese subtitles in time for the release of the Despecialized V2. I hope Harmy put this subs on the Blu-ray and MKV releases. Is there some thread to upload the dubbings (GOUT timing)?
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I've already made sure Harmy has the Portuguese dub ;)

Although I didn't list it explicitly, improved Portuguese subs for ESB and ROTJ is another reason I would update these files, because I'm less confident about these.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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I'm not interested in that for the main project, but if you want to post download links for mono mix subs in this thread for interested people, go ahead.

EDIT: Er, actually check the thread rule stickies first.  Maybe don't link anything directly from here.  But you can provide info here if you like.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Great project CatBus! What an enormous job! 

I skimmed through the SRT file of Star Wars and noticed that a couple of minor issues from the official DVD subs carried over:

00:09:25, 163 --> 00:09:27, 663

What a desolate place this is!

Not an actual error but the exclamation mark here seems out of place to me.

  

01:09:19, 654 --> 01:09:22, 614

- What?

- Well, more well than you can imagine.

Should be, wealth. I don't know, maybe this is part of your effort to maintain dialogue fidelity?

 

01:45:49, 051 --> 01:45:51, 576

Fall in! Fall in!

should be, Pull in! Luke, pull in! (more audible in the Mono mix)

 

01:46:53, 883 --> 01:46:56, 883

Switch all power to front deflector screen.

screens (more audible in the Mono mix)

  

01:52:10, 065 --> 01:52:12, 865

Hurry up, Luke!

Quick! Quick!

I think this should be Wait! Quick! (more audible in the Mono mix)

 

For those of you who would like to have regular English subs to accompany the Mono mix, but aren't sure what all the differences are, just change/add these lines. May need some adjustments done to the timings though.

 

00:50:55, 687 --> 00:50:57, 987

Alright, check this side of the street.

Change to:

Alright, check that side of the street.

 

00:51:01, 761 --> 00:51:04, 224

The door's locked. Move on to the next one.

Change to:

It's secure. Move on to the next one.

 

Add:

01:06:58, 699 --> 01:07:01, 169 (not sure about the timing)

The tractor beam is coupled to

the main reactor in seven locations.

 

Add:

01:07:01, 900 --> 01:07:04, 736 (not sure about the timing)

A power loss at one of the terminals

will allow the ship to leave.

  

01:14:20, 388 --> 01:14:21, 946  (timing may need some adjustment)

Yes.

Change to:

-Yes.

-Governor Tarkin? 

  

Add:

01:27:11, 033 --> 01:27:12, 667 (not sure about the timing)

Close the blast doors!

  

01:46:08, 804 --> 01:46:11, 604

There's a heavy fire zone...

Red Five, where are you?

Change to:

There's a heavy fire zone on this side.

Red Five, where are you?

(It's the same guy saying both lines, so no need for hyphens.)

  

01:46:21, 417 --> 01:46:23, 544

Blast it, Biggs! Where are you?

Change to:

Blast it, Wedge! Where are you?

 

I think that is all that needs to be changed.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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@msycamore: Good that you pointed those typos and errors out, since me and DJ are using the subs for our project. Thanks.

EDIT: The "Switch all power to front deflector screen(s)" line is actually correct like it is. The reason it sounds like "screens" is that they replay the line without a gap = "Switch all power to front deflector screenSwitch all power to front deflector screen". At least that's what it sounds like to me.

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Wow, thanks for the feedback, msycamore!  I think part of the problem with my grand plan was that the GOUT English subs were very inaccurate so I rarely used them for reference, so I had no proofreader other than myself.  So thank you very much for the proofread.

As far as my subjective take, I'm agreeing with all of your corrections (even "deflector screens") except the exclamation mark.  Although the line delivery is definitely unexcited, I think the exclamation still fits in context.

Also, thanks for the mono mix inserts/changes.  I won't be including them but I appreciate the additions.  Thanks also for the undeserved credit on the "more wealth" line.  If I tried to dub every inadequately articulated line as-is, I'd have a much harder job.  No, this was just an ordinary mistake.

I will be uploading corrected subs soon.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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You_Too said:

 The "Switch all power to front deflector screen(s)" line is actually correct like it is. The reason it sounds like "screens" is that they replay the line without a gap = "Switch all power to front deflector screenSwitch all power to front deflector screen". At least that's what it sounds like to me.

Take a listen to the lines in the mono mix and you'll hear it, it's also how it appears in the published script.

Another one is "We're passing through the magnetic field" Could be "We're passing through their magnetic field" that's how it appeared in the published/forged script which are more or less based on the dialogue in the film not the other way around, but if you cannot hear the difference it doesn't really matter, I cannot, these are also such trivial things that it doesn't change anything important being one way or the other.

A funny Threepio line that is missing is his response to Owen's "Shut up" where Threepio answers "Shutting up, sir." I can see why CatBus omitted it, as readability is always more important, but here's how I handled it when I did my own a few years ago:

119

00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:50,568

Yeah, all right. Shut up.

I’ll take this one.

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00:17:50,633 --> 00:17:51,934

-Shutting up, sir.

-Luke!

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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Yes, exactly.  That line was really borderline for me.  It was screwing up timing for readability and because of the dialogue overlap and other noises it's also actually an easy line to simply not hear at all (although it's certainly not inaudible).  So I left it out.  That was intentional.

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CatBus said:

Wow, thanks for the feedback, msycamore! 

No problem, you have done a fantastic job on these, must have taken forever.

EDIT: Yeah, I can see that, to be honest I'm not sure how good my subs read in that part, it was just an example.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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By the way, msycamore, if you're planning to take a look through Empire and Jedi, maybe I'll delay my re-upload until you've had a chance to have your say on them.  I really do appreciate the feedback.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

By the way, msycamore, if you're planning to take a look through Empire and Jedi, maybe I'll delay my re-upload until you've had a chance to have your say on them.  I really do appreciate the feedback.

 Sure, I'll take a look.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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CatBus said:  I'm agreeing with all of your corrections (even "deflector screens") except the exclamation mark.  Although the line delivery is definitely unexcited, I think the exclamation still fits in context.

That was the only correction that I didn't agree with either.  I would always use an exclamation mark there because the remark is constructed as an outcry.  Msycamore's knowledge of the details of the dialogue is certainly most impressive though.  I found this one interesting:

Another one is "We're passing through the magnetic field" Could be "We're passing through their magnetic field" that's how it appeared in the published/forged script which are more or less based on the dialogue in the film not the other way around, but if you cannot hear the difference it doesn't really matter, I cannot...

because I've always heard the rather than their, but I suppose it could either, and perhaps the accent's throwing me a little.  Regardless of the script, I wonder what the actor would say that he said.  (I didn't know that some of the lines were clearer in the mono mix than the stereo, because I always listen to the latter, so I'll have to listen to that line again.)

EDIT:  I listened to the mono mix and, while it could be either, it definitely sounds more like their.  Interesting!

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Might I suggest checking the lines questioned from the scripts? That's what I do. You really can't rely on the DVD subs at all.

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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Chewtobacca said:

CatBus said:  I'm agreeing with all of your corrections (even "deflector screens") except the exclamation mark.  Although the line delivery is definitely unexcited, I think the exclamation still fits in context.

That was the only correction that I didn't agree with either.  I would always use an exclamation mark there because the remark is constructed as an outcry. 

Yeah, I guess you guys are right, an exclamation mark could be fitting there. Btw if you want even more completeness, Threepio utter the words "Oh, no" after the laser blast hit near him, before he says, "I'm going to regret this." when he enter the escape pod.

Chewtobacca said:

I didn't know that some of the lines were clearer in the mono mix than the stereo, because I always listen to the latter, so I'll have to listen to that line again.

Yes, I noticed that the Mono mix was of good use when I did my subs due to the unprocessed dialogue in the Death Star battle, why they got rid of the synthesized voices and static distortions in the Mono mix I cannot understand, it was one of the things that made the Stereo mix sound so impressive and real.

Chewtobacca said:

I listened to the mono mix and, while it could be either, it definitely sounds more like their.  Interesting!

It probably is, the script also support this but I can honestly not hear the difference, especially not in the Stereo mix. Maybe you can hear it with headphones. I actually think the lines in the published script are based on the mono mix IIRC.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com