The red leader scene is not likely to be reincorporated, because it is incomplete and it is a different take to the one used in 97 SE.

Why couldn't you just splice it together with existing footage to "complete" it?

Well because it doesn't match the existing footage. remember that the shot with Luke, Biggs and the Red leader is not shown in full on the BluRay. Splicing it together would introduce a very jarring jump-cut.

So I guess it is possible, but it would look terrible.

After I finish my Ewoks project I plan to do something similar, but I don't want to do whole "extended versions" of  movies, but only to collect ALL scenes from all releases and include a proper beginning and ending to each scene

ben_danger said:

just to interject with the red leader footage debate. you may find that the red leader scene that we see in the special edition is actually a spliced scene. the cut between is when a guy walks across the camera, and it is obvious that the two shots are completely different. something similar could be achieved using the same method.

I know that but this cut was actually just cutting out a line of dialogue, so it cuts to later in that shot. However, the shot present on the BD is actually a slightly different angle, so I really don't know how this could be added. This really sucks because I really wanted to see this particular scene restored in its entirety. It would certainly be better then the terrible cut in the SE and considering character development, it is actually really nice to have in the film.

pittrek said:

After I finish my Ewoks project I plan to do something similar, but I don't want to do whole "extended versions" of  movies, but only to collect ALL scenes from all releases and include a proper beginning and ending to each scene

Oh that sounds like a cool edit. It might not be better than the theatrical cuts; however, it sure would be an interesting watch. I look forward to it.

ben_danger said:

just to interject with the red leader footage debate. you may find that the red leader scene that we see in the special edition is actually a spliced scene. the cut between is when a guy walks across the camera, and it is obvious that the two shots are completely different. something similar could be achieved using the same method.

incidentally i'm having a star wars showing on my birthday later in the month, where the main 3 additional tatooine scenes have been reinserted to the main film. i haven't cleaned them up, but have enstead degraded the rest of the film to look like its an old super8 film. as we are projecting it it should look quite good! i used my old marvel comics to place the scenes.
 

Brilliant idea! You can also use the screenplay from starwarz.com (or the art of star wars if you have it) to place the scenes.

I'm frankly sick of hearing the "footage won't match the quality" excuse for not attempting it (newsflash: it NEVER will). That's never stopped any other fan edit that incorporates additional footage, heck that's what they did with the first X-Men movie on the official DVD. But if you must blend it, downgrading the rest is a great solution.

Think of this like if Star Wars wasn't the huge franchise it is today, but another B cult film like Battle Beyond the Stars and they're showing it in some late night theater in some college town. A little scratch here and a jump cut there? Big deal. But all the footage is there, people are gobbling popcorn, remarking to the screen and enjoying every minute of it.

Incidentally I remember when the Blu-Rays were coming out there was a youtube video (with the official blu-ray logo thing at the start, but I suppose somebody could have edited that in to make it look authentic) which showed Luke throw (and miss) with his grappling hook, then try a second time and get it, just like people always thought they saw back in the day. But yet I never saw that again in the list of deleted scenes. Was this just a joke on the part of LFL?

Kurgan said:

I'm frankly sick of hearing the "footage won't match the quality" excuse for not attempting it (newsflash: it NEVER will). That's never stopped any other fan edit that incorporates additional footage, heck that's what they did with the first X-Men movie on the official DVD. But if you must blend it, downgrading the rest is a great solution.

 

Why are you so sure the quality of the deleted scenes can't match the rest of the movie? Most of those can be cleaned up and color corrected and we have a lot of tallented people for such a task on this site. I am just saying that one particular scene cannot satisfyingly match the rest not because its picture quality (which is actually pretty good) but simply because it is a different shot. 

This issue stopped me personally from attempting an extended edit of ANH, simply because I feel that this is the one scene that needs to be reincluded to make some of the rest work.

Of course if you are aiming for a old movie look, perhaps using GOUT as the main source, then it may still work, but that's simply not the kind of project I was interested in.