Despecialized vs my memory

I recently became aware of the despecialized editions. Star Wars (1977) that I remember seeing in theaters differs from the despecialized edition. The most clear difference that I remember was the end of the trench scene, the Death Star clears the planet. In the despecialized edition (which I think is the same as the “theatrical release” that was distributed on laser disc etc) you get 2 "Standby"s.

My memory from 1977 tells me that there were 4 or more "Standby"s. I though that they drew out this scene to an almost comical length (and this was a much younger and less critical self). I also recall that among the tension building scenes of the lighted panels of buttons was were scenes showing the outside of the Death Star where the weapon circle would fire from, inside where they showed a huge tube that became brilliantly lit by the weapon’s light and then became a small beam of the larger weapon when cut back to the outside. This is where I remember the Death Star announcer saying “Standby” a few more times. I remember the beams that form the weapon all converging and thinking it strange that they met without the main planet destroying beam forming. Then the Death Star exploded.

So is it just my memory or does anybody else remember these things? I only saw it in the theater once and none of the versions since has matched my memory. Harmy’s version is probably better than the original. It is amazing. I’d just like to know if anyone else alive saw the 1977 version in the theater and still thinks that the “original theatrical cut” version is not really what we saw in the theater.

Aguestes fell in on purpose. I saw it in the theater and I remember thinking that.

Thanks, but I am asserting that the VHS tape, Laser Disc, GOUT DVD, etc were all altered from the viewing of the movie in theaters in 1977. I’m not questioning The use of the best sources available. I think everyone involved did an incredible job.

This is really a question for the above 50 crowd who saw it in the theater.

Does anyone remember my example or any other differences?

CatBus said:
there were some very minor print variations (differences in the credits layout, one composite effect for a planet)

This is the first I’ve heard of this. What’s the deal there?

Thanks for the TLDR. I have now twice praised Harmy and the work of so many. Make it a third time. When I saw this in 1977, it looked a mess. It had been run for weeks and and streaks running down it and it looked sort of blury and had places where you could tell the film had been repaired. This was a low budget film and the picture was grainy because of the film stock used. All of these issues are gone and the film as I remember it is mostly restored beautifully. Nothing short of miraculous.

I will sum up what I think you said.

“I am old enough but (did | did NOT) in fact see it in the theater. I believe it to be a trick of your memory.”

You did not ever say if you saw it in the theater in 1977 or not. So did you?

Strangely enough you went on to say, “Yes, there ARE differences between released theatrical versions in 1977. They are so slight as to be of no consequence.”

So thank you for telling me about the ones you know of. Does anyone else know of more?

I would like to know more about the false memories of other people. Can you point me to those threads or give me a suggested search string to find them?

“But maybe you’re misunderstanding things.” This sentence from you leads me to believe that I have somehow insulted you or your group. That is not my intention. If this is a false memory then it is. But I’d like to hear from a few people who were say between the ages of 15 and 30 in 1977 and saw it in the theater in 1977 and then saw the Laser Disc, VHS etc and felt that there were things missing.

If that is insulting to your group then I will quietly go away. To that end, I give my apologies in advance.

Well that got awkward!

Hey, I don’t think you need to worry about insulting us. It’s always interesting to hear topics like this.

It’s indeed great that you got to see the film in 1977 and that it produced such strong memories, whether or not they’re perfectly accurate. I think the idea of false memories in film has been discussed here a few times, leading to some interesting (and yes, sometimes heated) threads. As you’ve probably noticed, there is no working search function. So your attempts to find the threads would likely be as good as mine.

The major recurring one is the idea that Luke swung his grappling hook a few times and missed. Another, I think, has to do with Luke hanging on to the structure underneath Cloud CIty. I think this is the first one I’ve heard of this memory, specifically.

Some people around here did indeed see the film in its theatrical run. But, whether or not Catbus has, he is incredibly familiar with the film in its many versions (as are many folks here). While something like this can never be completely ruled out, there is no existing evidence for it. The point that Catbus was making (successfully, in my opinion), is that a number of users here have direct access to the very 35mm prints that would have been shown to folks like you in 1977 or in 1981 (as ANH). And indeed, every frame and every known mix has been analyzed to death, here. There are prints which no one here is known to have, such as the ESB 70mm. But even then, we have a great deal of information on it. And, to date, there is no print known that is as you describe.

The intent isn’t to be dismissive of your memories, but just to say that with the information available to us it does not sound likely. And that our input shouldn’t be entirely dismissed simply because we weren’t all at those 35mm screenings, since those prints do still exist. However, if your memory is real and is due to a single copy having some abhorrent splice or something. Again, the grappling hook thread would perhaps be of interest to you, if we can find it. And who knows, maybe (as with the grappling hook), someone else will recall the ‘standby’ scene the way that you have.

Thank you to those who replied. I’ve been doing more research according to your advise.

Here is the real misunderstanding and an urging toward the light for the truth seekers.

<quote>
Yeah, I can certainly understand that this may seem “ridiculous” to most people but I personally find it quite fascinating. It’s about ILM’ers still working on the film when prints were already being struck in order to improve on what first came out of the optical printer.

These visual effects artists didn’t have the luxury seeing how the shot came out until it was done, they basically had to hope for the best. If there happened to be a mistake in the compositing then they had to live with it or just start from scratch.
</quote>

This quote shows that although I considered myself quite knowledgeable on the subject, there untold numbers of prints with variations going out to the theaters. There was not a definitive version. This next quote was about a couple of colored marks on a section of the film.

<quote>
That would mean that there were at least three interpositives/print masters/whatever assembled in 1977. Based on my theories, they’d be:

1. A “pre-release” one with no orange marks, original composites, and splices (between each negative “roll?”) have copious amounts of cement residue

2. An “opening-day” one with the orange marks (how were they introduced? were they dark orange damage on the positive, or light blue damage on the negative?), different splices, still the original composites

3. A “revised” one with the orange marks, same splices as #2, and new composites
   </quote>

New seekers of the truth should be aware that there are probably thousands of conversations like this over little marks on the film and literally as many versions of the film to match. While keeping this in mind Seekers, also be mindful that for all the truths, there are an equal number of myths and misconceptions.

One thing I heard/read was that long ago George Lukas donated a 70mm print to the Smithsonian and a scan of it can be seen there. I hope this is true as I’d like to make the pilgrimage to honor this rare artifact (if it really exists).

And to conclude this, My Memory = 0; Despecialized = 1. I concede to the despecialized edition because it is HIGHLY unlikely that I am correct. Of course, a tiny sliver of hope remains. After all one of those thousands of versions may have been the droid… I mean FILM I was looking for.

Harmy, I am honored that you decided to contribute to this discussion.

Are you serious? If this is true, then the story behind this movie continues to hold surprises and the fates did create a special and memorable version for me. Absolutely amazing!

Living in the uncharted backwaters of the galaxy (a small town in Nebraska, USA), I am sure that we weren’t the first to see this film and thus explaining the state of the film as I saw it.

I just have to add in a little embellishment from my memory for this to be explained entirely. The memory of the shot fired from the Death Star corresponds with that at Alderon and the beginning of the shot at Alderon with the beam forming in the tube, would fit there also (although my memory has it from the perspective of looking at the source not the emission of the beam).

The story makes for a nice Christmas gift! Christmas being my Mid-Winter Festival of choice - I hope everyone is enjoying their Holiday Season no matter which you choose to celebrate.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

I also was shocked to see Vader’s ship straighten out, because I remember us all assuming that Vader had died (the first three viewings were all with the same crowd). With his ship straightening out, it is obvious that he survived, and I doubt that all of us would miss that.

I know that I watched the film many times without committing that detail to memory as well. Not sure why, as they would have definitely been 1980s tapes that I was watching. Perhaps I was assuming there should have been more closure as a standalone film (even after knowing the sequels). But I assumed it was one of Lucas’s tweaks when I saw the 1997 version in theaters.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

I even remember getting angry when my purchased VHS tape didn’t include this scene, because it made me believe that lots of scenes could be missing and that I had purchased some sort of shortened version of the film.

I also was shocked to see Vader’s ship straighten out, because I remember us all assuming that Vader had died (the first three viewings were all with the same crowd). With his ship straightening out, it is obvious that he survived, and I doubt that all of us would miss that.

I remember getting angry also. I knew that there were things missing. I never dreamed that there were so many versions of the film floating around. As I remember it, I saw the ship straighten out, the scene with Biggs was missing and the grappling hook worked first try. Most of the differences came at the end and I was sure the film had been shortened.

I love discovering weird things about the truth of our past. Here is a couple you might get. I listened to a taped recording of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road for years and when I bought the CD I realized that the tape had a record skip in it. When young they had a show called The Electric Company on PBS that helped teach reading. One of the regular segments was Fargo North Decoder. Fargo North played by a woman and she solved word mysteries. My brother was in his 30s when one day he just started laughing. He had just realized the play on words.

The real magic in Star Wars is that almost 40 years later there are a lot of us who saw it in the theaters and still really care. There are so many things in the intervening years that seemed so important at the time that really don’t matter at all, but this little thing still does.

As I wrote many times before, I always remembered the Biggs hangar scene being a part of the movie, I even remember how surprised I was when I actually read online in the late 90’s that it was added to the 97SE, I didn’t understand what was the website author writing about and I thought they extended it or something like that. That’s one of the reasons why I started to read ot.com and after I downloaded my first OOT preservation set (EditDroid) I was shocked the scene is not there. And no, I haven’t seen the documentary footage until I found it many years after on tbone’s website, nor have I heard the radio play / read the comic book and I read the novel AFTER 1997.

There was another scene which I remember seeing every time I watched my bootleg SW VHS - in the briefing room scene right after Luke says it’s NOT impossible because he used to shoot rats shorter than 2m, the scene (in my memory) continued with Luke shaking hands with the guy next to him and they introduced themselves to each other. I remember it because the guy introduced himself as Wedge, and I was confused why there are 2 pilots named Wedge. Much later (not sure where) I read that actually that guy was the original Wedge before he was replaced with McGregor’s uncle.