- First off, if you are someone who is still unsure about whether or not to get a copy of Deleted Magic for yourself, do yourself a favor and get it. It is the best Star Wars investment that I have ever made. I knew that it was perfect as soon as I saw the title menu - the "binary sunset" arrangement of the Star Wars music playing over the montage of deleted scenes was just beautiful.
- The level of professionalism is amazing. Even poorer quality material appears seemlessly. At no point did I feel disorientated.
- Watching the full length documentary of Deleted Magic is like seeing Star Wars in a whole new light. While many of the deleted scenes, alternate takes, behind the scenes material, and the like are things that many of us have seen before, seeing them placed back into the context of the actual movie adds so much to all of them. Watching the original version of Star Wars is like looking at something through a very focused pair of eyes - watching Deleted Magic is so interesting because it is like having that pair of eyes that you've been used to looking through your whole life suddenly start wandering to the sides and seeing things outside the original more rigid frame of reference.
- I was amazed at how much humour there was in this. A good example would be any of the cut scenes with R2 - you see what seems to be a familiar scene from the old movie, but then all of a sudden, R2 stumbles and falls over.
- Similarly, I was amazed at how emotionally moving certain scenes were. I've always been a Kenobi fan, so maybe I am biased, but seeing footage of Alec Guiness relaxing or talking off-scene while his character's dialogue and theme music plays (as in the rescue from the sandpeople scene and his death scene) seems like such a nice tribute to him, as he was one of the first original trilogy cast members to have died. There is just something very elegaic about how some of the material was arranged by Gilchrist, and that was something that I had not expected at all.
- Biggs is great. Nice to finally see him.
Now, I just have a few questions -
- Which OT preservation set(s?) was used for the pre-SE original scenes that were not replaced by rough cut material?
- How many hours did you spend working on this DVD?
- I've always toyed with the idea of making my own edit of the OT, with the most alterations (naturally) being in Star Wars. Are you opposed to allowing your work to be borrowed from? I just doubt there are better copies of Biggs' scenes in circulation, and your audio track for the Treadwell scene is great. Those alone I feel could go into a Star Wars edit and not be too out of place.
- Are you still working on Deleted Magic Strikes Back and Return Of Deleted Magic? The teasers for those look great!
- Does a complete black and white audio-less copy of the fabled lost cut actually still exist?
PS - I did watch the cantina scene again. The audio issues that I noticed were that the "droid sensor" does not make a noise when 3PO and R2 trip it, and roughly between when Luke stands at the bar and when the stormtroopers go to Han's table, there is no background barroom noise at all (whereas before during the cantina introductory shot, there was). Except for a few exceptions, all dialogue is intact. Do I not have my audio settings set correctly, or is this simply the way that the scene is? Like I said before, I have no problem with it the way it is - it was just the only scene that seemed anywhere close to distracting because all audio drops out when no one is speaking, unlike, say, in the Tantive IV discarded shots, when you can still hearing shuffling and walking and directorial cues, etc...