logo Sign In

Post #1426237

Author
yotsuya
Parent topic
The Original Trilogy box set releases on home video tape: 1988 to 2000…
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1426237/action/topic#1426237
Date created
27-Apr-2021, 11:40 AM

JadedSkywalker said:

The 2000 box set is significant because they dropped the Special Edition label. Ever since every new version of the Special Edition has been labeled as if it is the original trilogy. Culminating with the 2020 Special Edition 4.0 in 4k.

I’m sure there have been multiple generations of people who haven’t actually seen the real movies. I mean even i grew up with an altered version of Star Wars which i thought was the original cut and it wasn’t. the A New Hope subtitle, new roll up and starfield and new audio mix it wasn’t the theatrical cut. The real Star Wars has never been on home video.

Well, what has been released has always been very confusing. Nearly every home video release has had something odd about it. TESB and ROTJ have had their theatrical versions available for a long time, but ANH has been weird. The only release I know of that was truly original was the 16 mm that Puggo archived and the bootleg tape that Moth3r archived. Those are both the May 1977 version of the film (no ANH or Episode IV, different end credits, and 3 shots that are slightly different). The first official home video release was a strange hybrid of the original 1977 general release and that May 77 release (they feature the original 3 scenes but the 1977 general release end credits and the 1981 rerelease opening crawl. We also got a revised audio track for the first widescreen release that included one line from the Mono mix in the 1977 stereo mix. Then the Definitive Collection came out, from a fresh interpositive of each movie, but a much revised sound track for ANH (everything that was included was from the mono mix). Then in 2006 we get yet a different version. Virtually the same, but with the original 1977 opening crawl. So ANH has really never seen an official release of any version that was shown in theaters. At least the English edition. The foreign language editions only had the opening crawl changed (and perhaps a revised dub) as all the other visual edits were done before the foreign language versions were created back in 1977. So far all the prints gathered for the SSE and 4k77 have been of the 1977 general release prints.