Star Wars (1977 Original Version) Theatrical Rerelease Discussion — Page 6

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

aileron said:

Does anyone else here know which interview I’m remembering where GL says “the original film/negative/interpositive” was cut up for 97ANH? And the the “original” no longer exists. I’m pretty sure he made it clear but he may have been referring to existing media of that time degrading.

He re-cut the negative, yes. But the trims were saved, not tossed in the trash.

So, he was being honest, on a technicality, that the original negative didn’t exist. But all of its components still existed, just in pieces.

Yes technically their own negative was changed. But in any real sense there’s not “one original reel” since they exist all over the world and have been restored by fans and the BFI etc. Again it’s all somewhere in the big “revisionist” thread pinned above here.

Maybe I’m off the mark here but wasn’t the entire crux of “why the original Star Wars doesn’t exist” based on the feelings of one man? But now nobody should care? Pretty wild to suggest it’s not important given the history of these films until a few month ago, and the history of this site. But whatever, the vibes here really suck recently considering there’s a bunch of positive news for once. Later.

Still can’t convince myself this is really happening. I hope it plays internationally, I’ll go multiple times if it plays in original language anywhere I can reach. Shame my kids aren’t old enough to see it yet.

Can’t wait for this!! wish it wasn’t over a year away though. Still, it’ll be so worth the wait!!

Mocata said:

Maybe I’m off the mark here but wasn’t the entire crux of “why the original Star Wars doesn’t exist” based on the feelings of one man? But now nobody should care? Pretty wild to suggest it’s not important given the history of these films until a few month ago, and the history of this site. But whatever, the vibes here really suck recently considering there’s a bunch of positive news for once. Later.

Yeah this is literally why this site exists, it’s okay to talk about without mandated Sequel Trilogy Positivity Hour

Burgorturtle said:

I’m surprised they’re even able to make it since they sliced film reels to make the special editions.

The parts of the negative they changed were trimmed out and kept, they weren’t just disposed of. Even if that were the case, they still have the inter-positives which are second only to the negatives.

They dissembled the negative washed it. And reassembled it with the new material. And the new optical recomposites. We were lead to believe all the Color Reversal Negative was unusable, perhaps it was back then.

What always got me was that no protection master was made of the restored print with none of the cgi changes. It probably would have been paid for by 20th Century Fox. It didn’t happen because of Lucas direct intervention, this 1997 cut is the original version.

Very happy to hear this! Of course, for me the battle isn’t won until we get those released on home video too.

Between this re-release and Celebration 2027 in L.A. (the first time I will ever attend a Celebration) next year can’t come soon enough!

GroovyLord said:

Very happy to hear this! Of course, for me the battle isn’t won until we get those released on home video too.

I hope they hurry since physical media is dying

Mocata said:

Doctor M said:

I can’t prove it, but I swore I read when George Lucas sold his company to Disney, not releasing the original cuts was a condition.
Maybe that’s true, but there was an expiration on it. Dunno.

It stems from people at LFL being cagey about it for so long. Kennedy, Hidalgo, made weird comments when asked after the Disney sale so people naturally assumed they’d got a contractual reason behind the scenes. Unless this has recently changed or they were just saying this for personal rather than legal reasons to stay friends with George.

Yeah, I think a lot of people took Kathleen’s “Those belong to George” remark totally out of context to mean that the original cuts literally weren’t part of the sale. What I think she actually meant was that Lucasfilm had no plans to alter the films any further than what Lucas had overseen and signed off on throughout the years. They were ‘his’ films in the sense that he created, paid for and oversaw their production, so they would be left in their final state in accordance to his wishes out of respect. All of the digital tweaking done over the years was George’s thing that he did when he still controlled what was done with the films. I don’t think Kathleen or anyone else within Lucasfilm had any desire to add further rounds digital tweaking and re-editing to the Lucas era films just for the sake of carrying on what had become a bizarre obsessive/compulsive tradition for George over the years. Their primary focus was creating new content from the IP, not further fiddling around with George’s old stuff without his say.

dreamsxclass said:

Still can’t convince myself this is really happening. I hope it plays internationally, I’ll go multiple times if it plays in original language anywhere I can reach. Shame my kids aren’t old enough to see it yet.

how can you be too young?

I am so excited that this is happening and that is less than a year away. I really hope we get to see some trailers and build up for this soon.

LJDunk52 said:

I am so excited that this is happening and that is less than a year away. I really hope we get to see some trailers and build up for this soon.

I’m predicting a trailer at the D23 expo, which runs from 14th August - 16th August.