- Time
- Post link
Does anyone know the full history of the film elements, such as the negative, interpositives, release prints, etc?
I seem to recall reading an article in 1997, around the time of the release of the Special Editions, that generally stated the following. No preservation or archiving of "Star Wars" had been attempted until after it's initial run had been completed. This was primarily due to no one expecting "Star Wars" to be any kind of success. The dirty, deteriorated negative was used to make a 3 color separation master for archival purposes. This separation was what was what was used to make the Special Edition. Unfortunately when this separation was retrieved from the archives, the master for the yellow layer was found to be underexposed (possibly due to the fading of the yellow dye in the original negative prior to seperation master being made). As I recall the writer of this article was lamenting that "Star Wars" would never again appear as it did in 1977 due to the underexposed yellow master, and as a result true blacks would appear more blue.
This article, as I recall, seemed to also indicate that this fate had not befallen "The Empire Strikes Back", or "Return of the Jedi", as these films were archived correctly, based on their expected success.
Would there have been any reason to destroy the original negatives, or any archival material in the process of creating the Special Edition? I've seen many movies that retrieved footage from "the cutting room floor". In fact, isn't that where the Luke and Biggs hangar scene came from?
I just feel like I'm missing something here. I'm hoping someone will be kind enough to post the process of how the film goes from camera negative to the final prints we see in the movie theaters, and maybe relate that to why it's believed that the making of the Special Edition would involve the destruction of some of the film elements.
