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Say the SE release in theaters bombed in 1997?

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I was thinking the other day about if the SE releases to theaters in January 1997 had bombed like ET did in 2002? Now by saying it bombed it is a re-release, so they wouldn't have called it that at the time, but they would just say that many fans have it on video and don't need to see those movies in the theaters again. Cause it definitely didn't demean ET, it is still a classic, but no one showed in 2002.

In some ways I feel I contributed to the success of the SE that I am fighting against now. I saw SW opening night on January 31st, and then saw it again. I then saw ESB, but didn't see ROTJ. But that is three tickets for just me, and Lucas could have taken from that, that I loved them and will watch these versions forever.

So lets just say the SE tanked at the theaters in '97, is Lucas that much of an ego maniac that he still pushes them as the true OT movies now, or does he push them aside because the market spoke, and the O-OT lives on.

God I wish I could go back in time and tell everyone not to show up.
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He would probably still insist that they are his proper vision but he would make the OOT widely available as an alternative. Thats how I see it.

And I'm not sure the ET Versus SW comparison is apt--ET was still a very limited, small release, while the SE was a wide-release, super-marketed BIG event.
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People didn't care about the fact that it was the "special edition", though. They just wanted to see Star Wars on the big screen again. We suffered through the bullshit SE additions in order to be able to do that. The "special edition" label wasn't what got people to go to the theaters...it was the words, "Star Wars". It was those original films, the ones Lucas hates, and the memory of seeing them on the big screen that drove people to theaters. It wasn't until the "Toontown" entry to Mos Eisley, and Greedo shooting first that people began to mumble..."what the hell is this?"

The way I see it, the SE didn't "succeed" in 1997. It simply road the wave of success from the original releases. People wanted to experience "Star Wars" again. They couldn't care less about whether it was a "Special Edition", or not.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
He would probably still insist that they are his proper vision but he would make the OOT widely available as an alternative. Thats how I see it.

And I'm not sure the ET Versus SW comparison is apt--ET was still a very limited, small release, while the SE was a wide-release, super-marketed BIG event.


Yes Zombie is on the right trail. It would be exactly like every other DVD release. One disk would have the classics remastered, but unaltered. You know George; the movies that won Oscars and launched careers? Those movies. The other disk would have the oxymoronic “evolving vision.” George could repackage and re-release the movies every three years updating the bullshit on the second disk and leaving the cultural icons untouched, warts and all.

It worked for Highlander and countless other films when they were moved to DVD. Why should Star Wars get lesser treatment?

CO if you develop a time machine let me know. We could go and warn our former selves or perhaps burn some critical reels of film. After that we need to erase some hard-drives; we could start with the CG Yoda mock-up and then move onto Jar Jar. With my Military training and your Time Machine we’ll be unstoppable; we can rule the galaxy as “bashers” and purist, bwa ha ha ha ha ha haaaa [queue up Imperial March Theme]



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Then the present would be bright for us, and there would not be a "genocide" on the OOT
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I don't think the 2002 E.T. release was small scale. There was plenty of hype at the time. The most unintentionally funny of which was an outdoor(?) screening at the Winter Olympics, where they got American athletes to prattle for the camera about how good the special edition was over the original version. I somehow doubted they even knew what they were talking about, and some were a bit young to be claiming to have seen it in theaters the first time around!
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Where were you in '77?

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I'm sure George would have pushed forward with the SEs anyway. He had to do something for his test dummies for the prequels. Grr, am I the only person who gets offended when I am reminded of that? But, anyway, to not derail my own post... Knowing George (which I don't, personally), I wouldn't be surprised if he got so bitter that his SEs didn't sell well, that he would have obliterated the OOT anyway, just so we'd have to watch it. So, really, not much different from our current reality.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I saw SW twice, ESB once and ROTJ once (and nearly lost my lunch during both the "jedi rocks" scene and the new finale), so I guess I helped encourage GL, too. But- I didn't realize how extensive the changes were until I saw the films.

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The trailers made it look like it was just restoration and small touch ups in effects scattered here and there, which we probably would have been fine with. And I don't think I need to say anymore.
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Yeah, I was under the impression that they were just cleaning up the matte lines, and adding the new Jabba scene to SW. If that's ALL they did- I would have been OK with it. I don't LOVE the Jabba/Han scene- but it didn't bother me nearly as much as some of the other stuff.

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Originally posted by: Darth-Adroit
Originally posted by: zombie84
He would probably still insist that they are his proper vision but he would make the OOT widely available as an alternative. Thats how I see it.

And I'm not sure the ET Versus SW comparison is apt--ET was still a very limited, small release, while the SE was a wide-release, super-marketed BIG event.


Yes Zombie is on the right trail. It would be exactly like every other DVD release. One disk would have the classics remastered, but unaltered. You know George; the movies that won Oscars and launched careers? Those movies. The other disk would have the oxymoronic “evolving vision.” George could repackage and re-release the movies every three years updating the bullshit on the second disk and leaving the cultural icons untouched, warts and all.

It worked for Highlander and countless other films when they were moved to DVD. Why should Star Wars get lesser treatment?

CO if you develop a time machine let me know. We could go and warn our former selves or perhaps burn some critical reels of film. After that we need to erase some hard-drives; we could start with the CG Yoda mock-up and then move onto Jar Jar. With my Military training and your Time Machine we’ll be unstoppable; we can rule the galaxy as “bashers” and purist, bwa ha ha ha ha ha haaaa [queue up Imperial March Theme]


Good Idea, but there is one catch then this website would no longer exist
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Originally posted by: Darth Richard
Good Idea, but there is one catch then this website would no longer exist


Then CO and Darth-Adroit didn't met, they don't go back in time to change history, then this website still exist, so they can meet each other, change history, and then this website no longer exists, they don't met and don't change history, this website exist..........

Han: Hey Lando! You kept your promise, right? Not a scratch?
Lando: Well, what’s left of her isn’t scratched. All the scratched parts got knocked off along the way.
Han (exasperated): Knocked off?!

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Originally posted by: Z6PO
Originally posted by: Darth Richard
Good Idea, but there is one catch then this website would no longer exist


Then CO and Darth-Adroit didn't met, they don't go back in time to change history, then this website still exist, so they can meet each other, change history, and then this website no longer exists, they don't met and don't change history, this website exist..........



hahahahahahahaha
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O-OT fan: Mr. Gary Kurtz, you built a time machine........out of a Delorean?

Kurtz: Yes, and I am going back in time to January 30, 1997 to spread the word that the SE will be the norm in 10 years.

(A van approaches with two men with missile guns)

Kurtz: Oh no, they found me, I don't know how they found me!

O-OT fan: Who?

Kurtz: George Lucas and Rick McCallum, run true Star Wars fan run!

(The two masked man, one that has a very elongated neck shoots Mr. Kurtz, O-OT fan runs into the Delorean, and takes off)

O-OT: Lets see if this thing can do 90!

(Car disappears and reappears in 1997, so the O-OT fan looks for any local theater)

(He finds a theater playing of Star Wars, and runs in the theater)

(On the screen, he sees the new jabba scene)

O-OT: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

(The crowd looks at him ????????????????)

O-OT: Wait til 2005, you guys are really going to hate that line.

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If only Lucas had paid attention to the drop-off at Jedi. It might have influenced the prequels and the 04 changes in a GOOD way, but no. 1997 Return of the Jedi made quite a bit less than Star Wars. I've talked to some people who had never seen that version until 2004 and were shocked at the lameness of the changes. These are people who probably hadn't seen Jedi in ten years and those 2 new songs just jumped out and slapped them. To me '97 Jedi IS a bomb (as opposed to Da bomb).
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God I wish I could go back in time and tell everyone not to show up.

we just didn't know man. i was in 8th grade. the internet was not there to tell me exactly what was changed. i was in shock and disbelief after every 'special edition' viewing at the theaters. and after ROTJ i almost lost my mind.
thank the maker
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Yeah, I think most people went thinking that there would be minor SE fixes and the addition of some old things. Not retooling - which is what has been done. There's a difference between retooling and cleaning up/adding. Which is why everyone has been so hard at work retro-retooling.
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I was very enthusiastic about the SE. Until I saw it.
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I was pleased with every single SE change... when I was under the impression that it was a novelty, a 20th anniversary special, not a replacement to the classic films.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Now it's all going to Lucas' plan. He will release the OOT in letterbox, nobody will buy it, he will claim there isnt a demand for the OOT, SE gets altered and rehased on an annual basis, so by the time blu ray arrives we only can see the OT in 3-d and with so many alterations that the 04 dvds begin to look good. Then the OOT will be truly dead.

Or we can probably anticipate a OT release every six months from now on, eventually getting what we want, but only in subnuclear steps.
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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
I was pleased with every single SE change... when I was under the impression that it was a novelty, a 20th anniversary special, not a replacement to the classic films.
This gave me a chuckle, as it reminded me of my actions immediately following my seeing the SE in '97.....

I disliked most of the SE changes, and after I saw them, I remembered the "one last time" tagline when the 1995 OT THX editions were released. I started to panic and started searching through magazines for a Columbia House Laserdisc Club ad. (yes, there used to be a LD club). They still had the 1995 THX LDs available, so I joined the club and purchased all three films (I did not own a LD player at the time- but I knew that LDs had something like 60% better video quality than VHS). At some point, the '95 LDs were going out-of-print, and CH had them on clearance for $10 a piece. So, I bought another set, just to be on the safe side. I figured- this MAY be the best quality I'll ever get for the OT. Up until then I only had them on VHS (the original individual FOX VIDEO releases, the "hologram" letterbox set, the 1995 THX Pan-and-Scan set, and the 1995 THX letterbox set).

Three years ago, I FINALLY got a LD player, and watched my LDs for the first time. I was amazed at how much better they looked than the VHS versions. I started transferring them to DVD right away. I've since sold most of my VHS copies, except for the 2 widescreen boxed sets.

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I personally loved to SE release in 1997, but it was for the reasons said before, I was just happy to see the Star Wars Trilogy in a theatre. I didn't get to see Star Wars in theatres during the original relase, being a little kid at the time, and was happy to see them. I even didn't mind the stupid Jabba scene in Star Wars put in and Jedi Rocks. It wasn't until I got the SEs on VHS that I really began to notice how bad the new scenes were.
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A question. Let's say I have a movie theater and I want to show Star Wars on it. So I get in touch with my local 20th century fox distributor and request a copy. What will they give me? 1997 or 2004?

Also: I am not sure if some of you remember, but there was this movie festival somewhere in the US and they were showing one film for each decade, and the 70s were to be represented by Star Wars, and they HAD an O-OT film to show, but Lucasfilm denied permission to show anything else bu the 1997 version (this was before 2004). So if the O-OT is out there in celluloid, it can be transfered properly into DVD.
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Originally posted by: ricarleite
A question. Let's say I have a movie theater and I want to show Star Wars on it. So I get in touch with my local 20th century fox distributor and request a copy. What will they give me? 1997 or 2004?

Also: I am not sure if some of you remember, but there was this movie festival somewhere in the US and they were showing one film for each decade, and the 70s were to be represented by Star Wars, and they HAD an O-OT film to show, but Lucasfilm denied permission to show anything else bu the 1997 version (this was before 2004). So if the O-OT is out there in celluloid, it can be transfered properly into DVD.

If you owned a movie theater- you would get the 1997 version (I think), because the 2004 changes were for the DVD, and whatever available prints there are for movie theaters are probably the '97 versions.

How ridiculous- wanting people to show a film that used CGI from 1997 in a 1970s film festival. That perfectly encapsulates the silliness of wanting to foist a new version of a classic film on people who don't want to see it.

If I ever have children, I will show them the OOT when they are the right age. I will tell them that the films were released in 1977, 1980 and 1983, and explain to them how groundbreaking the special effects were at the time. I will tell them how a special computer had to be invented to precisely control the movements of the camera, so that they could shoot the miniature spaceships in a such a way to create the illusion of flight, and how all the backgrounds were painted by hand, on glass. They will NOT be watching the Special Editions under my roof. Imagine trying to explain how these films changed your life when you saw them as a kid, but having to explain to your child "well, not this part- this part wasn't in the 1977 version.....and that part.....and that thing flying around- that was added in 1997". It's ludicrous.

I'm sure many prints of the OT still exist, it's just that GL doesn't want anyone to see them. Even when they show clips of the films in TV shows, they use the '97 versions (like when they show the death star exploding, it's ALWAYS the version with the stupid ring around it).

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Exactly! I wasn't alive in 1977-1983, but I don't like the Orwellian-Stalinist approach Lucas is doing to the OOT