negative1 said:i'm not telling you anything..
i'm speculating that the renewed interest in the Star Wars trilogy is DUE to the fact
the SE versions came out with great success in revitalizing the interest that had almost
completely died out before that.... are you saying all star wars fans kept up their
interest until 1997?????????????????????????????????? if so, why, when there was
nothing new to look forward to..
how many people would have gone to see a 'restored' version of the movie in the theater,
it would have been an even more limited run, and maybe just an arthouse showing, who
knows? it was already out on VHS/CED/LASERDISC, so its not like it wasn't available..
and how many people would have bought it just on DVD, if they hadn't seen it in the theaters?
we won't know will we... but apparently there was a HUGE demand after it was shown (SE
versions) in the theaters.... good marketing of course... yeah, sure there would have been the tiny amount of hardcore fans
here, and maybe from the star wars sites... but that's about it.....
what do you think, if miraculously Lucas decides to allow the GOUT, or OOT to be
shown in the theaters again... how many records at the box office would they break?
absolutely none.......................
now show the same movies again in 3-D and at least you can renew the interest
again, and maybe NOT set a box office record, but introduce yet ANOTHER GENERATION
of fans to the movies..
it's all about marketing, and not about art.....sad to say..
later
-1
Ok, well here's something for you. In 1995 my local cinema did a one week classic film season. It was originally supposed to run from Monday until the Friday. I can' t remember all the films that were to be shown but i can remember that ANH was to be shown on the Friday. Each film was to have only 1 showing at 7pm. Now Star Wars received so much interest they decided to give it 2 showings. Tickets sold out in the first couple of days. So they had to put more showings on. again they sold out. in the end they had 5 showings on Friday and added 3 more on the Saturday. all completely sold out. the only film in that week that had packed houses ( and i know because i was dating the assistant manageress at the time). This wasn't a small arthouse cinema either. Now i was able to take my 3 kids to see star wars on the big screen. Even though they had seen it countless times on VHS they still loved seeing it in the cinema.
Now my generation, who had seen Star Wars in 1977 in the cinemas, now had kids and they were taking them to see it. It was evident at the showing i went to see with just how many kids were there. So your argument that only hardcore fans would have gone to see the OT compared to the SE hold no ground based on that. Sure there were the minority that went to see it just to see the changes, but they were probably the same hardcore Star Wars fans that would have gone to see it on the big screen regardless of the changes. Do you really think that the few added changed that were done for the SE is what made Star Wars popular again? Are you sure you lived on this planet in 1997? The buzz wasn't that they were different versions of the films but the fact that Star Wars was getting a wide release showing at the cinema again.
So you think that adding the new shots made it the world wide hit that it became again? Well rubbish. Close encounters, for example, was re-released as a special edition. Its first run in 1978 was successful, its SE release wasn't. Hell, when i went to see that on its opening day the cinema was almost empty.
My generation were taking their kids, who in turn were going with their friends boosting ticket sales.
It was because it was Star Wars, not because it was a special edition.