Northpoint Theater was also where American Graffiti was previewed and they filled the theater with teens who loved the Movie. After that Hit screening Ned Tannen blew a gasket and told George and Francis "You boys really let me down". According to both Skywalking, and Empire of Dreams.
The Northpoint theater was in San Francisco. The Old American Zoptrope was run out of San Francisco, and there was a whole bohemian/hippie culture there, and an avant garde scene for movies.
I'm sure getting a screening at the Northpoint was better than say in LA where critics would tear you to pieces.
Funnily enough they could not even get Graumans Chinese Theater to show the film at first, but some other film they wanted to show was delayed or something so they showed star wars grudgingly and would have pulled it in a week or two if it did'nt play well.
I cannot remember the reason why But Graumans did not get the Premiere of Revenge of the Sith. Almost every Star Wars film had its US premiere there.
Any test screening should conform Generally to the shooting script. The Jabba scene and biggs scenes were in the shooting script and John Jympson rough cut but not in any near finished version of the movie and certainly not the one shown at northpoint.
The Luke missing with his grappling hook scene i don't even remember even being in the Shooting Script though i could be wrong, not sure. I know there was a version of the script where Luke misses on his first go on the death star trench and then hits the reactor shaft on the second try.
This guy Marsters is gonna be in the Dragonball movie,lol. He can be in a joke of a movie like that playing a character who has bat nipples and try to make up some story about a supposed rough cut of star wars no one else saw.
He may have been one of the many considered for Star Wars Episode II but there is no way he would have been considered for episode one as they did screentest 3 finalists who were all 8 or 9 years old.
Joshua Jackson was also considered for Anakin in episode II according to him anyway. Leonardo Dicaprio Despite what Leo fans believe or not was never even considered because Lucas usually casts unknowns for the leads in his movies. I not sure but i think it was Sophia Coppola George's GodDaughter who lobbied for Christensen as Anakin. He nailed the performance in his screentest but then when he was onscreen he became all wooden, Georges fault perhaps . I think robin Gurland was the one who did the test with him and natalie originally. Lucas is not a character director and he does nothing to help them find their performance. Well we can fix it all in post in the computer he thinks,lol.
Fred Roos is the guy who cast the original star wars, as well as American Graffiti.