Free "farewell" Screening of 1977 Star Wars collector's print (British I.B. Technicolor) — Page 6

zombie84 said:

I dunno, DVD from 2001 to 2004 was twice as crowded as that, and SW and Indy both managed to do okay.

 What are you talking about?

All of those are coming out from October to December of this one year.  I'm not talking about several years.

digitalfreaknyc said:

zombie84 said:

I dunno, DVD from 2001 to 2004 was twice as crowded as that, and SW and Indy both managed to do okay.

 What are you talking about?

All of those are coming out from October to December of this one year.  I'm not talking about several years.

 I know, I meant the Christmas season of every year from 2001 to 2004 had huge boxsets and long-awaited special editions of classic films. Pretty much every major catalog title came out on a special edition in that time, including all boxset releases.

But you are right in one thing in that the marketplace was different. There were a million DVD owners back then, but not nearly as much Blu Ray owners now, so there's not as many buyers in proportion to titles. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

skyjedi2005 said:

 

It looks like according to that link Lucas ruined Graffiti in 1998.  So i guess i have to look for a pre 1998 laserdisc copy, unless that shot was on the last laser release as well.  I know the same documentary was.

So fixing a single bad optical (and with good reason) 'ruined' American Graffiti?! It's unfortunate that the original titles aren't a viewing option, but the rest of the film is as it should be - hardly vandalism on a par with THX 1138.

I take it you're not familiar with skyjedi,lol.

The redone titles I can live with, since they look about the same. The way I look at it is that its the same as when Lucas re-wrote the title crawl for Star Wars (or is it, A New Hope?). No one complained about A New Hope being the only version of Star Wars that was ever on home video.

The photoshopped establishing shot I don't like though. It's sneaky, and tampering with the original photography. Very minor, luckily, but there was no need to do it. The titles were re-done to have better clarity because the opticals were so grainy. The photoshopping was done because Lucas wanted a shot he never got, which is changing the film.

The Graffiti shot is minor but it's kind of a perfect microcosm of how this computer fetish grabbed Lucas. It's a sunset/magic hour shot that you normally would have to go outside and wait around for, dealing with other human beings the whole time. Discovering that you could do that while sitting on your ass inside your tastefully decorated giant NoCal coffeehouse, was probably like finding gold.

In regards to the topic here, I converted the best of the screen photos to make them viewable.

see http://savestarwars.com/technicoloribscreening.html

OK this is totally off the topic of this thread, but after reading about all these changes, can someone explain to me what was changed in THX 1138? I have only seen the director's cut and I can pretty much guess what had been added via CGI, but is there a thread with a list of all the changes?

You'd be surprised, more was added than you'd think. Some scenes were edited differently too. Theres a youtube video showing all the new changes.

Ah youtrube....thanks, or should i say thx

just watched it. wow. while some of the "additions" are obvious,but yes there are quite a few of changes. I'm guessing the original version has never seen a proper release?

Cool thanks. Got to find me a copy of the original.

Moth3r said:

timdiggerm said:

I was there.

1. From what I've read, it was actually the 1981 re-release print, as it had "EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE" and "Close the blast doors! Close the blast doors!" was missing.

"Close the blast doors" was missing in the first 1977 run as well - it didn't appear until the mono mix, which was finished some time after the Dolby mixes.

The 1981 print you saw probably had the original 1977 Dolby Stereo sound mix.  

Nope "Close the blast doors, close the blast doors! .... Open the blast doors, open the blast doors!" was there in the original 70mm Dolby 6 channel on opening day.

(as was Luke missing the first grappling hook throw, which has never appeared in any other version, not in any of the 35mm prints no matter when they were release, nor in any of the home versions- Lucas decided that it made Luke's kills appear to feeble and decided he wanted his skills to seem more amazing there after all; the original scene was longer and more dramatic since more suspense was built up over a more extended period of time as the stormtroopers slowly propped the door open)

zombie84 said:

R2 canyon scene:

http://petergaultney.smugmug.com/Movies/historic/Star-Wars-at-The-Senator/K7PG2338/948667790_SRJST-M.jpg

Looks pretty dark!

The canyon scene always was dark, it was supposed to be a very late evening, almost night scene. The early home video transfers totally messed it up.

Bobby Jay said:

Jawa77 said:

Moth3r said:

timdiggerm said:

I was there.

1. From what I've read, it was actually the 1981 re-release print, as it had "EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE" and "Close the blast doors! Close the blast doors!" was missing.

"Close the blast doors" was missing in the first 1977 run as well - it didn't appear until the mono mix, which was finished some time after the Dolby mixes.

The 1981 print you saw probably had the original 1977 Dolby Stereo sound mix.  

Nope "Close the blast doors, close the blast doors! .... Open the blast doors, open the blast doors!" was there in the original 70mm Dolby 6 channel on opening day.

(as was Luke missing the first grappling hook throw, which has never appeared in any other version, not in any of the 35mm prints no matter when they were release, nor in any of the home versions- Lucas decided that it made Luke's kills appear to feeble and decided he wanted his skills to seem more amazing there after all; the original scene was longer and more dramatic since more suspense was built up over a more extended period of time as the stormtroopers slowly propped the door open)

 

Beg to differ with you there. The "close the blast doors line" was only heard in the Mono Mix and was never in the 70mm Mix. This is confirmed by an in theatre recording of the 70mm Mix from 1977.

As for the missing grappling hook, after 33 years no one has ever been able to prove this was ever seen in a released version of the film. Unless any one can produce hard evidence of it and not a 33 year old memory, I'm guessing  it didn't happen.

arrrr just entered a long message and then went to copy it to save and hit paste by accident and erased it....

anyway, trying again:

Well you could be right about the close the blast doors thing. I do know I saw it that way sometime back in the day in the theater for sure, at the very least, and that I was mad when the version I got for home had it missing, as I think most did for a long while (maybe an early home version had it???). When they finally did add it back in they changed it a little bit. I recall seeing a version in home without out it and complaining about the missing part and then everyone said I was crazy and making it up so I figured, since none of them had ever seen the 70mm premiere (or even ever, hardly anyone actually ever saw the 70mm version compared to the 35mm versions and fewer still ever saw the 9 theater premieres) that maybe it had only been in that version, but I guess it was actually just that some of them had forgotten about it and the others had never heard the original MONO mix (I saw that a ton of times in '77), I guess some of them may have been a couple years too young for that, most likely.

One thing to keep in mind, although most likely not relevant to the above and perhaps to nothing at all but, I recall hearing that they were in such a rush with the 70mm prints that not all theaters got exactly the same splicings of the 70mm premieres and that the 70mm prints got re-edited a little while after the premieres and that the premiere showings were a little different than the finished general release cuts. I think this may have been the case with ESB too. (I have a vague memory that something or other about the wampa cave stuff had been different in the 70mm premiere I saw compared to other showings. That memory was a little vague even at the time though.)

As for the missed grappling hook toss, I'm not how/why I could have imagined that up. And it's a lot less than a 33 years old recall. I even mentioned it on the boards way back in the BBS days and that would've been only about 11 years after the 1977 release and I also have notes about it from way, way before even then. It's not like it was a quick 2 second addition, toss miss boom, thing either. He carefully prepared himself, made the toss, it didn't catch, he had to retrieve it back in, Leia getting more and more worried as the doors ever so slowly get ratched up more and more by the stormtroopers, then he has to settle down again and try again. I thought it built up a lot more tension since the door ratchething thing was so extended and I also thought there was a chance Luke might not make it at all (haha see story below). I only saw it that one time and never since :(. I'd love that scene to get released as bonus material some day.

First I should say I saw the 70mm premiere on opening day at the Stanley Warner tri (although I can't quite recall if it was tri yet, maybe not until ESB???) in Paramus, NJ. It had a pretty fancy entrance, at least it sure blew away the little local shoe boxes places they had put up around that time. You'd walk in and then walk to the left and then enter this ginormous theater, it even had an upper balcony, although I never sat up there, the main seating area had multiple sections. I also recall the popcorn had an insanely high price for the day.

The giant screen was situated up above you and really loomed over you. I recently found an old document that lists the screen as having been 65' wide (at least when first built). I actually thought it would've been more like 75-80' but I guess stuff looks bigger when you are little, especially compared to little mall theaters. Then again it was a flat screen, not curved, so I supposed the straight line edge to edge may have been more like a modern curved 70-75' width??? I suppose they could have expanded it after initial construction too, although probably not. I'm not exactly sure how many it seated, but about 10 years ago I ran into a worker there who actually recalled the old palace auditorium and he claimed it sat 2200 before it got split. (I think they split it either shortly before or after ROTJ. I never did see ROTJ in 70mm.) When I went back to see the digital premiere of The Phantom Menace it appeared to me the palace screen had been utterly destroyed, split into into what appeared to be a shocking TWO levels of FOUR screens each, yes, it actually looked like they split one auditorium into as many as 8!! :(  Some of the screens at the theater are the smallest I have ever seen. It looked like they still had the two original additional screens to the right in the same configuration and same old seats though. It was a shame that for the TPM digital premiere the screen they showed it on, the 'big' screen, used to be one of the tiny little ones there, now it's the largest, I bet only like 35' or something.

Anyway and then there was the sound! The sound quality just blew me away. I'd never heard anything like it in my life! I recall going on and on about Dolby this and Dolby that and how it was the most amazing thing ever and how they made the best sound quality 100x over, etc.

But before entering we had to stand in line for hours! And getting back to the original point about Luke haha, I overheard some talk about how they couldn't believe the two main characters actually get killed in this film (as it turned out "this film" had actually referred to an entirely different film out at the time) so the whole time I was watching I knew that even though main hero character stars pretty much are guaranteed to survive, certainly in this sort of movie, that two had to get killed! So when the dianoga got Luke I actually thought he might be a goner! And when the hook stuff was going on, since by that time the movie had been going for so long and from what I overheard I thought one main character was already supposed to be dead, I thought maybe this was it for him hah.

(As for the infamous Biggs scene where they talk on Tatooine. I definitely never saw that in any theatrical release, I'm 100% sure of that. (That said I don't want to totally doubt anyone since I know how it feels with all the grief I get over the grappling hook incident. I wonder if maybe just maybe it had been in some cut for a few weeks at the starts at one of the other eight premieres??? I'd be doubtful other than I'd feel hypocritical since I'd be saying they made up the biggs thing when everyone tells me I made up the grappling hook thing. There have to be some other people who can back me up on the grappling hook somewhere!))