pittrek said:
You people won't like what I'm gonna write, but ...
Gotta love statements that start out with "You people..." Takes me back to the Ross Perot days! ;)
The Biggs scene was for me always a part of the movie. And I mean ALWAYS. I had a 100th generation bootleg copy with Polish (?) voiceover, a copy recorded from German TV, and a copy recorded from Czech TV, and I'm 100% sure the scene was in at least one of these copies. (I also remember a short handshaking scene between Luke and Wedge/Johny D / Red 2 after the "that's impossible even for a computer" conversation.)
I never understood why various websites claimed that the Biggs sequence was new in the special edition , I always thought that they only edited it (I remember it being longer). Since I have thrown away my VHS bootlegs after I bought the SE VHS tapes (yes, I was a fool) I couldn't check it, but you can't imagine how shocked I've been after I downloaded the EditDroid bootleg DVDs and noticed that the scene is missing !
And I have NEVER read ANY SW-comics in my whole life, and I have heard the radio drama just once, many years AFTER I have seen the SE
There's one really big problem with this...
Those Biggs scenes were never finished. They have no final audio mix, no John Williams score, and only on-set microphone sound full of clunky footsteps, dropouts, and wind across the mic. Go here and listen carefully to the audio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO0jC5_JM5M (Biggs part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRYYnphssCI (Biggs part 2)
This is as far as the Biggs scenes got. They made it as far as the Lost Cut (a black & white rough draft of the film with no finished sound and big SCENE MISSING title cards where the effects shots should be) and then they were trimmed out before the movie even got a John Williams soundtrack. The only reason these clips are even in color here is because they were transferred that way for the Behind The Magic CD-ROM.
Do you think they would have let an unfinished print of Star Wars like this be released into the theaters, let alone be broadcast on television years after the movie was done?
The answer is a resounding no.
Part of the Biggs scenes (both the Tatooine segment and the Rebel hangar conversation) were shown during the "Making of Star Wars" TV special way back when. Perhaps you saw that and tied it into your memories of the film. You wouldn't be alone if you did.
--SKot / www.starwarscutscenes.com