I saw the trilogy shown on the big screen of a local campus about 12 or 13 years ago. Empire and Jedi were basically identical to the versions we were familiar with on video, but A New Hope had lots of little differences. I wish I had paid more attention at the time, or made notes of what was different, but unfortunately now all I have to go on is my limited memory. I've searched books/internet in the past trying to determine what version I saw, but never could tell for sure.
Here's what I can remember:
- * The film was shown cropped to Academy ratio or something close to it. I don't know enough about film to know what that indicates about the format of the film (16mm?) or whether it gives anything away to someone familiar with the history of Star Wars releases. ie where would a print in that format have come from, were they rare enough for that to help track it down or not?
- * I do *not* recall one way or the other whether "A New Hope" appeared in the opening crawl or not. Though I vaguely recall when discussing it with friends afterwards, someone mentioning that the crawl itself was re-aligned differently. As far as I know, this would fit in with it having been the original 77 version.
- * Multiple different takes or line readings used, especially Aunt Beru & C3PO. I have heard that Beru's dialogue was completely re-looped by a different actress after the initial release. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I thought this was a different voice, but it definitely wasn't exactly the same. Examples that stick in my memory are when she says to Owen "He can't stay here forever, most of his friends have gone." In the video versions and re-releases, this line is said pretty flat and straightforward. In this version though, she put some weird emphasis on the words "friends" and "gone", drawing them out longer and making the whole sentence sound creepy. Also in "Teh Uncoh if he gets a translator..." I think she properly pronounced her L's.
- * I think there was something different about the "Look sir, droids" bit, but I may be mis-remembering.
- * I have no memory of whether or not C3PO said his line about the 7 locations of the power coupling whatnot.
I know that's not much to go on, but does anyone have any clue what I'm babbling about? Anyone that's seen the '77 version able to comment on the possibility that this is somehow what I saw? And to keep us on topic, I'll ask again if anyone knows where I can get a copy of that dvd-r to compare for myself?
thanks!