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Post #698383

Author
Obi Benuubi
Parent topic
Star Wars: The Lost Cut Reconstruction Project (* unfinished project *)
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/698383/action/topic#698383
Date created
1-Apr-2014, 3:22 PM

CONTENTS

  1. Introduction
  2. What You Can Do To Help
  3. Updates
  4. Change List
  5. What Is Used
  6. Video
  7. Images
  8. Website Page
  9. Special Thanks To

 
INTRODUCTION

In case you didn’t know, there exists a rough cut of A New Hope. This has become what people now call “The Lost Cut”. This version was originally spliced together by John Jympson. The film was later re-cut to form the film I saw in theaters back in May 1977.

David Reynolds published an article in the Star Wars Insider #41 that talked about it. Here’s a brief rundown of what he mentioned:

1. Black-and-white, silent 13 35mm reels.

2. The reel cans are labeled “The Star Wars”, which was the original title.

3. 30-40% different footage (including unused scenes and longer/alternate takes).

4. Feels less dramatic than final cut. More documentary-like.

5. Live projected backgrounds wherever possible were used in place of blue screen effects.

6. There is more time given to both main and secondary characters.

7. This is meant to be a work-in-progress, nothing less or more.

But what if this version of Star Wars was the one that was released in 1977? What if the Special Editions weren’t made? This is my project. I’ll be using a certain someone’s (cough Harmy’s Despecialized Edition cough) fan-edit to help me.

Harmy’s Despecialized Edition of A New Hope is amazing. It’s the closest thing we will ever get to the original theatrical version. Since TLC was a work-in-progress, I decided to use Harmy’s DE. I also own the Blu-ray edition.

Sadly, in order to match the visual quality of the deleted scenes found on the Blu-ray bonus discs and a few found in Empire Of Dreams, I’ll be degrading the quality of Harmy’s DE: adding all those black lines that sometimes move across the screen and the black dots. But don’t worry, these black lines and dots won’t appear as much as they do on the deleted scenes. Just enough to give it the old film-in-storage-for-a-very-long-time look and feel.

I decided to keep most of the music. For a few reasons. Even though the rough cut might have been finished before the score was recorded, it feels right to keep most of the music.

I’ll be making an .iso when I get closer to the completion date so people can own a copy of this project.
 

Below are things of interest.

UPDATES
 

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

You can help by supplying me with anything that may be useful. Almost everything is welcomed. At the moment, I do not have any programs that will let me edit things frame by frame. If anybody wants to help me lower the visual and audio quality of Harmy’s DE, then go for it. Hopefully I’ll get some programs soon myself. Please supply a link to what you talk about. Saying something like “It’s in this one video” and not saying what’s it’s called and/or not giving a link to it is not very helpful.
 

CHANGE LIST

This is a list of things that I will be doing. Things will be added when a member or myself thinks of something.

1. Rerotoscoping all the lightsabers blades to be white.

2. Restoring David Prowse’s voice (wherever I can)

3. New title crawl will feature the original longer intended crawl.

4. Adding in the old black lines and dots as well as audio drop offs in some parts to show that the film has aged.

5. Lowering the visual and audio quality or Harmy’s DE to match the Blu-ray and other source’s deleted scenes.

6. Restoring Peter Mayhew’s voice (wherever I can).

7. Restoring the original take of the Han & Jabba scene.

8. “No escape for the Princess” now becomes “No escape for the Captain”.

9. Restoring as much as I can of the original Jabba scene. Might be a combination of 1977 and color-corrected 2004 footage.

10. Replacing the Jawa Sandcrawler with the original bottom completed half before a matter of it was added.
 

WHAT IS USED

1. Harmy’s Despecialized Edition of Episode IV: A New Hope

2. Blu-ray deleted scenes

3. “Empire Of Dreams” documentary

4. “The Making Of Star Wars” documentary

5. Original 1977 Teaser Trailer

6. Star Wars Radio Drama (for alternate dialogue)

7. Behind The Magic CD-ROM
 

VIDEOS

(None at this time)
 

IMAGES

1. Star Wars Insider #41 scans: Pages 68-75, 4 files, 2 pages each: http://i.imgur.com/T43degX.jpg | http://i.imgur.com/JKQGxxg.jpg | http://i.imgur.com/FmXE3YP.jpg | http://i.imgur.com/x4JVqx9.jpg

2. “This rare still shows that the scene may have been even more gory”: http://i.imgur.com/5naal5q.png
 

WEBSITE PAGE

(coming soon)
 

SPECIAL THANKS TO

(In no particle order)

Harmy for the super awesome Despecialized Edition

George Lucas for ruining my children’s lives

My little Dachshund for being so cute.