Extended original cut of first film released way back? — Page 2

Hunter6 said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Say for a moment that Hunter6 was right and an extended print did get some showings, does anybody have any idea why it might have been released?.

This is what I heard about this Extended cut. it was a rough cut of the film and copies were made to show to investers. The rough cut copies somehow turned up at some theaters and then were pulled. This is something I can not proof (I can not pull this Extended cut of the film out and say here you go) , but you have so many witness accounts vs Lucasfilm's words.

The double throw grappling hook scene:
Here is a little help, The double throw grappling hook scene was shown on channel 4 (kron/NBC) in bay area, back in the mid-80's in their TV version at 9:00pm. 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                adywan said:
                 The Marvel comics didn't see an early cut of the film at all.

                then, adywan said:
                There. The previews were only shown in private to a select audience (fox & Marvel among them)

adywan keep up the looking into this becuase you seem to be disproofing your veiw. :)

Hunter6, maybe you should read what i posted properly before trying to make me look like a dick. i was saying that Marvel didn't see a cut of the film at all when doing the comic when i was replying to you when you said that Marvel must have seen an early cut of the film because these scenes ended up in the comics.  Roy Thomas only saw a cut of the film AFTER the comics had been finished and had already been released.

And where is the actual evidence that this was shown on that station in the mid '80's? surely there should be some visual evidence. Video recorders were around at this time yet this clip has never surfaced.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Does anybody know if the ESB 35mm was released on the same day as the 70mm?

Well it was here in the UK because i saw it on opening day. I don't know if it was in the US though because we got it a few months after

Hunter6 said:

The double throw grappling hook scene:
Here is a little help, The double throw grappling hook scene was shown on channel 4 (kron/NBC) in bay area, back in the mid-80's in their TV version at 9:00pm.

Again, where is your proof of this? You know the exact channel and hour it was shown on, but not the exact date or year, where is your evidence of this? If some alternative cuts of this film really did exist, I'd be very interested in knowing real facts and details about them, but all that exists out there is hearsay. You can't trust half of what people say on the internet, they will make up all sorts of crap telling in the most sincere manner for no reason at all.

Stuff like this comes about from one guy posting something along the lines of, "I am 100% that the first time I saw Star Wars it had a scene where Luke misses the first time he throws the grappling hook. When I bought the VHS that scene was missing! Perhaps this was on an alternative TV version, since the first time I saw Star Wars was when it aired as the 9:00 movie on channel four here in the bay area. That was back sometime in the mid eighties." and another poster responds something along the lines of, "Yeah, I could have sworn I had seen a scene where Luke missed the first time too, I also live in the bay area, maybe I am remembering it from the TV broadcast." and a third poster after having read the previous too posters suddenly recollects, "You know what, now that you mention it, Luke missing sounds familiar, I also lived in the bay area in the 80s, maybe I happened to see that broadcast, probably that is why it sounds familiar to me."

Suddenly by a few people assuming and speculating we have determined that an extended version must have indeed been broadcast in this area, now it has become a fact. Maybe I am wrong, I'd love for you to prove me wrong Hunter, but so far all you are doing is spitting "hard facts" as matter-of-factly as possible, while failing to show any sources or evidence to the fact that they are facts. If you could kindly indulge us by providing some proof beyond "Adywan is disproving himself, ROTFLMAO!!!"

Missing the first time when throwing a grappling hook is a bit of a cliche, it has happened so many times in films, that we have almost come to expect any character throwing a grappling hook to miss the first time. It would not be hard to convince any casual viewer of the film that Luke missed the first time. If you could convince people that Luke missed the first time he threw the hook on every theatrical print, but that it was removed for the VHS, you'd have just about everyone who originally saw it in the theaters agreeing that they too seem to remember having seen it. Day old memories can be hard enough to trust, 20 - 30 year old memories even more so. Until even the slightest proof can be provided, this debate could go on forever.

Alright Vaderisnohayden, I finally searched some of our older threads on this topic, you will likely find these an interesting read.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Closest-to-1977-release/post/214945/#post214945

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/my-memory-isnt-that-bad-is-it/topic/6521/

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Lukes-rope-throwing-talents-in-EP4/post/216470/#post216470

Baronlando said:

So now the "secret cut" was on TV? In the 80s? The cut that's being "covered up"? Get real. Star Wars was EXCLUSIVE to pay tv and then network TV throughout the 80s, at huge cost. They didn't make  a "special secret one for broadcast in the bay area", geezus. This is getting ridonkulous.

I know. its all getting a bit conspiracy theorist now isn't it. What next? Princess Diana wasn't killed in an accident but was in fact killed because he had a copy of the "secret cut"?. lmao

Don't TV stations get sent copies of the movies for transmition? And wouldn't all the copies be the same transfer? So why only the Bay area got to see this scene then? Utter rubbish

adywan said:

I know. its all getting a bit conspiracy theorist now isn't it. What next? Princess Diana wasn't killed in an accident but was in fact killed because he had a copy of the "secret cut"?. lmao

Don't TV stations get sent copies of the movies for transmition? And wouldn't all the copies be the same transfer? So why only the Bay area got to see this scene then? Utter rubbish

Pleease, that thing about Princess Diana being killed by Lucas' thugs is hardly a secret. Only it was a pristine 35mm reel of the Star Wars Holiday Special, not some "secret cut" that she was in possession of that put her on George's hit list.

Just skimmed through those old threads. Lots of people claim to have seen it, or claimed it was on their VHS TV recording of the movie they grew up with, only in every case their tape has long since been lost, recorded over, and so on. Star Wars has aired on TV so many times, and so many people recorded it. The fact that just about everyone seems to have at one point or another seen the missing grappling hook scene, yet after all these years not a single VHS recording of this scene has surfaced, pretty much puts the final nail in the coffin of this crazy idea. Had it truely been something obscure, very few people would have seen it. Instead, just about everyone claims to have seen it with their own eyes, to the point of being offended when they are told it is their minds playing tricks on them. Just read through those threads and see how many people within our tiny little community, people spread out all over the world, have seen a version of the film with this scene in it. If so many people have seen it, then surely it exists! No. I see this as damning evidence of the power the mind has to make us remember things we never saw.

How likely is it so many people happened upon a version of the film so obscure that not a single VHS recording of it has surfaced? (Trust me, there are people who have gone through great efforts in their quest to find this "Holy Grail" of a scene, and so far all have come up empty handed). If so many people, from so many parts of the world have seen this, then why can't any of them produce their VHS recordings with this on it? Why does the lead always end in, "well, I checked my recording, and it didn't have the scene", "If I'd have only known it was so obscure, I would have recorded it", "It was on my recordings of the movie, but I lost them over ten years ago". There is just no proof.

When something as big as the bloody Loch Ness Monster is said to be living in a place as small as Loch Ness, how many times does the entire loch need to be combed before people will finally say, "Well, I guess there is not monster in there after all"? The truth of the matter is, no matter how much searching is done, no matter what technology is used,  people will continue to say, "Well yes, you came up empty handed this time, but that still doesn't prove Nessie doesn't exist..." You could drain the whole Loch and prove beyond all doubt that Nessie is not in there, yet people would continue to catch sightings of her. It is the nature of myths and legends. And so it goes with the elusive SW scenes that were never filmed. "Wow, you saw a monster in the Loch! I was there the other day and saw something, I thought it was a duck, but now that I think about, I bet it was the monster!" If people want to convince themselves that they saw Luke miss with his grappling hook on a TV broadcast they watched back in the eighties, then they are going to convince themselves they saw Luke miss with his grappling hook on a TV broadcast back in the eighties. No facts or evidence will sway them. Of course, all it would take for me to believe would be a single viewing from a single VHS recording, out of hundreds of recordings that must have been made of this, that shouldn't be too much to ask for.

All this long post, and I have yet to even mention the fact that everyone remembers and describes that scene differently... should this lead us to believe there are several versions of this scene out there, all a little different?

But that is my point, a lot of people claim to have had that scene on the recorded VHS they grew up with, a lot of people of varying ages, claim to have seen this on TV or on VHS. Even the one time airing Star Wars Holiday Special managed to get recorded on VHS back in 1978. People are claiming the scene was on the VHS tape they grew up with, then why can't any of them produce this evidence? The vast amount of people who claim to have seen this would seem to indicate it was not rare or obscure, but that it was extremely common. Yet the evidence is less than nonexistant. If just a handful of people claimed to have scene this, all coming from the same part of the country, and all claiming from the same theater or the same TV station, all giving similar details, then I'd say there was a good chance there is something to their story. Instead we have people claiming it aired in New York, in California, in Germany, in this place and that place, claiming they had recordings of it that they grew up watching. These claims make it very easy for me to dismiss, and they make it really hard to take it seriously. 

If I were any good at photoshop, I'd consider making a parady of Mulder's "I WANT TO BELIEVE" UFO poster from the X-Files, instead using a blurry picture of Luke's grappling hook missing, or Han talking to Jabba.

Hunter6 said:

...why would somebody keep hold of a 20 year VHS tape of an TV version.

Why not? I kept hold of mine.

As for Biggs scenes, Jabba scene, grappling hook miss, etc., show us video proof - or it didn't happen!

Moth3r said:

Hunter6 said:

...why would somebody keep hold of a 20 year VHS tape of an TV version.

Why not? I kept hold of mine.

 Me too, I still have a 25 year old 8 hour double sided Philips video2000 tape with all three Star Wars movies on it.

Stop taking drugs when you go to the cinema. I used to do that all the time, and man, I saw some funny shit.