BFI to screen Star Wars 1977 Theatrical Version — Page 2

Omni said:

Bizarrely, I saw some people on twitter upset that they’re “going against George’s vision” or whatever. People are so stupid, they don’t even realize they should also respect 1977 George Lucas’ vision.

Crazy people. They must be young.

That is definitely an IB print. They are unmistakable when you see them. It’s astounding the 1981 new crawl is on a separate reel and was not spliced into this print. Making this possible the most valuable print of Star Wars in the entire world for having the original crawl and rollup and starfield.

I was lucky enough to see this tonight. It was amazing to see the original theatrical version. The audience cheered when Han shot first. (There was, of course, no Episode VI: A New Hope.)

I also got to see the continuity script, which really brought hope how much was changed in the edit, & on set/behind the scenes Polaroids.

As the BFI video below explains, it’s a dye transfer print and, as a result, has maintained its colour really well. There were quite a few scratches, lines, shakes & blobs during the Tatooine scenes but that really added to the nostalgia.

For those asking whether Lucas knows about the screening, it was approved by Lucasfilm. Kathleen Kennedy was there & paid tribute to George & ILM. She said there were big plans for Star Wars’ 50th anniversary but there was no indication of a wider release of the original cut.

oojason said:

Inside the Archive: Star Wars in Technicolor | BFI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bsCliOges0 - a 9 minute video from the official BFI youtube channel.

 
The blurb: 'In our latest Inside the Archive video we go far, far away - all the way back to 1977 - to examine an original IB Technicolor dye-transfer print of Star Wars (Dir. George Lucas, 1977), held in the BFI National Archive’s collections.

Join Kieron Webb (Head of Conservation) and James Bell (Curator of Fiction, BFI National Archive Programme Director, Film on Film Festival), as they explore the history of this precious object, and examine other unique items related to the film’s production.

Video produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.’
 

Jealous. Does this kind of technicolour version form the basis for any current fanedits?

For those asking whether Lucas knows about the screening, it was approved by Lucasfilm. Kathleen Kennedy was there & paid tribute to George & ILM. She said there were big plans for Star Wars’ 50th anniversary but there was no indication of a wider release of the original cut.

That would really be something.

Seeing this on the big screen also really brought home how brilliantly paced the original theatrical version is.

The Guardian interviewed fans about their recollections of first seeing the film in cinemas in 1977/78. It really brings home how groundbreaking it was, whic is hard to imagine now when blockbusters are a dime a dozen: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/12/it-was-simply-mind-blowing-readers-remember-seeing-star-wars-for-the-first-time?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Mocata said:

Jealous. Does this kind of technicolour version form the basis for any current fanedits?

For those asking whether Lucas knows about the screening, it was approved by Lucasfilm. Kathleen Kennedy was there & paid tribute to George & ILM. She said there were big plans for Star Wars’ 50th anniversary but there was no indication of a wider release of the original cut.

That would really be something.

Just out of the 20:30 showing and echo all of the above; a genuinely emotional and remarkable event.

It’s just the whole innocence and magic of the thing.

I saw it last night, and posted to the RPF. Here’s a summary:

The screening of the original 35mm UK release of Star Wars at the BFI was fascinating. The opening, with the ugly green Lucasfilm text, and the original 1977 title crawl (no bloody A, B, or ANH) was fun.

It’s interesting how many people were laughing at all the cheesier lines of dialogue, making me wonder how many people had never seen the film before. In fact, there seemed to be two categories of audience members - those laughing like they’d never seen the movie, and those laughing at all the original things to the film. And some scumbag who laughed when Red 6 dies.

In terms of the film’s appearance, the colour looked pretty decent, but overall low-saturation and not terribly bright. Since it was one of the last 35mm Technicolor (process 5) dye prints made in the UK before the facility closed, it hasn’t suffered from the awful colour collapse of an Eastmancolor print. But what a reminder of how even big 35mm film releases looked at the time. It was very soft, low contrast, grey blacks… not the sort of high-contrast crisp sharpness you get from a digital projection! Some dust and scratches of course.

Oddly the print looked to me to be slightly cropped to the top and left sides - not sure what that was about. The credits were noticeably off-centre.

Anyway, this meant that a lot of scenes which look visually problematic today, such as contrast issues in the Blockade Runner footage, the hard lighting of the “your home planet of Alderaan” scene, the visible difference between Luke’s face and neck makeup during the Yavin base scene, etc, were kind of concealed. But interestingly the Tunisian footage still looked soft and kinda bad - the idea of putting stockings over the lens really didn’t work!

As for the sound, which was two-track stereo optical, it definitely had that kind of muffled quality that was normal for the era. Pre-THX or Dolby Digital sound. We really are spoilt by digital audio, that’s for sure.

Interestingly the effects looked great - you can see how even the dodgy matte paintings (especially the Death Star docking bay from above, the matte painting above the Cardington footage of Yavin, the set extensions for the closing ceremony scene) and optical issues really weren’t that bad for the most part - they really were designed for 35mm projection. There were no visible garbage mattes around the ships, the way they were on video. The main noticeable technical flaws were spacecraft interior bluescreen shots, like the Falcon cockpit, which always looked pasted on. And the wide shot of the Death Star lift shaft had a ton of halation on the live action side.

Still. I was really struck by how the effects shots during the final battle looked pretty awesome, even without CGI bells and whistles.

For people wondering about details of the print:

• During the introduction the BFI team said that the screening was approved by Lucasfilm/Disney, and that Kathleen Kennedy had been at the BFI earlier in the day.
• Of course, none of the digital-era changes we’re used to are there. The Greedo sequence, the chasing the troopers in the Death Star sequence, no Death Star explosion shockwave, etc. etc. Obviously.
• As noted, this was the original 1977 print. The BFI found the print with the “ANH” title crawl spliced on, but the original 1977 Star Wars-only crawl had amazingly been stored in a separate can after being removed. So they cut off the ANH crawl and spliced the original one back. It’s great how the score’s timing perfectly matches the appearance of the first moon and the curve of Tatooine.
• 3PO doesn’t say “we’ve stopped” before whacking R2 on the head inside the sandcrawler.
• A few frames were cut out towards the end of the garage sequence. Pretty sure those were just caused by damage on that particular print, not an intentional edit. This caused the sad R2 beep after “I don’t like you either” to be missing.
• Since it’s the stereo release, Beru’s brief dialogue is the original looped Shelagh Fraser dialogue, as heard in the SE.
• The troopers who search the Falcon don’t say “there’s no-one here”.
• 3PO’s narration during the “the tractor beam is coupled to the main reactor in seven locations” sequence is not present since it was added for the mono mix.
• Craploads of echo on the voices during the “I think we took a wrong turn” scene in the Death Star trench.
• The “Close the blast doors” line isn’t there since this is the stereo mix.
• The more pronounced shortwave radio effect on the pilot voices heard in the Rebel base.

Incidentally, watching the film was very much akin to watching 4K77 on a big screen. Only 4K77 has greater contrast and saturation.

“It’s incredible folklore,” Kennedy said. “Even when I came into the company, there was endless conversation about where everything was, and what was in fact the first print? And it’s quite remarkable, what you’re going to see is in fact the first print, and I’m not even sure there’s another one quite like it. It’s that rare. There’s so much tinkering that’s gone on over the years, and things that George [Lucas] decided, ‘I’m gonna change this, I’m gonna try that.’ And then, everybody kind of lost track of what it was.”

That was mystifying to me that they don’t know what prints or negatives are in the Lucasfilm archive. How can the company that made the film be so clueless. It’s a foregone conclusion the original is never getting released on home video again or widely for theatrical exhibition.

Doesn’t seem mystifying to me at all. It’s totally normal for companies to produce something, make alterations, move on to something else.

Look at all the different versions of Apple products over the years. Nobody at Apple keeps track of that sort of thing, because it doesn’t matter. Only nostalgia-driven fans and a few historians care about it.

I’d say Lucas is kind of unusual, because he kept most of the production material associated with his films - costumes, props, drawings, etc. Most companies dump it.

This seems to me the first time that LFL have openly acknowledged (and even supported) the preservation of the original movie. I hope this is the start of the '77 version of the film being given the treatment it deserves.

LFL definitely can’t use the excuse of “the original film doesn’t exist any more” after this, at least.

I never thought Oasis would get back together, and yet here we are. Maybe we will get that official OUT release after all…

I’m not sure what other offerings you’re referring to here. I mentioned I also saw a presentation of the annotated continuity script & onset/behind the scenes Polaroids before the screening. These are part of the continuity editor Ann Skinner’s archive (she apparently attended the first screening). They would be fascinating for many members of this site, as they reveal how different the final cut was to the screenplay.

There was also a presentation of books and archive images in the BFI library for members. This covered all the films, though focused on the original trilogy.

oojason said:

 
 

Did anyone attend the other Star Wars offerings from the BFI earlier today - what were they like?

 
Hopefully we’ll see some more videos or articles on the screenings (and the other SW events) from the BFI themselves, too. 👍
 

Kathleen Kennedy’s comments yesterday about how when she took over Lucasfilm staff were not sure whether there was an original print, let alone where it might be, was interesting. There was clearly an attempt to track it down: https://youtu.be/DLtfTrI8qRo?si=PVHvq8f6xBPBzY7R

A fully restored version would create a huge amount of goodwill among a significant chunk of the fan base, largely those of us who grew up with the OT. At this point Disney might be more willing to push for a cinematic &/or DVD/digital rerelease, recognising how it might win back many disillusioned fans.

pablocamino said:

This seems to me the first time that LFL have openly acknowledged (and even supported) the preservation of the original movie. I hope this is the start of the '77 version of the film being given the treatment it deserves.

LFL definitely can’t use the excuse of “the original film doesn’t exist any more” after this, at least.

I never thought Oasis would get back together, and yet here we are. Maybe we will get that official OUT release after all…

Yeah it’s all kinda weird that they have this, but no other screenings are planned. And that Kennedy claimed for years nobody knew where a copy could be found, when fans have worked on their own for ages now. So I guess it existed for a moment that has now passed, seen by a handful of people in one tiny corner of the country.

Sigh…

Mocata said:

Yeah it’s all kinda weird that they have this, but no other screenings are planned.

Not weird. The British Film Institute have an archive containing huge numbers of films. It’s their job to preserve those for the nation and for humanity as carefully as possible.

But films are precious fragile physical artefacts. So they have to balance the need to screen the films for the public from time to time, since films are of course meant to be seen, with the need to keep them locked away safely away from harm. I saw a nitrate print of a 1929 movie on the weekend, and they mentioned that it might be the last time that that print will be screened for the public.

Their copy of Star Wars is one of those archived films. They’re not going to play that copy continuously. 😃

Well you know what I mean, especially considering anniversaries coming up, or the way SW is celebrated ever year both on May 4th and the actual release date. I don’t think a print from 1929 is the same, but of course both should be kept safe and preserved for the purpose of film history.

There’s an outside chance this becomes a test run for a larger scale rerelease down the line. The goodwill and interest this has generated could move the needle at Disney, who now have 2 years to prepare for the anniversary. Content with the options that fans have provided, but an official home release would be nice of course, especially if it was nicely presented.