Info: 1983 UK 'TVS' Star Wars premiere - anybody still have a recording?

Hi folks!

This is probably a futile search, but have any of you in the UK still got a copy of the ‘TVS’ premiere of Star Wars which aired in 1983? With all the ads intact? It’s my Star Wars Holy grail in many ways.

Fingers crossed!

7FN

Holy grail indeed!

I suppose it's not surprising that no complete recordings of the ITV broadcast have surfaced around here - if you factor in the perceived irritation of having to fast forward through ad breaks and the (then) high cost of blank tapes, you can see why the majority of recordings would be abridged if not subsequently erased altogether.

I still have in my possession Russ's excellent transfer of an original - albeit ad-free - recording (Russ, thanks again and I promise I'll get the discs back to you ASAP!) There's a bit of material missing from the beginning and end, but the ad break bumpers are intact:

It might be possible to do a reconstruction of sorts, particularly given that some of the ads are on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neDwj8oTBdM

Presumably we could also piece together some other breaks of a similar vintage, perhaps include some Kenner ads or TV spots for contemporary movies, what do you think?

A couple of final points. First, it seems that there was a screening of a complete tape at this event last year: http://inda80s.cgeu.info/ (scroll to the bottom - that's a DVD cover I made, bizarrely!) I contacted them but to no avail, but perhaps you'll have more luck?

Second, just for nostalgia's sake here's a PDF of the TV Times from that week:

http://www.box.com/s/56169ff8b190cf2dac29

http://www.box.com/s/d294966e7ffb94eb2a32

Enjoy!

Thanks for the replies folks :)

Yes it does seem unlikely I'll be able to get a decent copy inc. all the ad. breaks and wotnot - sometimes the past remains the past I guess. I seem to remember (on TVS - not sure about the ITV region) that The Smurfs was on before-hand, though will have to check out the awsome TV Times PDF which Jonno has so kindly linked to - many thanks for that (those go for anything from £10-30 on Ebay!).

Jonno - thanks for all those links! Look forward to going through all those after posting this. Yes I saw that screener advert last year - so somebody must still have it in their possession (and if you're reading this PLEASE get in touch if so - I can put it onto DVD-R for you). Likewise I got in touch but no luck :/

We didn't have a video recorder back then so I recorded it onto cassette (and heaven help anyone who talked or DARE sneeze through it hahaha!). That along with the Story of Star Wars was my go-to version for years, along with some reel-to-reel recordings I made of the Star Wars Radio Drama (aired in 1980 on BBC One Radio). Good memories! :)

- 7FN

My mistake - I think it was actually 1981 here in the UK, and the States.

Would love to find someone with scans of the Radio Times original listings for all 13 episodes!

Jonno: Just downloaded the TV Times scans you kindly provided - awsome! That issue bought back so many memories! Love the old adverts! I was 10 when Star Wars premiered, and distinctly remember that issue. Wish I'd kept our southern 'TVS' variant. Having said that might well be in the loft somewhere... must check!

Thanks again :)

<p>Hi msycamore, thanks for stopping by! The original broadcast was definitely October 1982 (see the TV Times listings magazine I posted earlier in the thread). One of my projects for the summer is a decent assembly of this version - I have some very good DVD copies from an original recording (courtesy of Russ), and I need to compile the best versions along with a bit of authoring polish.</p>
<p>I'll drop danny_boy a PM - the ideal version would include the broadcast ad breaks, which have their own nostalgic appeal for those of us who grew up in 1980s UK (the recordings I have unfortunately don't include these).</p>
<p>edit: what's up with the HTML today?</p>

Jonno wrote:

edit: what's up with the HTML today?

 

It's being investigated: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/browser-exposes-HTML-when-posting-a-reply/topic/14496/

Jay wrote: the next time the editor fails to load, check the main HTML element at the top of the element inspector (Firebug or Chrome Dev) and see if it has a class of "js". I need to determine if the problem is confined to the editor or if all JavaScript is failing when you see this problem. Thanks.

I had a similar problem and it self corrected after a restart.

Jonno said:

 

Hi msycamore, thanks for stopping by! The original broadcast was definitely October 1982 (see the TV Times listings magazine I posted earlier in the thread). One of my projects for the summer is a decent assembly of this version - I have some very good DVD copies from an original recording (courtesy of Russ), and I need to compile the best versions along with a bit of authoring polish.

I'll drop danny_boy a PM - the ideal version would include the broadcast ad breaks, which have their own nostalgic appeal for those of us who grew up in 1980s UK (the recordings I have unfortunately don't include these).

edit: what's up with the HTML today?

 

This sounds awsome! Would love to 'relive' that premiere - I remember it was a really big deal at the time! Now we take dvds and blurays for granted, but back then a TV premiere of a big film was still an event. I expect the TVS version (where we were) had different adbreaks?

For those who have some interest in the ITV broadcast, I asked Russs15 if I could post up some frames from one of his two captures of the tape (this being the slightly more compressed version). This is not meant at all as a preview to Jonno's work, but to give a taster of the raw materials for those interested in its strengths. Although the tape is marred by heavy colour casts on certain scenes, soft focus, and is the direct opposite of the home video releases in that tends towards being too dark/murky, the main buried treasure here is SATURATION. It's been suggested that this is from a 16mm print, if so it must be from a fresh print because it has the solid richness to it approaching a 35mm print (to my eyes). Here is an example of that rich quality, which in some scenes gives the images a burnished look similar to how negative1's teaser frames of his prints look via compression.

The benefit of this saturation is more lifelike skin tone. Scenes that often look washed out on home video leaving oddly coloured, flat, skintone in certain frames, on this version look much nearer to lifelike tone/body. Also the reflective copper-gold of C-3P0 comes through more pronounced:

This 'body' adds a greater sense of solid depth within a frame.

Thirdly the death star attack has the blue tones intact which faded to grey on later transfers.

I will be posting up some more frames later in the day to give more of a sense of the pluses of this tape. Thanks to Russs15 for preserving this tape to look back on in 2012!

msycamore said:

Yeah, I recently got to see this one myself, and it's fantastic in its film-like quality, the theatrical timing is mostly intact.

I agree this does look pretty intact all things considered

Thanks for your patience everyone, this project is still on its way! I don't want to rush the decision-making process here (Russ has provided multiple passes so I want to make sure I'm using the best version of each segment) so I'm still at the rough assembly stage.

I want to keep this preservation as transparent as possible so I'm initially grappling with Womble - I have other (arguably better) editing tools which can edit the MPEG-2 but they WILL re-encode it, particularly since I'll be adding material from other sources (e.g. the ads).

As a rough estimate I'll be looking to get this done in time for Christmas - the formats will be a DVD with menus (possibly dual layer, depends on the final tally) and an MP4. Any thoughts or suggestions in the meantime, send them this way...

Jonno said:

Thanks for your patience everyone, this project is still on its way! I don't want to rush the decision-making process here (Russ has provided multiple passes so I want to make sure I'm using the best version of each segment) so I'm still at the rough assembly stage.

I want to keep this preservation as transparent as possible so I'm initially grappling with Womble - I have other (arguably better) editing tools which can edit the MPEG-2 but they WILL re-encode it, particularly since I'll be adding material from other sources (e.g. the ads).

As a rough estimate I'll be looking to get this done in time for Christmas - the formats will be a DVD with menus (possibly dual layer, depends on the final tally) and an MP4. Any thoughts or suggestions in the meantime, send them this way...

Thanks Jonno, did'nt want to pre-empt anything you're doing, just wanted to get some examples of the 'buried treasure' on this tape posted as I have recently done a compare and contrast with my 1982 PAL rental tape, which is washed out compared to this, despite being an earlier tape (!)

Not at all Frank, this is an important version so the more exposure it gets the better!