Info Wanted: Question about 1980 uncut Empire — Page 6

Yeah I am aware to take the account given with a pinch of salt.... But It is an interesting tale and if it were true which it seems people here are not in the camp of believing this mistake could have occurred of sending out an alternative cut by mistake or an undesired cut to be shown (which actually happened anyway) regarding the extra shots of the falcons dish under Luke before he drops and the Fleet shot at the end and various audio differences that were altered.

The thing I am most interested about in this account given are of the following.

The Bacta Tank claiming it to be "RED" and it being misinterpreted as Lukes Blood.

General Veers Death and the suicide of Hobby and that Veers is confirmed to not destroy the generators.

The Torture of Han Solo and that the effect was removed of hitting his "chest" now I have imagined some form of electric coming off that torture chair thing and I wonder what it looked like before it was toned down as it was deemed to be too graphic and some of the screaming was removed.

That is what all these scenes have in common also, they are deemed for one reason or another even if misinterpreted in the case of the BACTA tank to be quite graphic and mostly they all contain violence of one form or another.

The Shining was also released in 1980 and the true ending was removed after 2 weeks at Stanly Kubrick's request

And the story here about Aliens also checks out that some VHS copies contained the Turret scene while others did not. Not sure about in cinema theaters though.

So stuff like this did happen in those days, mistakes were fairly common or different cuts made their way out by mistake.

EDIT:

I found the script 5th draft here which does indeed seem to have been used for the most of the film and follows fairly closely with some alterations particularly towards the end of the film we start to find more differences

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~ina22/splaylib/Screenplay-Empire_Strikes_Back.pdf

And the script that was labelled 5R was constantly altered throughout filming

Basically just wanted to chime back in on this and after reading the fifth draft script... The Accounts the people have given on an alternative cut have to be wrong.

The Bacta Tank although we know there are extra shots for it, it could never have been "Blood Red" and there is no becoming red or clearing from red to blue mentioned in this script and it was just lit incorrectly although perhaps the flash and Luke thrasing about was considered a bit "Disturbing"

General veers Death I agree was edited out early on as there is no music to support his presence

And we know Han tortured was cut but It was never in any cuts that featured as It was censored from the very first edit no doubt.

this draft features the cut probe droid scenes and I do believe the probe droid scenes exist as there is music for these scenes, but If someone was giving an account of an uncut version the probe droid would feature heavily in their account.

To elaborate further on the music score for the film special effects shots that are missing seem to be in these particular areas.

PROBE DROID ARRIVAL- recut scene order and scored music for it's scene order and Han arrival at echo base

WAMPA CAVE - Slicing creatures arm off music and scenes not quoted but there is something not right.

Snowspeeder search - Music changed possibly due to probe droid cut scene

BACTA TANK - scenes missing music cue removed

AT-AT (North Ridge) Introductionary shots of AT-AT's removed and scene missing of snow speeders

ECHO BASE ESCAPE - Scene missing here music removed

Asteroid chase - Build up music removed script states the asteroid shown on "we're going in closer to one of the big ones" is not the big one and is swerved past and avoided. Missing shot

Arrival at Bespin - Missing establishing shot of the falcon arriving but this scene was never made and the film cut did not feature a animatic or the time to make  this missing scene. NO music made for this shot.

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The most interesting find that I found from this particular draft was to do with after the rebel briefing that Leia gives. scene 61

Han is working on the Millenium falcon and a piece falls and Leia stops and says "What a screw up!" aimed at Han with a dirty look which if that was ever filmed I would love to see that scene.

Other than this I noticed a particular missing detail in scene 212.

212 EXT MILLENNIUM FALCON - TIE FIGHTER - STAR DESTROYER

full shot space with the white planet Hoth in the lower part of the frame  The Millennium Falcon speeds away from the planet and over camera, closely followed by one huge star destroyer and six (changed to 4) tiny tie fighters which also race past camera. The slow moving Star destroyer fills the frame as it plows ever forward.

So the planet Hoth could be missing from this shot... Not a particularly big deal.

Aside from that there really is not much more to say about this script other than yes it is different but not excessively.

And to say again that the End of the film is where the most clustered differences are to the final film which would be covered in the final 5R shooting script if we could get our hands on the last revised shooting script.

This script is approximately two thirds accurate as it follows the deleted scenes dialogue practically 100%.

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I am on the fence about general Veers Death...

It might have gone like this in the video mock up and it might be the case that the music has been there all along to support the scene but he was whipped out last minute or with prior thought or because it was awaiting special effects or decided censorship.

http://vimeo.com/136316935

With a small amount of re-ordering and trimming everything fits exactly I did not have to alter very much at all. It's also a lot of death in a very short space of time.

This is an Occam's Razor situation, folks. 

Which of these is a more likely scenario?

Scenario One:

At nine years old, rancher saw a very different and thus-far-undocumented cut of one of the biggest movies of all time, in which there was footage from a number of scenes which have long been considered to have been excised from the film for various reasons, yet not a single person of any significant credibility (i.e., someone involved in either the making of the film or the distribution of it in those early days) has ever mentioned this markedly different cut's existence in 35 years.

Moreover, practically no one at all has suggested they saw any such cut, save a few people online who, like rancher, insist that they remember doing so, but can't really back it up with anything beyond "but I remember it perfectly". 

Decades of interviews with cast and crew have failed to document this rare early cut of the film, and the thousands of obsessive, hardcore fans out there have simply received bad information for all these years:

The scenes that we've always been told were never finished? They totally were.

The Wampa scenes that we thought were abandoned in mid-shoot because the effects simply looked terrible, for example? Nope! They actually figured out how to make it all look good enough to be included in the most anticipated special effects film of all time, without concern for it sticking out like a sore thumb against the rest of the cutting-edge effects in the film.

Oh, and that footage also didn't look anything like the few bits of deleted Wampa footage we have seen so far, obviously, since that footage is so totally unconvincing that it's clear why they must've started over with something else.

But despite all that, they cut it out anyway.

Basically there's *a lot* of fully-complete -- but deleted -- scenes from The Empire Strikes Back which no one ever talks about for some reason, and the entirety of the rabid, fanatical Star Wars fan base has somehow missed it all. 

Scenario Two:

Rancher is mis-remembering.

I mean, come on.

I am not really that bothered by something being cut out, but i am trying to figure out the music and what footage it goes with.

It is a tall story and i am iclined to even call BS, but 3 people have stated exactly the same thing they remember on 3 specific scenes.

I know that the probe droids scenes were present as far as december 1979 when john williams scored the music but perhaps a decision was made to remove them by february 1980 that goes for general veers death too.

The film was released in may 1980 so that is only 4 months before release they were totally re-shaping the first act with very little time to go and still shots that were planned that was not done yet and shots that i suppose ended up on the scrap heap and also meant the music got cut.

So i am just looking for answers....

Ion Canon Control Room Miniature Set.

Shown in Empire of Dreams Documentary

Comparison to McQuarrie Concept Art.

Does the Model Still exist?

I suppose this is really an early dropped idea but I am more curious about the model than the planned scene that was probably scrapped due to not being convincing enough.

Some more info on general Veers Death from star wars affectionado blog spot.

http://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/aficionado-exclusive-first-look.html

"Actor Julian Glover, who played Veers, told me that he never filmed a death scene for the character, so this live action sequence showing his demise, which is in the novelization, is something that I think was completed in insert photography at some point later in the filming, and presumably not with Glover (either at ILM or ELSTREE) with stand-ins and stuntmen for the final live-action insert, especially as we don’t see Glover’s face in the sequence: there’s no way a film director would have an actor film in front of such a large pyrotechnic, for both safety and insurance reasons…"

What is factual about this is that the actor who played general veers was not the actor in the scenes for his death. So far as pyrotechnics are concerned and exposing actors to them.... Nope if it's done safely there are literally little problems in exposing actors being present near pyrotechnics as long as safe distances are observed.

There is also the Red stripe on the AT-AT drivers Helmets so it is perhaps obvious to tell which shots were later pick up shots with a wardrobe malfunction and not the original actors. Filmed at a different time because they wanted to alter or add an idea or a few ideas.

So this points to general veers death being an insert done in Elstree as the cockpit set was no doubt there possibly after principle photography ended or atleast after Julian Glover had finished his scenes... But there is more to explore about this sequence at the end.

is that smoke billowing from the Hanger Entrance?

They then re-used this background plate to show the shield generator explosion!!! oh dear what a muddle this film is in.

So can it be inferred that the troops running back to echo base were nothing to do with the shield generator explosion at all?

And the shield generator suddenly appearing in a background that we saw only a few seconds earlier is more or less a bodge job because the sequence was originally intended to have general veers die and they needed to fill the extra seconds with something that they had to cook up at the last minute?

The sound mix is also extremely telling of it not being right in terms of the sound effects for the actual explosion and it's placement in the timeline. It was definitely not remixed to suit a changed scene order.

I have not read the novel of the Empire Strikes Back but to have a guess I imagined "Hobbie" flying through the explosion of the shield generator coming through the flames and using it as a cloak so as not to be seen until he was right upon general veers AT-AT?

But that is of course unless the intention was changed to the Snow speeder that gets destroyed by the AT-AT and crashes on the action plate pictured was an altered version of the suicide run?

So at some point a decision was made to include general Veers death and then a decision to alter it to something else for which they had neither the time or money to complete it properly.

EDIT:

I don't think that is smoke coming from the Hanger or that is the Hanger anymore although it would have been nice to see the troops make it back somewhat safe. So they  don't appear to be running anywhere specific just away.

The actual explosion of the Shield generator is not mentioned in the script in terms of it having a scene number or having a description of being seen from the AT-AT cockpit.

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I have been looking in to  the music that was meant to introduce the AT-AT's some more and what I can tell you is that there are 2 shots of when Luke is trying to escape from his Snow Speeder before it get's crushed by a big AT-AT foot.

The 2 shots (or atleast 2) that feature the AT-AT foot stomping down and other shot of the Legs with background plate were the original introduction to the AT-AT's that were meant to have the piano riff that came before the soldier looks out of his binoculars.

So in this case I will take off my hat and call it clever editing on this part but it is a very clear reason of why the music was removed also and it also calls in to question Luke trying to escape from his Crashed Snow Speeder is clearly another unfinished sequence, and it got chopped in half and spread due to a missing shot where Luke was meant to see the underbelly of the Walker tower over him. But as far as the script is concerned here this shot was actually a pretty unreasonable shot to achieve for the ILM crew in terms of achieving that shot which would have been all sorts of difficult and I put that down to a hurdle that could not be overcome by technical limitations and inconsiderate script. There is also alternative storyboards for this sequence and this does explain why the AT-AT does not fire it's weapons as the shots were intended for the introduction before the battle had begun.

The internal cockpit shot of the AT-AT approaching before Luke opens the Hatch  could also probably not be completed due to not being able to match the snow on the window from the live action in Norway another difficult demand from script to screen.

So In terms of answering The North Ridge music I think I have a pretty full answer here now but because it is intrinsically linked with Luke escaping from his crashed Snow Speeder it is yet another mystery that is raised by solving another.

It explains why the AT-AT never feels like it gets any closer because the shots were never meant for this part of the film where Luke tries to escape the crash.

EDIT:

No No No, I made a mistake here the shots were not moved.. Urrgh this is really tricky to work stuff out so apologies.

The introduction to the AT-AT  simply had a shot of a foot very similar to the one we see while Luke is trying to escape is crashed Snow Speeder but it also lifts out of frame that goes with the Piano riff... The Shots of the feet when Luke has crashed were additions not mentioned in the script so my Bad but I will leave my mistake on this visible because I really don't want to appear like I am being big headed or anything like that. I just seriously want to work out the processes and changes that were made either for better or for worse and try to understand it better.

I'm afraid I side with this memory largely being incorrect. I have a similar one about ANH with Luke missing his first throw and making it on the second try. Never filmed, never edited, never shown that way, not once, but I remember it that way. I read the novel and a great many of these things are in the novel (ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster) and the novel was out before the movie. I didn't have the comic books so the novel is the only way I could have come up with this. I have come to the conclusion that I imagined it based on other sources and likely this memory is like that too. Memory is a slippery thing and it can fool us into believing things that are pure make-believe.

The Probe Scanner Revised (as uncut as I could make it)

https://vimeo.com/156984006

I have revised the version I had put up previously as It just did not make sense… Although I have deviated from the script slightly. This new version uses common sense.

I am now settled on this as being a far more accurate representation of what an uncut version of the probe droid sequence with station three - eight would be like.

This eliminates problems of the previous version and uses a simple scene re-arrangement to Improve the sequence much more. I don’t think this sequence could get much better now than this new version aside from clean up of the deleted scenes adding the actual missing transmission from station three eight and the missing shot of the snowspeeders.

It took quite a bit more thought on this to finally settle on this new version as more accurate and more sensible.

One more submission for the censorship theory to do with Lobot played by John Hollis from t-bones Star Wars.

But Hollis said dialogue wasn’t the only thing Lobot had cut from Empire, according to the Insider:

“A lot of death scenes were filmed,” he remembered. “There was a scene of me being carted off by men in white masks. But they would say, ‘Oh, we might need you again.’ There were a lot of people getting arrested, but they were very wary about showing people die.”

And I think that ties in nicely to why station three eight’s destruction got cut and also why perhaps we don’t see as many deaths as there were filmed especially in the final 3rd with the battle with the storm troopers. I know of at least one that is shown not to die but the scenes are re-arranged in such a way that the first time we see the storm trooper he is actually dead then a few shots later he is shown to be alive resurrected if you like. If Lobot were to be executed then it would have been a laser bolt sound without showing his actual death probably but we all know they would have blown his computer brains out.

Commander Rieekans Death was also another potential number to add to the death toll. Wether or not this was filmed I would have to say it probably was but he was meant to be crushed by machinary in the command center falling on him so it might have just been his arm sticking out and already dead but to be sure it’s yet another one to consider in the censorship of Empire Strikes Back

One more censorship related cut Chewie hits the storm trooper in full view in the film it is an alternate angle found in the 1982 re-release trailer for Empire Strikes Back. It might be an extra storm trooper that takes a serious beating rather than a push off the edge but either way it’s a violence cut. And it also probably relates to C3-PO’s full line “I’m not ready to die on the back of a demented wookie” heard in the story of LP

A copy of the Mcquarrie concept art… Just thought I would share it for fun! What a great shot It would have been…

Until more information surfaces the book shuts again 😃