Question about the 1995 VHS and when the Special Edition was going to be the only version

"This will be your last chance to own the original versions..." etc, etc, is what they said on the advertisements.  So, yes, they were referring to the original versions of the original trilogy.  Being as how I was indoctrinated into the series at right about this time, and because I was nine, I had no idea about the special editions existing when these came out.  I don't know if it was common knowledge at the time.  It was certainly in the works, and that's definitely what they were referring to.  But back then, when I didn't know about it, and I didn't know that magnetic tape wore out, I assumed they meant it would be the last time the films would be released.  It wasn't until the SE was announced for home video (when they first came out, I also assumed they were for the theatres only), that's when I figured out that the "One Last Time..." tagline was referring to the SE.  But once again, since I didn't know that VHS would wear out, and that anything would ever replace it (being 11), it still didn't bother me.  It only bothered me in 2000 when I saw the repackage that removed the term "Special Edition," and realized it really was replacing the originals.  Not long after that, when I was 14 or 15, I found out about the fallibility of tape.  Sad times indeed.

I remember the "ONE LAST TIME" campaign, and I was fully aware that they were referring to the original versions and that they were to be replaced by the SE's with altered special effects, etc. I bought the VHS tapes when they came out in '95, and after I saw the SE's in 1997 and realized the extent of the changes, I quickly bought the '95 Laserdiscs as well even though I did not yet own an LD player.

I still have the labels from the '95 LDs, which state "LAST CHANCE to Own the Original Version of STAR WARS".

It was planned for the 20th anniversary theatrical re-release in '97. The work had probably already started in '95 since that's the year they stated that the video release was to be the original versions' last.

I really became a Star Wars Fan in 1997, although my initial exposure to the trilogy was still the original versions, even though by the time I saw them the SE's had allready been out.

the tapes I watched were indeed from the "one last time" sets. Sadly, the RotJ tape was defective after only two years. so it pressured me to buy the SE.

since the 1997 SE's didn't really change all that much, (I didn't even notice Greedo Shooting first until I started reading the message boards when the DVDs were first rumered in November 2003), so I thought "fine. the story I fell in love with is still there, there are just a few extra flashy effects. no big deal"

but then Summer 2004 came:

 "the versions that will be on the disc will be as george Lucas sees them today."

the 1997 SE's were NOT given a "Last time ever" warning, and then the destroyed editions were placed on the shelves with NO INDICATION WHATSOEVER of the cinematic crimes contained therein.

I knew what to expect, of course, having followed the news all summer and seeing Hayden's ugly mug shot photoshopped in RotJ, but it was a major insult to the fans who made him what he is. he might as well have made the box with a picture of him posing with his middle fingers extended.

So you guys really knew that that the SEs would replace the originals? For some reason I was really ignorant of it. I remember the one last time campaign very well, but I thought it was just marketing. Disney has been doing that forever, saying such and such a movie was only going to have a limited release, then they would put it out again years later.

The one last time never came off to me as literal, though perhaps it should have. When the SE came out I was very excited and went to see each one in the theater. I loved seeing them on the big screen, and I considered the changes a bonus. I thought the changes were kind of cool, but just to experience something different. I even set aside the money to buy them on VHS even tough I had a perfectly good faces set.

I didn't get a DVD player until 2001, and didn't start collecting DVDs in earnest until a few years after that. For years my DVD collection consisted of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Star Trek Insurrection. One day I decided I probably ought to get Star Wars on DVD and discovered that it wasn't out yet. I read that George had no intention of releasing them until after Episode III came out, and that seemed too long to wait, so I bought the trilogy on VCD. I was annoyed only the special edition existed on VCD, but went with it, deciding it would hold me off until the real DVD release. I actually made my own edit of the VCDs before I even knew OT.com existed or heard about fan editing. I made Han shoot first, removed Jabba, and inserted the line "You're sure lucky you don't taste very good" into ESB.

Until I started doing research into the matter, which is about the time I discovered this place (about 2003 or 2004) I did not realize the originals were going to be permanently replaced with the SE.

Hmm, then back in 1997 would have been the time to kick and scream and protest. If we really did know the shape of things to come from way back then, we sure as hell let it happen without putting up much of a fight.

C3PX said:

Hmm, then back in 1997 would have been the time to kick and scream and protest. If we really did know the shape of things to come from way back then, we sure as hell let it happen without putting up much of a fight.

I wrote a letter to Lucas in 1997 complaining about the removal of the Ewok's 'yub nub' song---little did I know what was to come......

Not many people were on the internet back then, so it would have been tough to organize a petition, etc.

The other problem was Disney had run the "Last chance to own this movie on video forever!" gimmick into the ground already, so any cynical consumer would take Lucasfilm's marketing with a big block of salt. ;)

Yeah, except that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a much better movie.

SilverWook said:

The other problem was Disney had run the "Last chance to own this movie on video forever!" gimmick into the ground already, so any cynical consumer would take Lucasfilm's marketing with a big block of salt. ;)

See, that is exactly why I am surprised some people realized that the intention was to give the originals the boot (heh, but not without milking one last drop of blood from them first!) I seriously took it to be hyperbolic marketing exactly like Disney's. Oops.

Yes they were fantastic looking in the theaters and i don't remember seeing Vader with a pink saber in Empire or Jedi which i saw twice.

They were restored photochemically and by hand mostly be Both YCM Labs and Pacific Title.  All color correction i believe was done in house at ilm so it is very possible the weird colors existed back then and i just did not see them in the theater.  You know no multiple viewings pause and freeze frame and all that.

Home Video and theatrical film are too very seperate things.  But whoever was in charge of checking things for the home video release really screwed up and things have not changed since then, remember the lack of quality control over the definitive collection which led to the gout dvnr debacle.

The truest to the theatrical release in terms of image quality for home video had very little to do with Lucas since it was the japan special collection carried out by 20th Century Fox Japan branch, i think Lucas just signed off early on on licensing the films to fox for foreign releases.  Or was that in the original contract between lucas and fox?  Even the first us widescreen releases were lazily taken from the same video master all they did was crop off the subtitles or white them out and try to center the picture haphazardly. 

The first true us widescreen releases did not come til 1993 in the Lucas approved THX digitally mastered versions and the so called remastering was just dvnr scrubbing of the image and color correction.

These problems would have been less noticeable on vhs and laserdisc than dvd however since they have a much softer image.  The problem with dvd is early on the format reproduced every fault that was in a laserdisc or vhs transfer because of the sharper image.  And obviously if the gout looks awful on dvd how much worse would it look upscaled to blu ray resolution.

You would have to be a true home video enthusiast to know just what a middle finger the gout was to people, i have that already on laserdisc.  What i wanted was restored versions of the true theatrical releases with 5.1 mixes derived from the 6 track mixes and anamorphic like the film prints.  Instead we got a lazy re-issue of an already done transfer just dumped on the newest format.  Hell even that is only partially true since HD video was already viable in 2006, and the tenth anniversary of the dvd format was in dec of 2007.  Last year.  Lucas is such a slow poke that the 1997 special edition debut on Laserdisc in the same year as the introduction of dvd,lol.

Blu Ray has been the winner of the format wars since early this year and 20th Century Fox was an early adopter of Blu.  Yet we still have no star wars on Blu Ray. 

Since Blu Ray is reaching acceptance all the tv shows and movies of the studios are not far behind, even japan is releasing its backcatalog of anime on blu.  Peter Jackson is working on the lotr release.  Again where is star wars?