Prints were available for rental into the early 90s - at least, they were in the UK.
My local cinema used to run a free show (aimed at children, but open to all) at Christmas. In 1992, they screened Star Wars - I still have the newspaper ad somewhere.
I imagine the embargo/moratorium dropped soon after that, as soon as the SEs were in the pipeline.
10 from me too.
I know of at least one cut that was made on all the British prints: the scene in Cuba after the plane crash where the Xenia slides down the rope and attacks Bond, the “good” girl tries to intervene and is grabbed by the bad girl and told to “wait your turn” before being pushed to the ground. That 10 seconds or so is not in any of the British prints. It is however in this print, so I believe this is the uncut version.
Yes, the specific reason for that was the headbutt in that altercation - a big no-no for the BBFC at the time (an ‘imitable action’).
The Obi-Wan/Jango fight in AotC was cut for the same reason.
Do you know which year the first one is from? Only the second video had a date in the title/description.
It’s from earlier in 2015:
http://www.jedinews.co.uk/misc/articles/sky-movies-star-wars-summed-up-in-40-seconds/
Here’s another from 2017 which just opts for live action footage:
There is another OT trailer of the UK Double-Bill of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back from 1982. Can’t see it anywhere - it may have only been a TV spot rather than a full theatrical trailer, but it definitely exits. This also gets me thinking if there was also a trailer (or TV spot) for the triple bill from 1983 (or was it 1984)?
I’d love to see that if such a thing exists - that double bill was the experience that got the whole thing started for me. (By the way, the Revenge of the Jedi trailer that showed exclusively in those screenings was posted earlier in this thread).
Sky Movies did a couple of lovely animated idents for their Star Wars Channel:
Congratulations! Looking forward to seeing the end result.
Sounds like Cocoon (James Horner). It would make sense, being another Fox release (though granted, not as much sense as using something from the extensive catalogue of actual Star Wars music!)
A couple of ideas.
First of all, Premiere Pro does support MKV - at least, it does in version 13.0.2 (though I’m on CC, which you may not have the benefit of). Update if you can, and it may solve your problems.
If you really do need MP4s, transcoding is a pretty wasteful way of doing it, both in terms of time and quality. Far better would be to demux the audio/video streams from the MKV and then remux as an MP4, provided you aren’t using video or audio formats that are illegal for that container.
I tend to use ClownBD for demuxing (it’s a nice frontend for eac3to), or you may get MKVExtractGUI to work for you. Once you have the discrete streams, use MyMP4BoxGUI to reassemble it as an MP4.
If that isn’t working (because of some format issue with your source), try tsMuxer to make a .TS file - this is a pretty accepting container, especially in terms of audio, and Premiere has supported it for quite a while.
Hope that’s of some help!
I was always a fan of this one:
Star Wars Trilogy Widescreen Editions UK 1992
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Riipp7KLfO4 (from The1970Ghostrider’s channel)
Does anybody have the ac3 from the full screen dvd?
Sending PM.
MultiAVCHD works well for me:
https://www.videohelp.com/software/multiAVCHD
It works best if the source media is already packed up into separate BDMV folders - you then drag and drop them into the media list, and ‘merge’ to create a combined playlist.
It isn’t quite seamless (which shouldn’t matter in your case anyway), but it won’t re-encode unless you want it to.
Let me know if you need any more pointers on this - I’ve been burning discs like this for years, but now that I’m using 4K more I’m forced to used much clunkier player/media server playlists, which is a shame.
If you’re installing a ‘drop down’ screen, couldn’t it be dropped down to different degrees to accommodate different ratios anyway?
Or if you’re really serious about doing this right, have a fixed 2.40:1 screen and put in a motorised curtain track to add/subtract masking like real theatres used to do.
Just as a heads up, that release might not be what you’re looking for if you’re in pursuit of an authentic theatrical experience.
All current indications seem to be that the discs will only feature the current 4K special editions of the OT (as seen on Disney+), which will look very nice but will also be quite some distance from the 77/80/83 releases, editorially speaking.
70mm has an inherently wide aspect ratio (it doesn’t use anamorphosis) but its frame is ‘only’ 2.20:1. Thus any prints derived from a ‘full’ widescreen source, e.g. ‘blown up’ from anamorphic 35mm, will lose a little picture information from the sides.
Opinions vary as to whether a 70mm blow-up actually offers better image quality than a straight-up 35mm print, but it did have the undeniable advantage of magnetic 6-track sound (which hairy_hen has replicated for the despecialized and 4K77/4K83 preservations) and was more commonly used in big theatres for showcase screenings.
I don’t know of anyone purposefully making a 2.20:1 version to recreate the 70mm experience. I guess the real question is which cinema you went to for that first viewing? Did you go to a big screen, which might have been showing a 70mm print with 6-track stereo, or a smaller theatre showing regular 35mm (with Dolby Stereo if you were lucky)?
That’s pretty appalling - that’s no way to treat such a nice film.
Though it should probably be noted that Paramount were only the US theatrical distributors, and prints in other territories would have had different logos in any case - CIC handled a lot of Europe, for instance.
UK distribution is attributed to Paramount British Pictures (aka Paramount Film Service) - it’s hard to say if they would have had a distinct logo (the only one I can find is from 1946: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WCXEGh3Onc)
And, presumably, from seeing quite a few shops in your time.
As far as her powers go, I’m under the impression that the Force has literally awakened in the ST. I don’t think it is a static, non-changing energy field. Every Force-user in the ST, including Rey, are capable of powers we have never seen before until now, and I think the Force itself is playing a part in it, hence The Force Awakens. Could they have made it more nuanced or something? Sure, maybe, but it doesn’t ruin the movies for me. I’m satisfied with that and have moved on.
Yes, this seems to have come about because the current filmmakers are telling two new stories (in the films) at the same time: a character whose inherent affinity with the force is stronger than we’ve seen before, and a force-using protagonist who happens to be female.
They might have gotten away with one or other on its own (I’m not convinced by that), but to have the nerve to put them both together? MARY SUUUUUE
When was this?
Nice to see it with a fresh pair of eyes.
That’s the special thing, isn’t it? I’ve been doing the same in a slightly more haphazard order with my nephews. They’re a little younger and a touch sensitive, so we’re keeping Sith on the back burner, as it were.
The crazy thing is that they already know pretty much everything before they see them. I think we tend to forget that about being that age - they’re about as far from spoiler-averse as it gets, and all the popular stories are just kind of in the ether. Or at least, on the playground.
Not at the local cinemas I frequented. Dolby Digital might have been used (immediately before the BBFC certificate) in larger theatres, e.g. in London. THX is very uncommon in the UK, due to the lack of certified screens - can’t think of a single time I’ve seen that in the cinema, in fact (and I’ve been to most of the larger London cinemas).
Well… (as I said in my PM) I was working at a cinema at the time, which means I have a general recollection of what was being used but not so much that’s screening-specific.
Toy Story had a relatively late release in the UK - 22nd March 1996. Looking at what was released over the following weeks and months, along with the standard distributor associations (Disney would have given priority to Odeon theatres but they’d have been less likely to show a Warner film, for instance), this is what I’d use.
Sgt Bilko (UIP 29/3/96)
Balto (UIP 29/3/96)
Dunston Checks In (Fox 29/3/96)
Muppet Treasure Island (Buena Vista 24/5/96)
James and the Giant Peach (Guild Pathe 2/8/96)
I found the discussion where someone remembers seeing RCR before Toy Story, and this is somewhat backed up by IMDB.
On the other hand, the print that I saw at the time had no short at all, so it must not have been a universal thing. Perhaps we should have it anyway to represent an optimum screening experience…
Great find! If it does get capped, I’d certainly find those scenes useful for my theatrical project - never mind the time it took me to painstakingly recreate them 😄
In case anyone’s still interested in this, I just had a look at the version on UK Netflix and it appears to be the theatrical. No idea about other territories.
DV is still better than DVD compression, even sourced frmo lossless capture.
No argument there. It just seems unlikely that DV files will be useful for actual viewing, so some further conversion will be needed in most cases, and that’s where returns begin to diminish rapidly. But hey, at least someone’s putting this stuff out there in some form.