SKot

henryperu77 said:

http://www.fuzzymemories.tv

Is this version available too??

 That's the WBBM-TV 2 Chicago version.  I haven't added it to the list yet.

There's also a WCAU-TV 10 Philadelphia version, and a newly-discovered Seattle TV version.

Frankly, I'm pretty amazed at how many different versions have turned up, considering how rare VCRs were back in 1978.  I'm sure there were a number of copies that were lost, too.

--SKot

MattMahdi said:

How many different versions of the Special are in the wild?

I’ve seen the KCCI, KCMO, and WMAR discs floating around. Are there others, or should I just be content?

Scanning previous pages, WBBM is apparently around on YouTube. I’d forgotten and will have to look for it.

Take a look here:

http://www.starwarsholidayspecial.com/swhs-old/versions.htm

I’ve got one or two more to add now, but that’s the extent of the documented versions out there so far.

–SKot

This is great stuff...nice find, none!  Previously I've only ever found one comment, in print and not video, by Bea Arthur about the Holiday Special.  I even contacted her agent while she was still alive about an interview, which she declined.  Now that she's gone I didn't hold any hope of ever seeinng anything more by her on the subject.

The interviewer here is really confused.  She's trying to ask about a rumored (and apparently debunked) appearance by Bea Arthur in a Star Trek episode under the pseudonym "Jane Ross":

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Jane_Ross

Since this never happened (it was a completely different actress), Bea understandably doesn't know what the interviewer is talking about, and assumes she means her appearance in the Holiday Special...which she then goes on to comment about. The interviewer probably doesn't know about the Holiday Special, and continues to unsuccussfully push the Star Trek angle.

--SKot

Very impressive!  I'm imagining what you could do with an even better source.  Tell us about your process...it's pretty amazing.

--SKot

balsho said:

Well if anyone has the commercials in their raw VOB form then please maybe upload them somewhere if you can.  But it looks like I'll just continue and finish with my version as is.

Thank you Skot, i just got to read the treatment on your site.  I'm betting that its probably Lucas', or at least more in the direction of his, original plan for the thing.  Then the TV production team shoehorned in their variety television stuff.  In that filmfax article you can just see how once Lucas wasn't involved it just all fell apart.  Hmm lets put Carney, Korman, and Bea Arthur to get some "name recognition".  Lets put Diahann Carroll somewhere because, I'm quoting:"the network wants black people".  The original director wanted to keep it fresh and more obscure like it should have been, but they wouldn't let him so he quit.  The original story there sounded like it would've been pretty great if they could have stuck to it.

 When I looked at the story treatment, I saw a lot of things in there that I felt were more "Lucas" than what came later.  But I also saw some things that seemed distinctly non-Lucas...for instance, the "Wookiees enjoy the beat of rock & roll" just didn't seem like it came from George.  And the insistence of including Raquel Welch didn't seem like a Lucas thing either, unless he had some secret yen for her that nobody knew about!

Last night I looked at my timeline, and I noticed that Steve and Mitzi Welch wrote their treatment in March, the same month this treatment is dated.  I'm guessing this is theirs, with a few of Lucas' ideas still intact at this point.

--SKot

Happy Life Day, everyone!

Still unfortunate that we missed each other, Zion...would have been fun to talk shop.  Hopefully I can snag that hybrid, though I haven't had access to a.b.sw for a long time.

What's the story on the high-quality commercials?

Oh, and BTW to anyone: I just updated starwarsholidayspecial.com last night with images from an early story treatment for the Holiday Special that debuted at the Ralph McQuarrie exhibit at Celebration V, and more info to come hopefully tonight.  The treatment dates back to March 1978, and offers an amusing look at what the Holiday Special might have been...for better or for worse!

--SKot

Wow, that's...pretty corny.  That, supposedly coming out of Ben Kenobi's mouth, is just wrong.

I must admit, I actually never thought the original howl worked all that well.  To me, it sounded too much like it came from the Tusken Raiders; it was too similar to their noises.  The howl was on The Story Of Star Wars LP too (which I listened to constantly), and the narration there didn't explain that it was Ben Kenobi making it, so again it seemed like it was the Tusken Raiders.

According to the novel (IIRC) it was supposed to be a Krayt Dragon call, and that's why the Sandpeople ran away.  In my mind it should have sounded a little more Krayt Dragon-like, and less Tusken-like.

But it was an extremely minor quibble, and I got used to it and accepted it.  This new howl is a dreadful mistake.

--SKot

Bingowings said:

Baronlando said:

I've heard people insist, with total confidence, that every shot in the special edition is new and that's because in the original they just held the ships up with wires, like an Ed Wood movie. And then you have a whole other breed who don't know that anything has been done to it, and still think it looks crude next to the new ones.

I think the standard response to such nonsense should be....

Funny, I just watched that again the other night (first time viewing it for my new wife).

That film is one of my all-time favorites for psychological horror.  It creeps me completely out no matter how many times I watch it.  And that particular scene tops it all.

I used to have a VHS copy of that with a quote that called that scene "the most terrifying in cinema history".  I tend to agree, personally.

I always wanted to pull a practical joke where a whole group of people pretend to be going about their business in a big open place like a public park, until some pre-determined person (who is not in on the joke) walks through on their way home from work or whatever.  At that point, they all turn and point like in that picture, and then start walking very quickly towards the person while uttering that horrific squeal/shriek.

Most effective if the person in question has seen the film, but still amusing if they haven't.

--SKot

Harmy said:

No, I'm pretty sure he meant the Luke and Biggs scene before the battle of Yavin, that was partly reinstated for the SE. Although I still don't believe it true, he probably just watched the SE for a while and forgot that it wasn't there before.

Ah, maybe you're right.  But my assertion still stands; the Biggs hangar scene were edited out at the same time the Tatooine scenes were, as a direct result of of the backstory now missing.  However, almost the entire hangar scene was shown (though from a behind-the-scenes angle) in "The Making of Star Wars"...so someone could have watched that and thought on viewing the SE that they'd seen that scene before--because for all intents and purposes, they had.

--SKot

pittrek said:

You people won't like what I'm gonna write, but ...

Gotta love statements that start out with "You people..."  Takes me back to the Ross Perot days!  ;)

 

The Biggs scene was for me always a part of the movie. And I mean ALWAYS. I had a 100th generation bootleg copy with Polish (?) voiceover, a copy recorded from German TV, and a copy recorded from Czech TV, and I'm 100% sure the scene was in at least one of these copies. (I also remember a short handshaking scene between Luke and Wedge/Johny D / Red 2 after the "that's impossible even for a computer" conversation.)

I never understood why various websites claimed that the Biggs sequence was new in the special edition , I always thought that they only edited it (I remember it being longer). Since I have thrown away my VHS bootlegs after I bought the SE VHS tapes (yes, I was a fool) I couldn't check it, but you can't imagine how shocked I've been after I downloaded the EditDroid bootleg DVDs and noticed that the scene is missing !

And I have NEVER read ANY SW-comics in my whole life, and I have heard the radio drama just once, many years AFTER I have seen the SE

There's one really big problem with this...

Those Biggs scenes were never finished.  They have no final audio mix, no John Williams score, and only on-set microphone sound full of clunky footsteps, dropouts, and wind across the mic.  Go here and listen carefully to the audio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO0jC5_JM5M (Biggs part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRYYnphssCI (Biggs part 2)

This is as far as the Biggs scenes got.  They made it as far as the Lost Cut (a black & white rough draft of the film with no finished sound and big SCENE MISSING title cards where the effects shots should be) and then they were trimmed out before the movie even got a John Williams soundtrack.  The only reason these clips are even in color here is because they were transferred that way for the Behind The Magic CD-ROM.

Do you think they would have let an unfinished print of Star Wars like this be released into the theaters, let alone be broadcast on television years after the movie was done?

The answer is a resounding no.

Part of the Biggs scenes (both the Tatooine segment and the Rebel hangar conversation) were shown during the "Making of Star Wars" TV special way back when.  Perhaps you saw that and tied it into your memories of the film.  You wouldn't be alone if you did.

--SKot / www.starwarscutscenes.com

avoidz said:

none said:

*EDIT* Makes sense that the Holiday Special might have been the deciding factor which convinced Lucas to stop allowing others work in the SW universe.  But each step along the way Lucas clamps down a bit more.

Which is why watching the Holiday Special now is so much more enjoyable knowing Lucas hates it so much :)

:D

--SKot

While I feel that Empire is technically better in some ways (Irvin Kershner was a master at his craft), the original Star Wars will always be my favorite.  It's the one that started it all, and like we heard already: it stands perfectly well on its own.

Star Wars was the result of a series of miracles that turned into one of the greatest films ever made through a combination of stubborn will, luck, and friends in the right places.  It's a miracle that the film was made at all.  And had George Lucas been able to make exactly the film he wanted to make, with no limitations and no studio pressure, the film might not have been half as good as what we got.

Intense heat and pressure turns carbon into a diamond.  Star Wars was that diamond, while the prequels were simply lumps of coal.

--SKot

Mielr said:

I'm not 100% sure, but I've suspected for years that this might be the case with me, as well.

I didn't see SW until 1982 (theatrical re-release), and I was 8 when the SWHS aired, though I don't have a specific memory of seeing it.......

BUT.......

My Mom once mentioned that she remembered seeing something with Wookiees "living in trees, having families" etc., AND she was friends with Art Carney. If she had seen a TV listing that mentioned Art Carney, she would have watched it-----which means I would have watched it with her (having only 5 TV stations back then, I watched ANYTHING that was aimed at kids).

So- based on all that, it's a pretty good possibility that The SWHS was the 1st SW film I ever saw, as well.

 

It's amazing how many people saw it, and then blanked that memory out (whether consciously or not).

Even kids I went to school with and played Star Wars with back when it aired don't seem to remember having seen it...and it's almost certain that most of them did.  It was a really big event for television at the time.

--SKot

none said:

*EDIT* Makes sense that the Holiday Special might have been the deciding factor which convinced Lucas to stop allowing others work in the SW universe.  But each step along the way Lucas clamps down a bit more.

Conversely, an example of loosening up would be Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars cartoon.

I believe that it *was* the Holiday Special that made Lucas clamp down completely on his universe (at least in film & video form), so much so that eventually he would no longer even accept any differing opinions or ideas about his baby.  ESB was probably the final nail in the coffin, after he decided he was done with Irvin Kershner & Gary Kurtz's interference with his vision.  After that, only those who would not disagree with him would be able to work for him.

The Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon was the first real example of Lucas loosening up a little, sort of a test run to see how things went.  That was a big success, so Lucas opened up more to the idea of letting other people play in his sandbox again.  Robot Chicken came next, with Lucas giving the official nod to the show and even featuring in a promo spot for it talking to a psychiatrist about how much he hated the Holiday Special, and how he regretted giving letting other people do Star Wars (how much of that was completely true-to-life?).  And now with the Clone Wars...even though it's in-house, Lucas is giving much more creative control to others (or so I have read).  Next up: the new animated SW comedy show, with Seth Green & Co. once again at the helm.  Robot Chicken was pretty funny; I am optimistic about the prospects of the new show.

Where does it go from here?  Hopefully towards further relaxation about creative control.  There's a fine line between quality control and absolute dictatorship...or something like that.

--SKot

20th Century Mark said:

I too say the Holiday Special before Star Wars. I was 5 and remember watching it with my dad and sister. We went to see the movie shortly after, and I quickly forgot about the HS. I watched it again a few years back, and those terrible images now haunt me again!

There is another!

I can imagine that the impact of seeing Star Wars shortly after the Holiday Special would more easily erase those terrible images.  In my case, I saw the Holiday Special in 1978 and didn't see Star Wars until after it hit video...1983 or so.  So those images had a while to fester.

--SKot

none said:

Definitely the last kid in school still playing with the figures, luckily slightly too dense to realize I was being made fun of, but didn't care had Amanaman in my lunchbox.

I like that quote, and I might have to steal and adapt it:

"I don't care; I've got Amanaman in my lunchbox!"

TV's Frink said:

I've still never seen the Holiday Special.

:-(

Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

--SKot

I have a very unique experience regarding the Star Wars films, and that is this:

The Star Wars Holiday Special was the first Star Wars film I ever saw. 

I was old enough (7) to have seen Star Wars in the theaters in 1977.  But I did not, because my parents had had a bad experience at a drive-in and refused to go to any theater again after that, at least until many years later.  So I missed ESB and ROTJ as well, and did not finally see Star Wars until years later, after it came out on video.  Yet I was the biggest Star Wars fan in my school (no exaggeration!) due to my devouring the novel, the comics, the cards, the toys, etc.

I happened to catch the Holiday Special at my grandparents' house on that fateful night of November 17th, 1978, and for the first time I was able to see my heroes come to life on the screen.  Years of therapy have helped me to live a somewhat normal life now.

Did anyone else at all have this same experience, where the Holiday Special was the first time you saw moving footage of the characters from Star Wars?

--SKot

Tobar said:

Great vintage interview that was just recently uncovered:

Bobbie Wygant interviews Harrison Ford for Star Wars 1977

DAMN!!

He spoiled the opening shot of the movie for me.

--SKot

none said:

As part of the dying breed who saw the Holiday Special first, we are warped.  and a tad stoopid.

none, did you really see the Holiday Special before any other Star Wars film, when it aired?

I thought I was the only one!

Interesting...maybe it's time to start a thread/poll on this subject.

--SKot

Okay, first childhood misconception I can remember about SW:

In the early days before I'd seen the movie or even much in the way of stills from the film, I remember seeing the cover of the original Star Wars novel (which my uncle bought before the film came out)...

...and I was absolutely certain that Darth Vader was a giant evil robot, bent on eating and/or crushing those little characters down below him.  Subsequent movie posters and promotional material featuring a giant Vader (or Vader head) towering over characters in the foreground did little to dispel that theory.

I thought the Stormtroopers were robots as well, of course, when I saw pictures of them.  What else would they be?

--SKot

I don't recall anyone else mentioning this, but...

Am I the only one who, upon first seeing the title of this thread, immediately thought it was a call to reform regarding the official Star Wars website?

No?  Well, it's a legitimate cause as well, isn't it? ;)

Anyways,

Good stuff, zombie84.  I was finally able to view the site in detail the other day, and I think the site is a well-needed resource...something that looks professional, sounds professional, and tackles the issues in a brief and concise (with the addition of the FAQ) as well as thoroughly detailed way.

The one thing that I felt needed work was the amount of material that the non-OT.com layperson would not understand...so much of it contained inside terms (GOUT being a prime example already mentioned) and took for granted a reader's grasp of concepts we debate about every day, or spoke in a manner that would be confusing at best, alienating at worst to an outsider (geekspeak, perhaps?).  I'm guessing at least some of the material was written well beforehand without this site in mind.  For certain the FAQ and basic portions of the website should be absolutely devoid of this kind of speak, but you may also want to clean up the more technical and detailed sections of the website to a lesser extent, just to keep the focus clear for the outside reader.  Get down to the nuts and bolts for those who seek deeper knowledge, but keep it clear to the perspective of a newcomer.

Hopefully that comes across as constructive.

--SKot

msycamore said:

Did someone on this board actually see the original theatrical run of THX 1138 in '71 that was 5 minutes shorter in lenght? I'm really curious to know what scenes was actually reinserted after '77. But it would be hard to remember, I guess.

I'm currently making an English subtitle stream for this, in the hope to sync it up to this cut when it's ready, I can also help out with making cover art for it but we'll need someone more technically experienced to actually help out authoring this beauty in the best way possible, SilverWook's capture looks really promising for a great looking DVD. Anyone?

 

Have you seen this yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJBxlIFRDKM

The original, WB-edited alternate opening of the film--complete with Blade Runner-style voiceover narrative.  Sadly, it's in Italian only...but you can get the idea.

--SKot

Easterhay said:

SKot said:

Easterhay:

You haven't been here long enough to be rocking the boat so hard, so soon.

Right now you're the newbie who runs into a bar full of regulars and immediately starts shouting, getting confrontational, and picking fights before you've even taken time to sit down, have a drink, and meet people.

Take it down a notch or two, man.  Please.

--SKot

 

Yeah, you're right.  Can't argue with you, SKot.

 

Sorry, everybody.  No excuses, no explanation, just simply sorry.

Apology accepted, Captain Easterhay.  ;)

But seriously, it does take a dose of humility to apologize, and I respect that.  Welcome to the group, if you haven't been welcomed already, I hope you will remain as an interesting contributing member.  It's not all gripes and Lucas-bashing here, even if some of the louder/more frequent voices here may make it seem that way.

Let the arguing commence!

--SKot

none said:

Following the rotten creator idea.  The creation of ESB was close to the creation of Raiders, and at that time Lucas pushed for the implication that in Raiders, Indy had had relations with an underaged Marion. 

http://mysterymanonfilm.blogspot.com/2009/03/raiders-story-conference.html

G — I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.

L — And he was forty-two.

G — He hasn't seen her in twelve years. Now she's twenty-two. It's a real strange relationship.

S — She had better be older than twenty-two.

G — He's thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve. It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time.

S — And promiscuous. She came onto him.

G — Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it's an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she's sixteen or seventeen it's not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he...

S — She has pictures of him.

 

Lucas had a cavallier attitude to plot devices in the creation of entertainment, this psychiatrist story seems out of character with early 80s Lucas.

Wow, that's REALLY disturbing.  First Marion is eleven during the affair, then ten (22 minus 12), then twelve, then finally fifteen...but only because Spielberg made an objection to George's initial suggestions.  Good thing he was there to do so--a good example of why George really needs someone who can actually say no to some of his stupider ideas!  I realize this was only a story conference, but jeeze...to even suggest some of this stuff is unthinkable for a character you want to have any kind of moral compass.

--SKot