Well, at least we now know Howard wasn't open matte. I'm not 100% sure Howard was shot 1:85, but the theatre I saw it at did mess up on occasion. (They botched Brainstorm big time!) Aren't some HD channels cropping 2:35 movies slightly to fit the 16:9 frame?
You have to wonder if it's money or scheduling. The late Brock Peters did Vader in the radio trilogy, and did lot of voiceover work in the 90's but he wasn't used either. Did JEJ do original dialog for the Monopoly game?
I read somewhere recently that a handful of new drive-ins have actually been built. They are becoming popular with families with a carload of noisy kids to deal with, and smokers who can't go two hours without a puff. Whoever at Fox let Lucas have all the merchandising rights must have overlooked the fact that Planet of the Apes merchandise did fairly well.
I'd be willing to accept the theory that somehow in the mad rush to finish the film, George didn't get the shot he wanted. As I've said elsewhere, if the scene was really bugging George that much, he passed up several opportunities to reshoot. The best time to have reshot it was during production on the Holiday Special, second and third windows would have been during the sequel shoots. If there was time and money to shoot a new crawl for the 1981 rerelease , there should have been time to do the other "fixes" he wanted.
I can't see the possibility of it ever having become an outright bomb, as they hyped it enough at SF cons from 1976 onward to practically guarantee that crowd would show up opening day. IIRC, Lucas intended "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" to be the sequel if Star Wars was moderately successful. It would be interesting if the script version of that ever showed up. I can't see George doing skin flicks, but maybe he would have directed American Graffitti II personally or gone up the river to help his pal Francis out with that war movie of his.
These would appear to be scanned from the frames sold to collectors in lucite frames in the 90's. They were specially treated not to fade. The few frames I have from an actual projected print have gone very pink by comparision. It's curious there never seems to have been frames sold from any of the opening crawls.
Yeah, Ebay often has bootlegs made from the LD, (RCOM was never officially released on VHS even) but do any of them include the commentary or the supplements? This was one of best sets Criterion ever did, and it's loaded! They even did animated menus in CAV that could be replicated on DVD. I'd be willing to do a raw capture if nobody else has this.
If George was really unhappy with the scene, why didn't he reshoot it during the production of the Holiday Special in 1978? (I don't think Lucasfilm had fled Hollywood for Northern California just yet.) You had a recreated cantina set handy, the Greedo costume, and Harrison Ford all in the same place!
True story. Back in the early 90's I was shopping with my mom, and we were in this little gift shop type of place in a downtown shopping district. I had noticed some Star Trek collectibles, and asked the saleslady if they had any Star Wars items. She had no idea what Star Wars was!!! I actually had to explain it was this very popular movie. Even invoking Ronald Reagan's version failed to ring any bells! Mind you, she wasn't some teeny-bopper sales drone. She was probably in her late 50's. The whole episode freaked me out. Was I on some sinister hidden camera show? Had I slipped temporarily into a parallel universe devoid of Star Wars? Was she a space alien? I will never know.
I saw a cut of Predator on local tv several years ago that totally omitted any shots of the Pred's face after he takes his breath-mask off! Kind of ruined the finale of the film that way.
The copyright warning at the beginning still cracks me up! You can actually spot an 80's vintage Laserdisc player in the background of one scene. Sadly, my disc has rot even my old gas-tube monster won't read through.
Profiles in History is doing another one of those auctions of way cool props and memorabilia. Quite a few Star Wars items, including a lot of poster concept art, but it's cool to get a clear look at this!
It was mostly speculation on message boards in the late 90's when the book simply never came out. Allegedly Lucas didn't like Mayhew talking to the guy who wrote that unauthorized bio. Amazon UK still has a listing for it.