Tack

Okay, so a lot has been written and misunderstood about this film and its various cuttings. What I’m wanting to discuss here is what I understand about the history of its different versions and (especially) where each change to the film can be traced to.

1966 - Original Rome Premiere Cut

• The fullest original Italian cut, including several small extensions not present in any other version. Notably, the complete sequence of Angel Eyes’ opening bounty kill, Tuco assembling his gang in the grotto, and the entire “Story of a Soldier” torture sequence. Also includes a sequence during Blondie’s death march in the desert where he slides down a dune into another man’s skeleton, although to my knowledge the integration of this sequence is still something of a mystery? Said print also suggests the existence of–

Later 1966? - General Release Italian Cut

• Very similar to the above, but with the desert skeleton and grotto scenes removed. Potentially also lacking the premiere version’s intermission. Represents the most platonic “Italian cut” to most people, although as seen below this will become complicated.

1967 - International Cut

• Supervised by Leone, goes beyond cutting whole scenes and tweaks almost all of the film to some degree. Unlike other Leone films, cutting happened before English dubbing, so no English track existed for the parts of the film cut in the International version. Excluded scenes mostly featuring Lee Van Cleef and period details of the Civil War setting, as well as multiple pacing trims in other scenes. Used as a basis for many other countries’ release of GBU, including…

1969? - Revised Italian Cut

• A new Italian-language version seemingly cut from the 1966 version to conform to the International cut, most noticeable in the “Story of a Soldier” torture scene; the International Cut version has been adjusted to keep visual and sound continuity in check, while this conformed Italian cut has very noticeable jumps in both (and not the censored substitution footage from the International print). DOES most likely retain a short sequence of Blondie tipping his hat to Tuco and saying “Scuse” during Blondie’s final betrayal. Default Italian version for many years; potentially also used (with resynchronized English audio) in early US home video prints.

1990s? - ‘Restored’ Italian Cut

• An attempt to undo the previous changes. Mostly very successful; missing some details. The opening Angel Eyes sequence is missing an exchange of looks between Angel Eyes, the target and his son before Angel Eyes enters the house. The “Story of a Soldier” scene is still the shortened version from the previous cut, with many of the audio faults somewhat smoothed out. The “Scuse” scene from every previous version has somehow been lost. Last preserved on Mondo Blu-ray?

1998 - ‘Hybrid’ International Cut

• First attempt to create a hybrid version of the Italian and International versions. Essentially the International cut with non-speaking extensions from the Italian cut re-integrated. Assumed to be the original International cut incorrectly for many years.

2003 - MGM ‘Extended’ Cut

• MGM/UA restorationists appear to have gone back to some very old film elements to try and produce a new cut, sort of a hodgepodge. Mostly conforms to ‘Restored’ Italian Cut but with the grotto scene from the premiere cut and the International “Story of a Soldier” scene. Horrible remixed English soundtrack; Italian soundtrack also edited to conform (only source of Italian dub “grotto” scene).

Please feel free to correct me, but I believe this is consistent with the majority of the findings of people on this site and others. I just wanted to try my hand at actually assembling a timeline of this!

Hello, given that this is literally a year old I may just be very late to the party, but this video appears to have the only clips of the genuine 70mm print that I’ve ever seen (the main kicker is at 1:23- genuinely appears to be the original editing of the Bacta Tank scene!)

Is this sourced from a release on OT.com?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbezmT4crf8

Well, it’s certainly more surreal when viewed in this high a quality. Kind of like when the HD restoration of Manos happened.

Thank you!

lorang said:

I grabbed it, going to run it through Topaz next week for 3 days to upscale and polish it whilst I’m away

Wicked, thanks!

https://tinyurl.com/2xedty96

This does in fact appear to be the PG theatrical version, complete with alternate editing and overdubs to tone down the language.

Is anyone here aware of this? To my knowledge, the PG version is not available on home media (outside of an initial VHS).

If you want to stretch the definition, Sate Pestage is on the call-sheet (and some merchandising) for ESB and not even in the film at all. He was supposed to be the Emperor’s Grand Vizier.

“complete version”… There’s no way, right? Right?

Yeah, based on the score and trailers, ROTJ’s late post-production may have been the most radical reshuffling; I’ve heard Lucas had a sort of bizarre fixation on getting the runtime to an exact number, is that attested to by reputable sources?

But yeah, in regards to the blu-ray scenes; that’s not a theory, that’s exactly what they are. The Rinzler extras explain that certain shots they have are dailies taken from incomplete sources where bits had been snipped out for use in the final film. That’s I think where the really intact deleted scenes on the blu-rays are taken from; the dirtier a piece of film is, the more likely it is to have come from an actual test edit (the exception being the Luke in cave scene, that must come from an extremely last minute edit).

The sources of deleted scenes we have basically boil down to three sources as I understand it:

1. Raw footage. The stuff like Vader and Chief Bast, Aunt Beru in the kitchen, the Endor bunker; this footage is not only pristine, it’s basically the raw footage taken straight from the spool and put on the blu-ray (the Rinzler raw footage stuff for ANH and ESB seems to be from stuff transferred for Empire of Dreams originally).
2. Editing room test cuts. The black and white stuff that IS edited but in rough shape. This was probably traded around the editing room and used for screening to higher ups; you can see John Williams watching some early assemblies like this in “Music by John Williams” with Kershner. These were not screened on a wide scale but were meant to just represent how a sequence MIGHT look put together, used as reference for more high quality assemblies later. This is also the way in which Richard Marquand’s original cut for ROTJ survives, according to Rinzler.
3. Actual test screening footage. As I speculated above, I think the blu-ray’s Luke on Tattooine scenes are sourced from the cut that Lucas screened for his friend group and the Fox executives; definitely edited, rudimentary sound mixing, just enough to be watchable for a group to get a general sense of what the film is. I think the extended Luke and Leia medbay scene is also taken from a similar one of these cuts for ESB, as is the extended Echo Base hallway argument.

enderdrag64 said:

Awesome thanks!

Regarding the jump cut during 1M3, I actually noticed this during my rewatch with the unedited cue, but I disregarded it because I assumed that only a few frames were cut. I suppose it is possible that it could explain the 1 second gap though. It’s certainly much less invasive than trimming footage to add in the 3PO scene.

As for 3M3 Rev, if I’m to understand what you’re saying, you think that the wide shot was extended after the rear-projection dialogue was cut, hence why the sync is so difficult? I will also say the wide shots from the deleted scene and from the finished film look completely different in terms of camera position, perhaps the final film’s wide shot wasn’t even in the scored cut.

Also that’s an interesting comment about muting Biggs’ name, I never noticed that before. I guess adding Gold Leader is a reasonable explanation. The exchange is in the script, so it’s not like it was made in editing, but perhaps it was removed during scoring and added back later. The script does have associated storyboards for the entire end battle as well, I want to compare the final film against them and see if they reveal anything more about this change.

In regards to the Landspeeder scene, the blu-ray version is some strange creation taken from I think? the cut that Lucas presented to his friends. It ends exactly where there would be the cut scanner display graphic would be, and I think the rest of the conversation would have originally taken place inside rear-projection filming environment and only THEN cut to the Tusken Raiders watching the speeder going through the canyon. All this to say I think it’s fallacious to take the blu-ray deleted scenes totally at face value, as in many cases they seem to have been taken from random post-production sources (sometimes not even for the scenes taken from out and out dailies) and cut in a way to actively discourage attempted fanedits. That does not accurately represent the scene in the scoring/preview cuts, I’m sure, but a much earlier stage in editing. The effects shot of the speeder from the final film seems to me like it was made to be the opening shot of the scene, and just extended with some of the ADR from the rear-projection version (which they would have had to do) overlaid to make up for the missing scene. Effects shots for these big-budget films can often get made with lots of extra slack so that they can be manipulated like any other coverage, just for situations like this (just look at the supplemental material for Blade Runer and Alien).

I just think it’s rare for these late post-production cuts to get preserved (after all, the Ghostbusters sneak preview had to be referenced from a VHS dub), and we’re extremely lucky to have the opening ROTJ scene in such a complete form as we do.

Also, the Tusken Raiders getting set up to ride out is (to me) a very obvious case where footage was just wholesale removed at the last minute with little to no regard for the music. Is there any shuffling of music after the obvious jump cut? Because to me even the visuals seem like a hard cut.

Some notes:

1M3.
You’re right that some stuff was probably cut here, but it was probably awkward extra battle footage (we have some other not so stellar looking shots in the early assembly in the Making of Star Wars book). Worth noting that you can also see a jump cut in the shot you’re describing in the final cut so maybe things did get shuffled around last minute.

1M4.
Like I say below, scoring happened so late in production, and the trim you’re describing so exact, that there very well could have been a trim of what you’re describing.

2M3.
I didn’t even know there was speculation something had been cut. The little woodwind flourishes match up pretty well with Artoo turning his head and the Jawas ducking, and that sync stays even with where the cue starts up in the final film (aside from the bit tracked from the very beginning). Maybe Mattesino was thinking that the cue was meant to start in the same place that it does in the final cut?

3M3 Rev.
We can see from some photography that during scoring that many (maybe most) of the effects were being cut in, as there’s a photograph in the Making of Star Wars of him scoring 10M3-11M1 with visual effects in place. That to say that yes, I think the landspeeder scene probably had full effects. I think the shot we see in the final film is a much longer version of the shot that was in there during this stage of development, replacing that conversation from the rear-projection photography.

7M1.
I think you’re bang on. That footage was most likely shot for the Battle of Yavin and just happened to represent the hustling inside the station very well.

10M3-11M1.
It would make sense Gold Leader’s sign on had been cut at one point right? He’s kind of an incidental pilot. I think it also makes sense that after a screening or two they’d realize they had to establish him better before the battle itself. Notice also the attempts in the theatrical mixes to (unsuccessfully) mute Biggs’ name from some of Luke’s dialogue. I think the question of how to make the battle intelligible to the wider audience was something they mulled over quite a bit.

We used to have a thread like this, but I think it ended up getting buried or neglected for various reasons. What with the rise of channels like EC Henry that are dedicated to exploring the art department details of the OT, I think we could use a thread to share subtle but interesting details in the set dressing or post-production process that can go unnoticed with how dense the production design of these films is. From a recent screening of the D+77 restoration, I noticed quite a few:

• The Sandcrawler has an extra Threepio shell with the back of its head busted out and wires peeking through.
• Luke’s landspeeder is actually parked behind the Lars Homestead dome during the droid auction.
• Princess Leia’s cell appears to have a cell number! I’ll need to go to a high-res source to confirm for sure, but I do wonder if the plate is a heavily stylized “2187” in the same way as the large ‘94’ outside the Falcon’s docking bay.
• The sound design in the trash compactor scene is interesting. The version I watched was definitely synched to the 6-track recreation and I know several things were beefed up for the original mono mix, but I did notice something; Luke mouths “Han?” a few times with no sound during the buildup to him getting dragged under. I can only imagine they found this a bit too cowardly on his part and muted the sound.
• More than ever I could tell that Luke telling Wedge “You can’t do any more good back there” was from AFTER Biggs’ death originally; he’s been dubbed over to sound less distraught, but you can see Mark Hamill really did act out a reaction to Biggs’ death originally. I’d love to see that footage at some point.

What about you all?

This was just screened at the Colorado Film School for May 4th. Beautiful work! Incredibly enjoyable way to experience the film.

So here’s a question for anybody in the know. Did the Latin American versions of ANH have voiceover for the crawl or did they use the Spanish “Guerra de las Galaxias” crawl? The logos on the poster are the same which makes me think the latter is possible.

Also, was there any evidence of a Portuguese crawl? Brazil and Portugal did both receive dubs at the time of their releases, no?

In terms of the COMPLETE version of this pilot, there is a chance it was released on a Portuguese VHS tape in about 1987. A clip of this has shown up on YouTube where it doesn’t cut from the uncut black and white footage to the color 1967 footage. I think a couple of complete shots could have also been taken from the original trailer for The Menagerie.

From what one TrekBBS user has said, the original editing was much looser and the ending in particular was very noticeable with this (the final conversation with the Talosians is said to be much more somber in the original than the Menagerie recut).

I don’t know if this Portuguese VHS has ever been ripped or not, but it would be seemingly invaluable.

EDIT: Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMg5IuQRlMo

This is just amazing. There’s the same kind of giddiness involved as when the deleted scenes were first unveiled. The idea that the films you enjoyed could be given a totally new but old look. And I think in some ways, the deleted scenes of ESB are even more mysterious than the ones from SW77, just because of the glimpses the trailers and tie-in media give.

If only we had access to some other remarkable trims, like the cut Cloud City bluescreen footage or the complete Wampa attack footage (which, apparently according to Star Wars Aficionado and JW Rinzler, was filmed). Special editions be damned! This should be the alternative!

Fantastic work! Amazingly, the skin tones look pretty natural, which is always where colorization efforts fail.

TK MAXX-421 said:

I wonder how many Rebel pilots followed Biggs’ plan of attending the imperial academy and then defecting to the alliance? Sounds like Luke was planning on doing the same, is it a common? Surely the empire had measures in place to mitigate this?

Based on the dialogue of that scene, the academy is in some ways a separate entity from the actual Imperial army, given Biggs says that one becomes eligible for being drafted after completing the academy course.

The radio drama also has Biggs saying that a friend of his from the academy was suspected for Rebel sympathies and died in interrogation. Sounds like at least in Legends they made mention of some pretty severe measures in place to curb desertion, although our known canon defectors (Hobbie, Biggs, Wedge, and Bodhi) also seem to have had a tough time.

Bobson Dugnutt said:

And right you are! After looking at the 4th and 5th draft, and seeing this line, looks like the probe does attack an outpost.

The “Trooper Voice” is missing in the final cut, but there is around 7 seconds where I could dub the voice back if I could. I think it would slot right back in, and then with the clip of the Probot firing right after.

And in case you needed more proof. 😉

Hey, Bobson! I think you’re on to something cool here, and a bunch of the clips look fantastic so far, but I think you’re using certain bits in ways that aren’t quite accurate. For example, I think that bit with the probe coming to camera through the flames isn’t supposed to be right after it crashes. I think it’s pretty clearly the scene from the script where the Probot wipes out a Rebel outpost before Han and Chewie are sent out to deal with it. I think that’s why the wreckage is pretty clear in frame. The actual destruction of the base is off-screen in the fifth draft, and the shot of the aftermath that it describes is almost exactly like this shot from the eBook.

Secondly, I think your edit of the Echo Base Wampa attack is a bit wonky on the continuity. Granted, the footage as presented isn’t exactly the most easy stuff to work with, but I think it’s very clear to see the shot from the finished film of the ice crumbling onto R2’s head is what segued into the wall collapsing, and then lead to him getting locked in the corridor. The scene of him peaking from the wall occurs during the troopers fighting the Wampa off in the script, and at this point I would say having the sound of the Wampa being defeated over this shot is probably the best bet with the available footage. It’s hard to say if the scene’s scripted finale, with the Wampa being defeated by some large gattling-gun style blaster, was ever filmed, but my money is on no.

And one last thing, I think a lot of the shots of the actual Wampa suit during the attack scene were probably shot just for safety. The script describes quick snippets all until you see the corpse on the floor at the very end.

Good luck on this! I think you may try perusing the sound effects wiki for the sound design question. In 1979, Burtt would still be using stock effects as well as his own recordings.

NeverarGreat said:

^What the Sith is happening there?

Palpatine trying to seduce Artoo with the allure of lube?

I see!

Well, for the first part, it largely comes from various drafts of the Star Wars screenplays. Chiefly of course is the revised fourth draft, with occasional rearrangements based on how I thought scenes should flow or to roughly match the scene order of the final cut. Then, several scene extensions and setpieces come from the third draft, such as the expanded scenes on Yavin IV or the trash compactor scene. Sometimes I deferred to the continuity script on the Star Wars Aficionado blog for things that weren’t chronicled in any available script draft (mainly small bits of dialogue). Then, certain EU resources came in handy too. The novelization by Alan Dean Foster has a lot of overwrought dialogue but also useful things like scene extensions (the training scene in the Falcon’s main hold, for example). Similarly, small extensions from the radio drama by Brian Daley (whose script I have in book form) were also valuable since in many cases they came from direct consultation with Lucasfilm. However, an even greater bit of the script comes from my own ideas. I’m particularly proud of my expanded Battle of Yavin with the various squad leaders interacting and a more concrete attack plan than any version of the screenplay.

I’m slow at work (because of school and career stuff) on an expanded version of The Empire Strikes Back, with many ideas from early in production re-introduced and the existing plot expanded greatly. I think it’ll be even longer than this one ended up. Already I have most of the first episode of the radio drama with the attack on the Rebel convoy acting as the film’s new inciting incident.

To answer the question on software, it’s a plug-in for Google Docs called Screenplay Formatter. Most of it is done automatically, and you just have to fiddle with it a bit to get things where you want them.

Hope it helps. 😃

CamSMurph said:

What did you use to write this behemoth?

Are you talking about the sources of material or what software?

Perhaps you could use a Janus Films-style vanity card? 😃

I’m not for the idea myself, but I’m reasonably sure he has to have said it at some point during Doctor Zhivago.

That new brief deleted scene of Han and Leia made my night. Seems like they got a lot of coverage of them having run-ins in the hangar and just decided they interrupted the pacing too much. Also, the outtake of the original “double kiss” in color is pretty great to have now.