- Post
- #1350838
- Topic
- Articles & info that highlight / call for a classic version release of the Original Trilogy
- Link
- https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1350838/action/topic#1350838
- Time
‘Will the original, unaltered 1977 Star Wars ever be released on Blu-ray?’:-
^ from ‘Episode Nothing: Star Wars in the 1970’s’
http://episodenothing.blogspot.com/2017/12/will-original-unaltered-1977-star-wars.html - 2017 article
a snippet…
"With Christmas upon us, there is one gift that legions of first generation fans want but seem destined never to get. The original, unaltered, 1977 cut of Star Wars on Blu-ray or DVD.
Today, we consider whether we’ll ever see Star Wars the way first generation fans remember it – and what form the ideal Blu-ray would take.
Star Wars before it was Episode IV: A New Hope. What happened to those rumours about a Blu-ray of the 1977 cut?
Star Wars Celebration (2017) in Orange County, California, this year, pulled out the stops to celebrate 40 years of the franchise. George Lucas was back, and he was on stage presiding over the festivities as though he hadn’t sold his company to Disney four years previously.
Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford were there too, while John Williams conducted a moving rendition of ‘Princess Leia’s Theme’ in tribute to Carrie Fisher, followed by other pieces from the original trilogy’s soundtracks.
It was all great fun. But there was no sign of the announcement that some sources had suggested was imminent. There was no news about a release of the original, unaltered Star Wars, the way the world saw it in 1977.
Ironically, if Star Wars had been a flop, or a moderate success, we’d almost certainly have seen a definitive home video release by now. Much lesser movies are available in gorgeous HD transfers with copious extra features. But the enormous success of Star Wars gave Lucas the power to tinker with his work, without giving us a copy of the original.
and…
Why Star Wars should be preserved (and why the film critics should back the fans:-
In the US, the National Film Preservation Board has the job of choosing up to 25 films a year which should be preserved because they are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
It’s natural that, in 1989, Star Wars was picked. After all, its harshest critics couldn’t deny that it’s culturally significant.
And yet, the film was not preserved.
As the excellent website Saving Star Wars explains, Lucasfilm stonewalled about handing a print of the film to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry – and then offered a copy of the 1997 Special Edition. That offer was declined, because the registry is there to preserve the original versions of movies.
The Library of Congress does have 35mm prints of the original Star Wars trilogy which were deposited for copyright purposes, but the public can’t see them.
This has upset a lot of die hard fans, but there should have been more of an outcry in the wider film-loving world than there has been. Star Wars had as much impact on the world as any movie ever has, yet we might never see a good quality release of it, in its original form.
I believe that every film should remain available in the form that audiences first saw it. Whether we’re talking about Metropolis or Blade Runner, we should always have that original theatrical version preserved.
Even if someone discovered Orson Welles’ original edit of The Magnificent Ambersons, as it was before the studio butchered it (and that, sadly, is almost certain not to happen), I’d want the released version kept for the sake of posterity.
I can’t help thinking that “serious” film critics would be angrier about this if the film in question was anything but Star Wars. But many blame Star Wars for every dim-witted blockbuster that came after it, and so they don’t much care which versions of it survive."
