- Post
- #465547
- Topic
- Theater Performance Preservations
- Link
- https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/465547/action/topic#465547
- Time
Some internet folklore perspective of the RotJ boot:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies/browse_thread/thread/f6a5e67aa89c1bdc/86fcaa5d8d5003d1?hl=pt&q=bootleg+%22return+of+the+jedi%22#86fcaa5d8d5003d1
Actually, it is mostly true. Even though it is easier to go the Middle East and
bribe the projectionist to leave the films out by the back door (this is how
Return of the Jedi pirate videos showed up while the movie was still showing).
The camcorder thing is rather funny, the "media" (spec. American) claim this practise is more common in the whole of Asia (Middle-East, South and East Assia). I have heard rumors of it being done in North America but the news story didn't give any specific cities, places, movies or culprits. Not even the investigating agency! :-)
Same thread, mention of the cropped SW:
I saw this for myself in 1980 - a copy of Star Wars that had been videocammed from within the theater, thanks to a friend who had excellent ties with the local entertainment community. The movie looked OK on the TV set except that the edges were cropped since my friend just set the camera up on the movie screen, centering it on the top and bottom, as opposed to the sides.
Same thread, investigation story:
I recently discoveredthat I was part of an investigation in the mid-80s - some bootleg tapes were showing up, and by tracking and cross-referencing the lot numbers from the video tapes, and what cities the features were playing in, they'd narrowed it down to about five theatres in the US. It turned out that a kid working at a theatre in Dallas had a brother who worked for a video production company, and he was the culprit. They were apprehended quite by accident - they stiffed one their cohorts, she overheard discussion of the investigation in a shopping mall food court. In retaliation she went over, introduced herself, and layed out the whole story.
*EDIT*
Lead on a SW audio theatrical preservation:
Not an option for me. I tried to watch it the last time USA ran it. For
one thing, my USA cuts in and out at random intervals; for another, the
cuts were just too damn distracting.(Little voice from the newsgroup: "What cuts? I didn't notice any
cuts!")Well, kids, you see, it's this way. Sit down, children, Grandma's going
to tell you a story.[old-fartess mode ON]
'Way back in the 1970s and early 1980s, when the Star Wars movies were
[old-fartess mode OFF]
first released, there was no such thing as "waiting for it to come out on
cassette." Home video recorders were rare and expensive items, hard to
come by, kind of like lightsabers. This is why the first Star Wars movie
-- back before it was called "A New Hope" -- played in some theaters for a
year or more: because the fans wanted to see it again, over and over, and
*that was the only way they could see it*. And when you heard someone
speak of "my tape of Star Wars," it meant that they had done what I did --
taken a portable *audio*cassette recorder into the theater and recorded
the sound.
So I know the entire audio track by heart. A couple of different
versions of it, in fact (echo in the chasm?). And when I watched the USA
broadcast, I couldn't help but notice that, while all the spoken dialogue
was in its proper place, there had been many small cuts *between* lines.
