So far the only changes seem to be burned in subtitles (kind of inappropriate for non-English speaking countries) and the audio mix. No one has found any visual differences so far.
Maybe it didn’t happen, but people are discrediting what are now many, many people who remember this scene rather than suspecting…the master tinkerer GL who is recorded as having altered both ESB and TPM very soon after release.
GL tinkered with TESB between the 70 mm interpositives and the 35 mm interpositives. Likely they needed the 70 mm before he was truly done with the film and he had some additional time to fine tune (like virtually all movies go through before release). There is no evidence he touched either version after it was in release. And what edits to TPM are you speaking of? I’m aware of some edits to ATOC between the 35 mm distribution and the digital distribution (the digital one is basicly the DVD).
No, the evidence for the missing grappling hook miss shows that it was cut before filming (positively before editing or when Williams recorded the score). What got filmed is in the published script and that event isn’t in that script. It is in the novel. I’m one who vividly remembers that scene, but I have been forced to admit that it never happened. I also vividly remember scenes from a great many books I’ve read that have never been filmed. The human mind is great at taking the words of a story and making a picture in our mind. Much more easy when we have a film to draw from.
When GL tinkers, he usually leaves some evidence behind. There is none. I looked long and hard before I came to the conclusion that I remembered Luke missing because I had read the book enough times. What I remember seeing is just my imagination putting pictures to the words of the book. It was never filmed, edited, scored, or released in the theaters that way.
Doing a bit of digging into galactic densities and the size of a star system, weeks would be theoretically possible, but it requires the conjunction of 3 star systems (Hoth, Anoat, and Bespin) to be unusually close for even the densest galaxy (and the starfield used portrayes a density close to our galaxy. The longer it takes to travel the more likely such a conjunction is. This is fiction so that isn’t particular important, but…
And its not like Vader was just sitting around waiting. He took off and then met up with Boba Fett on Bespin before the Falcon arrived. That also indicates some time has passed. But I think Luke’s training is the key point. The longer it lasts, the better Luke can be and the more complete the training. Because whatever Yoda didn’t cover in TESB, Luke no longer needed in ROTJ. That indicates the training was pretty complete.
Well if it takes several days or a week for the Death Star to make it to Yavin IV and Leia knows it’s tracking them then why wouldn’t the Rebels just abandon the base?
You may have just answered why Mon Mothma isn’t there.
I have heard first-hand from a die-hard fan that on opening day, there was a grappling hook missed scene and williams’ score was looped in and around that area.
Williams’ score was looped? That just proves it is inaccurate. That event was in the draft of the script that Alan Dean Foster was given to write the book from. It had been removed from the script before shooting. It was never filmed that way. Knowing that it was in the book (which many people read before seeing the movie seeing that it had been out for many months at that point) and the way that scene is edited could lead some (like myself) to misremember that they actually saw it. And it would be interesting to hear how it would be possible for that scene to exist on both opening day and late summer (When I saw it first - my first of 10 viewings of the original film) and for it not to appear in any of the 35 mm prints that exist. I haven’t counted, but there are at least 10 floating around and at least one of those was recut with the 1981 crawl and flyover.
I am not saying what is and isn’t true, but isn’t it odd that we are more suspicious of many people who remember the grappling hook scene than of the man who was PROVEN to have altered TPM right after its release, who puts changes into each home video release, who purportedly isn’t happy with anything until the very last minute (who put changes into the 35mm release of ESB, PROVEN).
-TM
Yes, Lucas loves to tinker, but there is no evidence of him tinkering at that stage. Once 20th Century Fox had their interpositives, they were in control of things. They evidently didn’t even strike new masters for the 1981 rerelease as they seem to have just tacked on the new crawl segment to the prints. And I think at some point Lucas became too busy promoting the movie and making merchandising contracts to do any tinkering.
And one of the key things about this is the music. Any of the above mentioned remembered scenes would mean it was added back after the music was recorded. Seems a silly thing to do. Because the recording session for the soundtrack are pretty well documented and independent of Lucas. Nothing was recorded for those sections. Nothing for Toche Station, nothing for Jabba. To me that indicates all these things were cut long before Williams came in and that just confirms to me that they were never in any released version of the film.
The thing is, there is plenty from 1977 for us to pour over and nothing indicates any other cut of the film.
So…in other words, your mom never mentioned it?
??? Your comment makes no sense and is irrelevant. Seems you latched onto one data point and don’t know what to do with it.
I have my own memories of the original (the wider run, not sure if my theater showed the mono mix or stereo mix - though I’m pretty sure the theater was mono). Not to mention all the research I’ve been doing on the sound mixes and their origins. Star Wars was a pretty big deal. It was the first film widely released with Dolby Stereo (a matrixed 4 channel surround format compatible with simple stereo and mono speaker setups). So the original presentation is pretty well documented. And if there had been any alternate cut distributed anywhere, there would be a lot of people with memory of it and knowledge of it. Instead what we find is that those who saw the 70 mm in the early showings have vivid memories of the surround sound and the LFE with no comments on extra scenes. Same with the wider 35 mm release later in 1977. I have come across zero credible reports that any edits were made to the body of the film (the end credits were changed from the first run prints to the wider release prints and Episode IV: A New Hope was added to the crawl and the opening show was recomposited in 1981) between the first showing and the 1997 Special Edition. The few isolated memories, such as mine of Luke making a failed attempt at throwing the grappling hook before a successful second attempt, all seem to stem from creative memories and other sources. I had the script (The Art of Star Wars) and the novel and a few trading cards as well as some other story books. The way movies were distributed pretty much precludes multiple versions going out without someone knowing about it. The first known viewing of the full Toche Station scenes was in 1998 with the Behind the Magic CDROM. The Jabba scene has never been released in its entirety. Plenty of pictures existed and the scenes were in the novel, the published script, and and the Marvel comics. Plenty of opportunity for false memories to be registered, such as mine of the grappling hook, which was never filmed with a first try miss. Memory is a funny thing and it can easily fool us.
The thing is, there is plenty from 1977 for us to pour over and nothing indicates any other cut of the film. Check out this thread for a list of original 1977 audio recordings made in theaters - http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Theater-Performance-Preservations/id/12161
Whether the Jabba scene was filmed with the intention to cover the actor with stop motion animation is a valid question. However, the scene was filmed and not used. It is in the novel, the comics, the special edition, and pieces of it have a appeared over the years. It is more likely that you saw a clip and your memory has inserted it into the film.
The audio for the 1977 release is well documented. The 6 track version that went with the 70 mm is the same audio mix as the matrixed stereo version (save for the low frequency channel). The mono mix was the only new one and even it isn’t all that different from the stereo version. We have some very early recordings, in particular of the 70 mm - a type of print that was way too expensive to make to make changes to. Once the film went into distribution, Lucas lost all ability to control it. It was, after all (and still is), the property of 20th Century Fox. He was given a chance to tweak the end credits and make a mono mix of the audio for the film to be better compatible with theaters that hadn’t updated yet, but this was to 20th Century Fox’s advantage because having a mono soundtrack increased the number of theaters they could sell it to. But there is not one shred of credible evidence that there was ever anything but those two cuts of the film. And the 70 mm version is archived in the 16 mm copy (with the very slightly different end credits).
This is quite different from the well documented rough cut of Blade Runner (now available) or the 70 mm cut of TESB where we have tangible evidence that there were noticeable differences in the cut. Many movies have rough cuts or test screenings, but the only other version of Star Wars known is the B&W rough cut that caused Lucas to fire his first editor. The cantina sequence from that cut has been released twice as a bonus feature (the Behind the Magic CDROM and the blu-ray box set).
Well, I have to say that the in theater audio recordings pretty much rule out there being an early, different cut. The one I’m thinking of in particular was an early 70 mm showing and it is pretty well documented that there were only 2 versions of the film in 77 and they only differ by audio and the end credits. Anything else anyone claims to remember is a false memory that came from some other source besides the film. You may not even remember which of the many sources for these other scenes it was. My memory of Luke missing his first try with the grappling hook came from the novel. Biggs showed up in books and trading cards And don’t know where all. An active imagination coupled with these other sources pretty much explains any unverifiable memory of a scene. You can claim you remember it all you want, but that doesn’t make it true. The new scans of several 35 mm prints as well as 16 mm prints and the oldest video recordings all agree on the cut of the film and no evidence has ever come to light that there was ever another cut. From my understanding, the Toshe Station scenes were never included in any cut because they were the first thing cut and were only filmed because they were the first scenes ready to shoot. Lucas had written them at other people’s suggestion and didn’t like how they turned out. Jabba was cut because it was never supposed to be human and they ran out of time to do any effects. When you research the available material on these extra scenes, it is clear they were cut early in editing so it is impossible to have seen them until they were released years later. But photos were out in 77 as was the script. The novel was out 6 months before the film. The other sources of those parts of the story coupled with the nature of human memory makes a false memory more than likely.
Mark’s Down On Your Syntax said:
TESB spans several months, almost a year.
I’d say a few weeks at most.
Could you both give more details about how you see the time passing? What makes one of you feel like it’s months and the other just weeks? This is really interesting.
In my head canon, the Millennium Falcon's trip from Hoth to Bespin took several months travelling at sublight speeds. Time dilation kept the crew from experiencing that amount of time, so that’s why they didn’t arrive starved/dehydrated/really grungy. Luke spent that same amount of time on Dagobah training with Yoda, explaining his advanced Force/lightsaber duelling capabilities and his “I learned so much since then” bit of dialogue.
The two things that take a while are the trip to Bespin and Luke’s training. The longer the flight takes the longer Luke gets to train. At minimum the trip to Bespin will take weeks. It more likely takes months or years depending on the distance between systems. If we are generous with the Falcon’s speed and the distance between systems, I would say 1-2 months. The story allows for that. The Falcon likely has bathing facilities and could easily carry spare clothing. Han and Chewy live on it after all. That gives Yoda a fair amount of time to cram in a decade of training. Luke obviously retained most of it because when he comes back Yoda says he has learned enough. That would be impossible in a week and super tough in a month.
My impression was they took the Rebels more seriously. So sent the Emperor’s blood hound after them with a small fleet and a fancy command ship. Palpatine is playing with fire knowing that if Vader finds his child there will be sparks. But he also knows it will be a beacon to finding the rest of the Rebels that fled Yavin.
I sort of get the impression that the Emperor lost faith in guys like Tarkin after the first Death Star fiasco, and gave Vader more autonomy.
I attribute it to the character and film being a global cultural phenomenon lasting years, so Lucas decided to change his significance and history to increase profits. No story beyond '77 suddenly became hire someone to write some sequels, this thing is huge.
I think Lucas exaggerated how much of the early story he shaved off to make the first film. It is the first third, tightened up, with a bit of the middle and a scaled back space battle. Hoth in TESB and Tatooine in ROTJ had to be added. The imperial prison planet became Bespin, the Luke Vader duel was split, and Ben training Luke became Yoda training Luke. A hell of a lot of story got added with considerable duplication. That continued with the PT reusing names and more from early drafts.
From what I read, Vader fell victim to his own popularity and the ANH costumes weren’t up to a sequel. And while Vader is in charge in TESB, he isn’t in ROTJ. Vader is Tarkin’s lackey in the first one and the Emperor’s in the other two. He really isn’t portrayed as the badass he is in popular culture. We are always reminded he has a boss he has to answer to. Just in TESB it is subtle.
Yes, I would bet that for any official release of the original cut, it will have the Episode IV A New Hope crawl.
I am far too sleep deprived to tell if I’m being dense, but I can’t figure out how to load the two images to get the other buttons to be active. What am I missing?
I can’t say what they were going for, but the way I take it is that in ROTS, the helmet is new and perfect. By the time 19 years pass, Vader has been active, doing things. From what we see of how things go for him in the PT, he likely has done plenty to get his armor and helmet all beat up, maybe even replaced, a few times. Maybe in ANH, things have been too quite for a while and his armor is looking worn and then when he comes back in TESB, it is freshened up. A single outfit is not going to last someone like Vader for 23 years without some maintenance, upkeep, and the occasional replacement. I think making the outfit look new and pristine in ROTS was a logical choice. No, it doesn’t look as menacing as in the OT, but it isn’t supposed to.
Well, I have it. I don’t know how to use it, but I have it.
I’m working on the 81 crawl as well, but June is proving to be too crazy a month to get anything done.
Frink, you can’t prove that something is good or bad when it comes to taste. What people think of a movie is their opinion and there is no right or wrong. You can’t prove the PT are bad movies because that would only be proving that you (or others) think they are bad movies. It is all opinion. I don’t think they are fantastic, but I don’t think they are bad or horrible either. All you can prove is that you have problems with them. Seems your biggest complaint with my ranking is that I dislike TFA more than any of the PT. I have some serious issues with it that I find to be a game changer when it comes to rating it. Deride my opinion all you like, yours is still just a different opinion - no more right than mine.
Yes, this thread is about our personal ranking of the films so it is very much each person’s opinion.
As to whether or not a movie is well made, well, that depends on your criteria. There is the ability to write a cohesive story, then the ability to write scenes, then there is the casting, directing, cinematography, special effects, acting, editing, sound editing, music, art direction, and more. That is kind of the point of the award shows. They pick a winner in most of these categories (they run the writing ones together which makes sense for their purposes) and then the best of the year.
Back in the dark ages when I grew up in the 70’s, the expectations for special effects were pretty low. Star Wars was pretty incredible, but so were the movies that followed that didn’t use the not yet separate ILM. Star Trek: TMP, Battlestar Galactica, and many others were on their own. BSG had the advantage of people who had worked on Star Wars, but they used a variety of techniques to continue to improve the effects shots. Still, in a lot of cases you can tell, even today. So it creates a bar that we old people have judged newer releases on. People talk about the effects in the PT being fake and I find them above the bar and quite good.
Acting is another subjective category. Do you judge just on their performance or on their ability to morph into the character? Do you judge them based on one performance or on their body of work?
In the end, great movies combine great work in all areas. That does not mean those are always people’s favorites. It doesn’t explain the popularity of some movies, like the Twilight series. Sometimes people get caught up in something about the story that is less quantifiable. Some of the truly great films have that aspect as well.
As someone interested in writing, but not very talented myself, I find that the areas of the screenplay are what I look at first. Does the story flow. Does it have a beginning and ending and a solid route from one to the other. From then, the other aspects take over. I find in many ways, actors and their performances can be the least important aspect for me to enjoy a film. The editing, cinematography, and music are the most important. A CG fest isn’t going to impress me. CG that helps convey a good story and paint a picture of the world they movie is trying to create does. I have a pretty good ability to suspend disbelief, but when something way too obviously violates the laws of physics, it can pull me right out of a film. The Mechs in Pacific Rim and the destruction of the Hosnian system in TFA are two prime examples.
So when you ask people to rate films, you are going to get a host of responses. I know that the PT are very derided around here, but not everyone hates them outright. It takes a lot for me to hate a film. A contrived script (Avatar and Pearl Harbor), something historical or already established done badly (Geronimo: An American Legend and Star Trek Into Darkness), a bad book adaption (Battlefield Earth), and a few other pet peeves lead me to give some movies that others dearly love my worst rating. compared to some of those stinkers, the PT are absolutely fabulous works of art. We all have our individual preferences. The PT stink far less than a great many movies out there. I’ve seen my share of them and the PT are as far above them in my opinion as the OT is above TFA.
yotsuya said:
from the beginning and the earliest drafts of the script …when I said beginning, I meant when the story of ANH …
Looks like you’re taking George’s advice.
We’ve been off-topic long enough, thanks to me. If you want to continue this dance, start a thread for it.
To steer it back to the topic, I would add the Darth Vader was suited well prior to the final story took shape. They’ve mentioned some possible inspirations, but one that comes to mind are the samurai helmets with the black face mask. Not only does Vader’s helmet resemble the Japanese helmets (but being much closer to the head), but the face mask does as well. As so much of the rest of Star Wars comes from Samurai Cinema, I wouldn’t be surprised if Darth Vader’s look did as well. Star Wars Rebels took some inspiration from that early concept in their visual treatment of Vader, but they stuck very close to the ANH costume. I’m curious to see if Vader is in Rogue One if they took the time to get the costume right or if it is just a rehash of the ROTS costume.
yotsuya said:
The problem with evidence is that it is only as good as the truth at the time.That’s a laughable dodge of reality. Truth isn’t fluid. Uncle George wrote a story outline and several scripts. They weren’t sealed until a date decades later when the truth was to be revealed, they weren’t cryptic, nor were they a puzzle to decode as events unfolded through the years.
Your man isn’t anywhere near that deep. The story he always intended was filmed and released in 1977. What came out years later was also written years later.There was no profound Original Vision ™ If he had everything planned from the very beginning, he wouldn’t have hired two people to write sequels to the film. The first sequel was a published novel, written in such a way as to make it something they could film. A published sequel, commissioned by and ok’d by Lucas.
he was planning the family drama from the beginning and the earliest drafts of the script bear this out.
“ANNIKIN STARKILLER, a tall, heavy-set boy of eighteen.”
*“LUKE SKYWALKER, Commander of the Aquilaean Starforce. He is a large man, apparently in his early sixties…”
“PRINCESS LEIA, about fourteen years old…”
“DARTH VADER, a tall, grim-looking general…” (age not given)
“the earliest drafts” show nothing of the sort. If you want to truly go back to the very beginning, Vader isn’t part of Star Wars. Two years later all four characters are in the story at the same time, at least two with different surnames. They are not and cannot be related in the the way you wish. No father\son, no twins. It simply isn’t possible.
Lucas has been lying about this for thirty-five years.
The only thing that seems certain about all of this is that Lucas understood that if he continually lied about something long enough some people would eventually believe it, even when the truth is easily discoverable.
Have you actually read all the drafts? I have. Like I said, lots of family linking. I didn’t say with what characters. In one draft she has brothers. In another she is Owen and Beru’s daugher and Luke’s cousin. He seemed to change his ideas about family relationships with each draft, but was pretty consistent in their existence. That coupled with the secrecy he used for TEST and ROTJ, and you cannot prove he hadn’t planned it the way we got it. And when I said beginning, I meant when the story of ANH we are familiar with came about - after he split the story.
You also have to remember that one if his inspiration were the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials. In those there is always something new in later episodes. There is even evidence in the earlier drafts that he was thinking about sequels. And Splintered was to be a potential inexpensive sequel. The real sequel was always TESB. Bespin and Cloud City was a carry over from an earlier draft (where he’d already hired McQuarrie to do some of the art) - the same draft where the final battle involved wookies.
And then you have the name, Darth Vader. It means Dark Father and there is plenty of evidence that Lucas knew what it meant when he picked it. There is meaning to many of the names. There is no evidence of offspring in the first draft to feature that name, but soon Luke is an orphan whose father was a Jedi. Coupled with what Foster wrote in the novelization (when Ben starts to tell Luke about the past it is called a convenient lie), Guinness’s acting (which seems to indicate he is hiding something), the similar sabers, that hint that Vader might be Luke’s father from that 1978 interview, the lack of the father line in any of the TESB scripts (later drafts have a note to insert a line, but not the line itself), and the pieces fit together to point to a plan in place, not one created on the fly after the fact.
As Lucas always intended the ST be made this decade (per a quote from Mark Hammil about episode 7 coming out in 2011), that means a long gap between trilogies so holding the revelation of “the other” until the ST makes no sense. He got the fans buzzing after Empire so it makes sense his plan was always to reveal the other in Jedi. Why make them wait for 30 years.
This (like many things you’re saying) is simply not true. Lucas’s original intent was well, a lot of different things when it came to the sequels, but basically a 12 episode saga, each directed by different people except the first and last. This morphed and fluctuated with the 9 episode saga and such. The other was definitely supposed to be the subject of episode 7. Lucas decided while developing ROTJ that he was tired of the saga and wanted to tie it up (though knew he’d get back to it later).
The idea of Luke as an Obi-Wan 30 years later wasn’t decided until after ROTJ was developed. Notice that Hamill’s remarks about episode 7 in 2011 is from an interview in 1984.
Except it creates a symmetry with the PT which was always going to end 20 years before ANH.
It is tough for me to rate ANH or TESB higher. I love both equally in all 3 forms. Those being the film score itself, the original soundtrack, and then the complete soundtrack. ROTS is almost as good followed by TPM. I really feel that Williams didn’t achieve the same musical quality in AOTC, ROTS, and TFA. The themes are as awesome as ever, but the music has too many motifs, too much going on and it just sounds jumbled and all the same. It really works with the film, but it doesn’t fit the earlier feel. Now, these are Williams scores so they are all excellent, but the last 3 aren’t quite as good.
There is also the small thing that Palpatine needed the Jedi to discover the clones so that he could start his war. As I understand it, Palpatine ordered Jango to use the toxic dart on Zam with the knowledge that the Jedi would eventually trace it to Kamino.
I could be wrong, but I’m not sure this was actually part of Palpatine’s plan: I think Palpatine would’ve eventually revealed the clone army’s existence to start the war, Obi-wan’s findings being just an opportunity to speed up the process.
He also must have ordered Dooku to erase the planet from the archives, which would draw attention to itself when combined with the existence of the dart.
I think they erased Kamino from the archives mainly to hide the existence of the clone army until the public opinion’s would’ve finally accepted it to fight the the separatists.
It then follows that Palpatine must have ordered Jango to go to Kamino and wait for the Jedi to show up, and then lead the Jedi to Geonosis so that the war could begin.
Palpatine and Dooku might’ve used Jango to bring a jedi to Kamino, but he clearly wasn’t aware of it: in fact, as soon as Obi-wan shows up on Kamino asking for questions, he flees to his employer on Genosis, while making sure to kill Obi-wan.
The only thing that makes no sense to me, is Jango saying “I was recuited by a man called Tyranus on one of the moons of Bogden”. Even though this doesn’t reveal anything important to Obi-wan, why saying this anyway? 😄
Palatine does like to point out that things are proceeding as he has forseen. He makes sure Obi-wan and Anakin are protecting Padme, probably knowing they will successfully thwart the attempt and it will lead them to uncover the clones.
And Jango mentions who hired him to help the audience. We know that Tyranus is Dooku and that hints that Dooku is the one who really ordered the clones. One of Lucas’s better jobs in the prequels of keeping the audience in the loop.
Well, it means that TFA is inferior for viewing in other languages compared to the first 6 films on DVD and bluray. I personally like to turn of the subtitles or be able to change their placement.
The volcano duel has been part of my Star Wars narrative for as long as I can remember. My mother relayed it to me.
…and it was that way: the folk wisdom was passed down from Mother to son, down through the generations, until the mightly tale of the tragic SITH LORD™ DARTH VADER™ had spread to every planet throughout the Galaxy far, far away, and even beyond----to our very own Milky Way, when, a long, long time after the fateful events, an Angel™ did tell th’ Tale, full and true, to the one and only True Prophet™, the TEACHER™, GEORGIE-POO LUCA$H, and did tell unto him to spread the Tale far and wide, using picture-screens, so that the people of Earth might learn from DARTH VADER’S downfall, and not be doomed to repeat His Folly!
Also: LOL
Uh… are you off your meds? You are getting a little out there with that post.
Sources?
What part?
The volcano duel comes from several interviews including one in August 1977 Rolling Stone.
Most everything else comes from too many sources to enumerate. I have the treatment and the different drafts of the original Star Wars script. I have the Brackett draft of TESB and the 3th, 4th, and published drafts. I have the published draft of ROTJ. Then there are all the interviews with Lucas in all the special features gathered in the various special collections. My list of sources is extensive and you would need to specify what you question if you want me to tell you where I found it. If I can remember or if I can Google it, I’d be glad to share.
Here is one for you. This lists the 1977 Rolling Stone interview and a 1978 interview where he hints that Vader might be Luke’s father - http://videoeta.com/news/1359/rumors-about-darth-vaders-beginning-have-root-in-the-past/
The volcano duel has been part of my Star Wars narrative for as long as I can remember. My mother relayed it to me. What her source was I can’t say and I doubt she remembers. She probably read it in one of the early interviews.
And yea, Frink, I have professional writer friends. All that means is that I know how stories are written and evolve. I’ve dabbled in it myself. I prefer to let other people do the work and study how they did it. I love hearing about the evolution of movie scripts, especially good book adaptions. I’m also good at investigating. Comes with my job. So I’m good at seeing patterns and possibilities. Seemingly small clues and add up to a definitive picture. I can’t say I am 100% right, but I am 100% convinced that Lucas had the basic story before 1977. Lucas was too good and too careful about keeping the secrets during the production of Empire and Jedi for the lack of these story points in the scripts to be considered evidence of anything.