How Fans Saved Star Wars - Laserdisc Bootlegs (Part I)
How Fans Saved Star Wars - Laserdisc Bootlegs (Part I)
Over the years, the original Star Wars films have been subject to many changes and additions. According to Lucas, the original cuts have been lost to time. Well, sorry George. We the fans cannot let that happen. This is the story of how the fans saved Star Wars.
This is Part I in a new series I'm creating documenting the fan preservation of the Theatrical Cuts of Star Wars. This episode focuses on Laserdisc Bootlegs.
This bought back some memories. I remember downloading the TR47 bootlegs which were really good copies for the time.
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Lost to time?? I find that hard to believe. I can't imagine the original versions not being archived somewhere. It's not like it's an obscure film that didn't have a fan base. Surely there's a print out there.
Would happily buy the original versions again if they were ever made available.
There's a very dedicated team of fans who have bought, or been lent, cinema reels of the original Star Wars trilogy.
It's taken them years to scan it in, frame by frame and to correct the colour and repair the picture.
They're considered the gold standard. Search for 4K77, 4K80 and 4K83.
I remember interviews with Lucas and I think Rick MacCallum that said the original Star Wars negative was used to create the Special Editions.
The Library of Congress definitely has a print of Star Wars that was submitted in 1978. I think they also have Empire and Jedi but I'm not sure if they are the original editions.
The Library of Congress definitely has a print of Star Wars that was submitted in 1978. I think they also have Empire and Jedi but I’m not sure if they are the original editions.
My understanding is they have original copies stored but these are for legal/archival purposes and are not available to the public.
I think Lucas has copies in his archive as well as copies of the holiday special. However he wont let them ever be released again as he prefers the latest cuts.
(Carrie Fisher dis has the only copy of the official Holiday Special as she got a copy off him)
Lucas is known to be pack rat, he keeps everything. Did you know there's a version of Star Wars that doesn't use bluescreen for the travelling shots.
They tried using rear protection, think 70s TV shows when two people were travelling in a car and chatting, for Luke talking while driving his land speeder and possibly the shots in the falcon cockpit.
He's got all this stuff and more. Every time there's a new Star Wars documentary from Lucasfilm, it's amazing seeing new behind the scenes footage even after all this time.
There's deleted scenes from Indiana Jones films that have never seen the light of day for example.
Yeah, I can believe that Lucas himself doesn't want to release the original versions. They are, however, in my opinion of historical significance. They should be preserved.
I do have the original versions myself in a format that I can no longer watch. VHS.
One day, I'm hopeful the original versions will be made available again.
By "the original" you mean the non-special edition.
But interesting to note that the true theatrical versions were never released on VHS. By the time it was released on home video, small changes had already started to be made. Pretty common for a lot of movies.
For example, the opening crawl was changed for A New Hope after 1981 to refer to it as "Episode IV". The original theatrical version didn't say that. There were also changes to accommodate the poor technology that would be used to play them back in homes, like brightening certain scenes.
But those were like 1.0.1, 1.0.2... where the Special Editions would be 2.0. I don't know that anyone really cares about the "mini" version changes. When they talk about the original, they mean 1.0.x.
There are definitely people who care about those differences. There are even a few actually changes in footage, making some 1.1
Go look at some of the sites that cover all the changes
When articles like this talk about people who are worried about preserving the original they mean original. There are a bazillion copies of the VHS version out there.
I mean the non special editions, such as when the death star blew up and did not contain a ring wave. To me, that's part of the original editions. The special editions released in 1997 contained additional effects and scenes that were not part of the original release.