Lost Star Wars Footage Found On LaserDisc 157
drxenos writes "A LaserDisc purchased on eBay was found to contain raw footage from Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi. From the article: 'The origin of the LaserDisc isn't entirely clear, but it was purchased for $699 off eBay, apparently once used to demonstrate Lucasfilm's EditDroid station — one of the first digital film editing systems sold nearly 30 years ago. Ironically, George Lucas himself never used EditDroid to make a movie; the Star Wars clips were loaded simply to show off its capabilities to prospective buyers.'"
Cutting room floor footage (Score:5, Interesting)
In the fall of 1982 I saw a pre-release version of Return of the Jedi. Our high school had some connections to Lucas. An announcement was made that the front office had tickets available to a LucasFilm prescreening of "Twice Upon a Time" (I still have the large blue tickets saved away somewhere). They had booked a large theater in San Francisco for the screening. At showtime a person walked out and regretfully informed the full house that Twice Upon a Time wasn't to be shown, so instead they brought Return of the Jedi (wild cheers erupted).
Some of the special effects weren't finished, and some scenes had only rough editing. I remember several of the scenes were trimmed down quite drastically in the release version. The dance scene in Jabba's palace was really, really (really!) long. At the end of the movie we were all given a questionnaire to fill out on how we felt about various scenes.
All in all, a very cool experience for someone who grew up during the original releases of episodes 4 through 6.
Re:The Real Story (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not a new phenomena. There was an anime OVA called To-Y that, on the open market, usually went for around $700. It was only printed once and didn't sell well, but has a strong cult following.
Yes, I own one. Mine has been autographed by key animator Yuzo Sato, and as such I have no idea how much it will sell for after I die (since it will only be pried out of my cold dead hands).