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Star Wars Prequels

Original 1977 'Star Wars' Cut Will Be Shown at a Theater for First Time in Decades (petapixel.com) 57

Posted by EditorDavid from the Han-shot-first dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger brings news that in June "a rare screening of the original 1977 Star Wars movie — complete with Han shooting first — will be shown at a theater in London..."

Petapixel reports: Subsequent alterations made to the film are well-documented: Han Solo being shot at by the bounty hunter Greedo first, rather than the original in which anti-hero Han killed Greedo without being shot at. Then there is the addition of a CGI Jabba the Hutt who was only mentioned by name in the 1977 release. Fans have also complained about the color grading painted on re-releases.

But for those attending the British Film Institute (BFI)'s Film on Film festival in London, they are in for a treat. Star Wars will play not once but twice on the opening night on June 12... BFI says the print is "unfaded" and "ready to transport us to a long time ago, and a galaxy far, far away, back to the moment in 1977 when George Lucas's vision cast a spell on cinema audiences."

Lucas has little sympathy for those who want to see his first version of the film, telling the Associated Press in 2004, "I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be."
The film festival promises "a glorious dye-transfer" of Star Wars — and will also show "a pristine 35mm print of the original US pilot episode of Twin Peaks, screening for the first time ever in the UK" — followed by a Q&A with the 1990 show's original star Kyle MacLachlan. On display to coincide with the opening night screening there is also a rare opportunity to view material from the original continuity script for Star Wars, which includes rare on-set Polaroids, annotations and deleted scenes. The script is from the collection of Ann Skinner, script editor on the original film, and is now cared for by the BFI National Archive.

Original 1977 'Star Wars' Cut Will Be Shown at a Theater for First Time in Decades More | Reply

Original 1977 'Star Wars' Cut Will Be Shown at a Theater for First Time in Decades

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  • Is it the one in which Han is the villain?

  • He said this cut would never been seen again.

    • And there is a reason: At this point in history, it's a bigger yawn than seeing Fonzie on water skis jump a shark.

      Only Die.Hard.Fanbois.Will.Care.

    • Not his decision anymore, He made that statement before he sold the whole kit and kaboodle.

      • That's not to say he didn't lie. He sold it knowing that could happen. Most people would do the same though, especially for a fat check.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        He said the film was too degraded or it was destroyed in a fire, or something like that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sark666 ( 756464 )

        Then why haven't disney released them? They should know they'll print money with them. I wonder if a stipulation was made that they wouldn't be released.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drnb ( 2434720 )

      He said this cut would never been seen again.

      No worry. His heirs will sell Blue Rays and stream it.

  • I really hope this is a precursor to you a remaster with everything cleaned up in the print but without the special edition stuff that kind of messed up the whole flow of the movie.

    Never mind that Han shot first.

    And yeah I know you can download some pretty good bootlegs of the original cut but I want a nice pressed disc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bobby ( 109046 )

      Some years ago someone did a cleanout, and I literally trash-picked a pristine DVD of 2001, long version. I'm not enough of a fanboi, or movie buff, to know or care if it's not true to the original. It might be more true to the original, other versions having been shortened. But again, not a movie buff so it was good enough as it was.

      I was fortunate enough to see Star Wars in a big theater in 1977. It was so amazing compared to anything before it. I've never had that level of experience watching any movie o

    • Have you seen this? https://www.thestarwarstrilogy... [thestarwarstrilogy.com]

  • Old News (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SchnauzerGuy ( 647948 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @07:11PM (#65301565)
    This contradicts Lucas' previous claims that the original Star Wars film was no longer available.

    But more importantly, Harmy's Despecialized Edition [wikipedia.org] already exists and, arr mateys, is available on the high seas:

    Most of the source material used for Harmy's Despecialized Edition was taken from Lucasfilm's official Blu-ray release of the films in 2011, while other sequences were upscaled from previous home video releases.

    These include:

    • The 2-disc "Limited Edition" DVD release from 2006. This set contains a low resolution copy of the theatrical cuts on a bonus disc. Harmy refers to this disc as "George's Original Unaltered Trilogy" (GOUT)
    • The official trilogy on DVD box set from 2004, primarily the HDTV broadcasts of those versions of the films.
    • The 1997 "Special Edition" re-releases, most notably digital broadcasts of those cuts along with their LaserDisc releases.
    • The 1993 LaserDisc "Definitive Collection" box set.
    • Digital transfers of a Spanish 35 mm Kodak LPP and 70 mm film cels, a 16 mm print.
    • A collection of still images of the original matte paintings.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Phydeaux ( 82550 )

      Ah, ya beat me to it. The Despecialized editions are great- everything I remember when I saw it in the theatre as a kid. I get that Lucas modified them. They were his to modify. However, it wasn't what I saw as a kid, and that nostalgia is worth quite a lot to me. In this day and age with the post-adulteration of TV & movies (like Supernatural's music revisions due to licensing) having media with it's original content is very important.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The original print is available probably in some deep vault. They made plenty of copies of the movie, and some theatres bought their moves rather than rented them, so those original reels are still sitting around in some basement.

      Now this is taking place in the UK, so there's probably some original reel that was sent to the censors back then for them to verify the film contents, and those reels have stayed with them in the archive in case someone complains so they can do do a comparison between the film the

  • A tedious film (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by ebcdic ( 39948 )

    with a ridiculous plot and stupid characters. It was rubbish in 1977 and is still rubbish now.

    • The nature of your comment makes it clear you are young, and never saw it in 1977. Presumably weren't even born in 1977.

      Your handle isn't fooling anyone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ebcdic ( 39948 )

        Funnily enough, my view was widely held at the time.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bobby ( 109046 )

          Not an art, movie, acting, music, etc., critic, but I could argue that so much effort and $ were spent on filming, models, effects, etc., that maybe acting and character development was somewhat compromised. I dunno. Frankly I rarely accept acting as believable characters, so I mostly just enjoyed the effects and story line.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It was all in ASCII, hence, you wouldn't understand it.

    • Re:A tedious film (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @08:02PM (#65301681) Homepage Journal

      The trick to making a stupid film go down well is to have a great editor. Star Wars was famously an unreleasable pile of shit until Marcia Lucas fixed it.

      Any great fantasy story is a partnership between the storyteller and the audience. Marcia Lucas understood that and cut the film so that the audience wouldn't (or couldn't) spend a lot of time pondering the silly and pretentious story George had concocted. In a way, you could say she cut it so the audience remembered a much better film than the one they saw. Given a free hand, Lucas is going to rub the audience's nose in his conceits because like a lot of directors, he's a control freak -- it's what ended is marriage to Marcia Lucas. There was clearly artistic jealousy in George's attempt to bury the original, superior theatrical cut.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pz ( 113803 )

        The removal of the scene with Jaba at the entrance to the Millennium Falcon (as a human, forget the CG version that makes Jaba a slug) makes the story that much more compelling -- we have reference to an unknown, ongoing potential threat, and the audience's imagination back-fills a story about Han in a way that including the scene with Jaba does not. Thankfully, the original editors understood that, even if George Lucas still does not.

        Think of the scene from Breaking Bad where Saul Goodman claims he's a fr

    • Live long and prosper.

  • I got out of the Navy in 1976, in San Francisco. A kid at the corner grocery kept going on about this fantastic new sci-fi movie coming out, and I just scoffed. Nothing could beat 2001. As May got closer, there was some "world preview" announced for a Thursday, so I took the bus out to the theater on Arguello and Geary (?), and wondered what all the lines were for. No one stands in line for science fiction movies! But they were for this. So I stood in line. Someone came down the line announcing this

    • And when the credits got to "modelers" everyone stood up and gave them a standing ovation.

      Really? Who the hell applauds in the cinema?

      • Nobody. But that crowd did. Remember, this was before CGI, when 2001 was still the gold standard for science fiction movies.

        • ... and that is why I feel this matters.
          The SFX accomplishments in this movie deserve to be honored by being seen. The first ever computer-controlled camera allowed unprecedented freedom in model FX, and I would love to be able to appreciate those, instead of the quite bog-standard CGI in the Special Editions. Kudos to Dennis Muren, John Dykstra et al!

        • Nobody. But that crowd did. Remember, this was before CGI, when 2001 was still the gold standard for science fiction movies.

          I'm (just) under forty so I'm old enough to remember seeing Jurassic Park on the big screen and the amazing new special effects in that film, but I still can't understand why one would clap at the end of a film. Was the projectionist especially talented? You might as well give a standing ovation to your television.

          • Think of it from the other end. Assume I am telling the truth, and that the audience did give a standing ovation. Instead of just saying unpossible, think what it would take for you to do so, or people you know.

            How about if you had seen nothing but silent movies with an organ accompaniment for years? Then you see a new movie with spoken dialogue and no dialogue cards. Would that not be astounding enough?

            What about the first color movie? The Wizard of Oz was one of the first big releases in color, but s

      • Everyone applauded for Star Wars.

        What people don't understand is that people were captured and enraptured by this movie. This was a thing. An event. In fact there was palpable sense of people thinking "This story was in my heart and they finally told it".

        No we all know it's just a movie. But where I grew up it was running in first run theaters for over a year.

        We applauded. We were astonished. And the story ripped themes from multiple mythologies to that everyone identified with it.

        Then when we saw it the 10

        • I was in Japan in August or September 1978, 15+ months since its release in the US, and Star Wars was showing there. I met a couple of Mormon missionaries who had been in Japan when it was released in the US so had not seen it, and when it showed up in Japan, they were not allowed to see it. But they sure wanted to talk about it.

  • Without an intermission and the purchase of ice cream it won't be the same as when I saw it first:)

    snake

  • Bad enough they recycle plots. Do they have to recycle actual movies too?

    Originality is completely dead.

  • Greedo shot first. (Score:5, Funny)

    by gijoel ( 628142 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @09:32PM (#65301821)
    Yes, yes give in to your anger. Take up your mouse, vote me down, and your journey to the dark side will be complete.

  • They found a complete, pristine, 35mm film copy that remained intact since the release. Independent of the people that made Project 4k77.

    Hope this original film gets transferred to a digital copy and used to improve the quality that the 4k77 people have (which is already quite beautiful, for the most part).

  • Today I learned that Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew, and Paul Hirsch won an Academy Award for editing Star Wars. There's just tons of information about the film itself, George Lucas, and film-making as a whole packed into the little fact.

    • There's a great documentary about film editors, The Cutting Edge [imdb.com] that made an impression on me and how the editor of a film is really the second most influential position on the final product besides the director.

  • Jabba wasn't "mentioned by name" in the original (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @10:30PM (#65301893)

    Jabba was there talking to Solo in the guise of a fat guy dressed in ridiculous fur outfit.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • "I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be." TO: Lucas:Im sorry you dont understand what made the first 3 films successful. Good story telling, good editing, plot driven characters are key unlike the prequel garbage you shat out without oversight.

  • We need a Greedo spin off. The story of his life up to that point how he had made amends with his past before being forced by Jabba to do one last job when it was tragically cut down.

  • Han shot. End of. There is no "first" if the other guy never pulls the trigger.

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