The Digital Bits website did a series of articles on why this isn’t true (short version, there are existing good-quality prints in the hands of private collectors, and even if none were willing to help, Lucasfilm possesses other original film materials that could be used even if no negatives are available). I’ll try and find the link.
I don’t buy this. Even if true (which some other posters have challenged) it doesn’t explain crappy treatment of the original. If technology existed in 1995 to put all that special-featurific content in, it surely exists a decade later to take all that crap back out.
I’ve already got quite nice Laserdisc transfers. Lucas can go suck a wookie.
I’m so clueless I didn’t even realize ANH, TESB and ROTJ were going to have additional material. I just figured, “Hey, cool! Now I have all 6.” The extra footage was more of an irritant than an embellishment I thought. But not enough so that I’m waiting for the real ones to come out. He’s got my money, I’ve got my pair of trilogies on DVD right next to my Platinum box set of The Lord of The Ringses.
I’m getting over it, and moving on.
I’ll hazard a guess.
This sums it up for me exactly.
Right now there is no way on this Earth that I will spend the money on yet another copy of Star Wars. I have VHS of the OT, original and SE (I picked up the SE because my original VHSs were old and getting worn and I didn’t want to kill them completely). I have the boxed set of the OT SE on DVD and I have the prequels on DVD.
I get paid on the 15th.
I know my weaknesses.
(maybe I’ll split the difference and only get ANH and ESB, I wasn’t crazy about RotJ, anyway) snort yeah that’ll happen
I, uh, know someone who got on eBay a nice set of DVDs taken from the original laserdiscs. They’ve got decent cases and art, and look nice on m-- er, his, widescreen teevee. No goofy special effects or Greedo-shoots-first nonsense, just the original movies in their unedited glory.
Just sayin’, y’know?
I own the originals, Laserdisc to DVD transfers. They’re from the ‘81 version, so they’re missing the “Open the Blast Doors!” line and some minor F/X differences from my original Beta tapes, (which I recorded in my parents’ movie theater after hours, so they’re the original theatrical version) but otherwise they’re just fine.
(Other examples - you don’t hear a sound effect when Chewie locks in the auxiliary power, the food processor doesn’t make the right noises, the snake-looking alien in the cantina doesn’t growl, and Aunt Veru’s voice is all perky, not weary and laconic like in my Beta copy).
But Greedo doesn’t shoot first. 
I bought one set on VHS: the original.
I bought the Special Edition DVD trilogy set when it came out.
I own no other versions, and I’m not going to let Lucas sell me the same horse twice: I’ve already got crappy copies of the trilogy if I really want to see them. I’ve already got the Special Edition With Go-Faster Stripes on DVD if I want it.
Nope. This just demonstrates that Lucas listens to the fans, but only with one ear open.
I’ve copied my VHS copies onto DVD, and I also have the speshul ones. I don’t feel the need to buy another set.
facepalm Feel free to replace one of those “copy” words with something else. I took high school English, really, I did.
Just to correct myself here, the original release was a 2.0 stereo mix, but there was a 5.1 mix done for the 70mm release, so an “original” 5.1 does in fact exist. (The mono mix was apparently done slightly after wide release for houses without a stereo set up and that’s where a lot of the SFX & dialogue differences come from).
I’ve totally decided against buying these now by the way… out of spite if nothing else. I shake my fist at George Lucas! :mad:
Good grief.
I LOVED Star Wars when I was a kid. Bought the action figures, collected cards and stickers, the whole works. I’ve got as much nostalgia as anyone.
These little touch-ups that Lucas added in 1997 are so insignificant to me; the whole “original” fixation boggles my mind. When I think Star Wars, the Greedo scene has to be one of the last that come to my mind. My memories revolve around the Death Star rescue and battle - the garbage compacter walls crushing in, the high-platform sneaking by Obi-Wan, Luke holding Leia swinging like Tarzan to escape the Stormtroopers, the Vader-Obi Wan lightsaber battle, the space battle between the X-Wings and TIE fighters…
I’ve got the DVDs that are out, and I bought them without reservation. The core of Star Wars is untouched, as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve got the special eds of parts 4,5 & 6 on DVD. I’ll buy these as well.
I have to strongly disagree with you. To me it’s not about Greedo shooting first or putting different actors in at the end of Return of the Jedi, my problem with the special edition is that the changes turn what was already a padded film into visual masterbation of the worst kind.
Lucas was already a little bit self indulgent with Star Wars in the original form. The cantina scene is the best example of this with the extra shots of the different aliens. For the most part though the effects served the story and with the special editions the movies were padded with long lingering establishing shots showcasing the newly added effects. It dragged the film down; this is especially noticible on the approach to the Death Star when the film should be accellerating and instead we have several minutes of slow X-Wing fly-bies.
So to me the special editions took a half-way decent but culturally signifigant movie and turned it into a bad movie. I don’t care if I’ve got happy childhood memories of it, I don’t want a bad movie.
There is a signifigant cinemaphile population out there who want to see films presented in the same format that the original theatrical presentation had. The more signifigant the movie, the larger this crowd is. Making an editted version the only one available for home release means that they’re not going to be happy.
From what I understand, SOME of the changes-like some of the dialog and that (Luke telling Artoo he’s lucky to be alive, rather than lucky not to taste so great when he gets spit out by that giant swamp monster) was because the old footage was basically gone, deteriorated, and they had to restore it with some of the unused shots.
So it could be a case where they CAN’T restore everything.
I’ll probably buy it, I’m with cmkeller, in that it’s all Star Wars to me. I like both versions.
Well, I do have the (P&S) VHS’s and a funky new DVD recorder… off to the
la-bor-a-torie!!!
I still don’t have any DVD version, so if I got these ones it wouldn’t be copy#2 of the disco remix or anything. I think I will rent them first and see how weak the non anamorphic version is.
Oh yeah, Rjung? I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Drop a girl an URL, the profile email works.
I’m with you. I don’t like Greedo shooting first, but the rest of the changes are fine by me. And the Greedo scene doesn’t ruin the movie for me. They’re popcorn movies; I can’t seem to get my outrage going over them.
So. I’m gathering that a lot of the outrage here is over matters purely technical and of great importance to folks with top-of-the-line audiovisual home theatre setups.
For the average schlub like me, with an old, 3:4, low-def, tube TV that I plan on using until it breaks, and a mere two speakers, is this -really- going to make that much of a difference?
I’m being a bit snarky here, but I really am interested in the question. At the moment all I’ve got is the VHS tapes (and no VCR to play them on, acually). If I’d known what Lucas was going to do, I’d never have sold my LD player…
Some might hate me for this, but I have to say it.
When I was nine years old and sitting in a movie theater Star Wars (before it became Episode IV) blew me away. From that point until I was about thirteen I wanted nothing in the world so much as a lightsaber. What kid didn’t? The wait for The Empire Strikes Back was entirely too long, and Return of the Jedi didn’t come out until I’d just about outgrown the whole thing. Still, the franchise was pretty much the defining pop culture phenomenon for nerds of my generation.
I have the trilogy box set (v3.0 or something, the Han shoots first/Greedo shoots first thing is kind of muddled) and I watched the movies again at home a few times. I never thought it would be possible, but something terrible happened.
I didn’t like them very much.
I know, I know, that’s heresy. But looked at with adult eyes these films are kind of crappy, and I understand now why my Dad was rolling his eyes all the time. Out of nostaligia I rented and watched The Phantom Menace and then wished I hadn’t. I never bothered with the last two. Hell, I wish I’d never bought the DVD set of the original trilogy and just left it as a fond childhood memory.
Hear me, Lucas? You’re a hack, and you’ll get no more money from me.
Your whole post pretty much sums up my feelings on the story. We’re about the same age by the way.
My first thought as Phantom Menace ended was, “You’re kidding, right?” It seemed so lame and I was very disappointed. But for some reason I went ahead and got II & III (or V & VI if you still refuse to accept that the whole onslaught starts in the middle of the story–confuses my kids no end) and then the whol series made a new kind of sense to me. “Click” the story’s really about Anakin/Vader and not his whiny little pups. I actually am quite fond of the series now, but it does require a good deal of focus to get past the cheesy and sometimes excessive graphics.
I’ve even become a bit of a Hayden Christensen apologist. He has the unenviable task of performing a character that reconciles Jake Lloyd’s rendition of a young Anakin (precocious, arrogant and kind–not an easy mix), Darth Vader from the 1970s (thoroughly ruthless but with a barely discernable smear of altruism) and whiny but determined Luke & Leia. All while trying to portray a central character in its own right who is capable of great evil without intending to do any at all. It’s a tough nut, and I’d have been interested to see how anyone else would have pulled it off. Elijah Wood? Keanu Reeves? Steve Martin?