Star Wars, the REAL original version, will be released next spring

[Mike Blakesley]

Everyone has probably heard by now that there will be a re-release of Star Wars: A New Hope in February in celebration of the movie's 50th anniversary.

What you might not know is, the movie is going to be released in a restored print of the original 1977 version of the film. That means it's not going to say A NEW HOPE at the beginning, and all the original footage will be there.

They're won't be referring to it as "Star Wars: A New Hope." It will be released as "Star Wars (1977)."

You heard it here first on Film-Tech.

[Wolfgang Woehl]

Memories... I was a kid and the family went to watch, in the 1st release week Germany, in a fairly huge and packed venue in Delmenhorst. Possibly my first-ever cinema experience. 15 minutes in the sound died, with a crackle I remember to this day. Lights came up, people flocked together near the stage, discussing, gesturing. Some disappeared behind the screen, my dad among them. I seem to remember that there was more crackling. People were moving through the lanes to get stuff from the open bar at the rear-end of the auditorium. In my mind, the spaceship techs on and the electricians behind the screen were of the same breed, really. When they reappeared everything seemed to accelerate: picture came back, with sound, lights went down, bar people scurried to find their seats. It was... glorious. And the force of that experience has been with me, ever since.

[Chris Haller]

Disney announced that they're making IMAX 70mm prints of this restoration and their new film Star Wars: Starfighter. Seems like the first major film release for Disney since what, 2015 or so?

Disney's restoration team has done some truly brilliant work on some of their classic animated titles - Alice in Wonderland and Snow White received 4K releases in the last few years that are truly incredible work. Tron's 4K disc is one of the best in my collection, and its of similar vintage age. I suspect that their work on the original Star Wars films will be top shelf.

As Star Wars IS the face of the 70mm blow-up, I hope Disney has the gumption to do a decent sized run of standard 70mm prints as well. There's an audience for it for sure.

[Ed Gordon]

An important detail about the release of the theatrical version of Star Wars is the fact that Disney and Lucasfilm have made no mention of a physical, digital, or streaming release of the version. For now, it seems that the theatrical version of A New Hope will only be available in theaters for a limited time in 2027. That's likely both a tactic to increase ticket sales and a way to make the release a special event celebrating the franchise's 50th anniversary.

The groundbreaking nature of the decision to release the theatrical version at all, however, naturally raises the question of whether the theatrical version will ever be released outside of theaters. I'm inclined to say that Disney won't release the theatrical version on streaming or other platforms. This theatrical release seems to be a special exception for the 50th anniversary, and Disney is likely to go back to respecting George Lucas' wishes for making the Special Editions the main version of the original trilogy.

Source: https://screenrant.com/star-wars-ori...y-era-release/

Limiting the release to theaters only should be good for exhibitors, but one has to wonder if there is a audience for this.

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[Mike Blakesley]

It’s coming in February which is usually a drought for good things fo play. I extract it will do Avengers Endgsme Encore business.

[Brandon Wood]

I assume this will only be available to select theaters (talking about the regular release; obviously the 70mm version will be limited), and only to those that are Disney first-run locations, so not the tiny indie theaters that only play Disney repertory.

[Ryan Gallagher]

If Star Wars (any version) attendance in our 1300 seat venue is anything to go by, it is going to do amazing well initially... but it may not have much staying power. But there is a core of die-hard fans that grew up with the original versions on VHS that have been waiting for this day to come. They are the Gen-Xers (like myself), and maybe some of the millenials who prefer the original edit and scenes, the ones they grew up with, but crave to see it in theatrical quality, perhaps for the first time! I believe the laser discs are the highest quality original that can be viewed (aside from that recent screening of an original Technicolor IB print).

[Mark Ogden]

in a restored print of the original 1977 version of the film.

I wonder how restored and how original this original print will be, because frankly a 1977 release print of the film would look pretty ghastly to contemporary audiences. I remember running Star Wars at my home-town theater on its release and seeing the above-mentioned laser disc later, and I remember abrupt color shifts, scenes of high grain and of course the flying garbage mattes surrounding the x-wing and tie fighters. So I expect this release will be original in its content, but with pretty heavy color-correction and noise reduction.

It takes some internet/usenet/darkweb sleuthing, but you can actually see very fine fan-generated reconstructions of the original trilogy if you know where to look. There's the long-running "Harmy's Despecialized" versions, which are assembled from multiple sources and are updated from time to time as new and better elements are located, and the controversial "Project 4K77" version, which is a 4K scan of an original Technicolor print that has been in collectors hands for years. You have to put up with some dirt and scratching on both, but they look surpassingly good. The Harmy's versions on BluRay are usually an under-the-table item available at any (dis)reputable movie memorabilia convention.

[Mike Blakesley]

I assume this will only be available to select theaters (talking about the regular release

They haven't said a number of theaters they're shooting for, AFAIK, but it's listed as a "wide" release in our booker's website, which usually means over 2000 locations. There is also a new Pixar animated film (Gatto) coming out 3 weeks after the Star Wars movie, so they'll probably offer a "track" where you play one into the other.

We played it in 1982 as re-release with the "A New Hope" title, and again in 1997 in the "special edition," but never played it in its original release because our local (now defunct) drive-in had first rights to Fox titles in 1977.

[Michael Kurtzke]

If we can get 70mm prints of "Marty Supreme" I'm sure we'll get 5/70 prints of Star Wars

[Leo Enticknap]

When the British Film Institute played their original release IB print a couple of years ago (I guess this is the screening that Ryan mentioned), Lucas reportedly protested and asked them not to, claiming that his recent digitally touched up versions more accurately reflect what he was trying to achieve in the '70s, but couldn't because of the limitations of filmmaking technology at the time.

So if the original version is now to be rereleased widely, then presumably either he cannot stop that (I"m guessing, because he doesn't own the rights), or he's changed his mind. There was a similar situation with Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange - he sorta disowned the movie (claiming that it encouraged violence rather than the opposite, which was what he wanted to do), and wanted it permanently suppressed. But he only controlled the rights in the UK, and so it was unavailable there until his death in around 2000. One arthouse theater manager was even jailed for screening a print in the mid-90s, because Kubrick used his contacts with the British government to bring about a criminal prosecution for copyright violation, which is almost unheard of if the intent was not to make money.

[Jim Cassedy]

Yesterday I was looking up something that had nothing to do with movies or technology,
and I came across this advertisement in the SF Chronicle from Sep 6, 1982. I haven't
kept up with all the different Star Wars versions, so I don't know if this is the "real"
'orignal' version as stated in the ad, or one of the 'revised' original versions. The
Alexandria had 70mm, but it looks they were running this in 35mm or they would have
had their big "Presented In 70mm 6 Track Sound" banner in the advertisement which
they always did back then.
. StarWarsSFC09061982.jpg

> There's also an ad on the same page for "The Best Little House in Texas"which was at another
theater down by Fiisherman's Wharf, playing in '4-Track Mag Stereo' (which I'm pretty sure the
average moviegoer had no idea what 'mag stereo' was )

[Bobby Henderson]

I'd certainly like to see a restored "de-specialized" version of Star Wars. I'd even be willing to drive a good distance to a see a 5/70mm presentation of the movie. However, I'm kind of nervous as to what methods are being used in the restoration and the quality level being output. If they're doing something merely good enough to show on a home 2K/4K TV screen at home I probably wouldn't drive any farther than my local theater to see it.

If they really got in there and did serious restoration work on the original cut I suspect they resorted to using digital-based tools to do so. That on its own isn't really a problem. The real issue is the resolution levels chosen to perform the restoration work and resolution level chosen to output the finished product. A restored master in either 2K or 4K is really only worth presenting conventionally in digital-based cinemas. If they went farther and did the work in 8K or even higher resolutions then we would see a difference in 4/35mm or 5/70mm film prints.

BTW, the garbage mattes on visual effects shots don't bother me. I've been used to seeing those artifacts in the movies going back 40+ years on formats like VHS, Laserdisc and those RCA SelectaVision forerunners of laserdisc. If they leave the garbage mattes in the imagery it will just be an authentic example of how visual effects were created in that era. There is a certain charm to them. I'll still buy Blu-ray Disc versions of those shows if Disney offers them for sale.

[Gordon McLeod]

There is a cult made restoration called negative one that did a frame by frame build of the film from prints from all over the world from the original release
It looks stunning it is out there on the dark side

[Mike Blakesley]

However, I'm kind of nervous as to what methods are being used in the restoration and the quality level being output.

I would expect, given the level of scrutiny this is bound to receive, that Disney will have done the very best job possible on it. That said, they are notorious for being cheap sometimes, so there's that. But given how some of their past Star Wars projects have drawn the ire of fans, and given that they've got a brand NEW Star Wars movie coming out next May, I'd think they would want to try their best to get the very most awesomeness out of this reissue as they can.

So let's see if they do that.