An archiving seminar at Sundance (scroll down) hints at new footage for the next DVD release, perhaps including brand new footage? It’s pure rumor, right down to friend-of-a-friend, but you know fandom – we won’t put anything past George.
Feiner says he worked for three years cleaning up the Star Wars movies for release in 1998. “We were then contacted by Lucas to go into another 100 shots that we hadn’t done before. I basically said, ‘Why are we doing this? You released the picture.’ He said, ‘Well, we want to go in and clean up stuff we hadn’t done before.'”
That’s when he picked up on a bombshell: “I heard through another source, some friends of mine up at ILM (Lucas’ special-effects company), they were doing additional shots to get cut into a new version. I’ve never seen it, and I don’t know anybody outside of George and his small cadre that have seen it. I’m just making an assumption that they’re going to use this for some future release.”
There has long been suspicion that Lucas might try to further integrate elements of his prequel trilogy with the original tale of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. LucasFilm spokesman John Singh said late Tuesday: “There are always a wide range of rumors flying around about Star Wars. There have been a lot of tests done over the years to help ILM explore new technology, but we don’t have any plans for another Star Wars release.”
Sure you don’t, LFL. Sure you don’t.
I don’t know if there’ll be another version. But I wouldn’t be surprised if what they cleaned up are included in the You-know-it-has-to-be-coming 30th anniversary box set as extras.
Because you know how fandom would whine if they ::gasp:: put them in there without cleaning them up!
In addition, there is the whole “saving it for posterity” issue. Cleaning it up would help in the preservation process.
Yeah, I was thinking cut scenes – the Biggs stuff and such.
Or maybe the Holiday Special. It’ll be an Easter Egg, I tell you! An Easter Egg!