Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Well, since our “unaltered” original trilogy rumor, there’s been a bit of news… Or not, depending on how plugged in you are on the issue. For those of us who shrug at the rigmarole, there’s a new Rumor Control from Bobby at Full of Sith that lays it all out.
In short, maybe George Lucas will show up at Celebration. Who knows? Not any of us, that’s for sure.
After yesterday’s announcement of a 40th Anniversary panel on the first day of Celebration and a “surprise,”, naturally fan speculation ramped into overdrive. With The Last Jedi panel set for the second day of the con, fans focused on two things: A George Lucas appearance, or the announcement of the long-awaited and perennially rumored “unaltered” Original Trilogy. Today, Making Star Wars is saying that they’ve been hearing things that lead them to believe it will indeed be pre-Special Edition OT.
If the rumor does pan out this time, it will at least be something worth building up for hype. (I can’t really see George showing up, even if this turns up to be false – he seemed uncomfortable at Celebration even when he owned the company. That said, I’ve been wrong before.)
Almost all home releases of the original trilogy since the early ’90s have been built on the restored and digitally tweaked Special Edition versions that were released in 1997. Transfers of the 1993 Laserdisc versions of the film appeared as extras on some 2006 DVDs, but many fans have been hoping for better quality ports for years now. I’m not particularly obsessive about it, and I own those DVDS, but as a member of the VHS generation I’d buy better versions in a heartbeat.
But, as always, Star Wars fans love to speculate, and anything to do with this issue is hotly debated, so keep your pants on. For now, anyway.
In the meantime, here’s fuzzy Youtube version of ‘Lapti Nek’ for the younglings who only know ‘Jedi Rocks.’ It’s ’80s-sleaze-a-riffic!
Per Empire magazine, producer/director John Landis said at a Q&A tonight that Disney will be (eventually) re-releasing theatrical cuts of the original trilogy. It’s an evergreen rumor that pops up regularly, but this variation has a little bit of oomph behind it – Landis apparently heard about it from George Lucas.
Now, whether it actually pans out this time will be another matter…
No, Han does not shoot first on the digital version of A New Hope. The word from Australia, where it’s already Friday and the digital releases are live, is that the Greedo scene is exactly the same as the one on the Blu-ray. And, to be fair, anything else would have been a big shock, given that ‘Han shot first’ would have been spun into a Lucasfilm talking point by now if it had been the case.
Devin Faraci at Badass Digest, with whom today’s report originated, admitted that he was wrong, but does maintain that there is a high definition version of the pre-Special Edition scene in play somewhere… So don’t expect the rumors of restored ‘original’ prints to die down any time soon.
It never takes much to set off rumors about a new release of the pre-Special Edition versions of the original trilogy, but today it’s apparently Comicbook.com‘s turn. They have “two independent reliable sources” who say that Blu-ray versions of the unaltered original trilogy are in the works, and though the timeline of such a release is unsure due to the amount of work required, the plan is to have them out before Episode VII.
Late last month, a picture of Skywalker Sound folks apparently working on Return of the Jedi also fueled the ever-present hopes, while Bleeding Cool tweaked the rumor mill in May.
Versions of the pre-Special Edition films were available in a a limited edition 2006 DVD re-release, but they were straight rips from the old laserdisc versions.
Although plenty of folks get up in arms over this (on both sides!) I find it hard to deny that there actually is a demand for the unaltered versions of the film, if no other reason than the otherwise unremarkable news of the last Blu-ray release being our #1 most popular and searched-for post of 2013.
And while Disney would need to give up some cash to 20th Century Fox for this to happen (which, again, they did just last year) I’m sure the publicity benefits (and merchandise sales) would more than make up for it.
But, per always: It’s just a rumor, for now.
Bleeding Cool is claiming today that rumors are swirling about Disney maybe releasing the pre-Special Edition versions of A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
I can certainly buy that Disney is interested in doing such a thing, maybe looking into it. But we also know the negatives are in bad shape, and there’s that whole thing with 20th Century Fox having distribution rights to all six through ’20 and ANH in perpetuity, and it would be expensive. Still, there is a demand, and it really harms no one.
What’s clearly ridiculous about this report is that they’d shuffle the prequels off the ‘Legends’ (with the EU) and redo them, which sounds like 100% pure speculation/wishful thinking from those who are seemling unable to just get over it, already. No, not everyone loves the prequels, but that’s a lot of effort to piss off the big part of your fanbase that does. And why redo movies that are already made, when you can make entirely new ones? (Ugh, Hollywood.)
Star feud. Carrie Fisher and William Shatner are at it again: He gets choked, literally, but all’s well that ends well.
Rumors. Ali Arikan says that there are rumblings that Episode VII will begin filming on April 22.
Original original trilogy. Jeremy Conrad at Furious Fanboys has four reasons we won’t be seeing the original trilogy theatrical cuts released anytime soon. Long story short: A complete restoration would be super expensive and the rights issues with 20th Century Fox.
There may not have been big Star Wars movie news at the D23 Expo, but Pablo Hidalgo did drop some interesting hints regarding some other upcoming projects.
As Slashfilm points out, Pablo hinted that the Jedi legacy “casts a long shadow” and “you will feel that presence” on Rebels, and that (as the rumors claim) the Orange Harvest bounty may make it to Disneyland first.
He also said that there’s more Clone Wars bonus footage than we think, and “they’re close to pushing it out,” and “thinking out of the box” about distribution. We may not have seen the last of Detours, either. And for those who are particularly old school:
. @infinata says there are currently no plans to release the original trilogy on DVD without tweaks but never say never. #StarWars
— Amy Ratcliffe (@amy_geek) August 11, 2013
Lucasfilm is releasing the unaltered Original Trilogy on DVD this September. They’ll only be available for a limited time, but they will be available. StarWarsShop even has Han shot first t-shirts for the occasion.
I’m in shock. How about you?
Media coverage: USAToday / MTV / Zap2it / E!Online / Mercury News / MSNBC.