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Why Finding the Original 1977 ‘Star Wars’ Verges on the Impossible Date: November 24, 2020 07:21AM |
A longish read, so do it when you have time...
It’s a scene etched into every Star Wars fan’s mind. The roguish anti-hero Han Solo sits alone at bare table in the Mos Eisley cantina. An alien bounty hunter pulls up a chair to confront him. After some tense chit-chat, the amphibian-looking barfly pulls a gun and fires a laser blast inches from Solo’s head. Without batting an eye, Han fires a return blast under the table, killing the bounty hunter and sauntering away from the grisly yet PG-rated scene. Everybody’s seen it. Except not.
That impromptu shootout in the first Star Wars is but one of the sequences that diverges from what audiences saw when the movie was originally released in 1977, and it’s perhaps the most infamous of writer/director George Lucas’s endless tinkering with his beloved space saga. This means that a whole generation of supposedly passionate fans have been living a lie. The galaxy far, far away that fans like me fell in love with is a different film entirely.
I confess that I love Star Wars far too much. It’s a cultural artifact that permeates my whole being. I couldn’t count how many Star Wars birthdays I’ve had, how many toys I’ve bought, and how many home video editions of the original trilogy I owned. I’ve even made some of my best friends by challenging them to exceedingly nerdy Star Wars trivia (Q: What was the number of the garbage compactor that nearly killed Han, Luke, and Leia in the first movie? A: If you don’t know it, we aren’t best friends.)
And yet I’ve never seen the original version of Star Wars — a crime that should be punishable by freezing me in Carbonite and shipping me off to an uncertain fate with Boba Fett. But today, it requires nothing shy of an actual quest if you want to find Lucas’s 1977 original, the ur-Star Wars from which the subsequent multi-multi-billion-dollar cultural empire sprang. Lucas has ensured the “original” is a tampered-with version he now sells riven with edits and festooned with computerized effects. To see his original vision, one must dig.
Take, for example, one awful addition to the Special Edition in a scene cut from the 1977 release. Han Solo confronts a human version of Jabba the Hutt in Docking Bay 94. The Falstaffian human actor portraying Jabba in 1977 was replaced by a laughably obvious CGI creation in 1997, worsened only by an even crappier-looking computer enhanced Solo stepping on CG-Jabba’s tail.
The greatest affront came in that Mos Eisley cantina scene. The version I first saw had Solo defending himself, returning fire after that first errant blast. The original version, I later learned, had Solo straight-up blasting this marble-eyed Greedo customer (who, let’s face it, was probably going to kill Solo eventually anyway) and swing out of the cantina like the John Wayne gunslinger his character is set up to be.
The abhorrent CG-Jabba is one thing. Han returning fire was another. No other addition to the original films pissed fans off more. The rallying cry of “Han shot first” became shorthand for fans everywhere who felt betrayed by art that was toned down to be more marketable to parents. George Lucas, one of the richest men in the world, sold out the very people who made him so wealthy.
The rejiggered scene prompts Star Wars geeks to lose their collective s••t, because it fundamentally changes Solo. Through the chintzy reconfiguring that has the bounty hunter shoot at Han first, Lucas removed the moral ambiguity of the morally ambiguous Han Solo. To audiences, and to the character’s personality, it just made no damn sense.
[getpocket.com]
Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.
It’s a scene etched into every Star Wars fan’s mind. The roguish anti-hero Han Solo sits alone at bare table in the Mos Eisley cantina. An alien bounty hunter pulls up a chair to confront him. After some tense chit-chat, the amphibian-looking barfly pulls a gun and fires a laser blast inches from Solo’s head. Without batting an eye, Han fires a return blast under the table, killing the bounty hunter and sauntering away from the grisly yet PG-rated scene. Everybody’s seen it. Except not.
That impromptu shootout in the first Star Wars is but one of the sequences that diverges from what audiences saw when the movie was originally released in 1977, and it’s perhaps the most infamous of writer/director George Lucas’s endless tinkering with his beloved space saga. This means that a whole generation of supposedly passionate fans have been living a lie. The galaxy far, far away that fans like me fell in love with is a different film entirely.
I confess that I love Star Wars far too much. It’s a cultural artifact that permeates my whole being. I couldn’t count how many Star Wars birthdays I’ve had, how many toys I’ve bought, and how many home video editions of the original trilogy I owned. I’ve even made some of my best friends by challenging them to exceedingly nerdy Star Wars trivia (Q: What was the number of the garbage compactor that nearly killed Han, Luke, and Leia in the first movie? A: If you don’t know it, we aren’t best friends.)
And yet I’ve never seen the original version of Star Wars — a crime that should be punishable by freezing me in Carbonite and shipping me off to an uncertain fate with Boba Fett. But today, it requires nothing shy of an actual quest if you want to find Lucas’s 1977 original, the ur-Star Wars from which the subsequent multi-multi-billion-dollar cultural empire sprang. Lucas has ensured the “original” is a tampered-with version he now sells riven with edits and festooned with computerized effects. To see his original vision, one must dig.
Take, for example, one awful addition to the Special Edition in a scene cut from the 1977 release. Han Solo confronts a human version of Jabba the Hutt in Docking Bay 94. The Falstaffian human actor portraying Jabba in 1977 was replaced by a laughably obvious CGI creation in 1997, worsened only by an even crappier-looking computer enhanced Solo stepping on CG-Jabba’s tail.
The greatest affront came in that Mos Eisley cantina scene. The version I first saw had Solo defending himself, returning fire after that first errant blast. The original version, I later learned, had Solo straight-up blasting this marble-eyed Greedo customer (who, let’s face it, was probably going to kill Solo eventually anyway) and swing out of the cantina like the John Wayne gunslinger his character is set up to be.
The abhorrent CG-Jabba is one thing. Han returning fire was another. No other addition to the original films pissed fans off more. The rallying cry of “Han shot first” became shorthand for fans everywhere who felt betrayed by art that was toned down to be more marketable to parents. George Lucas, one of the richest men in the world, sold out the very people who made him so wealthy.
The rejiggered scene prompts Star Wars geeks to lose their collective s••t, because it fundamentally changes Solo. Through the chintzy reconfiguring that has the bounty hunter shoot at Han first, Lucas removed the moral ambiguity of the morally ambiguous Han Solo. To audiences, and to the character’s personality, it just made no damn sense.
[getpocket.com]
Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.
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Re: Why Finding the Original 1977 ‘Star Wars’ Verges on the Impossible Date: November 24, 2020 07:58AM |
I have it VHS too. Maybe I need to get it copied to something more permanent!
Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.
Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.
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Re: Why Finding the Original 1977 ‘Star Wars’ Verges on the Impossible Date: November 24, 2020 01:09PM |
I have the original on VHS and Laserdisc. I could transfer the VHS but I'm fairly sure the Laserdisc player doesn't work, not even sure if my old VCR works either.
After looking at the instructions into how the get Harmy's version I think I can deal with my DVD I bought. LOL!
[docs.google.com]
Grateful11
After looking at the instructions into how the get Harmy's version I think I can deal with my DVD I bought. LOL!
[docs.google.com]
Grateful11
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Re: Why Finding the Original 1977 ‘Star Wars’ Verges on the Impossible Date: November 24, 2020 01:33PM |
I've had the despecialized editions for a while now and I don't think I've ever watched them. I myself have seen the originals but my daughter has not. Might have to break those out this weekend.
__________________________________
There’s a guy wearing overalls with no shirt.
Which I think we all know is the International uniform for the last guy you’ll ever see.
__________________________________
There’s a guy wearing overalls with no shirt.
Which I think we all know is the International uniform for the last guy you’ll ever see.
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Re: Why Finding the Original 1977 ‘Star Wars’ Verges on the Impossible Date: November 24, 2020 03:35PM |
Quote
Mike Sellers
Quote
macphanatic
I believe that I still have it on VHS. I have it on a dvd that I made from a laserdisc.
Pfffffff!! I have it on a BetaMax tape.
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Re: Why Finding the Original 1977 ‘Star Wars’ Verges on the Impossible Date: November 24, 2020 04:00PM |
AFAIR, Greedo said he'd have to kill Han so Han acted on the threat. Works for me.
Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.
Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.
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