I give the side-eye to people who call it “A New Hope” or “Episode IV.”
I really want someone to interview Lucas and when he starts complaining tell him, “Grow up. They are Disney’s movies, not yours.”
(George said this to fans restoring the original Star Wars without his edits.)
What I love is when he starts claiming that this or that change was part of his original vision. Like claiming he always wanted Greedo to shoot first, which is not reflected in any draft of the script before shooting or the shooting script or the memory of the actor who played Greedo.
Dude lies so often he doesn’t even think people will check.
Maybe he wanted to change it as soon as he saw it in editing but couldn’t afford reshoots.
Maybe, but that’s not what he said.
vision != script
Sorry… you’re saying he envisioned Greedo shooting first, never wrote it into any of the drafts and never filmed it? Why would that be?
Also that poster must not have seen the original edit. Before his ex wife got involved. It’s barely recognizeable. I sat down and watched the whole thing years ago, and it is practically a totally different story.
There’s a cut before Marcia Lucas got her hands on it? Do you know where I can find it?
Like I said, it’s been years but it’s likely on archive.org somewhere. From searching, it may be referred to as “Star Wars The Lost Cut.” It was rough like entire scenes only voiced with storyboard for the visuals, but some of the scenes that are there clearly weren’t in the released version.
Wasn’t it always called “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope?”
I never got to see it originally in the 70’s due to not being born yet, but I had seen it long before the special edition changes made in the '97 release. It was always something even my dad, who did see the original release, joked about. “Where is episodes 1 through 3?”
Nope. It was originally just Star Wars.
George Lucas (who lies all the time) claims he always planned for it to be Episode IV, but that introduction was only added when it was re-released
beforeafter The Empire Strikes Back came out… and when people initially saw it, they laughed.Edit: Got the chronology wrong
The best star wars was when George didn’t have total control, the first movie was saved in the editing room
He divorced that editor, so she couldn’t save his bacon later.
LOL! Lucas is petty, but that’s not WHY he divorced her.
She wanted to leave, but he made sure she got ziltch from Star Wars as a result.
I didn’t say that’s why he divorced her
Well I’ll be damned. TIL!
Although even if he did plan it to be “episode IV…” WHY START AT 4?! lol
Partly because it fit in with the whole idea of being a modern Flash Gordon serial, where you drop in partway through the story. I think it worked pretty well, personally.
Unfortunately, all of his references to old Republic serials (especially the wipes) go over the head of most audiences and even did in 1977. He’s a better movie nerd than he is a director in my opinion.
The wipes are glorious.
It’s one thing they preserved in the prequels (at least, the ones I watched) that I appreciated.
It’s just too bad people don’t understand that and other serial references, because I think Lucas wanted people to get it.
Because he outlined the story from the events of Phantom Menace all the way to Return of the Jedi before the first movie even went into production.
Then he decided to tell the second part of the story first, THEN realized the script was too long for even that and split it into three movies.
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to commit the whole story to film, so he thought the introduction of Vader’s son and the destruction of the super weapon was the most important part and was able to stand up on its own.
When he realized he could actually finish the second act of the story, he surprised the viewing audience by calling Empire Strikes Back “Episode V” and retroactively calling Star Wars “Episode IV A New Hope”.
Yeah, I’m completely convinced that this story is all just Lucas retconning his career.
Based on how documented the prequel are I can see he pen a story outline but didn’t have it funny figured out. So when he did get to write the script, he actually figured out the actual stories, and I’m sure the story changed in his head over the 3 decades of working on the 6 movies.
Maybe, maybe not - but I do remember the review of “Return of the Jedi” in my teenage magazine from 1983/84, where indeed they quoted Lucas as saying that there would be 9 movies in total. I think there was even mention of 3 prequels, but it’s been 40 years so… I might be wrong on that.
He did say that by 1983, yes.
When did they change it? When was empire called episode 5?
Yep. When it was re-released after Empire.
Am I misremembering? I saw it when it came out and I thought the film had a title card that said Episode IV and everybody in the theater laughed at that. Sometimes different cuts of a movie get released in different areas.
1981: In April, Star Wars was re-released, with the addition of the subtitles “Episode IV” and “A New Hope” added to the opening crawl.[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases#Release_history
Makes sense. I saw the re-release and just merged the two in my brain.
Nope. Not until many years later. Hell it was only ONE movie until it took over the world and people could not get enough of it, so everyone and their dog begged Lucas to make more.
Then ya boi’s all “oh it was always going to be a trilogy” yeah yeah okay George. “And it was always meant to have three prequels which would” George, shutup a minute - firstly there’s no such word as prequel, so - anyway.
Look, you mashed up Metropolis and Dune on a whim and got solid gold, why not leave it alone? Money. Right. Of course. Ah well.
I’d say it’s closer to A Princess of Mars than Dune and that Dune also owes a lot to A Princess of Mars.
But the Pellucidar books have that mix of different aliens that instantly grabbed people with Star Wars.
Han doesn’t shoot first. Han is the only one who shoots. In the original Greedo never fires a shot.
And it works so much better that way. Lucas decided at some point to remove all moral ambiguity from all of his characters and it’s nuts.
Based. I hate “Han shot first.” Greedo couldn’t get a shot off. I grew up on the “face” editions. The box VHS set.
You can shoot first and last, so it’s technically still correct.
Not MY Star Wars:
As far as I’m concerned, that was a scene with a different Jabba, a big Irish guy in a fur coat. But it wasn’t in the movie, so it doesn’t matter.
It was better without Jabba, leaves the buildup for later.
Agreed, but then if you watch the movies in chronological order, which I think is what the expectation is at this point, absolutely none of the buildup in any of the original trilogy matters.
Best I’ve heard, if you’re watching the originals, is to watch them as 4,5,1,2,3,6 - the logic being that you don’t spoil the big revel and 1-3 are like a flashback to see how we got to “now”.
Then skip 7-9.
7 is fine, it’s just a rehashing of 1 for a new generation. It just needs to be followed up with a “and then Poochie died on his way home to his planet” single animation cell that explains what happened to Luke.
The end.
Precisely. If Lucas didn’t bother to retain that actor/character for ROTJ, then it never happened.
I agree. That said, this fan did a ‘fix’ of the version with Jabba in a pretty ingenious way.
Ok, now that’s clever and reasonable. More evidence that Lucas has always needed outside voices and not just “yes men” to reign things in.
I just read this on Wikipedia about CG Jabba (apparently) being upgraded for a 2004 DVD release from the 1997 “special” edition-
ScreenCrush later reflected that the 2004 version “was an improvement, but only in the way that nausea is an improvement over vomit”.
I love it.
NEW Holo Jabba FIX | Episode IV A New Hope 4K Edit.
😏
Yeah, well… kids today…
This was such a stupid, stupid scene. Like all the other “humor” scenes he started injecting.
Jabba’s way too small. And there’s no way in hell he’d let him just stomp on his tail like that. And…sigh.
The humor basically had to be added to the scene, otherwise Han would have stepped through Jabba’s tail. It’s a shot that is blocked just fine if you shot it with a big Irish guy who didn’t have a tail.
On my Jellyfin server I edited that part out along with most of the bad graphics.
I just got a copy of the Despecialized edition.
My editing actually was pretty successful but I can’t get rid of the dumb animal that walks in front of the camera when they are stopped by storm troopers.
Too bad they want you to get it from Usenet. I can’t really justify paying for that for just one movie.
https://archive.org/details/05-star.-wars.-4-k-77.1080p.no-dnr.-35mm.x-264-v-1.0-et-hd
Can’t verify at this point as it seems the site is down.
Damn it, it was down most of yesterday too. Thanks, I’ll keep trying it.
The file size was ridiculously huge, but I found a torrent which was of a size I can actually handle on my drive.
You’re ridiculously huge /s
True, but I was also be able to find 4K80 and 4K83, so it was worth it, even though each one is still like 6 gigs for 1080p.
Also, I’m watching 4K77 right now. The most interesting thing is how the film grain changes from scene to scene depending on where they were shot.
Hope you enjoy them (seriously)
I enjoyed it quite a bit, thanks!
You know what I thought was funny though? The effect when Han shoots Greedo is just a big explosion. There’s no blaster bolt. Just EXPLOSION- Greedo falls over.
So maybe neither of them shot first, Greedo just spontaneously combusted.
The ultra rare laserdisc version is holy grail
Harmy’s despecalized edition FTW.
Picard: “Original film reel transfers.”
Scotty looks surprised
Picard: “Who do you think gave them to Guinan?”
Would be funny if the last panel had George Lucas in the turbolift with a knife
Someone make it so.
And no Jabba in the Hangar either!
That definitely makes more sense, other than him reacting to Han “walking over his tail”
That’s the worst one because the dialogue is almost one to one the same as the scene prior.
I believe you are being what RPG circles call a “grognard”
Brilliant meme btw. Cheers.
Not mine, to be clear. I saw it elsewhere.
Copy that.
I think that’s what he did.
does the computer have access to the original release? or is this thanks to one of the restoration/preservation projects?
Did Lucas actually add to or change anything about the movie for the 1981 re-release with “Episode IV: A New Hope” other than just the title scroll?
The Wikipedia article I linked doesn’t say so. I don’t think he made any major changes until the Special Editions.
Not the remastered version
