Latest news with #Greedo
The Guardian
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The original Star Wars is back – but what if George Lucas is right about it not being much good?
Cast your mind back, lightsaber-wielding relics of a certain age, to the first time you saw the 1977 theatrical cut of Star Wars. Was it in a cinema, surrounded by gaggles of wide-eyed space cadets astounded by this glittering, laser-blasted disco ball? Or perhaps on a VHS recorded off ITV's small-screen premiere in 1982? Perhaps, if you're under 30, you've never actually seen it, and a Star Wars without crappy CGI Jabbas, Greedo shooting first and gratuitous Tatooine dinosaurs is something you can't even imagine. Maybe you actually think it's called A New Hope, and is a sequel to all those brilliant films about Anakin Skywalker, trade route embargos, and midichlorians. And perhaps you're right. It's so long since we've seen the original version of Star Wars, our collective memories of it as a gritty, charming space western may be nothing more than a mass hallucination. After all, George Lucas – the man who dreamed this whole saga up after falling asleep with his face in a pile of Kurosawa films and Flash Gordon comics – has spent years insisting the 1997 Special Edition is vastly superior. What if … terrifying thought … he's actually right? It would be nice to be able to say that we're about to find out, given news this week that the original cut will be screened this summer in London, in an actual cinema. The reality, of course, is that only a handful of us – is it bad at this point if I publicly beg for a ticket? – will be squeezing into the opening night of the British Film Institute (BFI)'s Film on Film festival on 12 June, when the film will be shown not once but twice. Still, it's a start. There was a time, before Lucas's sale of all things Star Wars to Disney for $4bn in 2012, when the thought of anyone being allowed to see the original cut was as likely as Jar Jar Binks being elected to the Galactic Senate. In the late 1990s, Lucas spent millions on tidying up the audio, adding digital gloss to the model space ships and cleaning up dirt and scratches on the original negative. What we did not realise was that this new edit, with all its preposterous CGI critters, would become the only version anyone would be permitted to view for the next three decades. Some of Lucas's comments – such as in 2004 to the Associated Press, when he said he was 'sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it, but I want it to be the way I want it to be' – were tantamount to gaslighting on a galactic scale. Fans were made to fear that they might one day get to view the original cut again, only to discover to their horror that they somehow preferred the version in which Jabba looks like a melted garden gnome and Han dodges a blaster bolt like he's doing the limbo. All fans really want is a version of the original cut that doesn't disappoint. In June, a lucky few will discover whether Star Wars ever truly needed an update. Perhaps Disney is quietly awaiting the gasps of awe and reverence from the BFI before announcing that the rest of humanity will be granted access to this cinematic holy grail. And honestly, why wouldn't they? Now that the Mouse House has successfully derailed Star Wars's post-Lucas cinematic legacy with a trilogy that concluded with zombie clone Palpatine and the weirdest space romance since Leia snogged her own brother, maybe a 'despecialised' cut of Star Wars is just the thing to revive the saga's box office fortunes. Surely it would be more effective than greenlighting a film in which Daisy Ridley's Rey tediously builds a new generation of Jedi wannabes, or a big-screen TV spin-off in which the Mandalorian teams up with a grizzled supporting character to retrieve a glowing space widget that may or may not explode if frowned at too hard. And if not, well – it would certainly be cheaper.
Forbes
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Star Wars Print From A Long Time Ago To Headline BFI Film Festival
It's not often than minor miracles happen, but the BFI in London seems to have conjured one, with the news that an original print of Star Wars, sans its 'Episode IV' title intro, is to be shown on the opening night of its BFI Film On Film Festival on the 12th of June 2025. According to the BFI, the print, sourced from its own archive, is an 'original, unfaded dye transfer IB Technicolor British release print, with dye transfer being the gold standard for film prints, offering the highest level of color and contrast. I first saw Star Wars on the big screen in a double bill of the first two movies in 1982, and by then, the Episode IV tag had already been added, so this truly is a special opportunity. The received wisdom is that since the release of the special editions in 1997, George Lucas has refused to let the original versions of his first trilogy see the light of day, with Disney seemingly maintaining that stance. However, there are exceptions. The original unaltered versions of all three movies were officially released by Lucasfilm in 2006 as part of a DVD box set (albeit in widescreen non-anamorphic format), while a 70mm print of the original, unaltered version was shown at an Academy Awards event in 2019 — reportedly with George Lucas's approval. However, this was a very exclusive, one-off event, so the BFI's claim that this is the first screening of the unaltered original in decades is accurate. In my opinion, most of the 'special' additions to A New Hope are acceptable. Still, the one that has always really bugged me the most isn't the infamous 'Greedo shot first' incident in the Cantina, but the scene that closely follows where Han talks to Jabba the Hutt with Boba Fett lurking in the background. As the scene was originally unfinished, most of Jabba's dialogue was given to Greedo in the earlier scene. By adding it back in, we hear almost the same lines again, rendering its inclusion narratively pointless. And while the CGI Jabba faced criticism (requiring it to be redone for the 2004 DVD release), for me, what's worse is that his presence in this first film lessens the impact of finally seeing him in Return of the Jedi. Returning to the BFI film festival, things will close on a high with Kyle MacLachlan presenting the 1990 TV pilot episode of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, a television show considered to be far ahead of its time. Other highlights include an IMAX 70mm presentation of 2001: A Space Odyssey, a print created under the supervision of Christopher Nolan. I saw this print at the London Science Museum's Ronson Theatre in 2023, but, somewhat surprisingly, this is the first time that it has been presented on the BFI's flagship IMAX screen. Kubrick fans can also see a film print of his 1956 film The Killing and his first short, The Day Of The Fight (1951). There's also a chance to see classics such as Local Hero (1983) and 70mm prints of Amadeus (1984) and Empire Of The Sun (1988). The festival weekend will also include workshops, talks, and free events, with the chance to hear from expert voices from the BFI's conservation, curatorial and projection teams. Tickets for the BFI Film on Film Festival are on sale from the following times and dates: BFI Patrons – Tuesday 6 May (from 12:00) BFI Members – Wednesday 7 May (from 12:00) General sale – Friday 9 May (from 12:00)
The Independent
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Original cut of Star Wars to get rare screening at BFI
The second edition of the British Film Institutions (BFI)'s Film on Film festival is due to take place in London this summer with a memorable opening night for Star Wars fans. Director George Lucas's original cut of Star Wars, which was released in 1977, has rarely been shown in public since he produced special editions of the trilogy in the 1990s, complete with new CGI characters and other controversial alterations that fans remain frustrated with. Examples of some unpopular changes include the CGI addition of the giant slug-like Jabba the Hutt, who originally was not seen on screen until the final film in the original trilogy, 1983's Return of the Jedi. Fans also opposed the change to the scene in which Harrison Ford's Han Solo originally shot the bounty hunter Greedo dead in the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine. The 1997 special edition version was edited so that Greedo fires first to give Solo more justification for acting in self-defence. But the scene has since undergone further revisions, with the two firing at nearly the same time, then finally at the exact same time. In 2004, Lucas told the Associated Press that he was 'sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it, but I want it to be the way I want it to be'. Film on Film will present Star Wars exactly as experienced by audiences on its original release on the big screen. The original cut can only be accessed legitimately by means of an out-of-print VHS release or a low resolution DVD bonus feature from 2006. James Bell, senior curator of fiction at the BFI National Archive, said: 'One of the ambitions of the BFI Film on Film Festival is to screen original release prints that transport audiences back to the moment a film was first released. He added: 'In the case of Star Wars, the festival screening is a unique opportunity to present the film to audiences in exactly the same form as they would have watched it in 1977.' Some other films that will be screened at the festival include early Stanley Kubrick classics such as Day of the Fight (1951) and The Killing (1956) as well as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). This year's Film on Film festival is set to take place between 12-15 June at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX.
