The original trilogy of Star Wars films, spearheaded by George Lucas were critical and commercial successes. However, in 1997 Lucas released the “Special Edition” of the films for the trilogy’s 20th anniversary, which featured extensive changes to the original theatrical cuts.
The original cuts have since become scarce. However, a group of Star Wars fans, known as Team Negative One have reportedly almost completely digitally restored the original cuts in 4K using 35-millimeter prints of the original trilogy.
The project is headed by Robert Williams, who along with his team have spent almost a decade restoring the films.
“They’re not really upset that he made the changes, because some of them are pretty cool and actually make the films better. They’re really upset that he didn’t also release the original version alongside it. Just put two discs in the box. We’d have been happy.”
Williams made the above statement to The New York Times, explaining the motivation behind preserving the original cuts of the trilogy. However, the publication also noted that Team Negative One’s activities were not authorized as they worked with film reels meant to be destroyed or returned. Hence, the legality of Team Negative One’s restored versions of the original trilogy is questionable.
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Given Lucas’ strong feelings about the Special Editions, it is evident that the filmmaker would be unhappy with fans trying to preserve the original cuts, which he referred to as “rough drafts” in the past.
According to reports, Lucas allegedly voiced his disappointment with fans demanding a high-resolution release of the original cuts in the following words:
“Grow up. These are my movies, not yours.”
Similarly, when the National Film Registry aimed to preserve 1977’s Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope), Lucas reportedly refused to provide them with a copy of the original theatrical release.
Lucas stated that he would no longer authorize the original version’s release, reaffirming that he did not intend for the audience to view the theatrical cuts. After Disney acquired the franchise, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy also stated that Lucas’s changes to the theatrical cuts would remain untouched. Hence, it is safe to say that Lucas would certainly be unhappy with fans still trying to preserve the original cuts.
You know George, they really aren’t very good films. I don’t want the originals because they were good, I want the originals because those afternoons spent sitting in the theater in 1977 (and 1980, and 1983) were memorable experiences for me, and the original cuts evoke those times in a visceral way.
It’s not about seeing “your” movies, it’s about reliving parts of my youth the way I remember them. These are my memories, not yours. Grow up.
Depends on the measuring stick, I’d say.
On some, sure, might fall short. On others, it blows most other movies out of the water.
I agree with the sentiment of your last sentence.
in celebration of May the 4th I’ve been rewatching the originals and the prequels - and the writing in both is uh, surprisingly bad. Set designs, costumes, world building, and the overall presentation are amazing! but the dialogue and motivations are sometimes downright laughable. It feels like George had a great idea of the key plot points but then instead of writing a story to fill in the gaps he opted to put in 3-4 action sequences where the plot should’ve been, so now the story goes from “hmm the jedi council are acting odd towards me, i’m starting to question their motives” to “i need to kill children to defeat death because this clearly evil guy told me so” within a single scene. I know prequels are a cheap shot but this extreme example highlights the issue rather well
don’t get me wrong, i still like star wars! but i don’t watch those movies for the writing lmao
I think my second favorite thing about Star Wars is the moment in Luke’s hero’s journey when he goes from knight on an adventure to learning to forgive the most hated man in the galaxy when he’s standing on the walkway with Vader after he surrenders in rotj. I’m not saying he’s Shakespeare but he has some good ideas.
Lucas’s talent is in big ideas, great concepts, how a story might fit together, not in silly details!
He should be like, a director or something…
(It is funny though that his actual profession so clearly impacts his writing)
this is exactly why it’s rare for directors to also have written the script for the movies they direct in the filmmaking world - it’s easy to get married to your idea and fall flat on the execution, because who is going to tell you to stop? The only people that could are producers - but they don’t really care about the writing either, just the money to be made, and if “ehh” writing got George that far then the second Star Wars became a thing he got full immunity from criticism
Probably someone reminded him of lengths and whatnot and that Vader is evil and whatnot and instead of doing a bit of rewriting for the earlier parts, George pivoted hard, haha. Or cut out a third of the movie.
As far as cinematic technical works go, they’re pretty good
As far as a serious story/plot go, they’re terrible
As far as schlocky Sci-Fi go, nothing beats the original trilogy, but the second trilogy is just as schlocky but with a higher budget