The Digital Bits had an update this morning on the whole Star Wars thing:

Well, shit.

I do not understand — and I will never understand — why one of the great landmarks of cinema history continues to be neglected like this. When I consider the efforts that’ve been made over the years to find an intact print of Metropolis, a 90-year-old silent movie that’s hugely important but which few members of the general public have even heard of, and make sure even that is available for the serious film-history buffs who desire it, the Star Wars situation simply doesn’t make sense to me.

Now, I can hear some of you muttering under your breath, “Ah, Bennion, not this again. The Special Editions really aren’t all that different, and I actually think they’re better in some ways.” I totally disagree, but hey, if that’s your honest feeling, who am I to tell you you’re wrong about something you enjoy watching? It completely misses the point of my argument, though: It wasn’t the revisionist, CGI-filled SEs that had the greatest impact on our culture, or that revolutionized the American film industry. Those are the versions we ought to be celebrating, preserving… and marketing. By rights, the Special Editions ought to be viewed as a novelty, just an interesting experiment, like when Coppola cut all of his Godfather movies into chronological order back in 1992 or whenever that was. But certainly that was never intended as an outright replacement for the originals… and today it’s The Godfather Trilogy: 1901-1980 that’s hard to find, not the theatrical cuts.

Some people have told me that it’s only a small minority of older Star Wars fans who actually care about this, that it would be a niche market at best. Maybe so. But it can’t be that small of a niche, or there wouldn’t be so much interest in bootlegged “fan preservations,” and there wouldn’t have been so much excitement generated by yesterday’s rumor, however short-lived it turned out to be. There is money to be made on a home-video re-release of the pre-1997 editions, and there is artistic and cultural value in such a release, I’m convinced of it. But evidently the bean counters at Disney feel otherwise.

At least it’s been confirmed that the negative trims from the original cuts are still around. I never did believe Lucas’ claims that the original negatives no longer existed in any form. Maybe in another 50 years, when the children of the ’70s are dead and gone, our cultural priorities will have evolved enough that someone will see the value in reconstructing the historically significant editions of the trilogy. And they will wonder what in the hell was the matter with George Lucas and the Disney executives and all those casual fans who just didn’t appreciate what they had…

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Turning to happier matters, long-time readers of this blog know that one of my personal holy grails — the Grail, actually — is getting the pre-Special Edition versions of the original Star Wars trilogy on some kind of high-definition home video format. Of course, an official DVD or Blu-Ray is no longer strictly necessary in order to enjoy the Star Wars films I grew up with in modern presentation standards. The notorious Despecialized Edition bootlegs are nearly as good to my eye as any studio-made disc, and for the absolute purists, the Silver Screen Edition — which was scanned from an actual film print that predates the appending of “Episode IV: A New Hope” to the title — is reputed to be the closest thing to the 1977 experience you’re going to get, short of commandeering a passing time machine. But even so, I still want an official, studio-sanctioned Blu-Ray that I can buy, hold in my hands, and display on my video shelf, simply as a matter of principle. I want to see the historically significant versions of these films, the ones that started this whole crazy pop-cultural juggernaut and completely reinvented how movies are made and marketed, and even what kinds of movies get made… the versions that are supposed to be enshrined in the Library of Congress but reside there in name only because of George Lucas’ obstinacy… I want those versions of the Star Wars trilogy re-legitimized after decades of being denigrated and suppressed by the own creator. I know this desire isn’t entirely rational, and that a dwindling number of people care or even know the difference anymore… but what can I say? We all have our quirks.

When I first heard a few years ago that Disney was acquiring Lucasfilm, my very first thought was that maybe the new corporate overlords would see the profit potential in giving those “early drafts” (as George took to calling them) the respect they deserve. Since then, rumors of a Blu-Ray release have come and gone every six months or so, and none have come to fruition. Today, another round of rumors sprang up… only this time, it seems there might actually be something to them.

The website Making Star Wars is reporting that a number of sources have said the unaltered original trilogy will be re-released this year in celebration of the first film’s 40th anniversary. I’m not familiar with Making Star Wars, and the site’s editor-in-chief stressed in his post that this is entirely unconfirmed, but I’m told this site has a good track record with these things, i.e., the rumors it reports usually turn out to be true.

My own go-to source of information on these things, The Digital Bits, had this to say:

One thing we do know for sure is that Lucasfilm has a new 4K scan of that original version of the film. That was essentially confirmed back in December by Rogue One director Gareth Edwards (as we reported here). The original theatrical version must exist – even if what Edwards saw was a 4K-updated version of the latest Special Edition (as was later tweeted by Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo), the company would still have needed to make a full 4K scan of the original theatrical film elements as a starting point to produce it….

 

IF this is going to happen, the timeframe for the release would perhaps [be] May for a theatrical re-issue and November-ish for a disc release, in time for Black Friday shopping and prior to the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in theaters. And the place it’s likely to be officially announced would be the Star Wars Celebration convention in Orlando (April 13-16). So we should know more soon.

As I said, these rumors seem to surface quite regularly, and I’m trying very hard not to get my hopes up. I really don’t want to become a fanboy Charlie Brown, certain that this time he’s really going to connect with that damn football. However… the pieces all fit, I think. If there’s one thing Disney knows how to do, it’s capitalizing on the older assets of its film library… which now includes the Star Wars saga. And the 40th anniversary is a perfect opportunity to do something like a Blu-Ray box set. I’ve got my wallet out and ready, if it happens, even if I also have to buy all the dreaded Special Edition variants to get the versions I prefer. I’ve done that before with Blade Runner and Close Encounters, so what the hey. And if Lucy yanks the football away again, well, I’ll always have my bootlegs and my righteous indignation.

That said, I’ve got to be honest… I’ve got a good feeling about this. Maybe the Force will be with us old-timers for a change!

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