It's quite possible - perhaps even probable - that I never saw this movie in the theatre until the 1997 Special Edition. I was a little too young to see it the first time around, and so it was The Empire Strikes Back that provided my definitive Star Wars theatre-going experience.
Star Wars, therefore, was all about rental, TV, and eventually Laserdisc viewings until that fateful release of 1997. No need to get too much into the wild tweaking that Lucas did to his movies (I'll just say that I don't think I've ever heard the life get sucked out of an audience quite like the reaction to the Greedo edit), and after he decided to release only the Special Edition versions from that point onwards, I was pretty pleased to be in possession of the earlier cuts.
I was very surprised when Lucas deigned to provide a bonus disc on the above DVD set featuring the original 1977 theatrical release just, I suppose, to shut the angry fans up. I do love that he went truly original in its presentation: it's not anamorphic, nor does it have surround sound - it's pulled straight from 1977 and slapped onto a disc.
And the thing is, after viewing it with my son we agreed that anyone who watches this and their takeaway is that the effects are either poor or incomplete are just flat-out missing the whole point (you might actually be the only one, George Lucas). I can't think of a single augmented effect in any edition that improves upon the telling of the story.
It's just a beautiful film.
No comments:
Post a Comment