I'm sure my dad saw a bunch of books and toys and bubblegum cards from some movie he'd never seen and thought I'd have no interest in these things anymore now that I was an adult. His generation didn't collect anything from their childhood except maybe baseball cards.
There were many brief shots added to several films that I wouldn’t qualify as “scenes,” but I would definitely count Biggs on Yavin as a restored deleted scene. If you’re counting replaced scenes, I’d list the remade Ewok celebration as similarly prominent.
In case one or two people don't know the story of the Great Star Wars Re-edit, this video does a great job of showing why the film had almost zero Biggs content and completely removed British model Koo Stark's scenes.
I was not counting replacements but good point, I forgot about the earlier Biggs scene. That's what I get for mainly watching the despecialized versions
Fascinating! I wasn't aware of the climactic Death Star scenes being manufactured via clever editing and transposition.
Yes, the problem was that if they didn't succeed in destroying the Death Star there would be no immediate consequences. If they failed, maybe they could come back a month later and try to destroy it again (assuming they didn't fix the flaw). Lucas went through countless script revisions and shot the entire film oblivious that there was no real tension in the attack on the Death Star other than Luke getting killed. If I remember right, no one mentioned this problem during the views of his rough cut. His wife who edited the film came up with the idea that it was coming for the rebel base and they had to destroy it to survive, then they added the off-screen dialog to explain this. Incredibly there was a tense scene about where the rebel base was and Lucas never thought of sending the Death Star destroy it. I kind of like the early Biggs scenes. They vaguely refer to Vietnam and show that Luke is clueless about what the Empire is really doing, but it's clear how they were dragging the film down in the beginning. I liked that by removing them, Luke is introduced as a completely random nobody instead of focusing on him from the first scene of the film.
I agree re: the Biggs cut. As a pretty big (but not obsessive or highly knowledgeable SW fan), I always assumed that the Death Star was the Big Stick plot device to spur on the action of the first film, and its imminent threat what impelled the Rebellion's urgency to get the plans and mount a counterattack post-haste. Kudos to Marcia Lucas for driving those eventual decisions!
I agree! She's snarky and fun and sexy in her couple of minutes of deleted scenes. There's lots that I like in those scenes and I wish they had found some way to incorporate them without cutting to them in the middle of the action-packed beginning of the film which blew everyone away. Maybe putting the scene of Biggs talking to Luke about defecting to the rebels after the droids had landed on Tatooine and the action was over? As I grew up I began to like the light weight political aspects of the story like the Empire being a military dictatorship that overthrew a monarchy.
None of the scenes added in to the special editions actually improved any of the films and indeed in some cases made them a lot worse (the song in Jabba's palace is atrocious). Whoever was in charge initially got their decisions right.
I had the novelization - credited to George Lucas, though I think someone else actually wrote it (Alan Dean Foster?). Biggs is in the story, and the 8 pages of photos from the film included the shot of Biggs and Luke pictured in the YouTube link.
The novelization must have been written before the final edit of the film was finished. It's great for obsessive fans to have since it offers a somewhat different narrative but for my money, the final edit is a superior story.
Novelizations are often written from the script and, sometimes, concept art, as the film itself is usually still in production. This is a reason why novelizations can be interesting, though it's never clear if an addition to the story is the result of a cut (or unfilmed) scene, or the writer's imagination. The novelization of Raiders of the Lost Ark has a few interesting scenes not in the film (Indy's visit to Tibet includes a journey through China with the help of a local friend who isn't in the film at all).
I think The Story of Star Wars was also put together before the final cut of the film. It has a few photos of Luke and Biggs talking with text explaining who he was. I'm tempted to buy a copy off of eBay now.
I still have this book! And yes, I can confirm the Biggs and Luke photo. Bought on holiday in Blackpool, if I remember correctly.
That's a good piece of bad acting and scripting, I am glad it didn't make it to the movie. Now they need to remove the garbage added in the 90's and we can enjoy the movie again.
The novel was written long before the film was finished. Believe it or not, it was first published in November 1976, six months before the movie premiered, so it obviously had to have been written, edited, and printed even before that. (And yes, it was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster.) Meanwhile, the film was still getting minor edits the week it was released—there are a handful of differences between the Dolby Surround version released in May 1977 and the mono version released in June.
Which video are we to believe, the first, the second or are they both nonsense? Is this just a case of a juvenile confrontation?
The 2nd is far more accurate but it is infinitely more juvenile and petty to a ridiculously unnecessary degree.
Thanks! That's the impression I was getting. Does this mean though that the first one is to be considered disposable?
Mark Hamill said he couldn't believe Lucas was calling him back to do some trivial redubs of dialog after millions of people had already seen the movie.
Pretty much. Nevertheless, sure wish the author of that video wouldn't have had the maturity of a 12-year old. Pretty painful to listen to him as a result of that.
For instance, the author of the 2h long video spends quite some time ranting about the other video's author stating C3P0 being on the ground with wires all over him where the scene initially was is an awkward place for a joke. It's an opinion that differs from his own so in typical 2023 fashion, he just mocks the other's opinion, as if any opinion differing from his own has got to be stupid. Immediately afterward, he complains the other author has opinions that aren't backed up by facts. That makes no sense whatsoever as opinions are subjective and shouldn't rely in facts to be had... as they are opinions. I could make a 2h video in the same vein mocking this stuff. Pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate it, too. Those types rarely do. They can dish it out but can't take it.
