Original 1977 Version of Star Wars Screened

A long-lost print of 1977’s Star Wars that was recovered from an archive was screened during an event at The British Film Institute.

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This print is one of the few original Technicolor prints still in existence. Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy herself confirmed it may be the only one of its kind. According to film records, December 1978 was the last time this print of the original Star Wars movie was ever shown to the public. This was the film print that had the world lined up around the block to see.

An audience was finally able to screen the first very first released version of the film — nearly perfectly preserved and unfaded — that creator George Lucas famously suppressed from being publicly shown in decades.

“What you’re going to see is in fact the first print, and I’m not even sure there’s another one quite like it,” Kennedy said. “It’s that rare.”

The last official wide release of the original trilogy happened in 1995. That ad campaign was “See the original versions, one last time.” But those VHS releases were not really the original versions of Star Wars either. George Lucas began tweaking the sound mix of the film almost right away. When he re-released Star Wars after The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas added in the “Episode IV: A New Hope” title to the opening crawl. That didn’t exist until 1981. The version shown at the upcoming film festival is simply “Star Wars.”

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George Lucas famously felt that the unaltered original versions of the Star Wars movie, particularly of the first film, was never really finished. Lucas later said the original Star Wars movie, “The Special Edition, that’s the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it’s on VHS, if anybody wants it. I’m not going to spend the — we’re talking millions of dollars here — the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw a half-completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I’m the one who has to take responsibility for it. I’m the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they’re going to throw rocks at me, they’re going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished.”

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To Star Wars fans like me, the unaltered, original Star Wars films are a part of history. Star Wars the 1977, in particular was the film I seen in the back of my parent’s car at 100 Twin Drive In, Minnesota back in 1978.

For this particular BFI screening, Kathleen Kennedy went out of her way to assure the audience that the one shown is approved and it’s not an illegal screening.

Kennedy said, “I’m here to legitimize this and make sure that you don’t think that this is an illegal screening.” She went on to share, “It’s incredible folklore. I have to say even when I came into the company…there was endless conversation about what was in fact the first print. What you’re going to see is, in fact, the first print. And I’m not even sure there’s another one quite like it. It’s that rare. There’s so much tinkering that’s gone on over the years. And things that George decided, ‘I’m going to change this, I’m going to try that,’ and everyone kind of lost track of the original.”

“We’re not saying come and see this on a film print as part of nostalgia,” said James Bell, a senior curator of fiction at the British Film Institute National Archive and the programming director of the festival. “We’re saying there’s a real qualitative, aesthetic difference to seeing a film projected on a film print. I think that’s exciting to anyone, whether you’re a Star Wars fan or not.”

May the force be with you…

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Chad Stevens is a freelance writer who has contributed to StarWarsNewsNet.com, MovieNewsNet.com, Outerplaces.com, Nerdist, and more. Follow me on X @RealChadStevens to talk Star Wars, Star Trek, Apple Computers, politics and more.