I have to say—if he only wants 100% legal versions—the 2006 bonus DVDs (GOUT) are pretty much what was in cinemas in the early 80s. And even the 35mm and 70mm prints in 1977 differed at least in the sound mix.
And the fanedit/despeacialized editions are hard to not find on the internet. I would not call that “Deep Web” :-/
Even after searching a bit for alternate version of the prequels I never knew there were so much effort and rereleases of the original trilogy. And the more they do the worse it gets... Seriously FOX and Disney should just let the original print out.
Impressive team effort. Near, perfect. I hope they can find new sources. Some times I wish I could digitize the '90 FOX box set Vader brought home. If the tapes are still in working order.
Same here. The Episode IV laserdisc is almost as close as you can easily get to unedited, and even that version has edits. But the two biggies, "Han Shot First" and the stormtrooper that whacks his head walking through a doorway are there.
I find The Han Solo Shot First Issue very interesting because it plays with how significant Star Wars is.
At this point, no one can be surprised by the movies. In particular, everyone knows that Han Solo is one of the good guys, from the beginning.
That wasn't true when it was first released. At the point of the encounter with Greedo, the audience doesn't know if Han is going to be a traitor. Chewbacca is more menacing than ever on his first scenes, and Han is definitively a shady character.
Now, all that doesn't make sense. We know Han (and Chewie) to be the "good guys", even if we never saw the movies. We can't be surprised by then...
Similar stuff happens with Yoda appareance and Vader revelation. They are plots that we know in advance, effectively changing the movie experience...
I may be in the minority, but despite some groan worthy aditions (jaba the hut in mos-isley, stupid busy backgrouds), I thought the special additions looked and sounded better.
The minor changes to the story didn't upset me. Han is totally getting his gun ready, but looks lamer because he survives on luck (missed shot).
There are photos from a couple scenes described in my StarWars Story book (from the 70s) that just aren't in the movie, so maybe the whole thing was a little shaky to me anyway.
The special edition VHS tapes from the 90's are unedited from the original. It's surprising he didn't have them if he was such a big fan of the re-release since they came out close to that time.
