British Film Institute to Publicly Screen Star Wars‘ Original Cut for First Time in Decades

We may be coming up on nearly 30 years since George Lucas first remixed the original Star Wars trilogy in the special editions, but despite years of rumors and hopes, it’s still been a very, very long time since public access to the original theatrical cuts of A New Hope (or rather simply Star Wars as it was back then), Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi was readily available. But now, for one night in the UK at least, that’s going to change. This morning the British Film Institute announced that its second Film on Film Festival, celebrating the medium of print film itself, will be headlined by the first public screening of one of a handful of remaining dye transfer IB Technicolor prints made for Star Wars‘ original release in the UK in produced for the first British release in December 1977, and since kept for preservation in the Institute’s national film archive. The screening, which will take place on the festival’s opening night on June 12, marks one of the first times th ... Read full article.