Disney Is Still Pretending The OG Star Wars Movies Don’t Exist
A recent Star Wars special on Disney+ uses footage from The Empire Strikes Back special edition, showing that Disney still avoids the theatrical cuts.
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The theatrical cuts of the Star Wars original trilogy are highly sought-after by fans, yet Disney still pretends that they don’t exist. The original Star Wars trilogy was re-released in 1997 with numerous subtle and overt changes, making them somewhat controversial among fans. While some could argue that updated special effects, certain additional scenes (such as Luke reuniting with Biggs or various planets celebrating the Empire’s defeat), and connections to then-canonical Legends-era content improved the Star Wars films, other changes were met with disdain from viewers. Changes like Greedo and Han Solo’s revised standoff, the additional Jabba scene in A New Hope, and Vader’s dialogue when turning on the Emperor, were detrimental to their respective films, making the unaltered versions preferred by many fans.
The original Star Wars trilogy had several additional iterations that built off of the foundation of the 1997 re-release, and in 2006, Lucasfilm finally gave the theatrical cuts a limited DVD release as bonus features to the 2004 DVD editions. Unsurprisingly to some, the original trilogy was revised once more upon being released on Disney+, with more subtle changes building off of the 2011 Blu-Ray edition. Though fans still hope to see the theatrical cuts released by Disney, they have yet to resurface since the 2006 DVDs.
In preparation for the upcoming TV series, The Book of Boba Fett, Disney released the short special Under the Helmet: The Legacy of Boba Fett, which explored the origins and history of the fan-favorite bounty hunter in both canon and Legends. Early in the special, footage from The Empire Strikes Back plays, with Boba being voiced by Temuera Morrison. Starting with the 2004 DVD edition, all special editions of Empire have used Morrison’s voice instead of Jason Wingreen’s (Boba’s original voice actor). When exploring the history of Boba Fett, Disney’s choice to only use his new voice indicates that they’re continuing to ignore the theatrical cuts of the original trilogy.
While older Star Wars fans may have become accustomed to Wingreen’s raspy and sinister performance as Fett in Empire, the revelation that Boba is the clone “son” of Jango Fett (played by Temuera Morrison in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones) made the change necessary for the sake of continuity. Boba became a bounty hunter like his father and considering that he’s a clone of Jango, retroactively recasting his voice actor makes sense. Still, the omission of Wingreen’s lines was odd in a brief special that covered much of the character’s on-screen history.
Under the Helmet explored Boba’s real-world origins, from his San Anselmo Country Fair parade debut to his animated appearance in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. The Holiday Special is notorious for never having an official release, outside of the animated segment on Disney+; yet, Under the Helmet includes brief footage of the special’s live-action portions, indicating that Disney has access to it and is choosing not to release the special in its entirety.
This appears to be the case for the original trilogy theatrical cuts as well. Disney has owned Lucasfilm for almost a decade, yet there aren’t any known plans of releasing the unaltered cuts of the original Star Wars films. Since its rebranding as Legends in 2014, the Star Wars franchise also tried to distance itself from the Expanded Universe for a time but released several notable Legends TV shows and movies on Disney+ in early 2021. If Legends content could be re-released, including a portion of the Holiday Special, perhaps Disney will acknowledge the theatrical versions of the original Star Wars trilogy and release them someday.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/star-wars-movies-theatrical-cuts-special-editions-disney/