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Lost Star Wars Footage Found On LaserDisc
drxenos writes "A LaserDisc purchased on eBay was found to contain raw footage from Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi. From the article: 'The origin of the LaserDisc isn't entirely clear, but it was purchased for $699 off eBay, apparently once used to demonstrate Lucasfilm's EditDroid station — one of the first digital film editing systems sold nearly 30 years ago. Ironically, George Lucas himself never used EditDroid to make a movie; the Star Wars clips were loaded simply to show off its capabilities to prospective buyers.'"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV_-oGZ0U1k
The BBC is still looking.
It turns out these *are* the EditDroids we're looking for!
I am officially gone from
Since it was not a part of the released film, it could be argued that it was never copyrighted. Of course the argument would cost millions...
Er... what? The act of creating something - no matter what you do with it - assigns copyrights to the person who or group that creates it. If you run out with your smartphone, right now, and shoot some never-plan-to-"release it" footage, you own the copyright on what you create. Period.
You're probably confusing that basic fact with the question of whether or not the person who creates the work registers that work with the US Copyright Office. Registering the work allows you to go after an infringer in federal court, and to seek damages beyond the normal value of the work. If you don't register the work, you still own the copyright, and can use the courts to stop someone else from infringing on it, and you can sue them for what you'd normally have charged them for that use, if they'd asked you first. No punitive damages.
Federal venue for infringement or not, you make something, you own the copyrights. If you assign those rights to someone else, they own the copyrights. But someone who finds some media that contains the work? That doesn't convey copyrights.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
In the fall of 1982 I saw a pre-release version of Return of the Jedi. Our high school had some connections to Lucas. An announcement was made that the front office had tickets available to a LucasFilm prescreening of "Twice Upon a Time" (I still have the large blue tickets saved away somewhere). They had booked a large theater in San Francisco for the screening. At showtime a person walked out and regretfully informed the full house that Twice Upon a Time wasn't to be shown, so instead they brought Return of the Jedi (wild cheers erupted).
Some of the special effects weren't finished, and some scenes had only rough editing. I remember several of the scenes were trimmed down quite drastically in the release version. The dance scene in Jabba's palace was really, really (really!) long. At the end of the movie we were all given a questionnaire to fill out on how we felt about various scenes.
All in all, a very cool experience for someone who grew up during the original releases of episodes 4 through 6.
He paid $700 for unreleased and presumably lost recordings of a Star Wars movie of the original trilogy on an obsolete media format.
He'll get at least $7000 if he sells it to a collector, or even to Lucas or Disney so they can take it off the market. I bet if it went to a collectors auction, it could go for x10 that. Yeah, sure, he paid too much for it... NOT
You seriously think Lucasfilm (now Disney) doesn't have in their archives ALL possible footage pertaining to Star Wars ?
If George Lucas is to be believed, then no they do not. The original, unaltered footage which was released on the LaserDisc format was damaged irreparably when they were making one of the special releases in the 80's. I don't recall the whole story but supposedly they were cleaning up the original filmstock and in the process damaged it. Suspiciously the only portions to be damaged in such a fashion are scenes such as the "Han vs. Greedo Mos Eisley Shootout" scene.
The originals allegedly had shown Han clearly firing first, in contradiction to Lucas's claims, but the VHS versions were far too low resolution to serve as a final word on the matter. With the loss of the originals, the matter was never fully resolved.
So you can say that "nobody cares" about having original, unaltered footage from one of the most popular and successful sci-fi franchises of all time. And you can even believe that if you choose, but it doesn't make you right.