Deleted Scenes From Star Wars!

Im sure some of you have seen these. I knew they existed because of the comics but never saw them until a few years ago. I really enjoy the scenes of Luke at Tosche Station and wish Lucas would have included them in the movie. Also Luke seeing the battle through his binoculars of the Star Destroyer taking Leias ship is also pretty cool.Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00IkrWvur4

 

I saw some stills from those from the "Star Wars Storybook" printed about 1977. I read that before I saw the movie and wondered why they weren't in it.

 

I agree with them being removed, it fluffs the film out too much are not really needed. In hindsight as a Star Wars fan they are nice to see though.

 

Yeah, one can see how those scenes would have killed the pacing of the film early on. It works much better to keep the POV on the droids so the audience meets Luke when they do.

The only problem deleting those caused was that Luke refers to Biggs several times in passing and at the end of the movie he just shows up flying an X-Wing without explanation. Re-inserting their reunion scene in the '97 Special Edition certainly fixed that, but I can't help but wonder why in the first instance Lucas didn't simply delete the earlier mentions of him, making him just another rebel pilot. Perhaps it was an attempt to preserve the gravity of his death scene?

 

Probably took out too much of the other scenes that were for other thing. Most references were small in other scenes, that would have made the dialog too weird if Luke's mentioning of his friends was cut. The rest would have removed too much of the dogfighting scenes. It is likely the edit that removed most of Biggs scenes was very late in the process. Can't go back and reshoot those at that point.

Did someone attempt to reedit the movie to have started off with Luke before the space battle? Sort of like the Radio drama.

 

It was odd though that the scene was removed for the DVDs but some of the other odd scenes were left in including Han shooting first and meeting Jabba.

EDIT: After watching that, I don't remember ever seeing the Biggs scenes. What was actually in the 97 version?

 

I saw that one on YouTube. The "sandstorm" scene was ridiculous and totally unnecessary. I'm glad they edited that one out.

 

You want ridiculous and unnecessary? Check out the deleted scene in Empire that went between Luke getting out of the bacta tank and Han & Chewie walking in. It's basically Leia having a hissy fit because he mentions he's going to Dagobah. Anyone still labouring under the delusion that Lucas suddenly started writing embarrisingly awkward relationship oriented dialogue in the prequels should go see that little masterpiece.

It seems the only difference between the classic trilogy dialogue and the prequel dialogue, is that the editing in the prequels was far too forgiving.
That and they let Alec Guinness re-write most of his lines.

Now that you say that I'm not even sure any more. There's been so many variations over the years that I loose track, but I'm sure it's at least on the '04 DVD & '11 Bluray. I still have my '97 VHS set, but I don't trust my remaining player not to chew it up if I try to play it. Those things get twitchy if you leave them sitting for too long.

ETA: According to this, yeah it was re-inserted in the '97 release, albeit with the reference to Anakin (not by name) removed with some foreground trickery.

 

I would liked to have seen the Tosche Station scene put in. It would bring a whole new life to Lukes famous line "But I have to go to Tosche Station for some power converters".

 

It is not on my '04 DVDs. I just rewatched them recently; although the deleted scenes could be in an extra somewhere.

I know what you mean about memory. I had the storybook and the original comics. Both of those contained a number of deleted scenes (including the original version of the Jabba scene I think) so sometimes I'm not sure if I actually saw something on screen or just read it in the comic.

 

I think I first saw these on the "Behind the Magic" software CDs that were released probably 20 years ago at this point.

 

That one scene labeled Stormtrooper search looked like it could have been in the prequels. I don't think Lucas really did change that much, he just didn't have as many handlers to help him out.

 

I agree the movie was much better off without those scenes. Interspersing three introductions (droids, Princess, Luke) is OK but pretty conventional; you know they will meet up at some point. But following the "nobody" characters, the droids, was pretty novel and I think made it more engaging and memorable (Though it was a Hidden Fortress narrative idea that Lucas had played with from early on). Plus you're invested more in the droids when you don't know if this hell-hole desert planet is inhabited or what.

The dialogue and acting at Tosche station leaves something to be desired, too. As does Luke's hat.

Pretty late, I think all the principal photography was done, and they had to ask for extra funds to shoot the Greedo pickups when the Jabba scene was cut. Marvel needed a couple months lead time for the art, so the comics still had the Biggs and Jabba scenes.

Yeah. In the late '80s and/or early '90s I had discussions with two individuals on two different occasions who swore they had seen Luke watch the space battle in the sky in the original release. To the point that one of them almost wanted to fight over it. Comics, novel, storybook, whatever, it was implanted strongly enough that they really thought they had seen it.

 

Also I believe they had books with pictures and scene stills from the movie and some of the deleted scenes were included in those.

 

The Star Wars Storybook was like that, and had a still of Biggs and his cape. A very popular item in the elementary school Scholastic book orders back in '77-'78.

 

they may have heard the NPR radio adaption.

Tosche station, Luke witnesing the space battle, the droids hiding (later editted back in), the reunion with Bigga, the confrontation with Jabba (but used a minion named Hedda) were all included.

the radio adaption was 13 30min eps so cut the intro and credits about 275min running time. Other than the above not sure if there was any other material that was written by Lucas but not used in the film.

 

The radio adaptaion adds a who lot of stuff from Leia's point of view before even heading out on her mission to get Obi-wan Kenobi and the Death Star plans. The is a bit with her running a blockade and flaunting her status as a diplomat to being in aid while also picking up information for the Rebels. Then there is a meeting with her Bail and a Lord Tion that doen't go well. Then the whole getting the Death Star plans transmitted from a world the Empire is blockading while using the two droids as the excuse why they are their (navigation problem I think). Also the two droids are programed to be absolutely loyal to Leia but also to not give out information about her save to Obi-wan Kenobi. 3PO isn't in the dark so much as that he's programmed to seem ignorant. Then the whole thing goes to pot when Lord Vader's ship tracks them flawlessly and quicker than thought possible. Queue start of the movie.

 

Yeah that was the book. My friend had one. It was the next best thing back in those days to seeing the movie. I remember it took the original Star Wars 5 years(1982) to be rerun on television. As kids we had to wait a long time to see it again unlike today when you can get the DVD or down load it months after it is released in theaters.

 

The Biggs scene about him jumping ship to join the Rebellion works best as an outtake. It benefits from the aura of mystery it gets by being apocryphal. It makes more sense for that conversation to have occurred strictly prior to the events of EpIV, rather than during them, which means that it works best if Luke hadn't shown the ships to Biggs in his binoculars at all. It also would have needed better takes to go alongside the other Tatooine footage that actually made it into the film. The extended Biggs scene in ANH SE prior to the fighter launch really doesn't belong in the film at all.