Great news, finally. I'm all for director cuts and whatnot, but GL does have an ugly record with such things lately. Hopefully we will still get basically the same film, perhaps with branching or something.
It's an outstanding film and I would hate to think that he had any real reason to "fix" it.
I've never seen THX-1138 and was looking forward to getting the DVD. I just hope Lucas doesn't alter the movie too much from its original state. And definitely don't "upgrade" it with CGI!!!
The only reason this is being called a "Director's Cut" is because Warners took the film away from him after he finished it and cut it to their specifications, without his input. It's one of the reasons Coppola and Lucas ended up getting estranged through some of the 70's and 80's: Coppola produced it, and Lucas thought Coppola should have been able to prevent the studio taking away his movie and making cuts without his input. The famous quote of his was "It's like the doctors taking away your children and then cutting off a couple fingers here and there to make it look better." or something along those lines.
This is a "Director's Cut" in that he's probably simply putting back the footage that was initially chopped by the execs at WB. The version we've all been watching was a studio edit without notes or input from either Coppola or Lucas. Although rumor is there WAS a video release, on VHS, that had Lucas original version intact.
But that's not as fun or interesting or worrisome to speculate about as assuming he's going to Special Edition it with Jar jar and walkie talkies and people shooting first ha ha ha Where do I stick a dollar $ign in ha ha ha childhood rape.
Oddly, MAY 4th is a Tuesday-which to my hazy brain, was roughly around the time I though it was going to come out...but im all for an early release if true. re: 4/6!
Looking forward to this. Hopefully the version is a good one in that material is added and not so much removed or aftered. I can't recall seeing the entire film though anyways. Cool movie.
this is probably the cut that was rereleased after American Grafitti (and or star wars) hit big (not sure which one created the impetus for it). basically Lucas was able to go back and restore the six minutes of studio excised footage, and I believe this is the cut released on home video previously.