8mm Forum: Star Wars 1977 Original version Cineavision Scope feature

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Topic: Star Wars 1977 Original version Cineavision Scope feature

Osi Osgood
Film God

Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005

posted July 03, 2013 12:49 PM

There has been much written about the STAR WARS super 8 Derann feature, but very little about this rarity, the Cineavision style super 8 scope print, so I thought I'd do an assessment of it.

I just received this the other day. My first stop? The leader. Reel one didn't have the original leader, but the other reels appear to. Curiously, some of the reels have a "Cineavision" style leader (that is, the countdown is also in Cineavision). Reels 2 through 6 merely say "Original Negative" (whatever that means), and so I really don't know who did this printing of this title. I have always assumed it might well have been the same person who did the "legal" Cineavsion titles, but since I have no evidence, I'll leave it at that.

OK, before I go further, for those who don't know what "Cineavsion" is, I'll explain.

"Cineavision" super 8 scope prints were prints that were in scope, as so many are in scope, but in the case of the Cineavision print, the image on the film is slightly smaller on the frame. You see, for those who don't know, a true anamorphic cinemascope image, on it's original 35MM, is literally a perfect square image, instead of the slightly retangular image that you find for a super 8 frame.

Therefore, in order to retain the actual anamorphic scope image, the producers of these prints would bring in (or print smaller) the image on the super 8 frame and instead of having black bars on the top and bottom (to give a "Letterboxed effect, maintaining a somewhat widescreen presentation), the blacks bars are instead on the left and right hand sides of the frame, allowing the anamorphic scope image on the super 8 frame to be that nice square image.

While this may not be all that imporatant to the average super 8 scope collector, (as hey, those films still look great projected in scope!), the super 8 scope lover is losing image information on both the top and bottom of the frame. With the cineavision print, very little is lost on the top and bottom, (depending on the projector and what kind of image is projected in the first place).

The Cineavision image is quite nice on this print. As many other have stated, the Derann print has better color saturation that this Cineavision print, (although, there are some shots and sections that appear to have better color on the CIneavision) and in fact, it appears that reel two was printed ever so slightly too bright. It's not washed out by any means, but a few scenes on tatooine are rather bright. That reels seems to suffer from what some early LPP prints suffered from. That is, a little too bluish and slightly overexposed.

Back to the statement about "original negative" ...

I've noticed that at a number of places, you can see the original cement splices of the editor! This is no joke! Just one example, when the pilot says "lock "X folds into attack position" and then the shot of the X-Wings seperating theier wings, right at the join/edit from the shot of the pilot to the shot of the X-Wings, there is an unmistakable cement splice there. I compared it to the Derann STAR WARS and there is not a single loss of a frame of film, (though, no evidence of the cement splice in this later re-edited STAR WARS)

In other words, this isn't a break in the film after the print left the studio, this is the original cement edit/splice. This happens throughout the print!

As stated, this is an LPP print and most fortunate for being so. It's strange that the same person (or persons) who produced this print were also responsible (I'm assuming) for the "Empire Strikes Back" Cineavision print, but that print was KODAK SP, and was already (as of last year when I owned one) ever so slightly turning brown in the blacks. It makes one wonder if this STAR WARS scope print was done after the Empire print OR, the persons involved found that Kodak SP would be cheaper to print on and of course, didn't know of it's fade qualities at the time.

Fortunately, the rest of the print does not have this problem and especially, from reel three on, the image quality is great.

Though not quite as pin sharp as the Derann feature, it is almost imperceptibly less sharp than the Derann. I think the only thing that makes one think it's less sharp is that this print has a little more grain to it and that's probably why.

As has been mentioned in other places, this is THEE 1977 version of STAR WARS. Lucas had no idea at the time if he was going to be able to do the whole number of stories in the STAR WARS pantheon and therefore, the original release of this merely says STAR WARS and then the scroll begins with "It is a period of Civil War ..." It was only in later re-releases of the film that Lucas tacked on the "Episode 4 "A New Hope" before the scroll.

There are other differences, for instance, the subtitles on Greedo's dialogue in the Cantina scene, as well as some other little differences I won't go into. I will listen to the dialogue very carefully in future screenings to see if there are different early "takes" used in the dialogue.

But the "reel" pleasure is seeing this in it's original format and as originally seen by a certain 11 year old at the time, standing in line three times a day for, no kidding, about a month (Yeah I had it BAD from the beginning!).

This is the actual experience I had when I first saw it, and that means the world to a fellow like me!

LONG LIVE SUPER 8!!!!!!

[ July 28, 2013, 09:01 AM: Message edited by: Osi Osgood ]

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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "