8mm Forum: "Return of the Jedi" Digest? An 8mm mystery

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Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on August 13, 2005, 11:40 AM:

The auction on eBay created quite a stir: "Star wars Return Jedi Color Sound Super 8mm Used". The seller's description read " This lot is for a 3 reel (350' each) Color Sound Super 8mm movie from the George Lucas film Return of the Jedi. Color is good. Sound is good. Movie is selected scenes. Film does not have any original boxes. Film is in three generic 400' reels. Film appears to have 3 splices (excellent even splices)."
Could it be possible? A 3 part digest version of "Jedi"? Which company put it out? Scope? Stereo? The most exciting question was how this cutdown could have existed without a single member of the Forum ever hearing about it? What a discovery!
This looked very promising. The seller "cknnut" had a 100% positive feedback score of 593 and was earnestly answering questions from Forum members Lance Alspaugh and Alan Rik.

Q:Can you please verify also if this S8 print is Scope or Flat and if it has 2 separate magnetic stripes or just one.
A: Full Screen not letterbox. One stripe.
Q: Is this in scope or regular?
A: Regular
Q:How good is the color? Full color? No fade?
A:Jabba the Hut palace sequence is good. Space battle scenes are good. Battle on Endor scenes look good. Luke and Darth fight scene good too. Light sabers are red and green. I would say the skin tones look good too. I believe that the film was originally on 2 600' reel and was cut to fit the more manageable 400' reels for home projectors. I am not a collector but I hope this info helps.

I stumbled across this item early on (the counter indicated I was the third viewer) and since I had the full feature (a purchase three years ago from my fellow moderator!) I passed it by. All the excitement got to me by the next day and I used the "Buy It Now" feature to insure that we'd find out what the true story was.

So..............The print is in Scope. The film is mono, but yes, there is a balance stripe. The color? No fade, but varying degrees of quality. And finally, is it truly a digest? No.

What we actually have here is the second and the final two reels of the feature film. The first reel of this "3-parter" starts with Leia, disguised as a bounty hunter, freeing Hans Solo from his carbonite prison. This continues with their capture, Luke's arrival, his battle in the pit with the Rancor, the skirmish on Jabba's barge and their escape. This part ends with Luke saying he must return to Dagobah (to Yoda). For some reason this very last scene, less than a minute, is out of sync. The color on this reel is beautiful and the audio (except for that last scene) is clear. A green scratch makes an appearance about the same time Luke makes his, and lingers for about six minutes. Since this is not the first reel of the feature, there are no opening titles.

The second reel starts on Endor with the rebel forces attempting to break into the bunker ("Chewie and I have gotten into a lot tougher places than this.") to deactivate the shield that protects the Death Star. They are captured, but the Ewoks come to their rescue, leading the Stormtroopers away in a speeder bike chase. Meanwhile, Luke tries to convince Darth Vader to leave the dark side. This leads to the final section in it's entirety, including Luke's battle with Vader and the Emperor, Lando flying into the Death Star, Anakin's teary farewell, celebration on Endor and the full end credits. The third reels ends with the MPAA's PG rating.
The color on the last two reels is not nearly as nice as the first, with a strong bluish cast and slightly washed out exteriors. The contrast on the interior scenes is fine but that blue tint carries through.

Damn! There goes the fun of finding a "rare" digest version. One interesting question remains, however. Who struck this print? Jabba's english subtitles show that this is not from a foreign language version. The frame lines (top and bottom) are white and jagged, unlike Derann's prints. The leader offers this bit of information on the tail end of the final reel. After the credits (there are no splices) the tail reads "LA Films - Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise".

Doug

Posted by Michael De Angelis (Member # 91) on August 13, 2005, 12:44 PM:

Hey Doug,

That is a wonderful report, but it leads to very interesting detective work.
If anything it sounds as if it is trying to work like an extended extract that has many wonderful scenes.
It's curious how items as these, become available with all of these long scenes to create a botched 'edited' print of Jedi?

The frame lines are a part of the clue that sounds very strange. [Confused]

Michael

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on August 13, 2005, 01:09 PM:

Hi Doug-

As I was reading your post, I remembered a super 8 company that was selling several miscillanious reels of "Return of the Jedi" back in the early 80's. Then, your last sentence confirmed it.

Back in the 70's and 80's, there was a company in California called L. A. Films. The L.A. was for the owner's name, Larry Arpin. At first, Mr. Arpin only sold super 8 films from other companies, like Ken, U-8, Derann, etc. Then, as companies started dropping off, with little new material coming out, Mr. Arpin started releasing movies on his own. He released quite a few very good Sci-Fi trailer reels, and advertised them as being printed on Kodak low-fade stock. I have several, and they are of EXCELLENT quality, and there is still NO sign of fading. [Smile]

Then, around 1984,I remember Mr. Arpin advertising the three odd reels of "Jedi". I believe he had planned on releasing some reels of Ghost Busters as well as others, but I'm not sure if he ever did.

I had bought many films from L.A. during the 70s, and up to around '83, when I got married and left the hobby for a while. I later heard that Mr. Arpin and his super 8 company had vanished, and I believe some collectors were out of some money they had paid him for films not received.

I often wonder what ever happened to him. I talked to him alot back when I was ordering films from him, he seemed to be a very nice fellow.

Anyway, I'd say that most likely, you have one of the last releases from L.A. Films there. I don't believe any other reels from JEDI were released by him.

Nick.

Posted by Jean-Marc Toussaint (Member # 270) on August 13, 2005, 01:39 PM:

Guys, this is a great story. Nice sleuth work.
Doug, is this a keeper or are you going to resell it?

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on August 13, 2005, 01:47 PM:

Michael,

Unfortunately, there's no editing involved. These are simply three separate reels from the feature.

Nick,

Perfect! I vaguely remember the ads for LA films way back when. The LA Jedi reels are indeed printed on Kodak LPP stock. Interesting how Mr. Arpin covered his tracks with the "Enterprise" title.

Doug

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 13, 2005, 02:22 PM:

I remember this being on ebay and since It ended on Sunday, (and, at that time, I didn't have access to a computer on Sundays) I had to see it go to someone else, and it went for only 80.00 or so bucks, that's what really hurt!! So, your the lucky fellow that won it!

I doubt you'd sell it , huh?

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on August 13, 2005, 04:42 PM:

Doug, The only thing I can add to this is that Derann had the rights to release both Star Wars and Return of the Jedi but not the Empire Strikes Back.
I have got all three and can confirm that my full feature of Jedi is indeed on Kodak LPP so I'm thinking that what you might have is in fact some reels from this Derann release. Possible?

Kev.

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on August 14, 2005, 12:27 PM:

"Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise" was the Star Trek comedy skit from an early Saturday Night Live show(hosted by Eliot Gould). I think I still have the LA Films catalogue that has this short listed. [Smile]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 14, 2005, 01:40 PM:

It sounds like "LA films" were much like the "Thunderbirds" of thier day, film labs who wouldn't necessarily go out of thier way to get actual permission to release something, and they actually had a 35mm or 16mm of something in thier own possesion and since they were (even as of that time), so under the radar, that they could get away with releasing things without permission ... and aren't we just thankful that they did?

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on August 14, 2005, 10:46 PM:

Kevin,

I did a side by side comparison with the Derann print. The "digest" version has different leader (again, no splices) and the white, jagged frame lines (top and bottom) are not found in Derann's copy.

Jean-Marc & Osi,

Yes, I will be selling it.

Doug

Posted by Jean-Marc Toussaint (Member # 270) on August 15, 2005, 03:22 AM:

Doug: [Big Grin]

Keep us posted...

Joe: It's a great skit. Belushi does a fantastic Shatner impression. But have you ever seen the SNL episode hosted by Shatner himself? (Oh, no, we're going off topic again, arrrgghhhh)

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on August 15, 2005, 10:36 AM:

I have some of the LA Films trailer reels - eg the 400' Vincent Price trailer reel is very good. It would be interesting to know exactly what they put out.

Incidentally, I once heard that at the time that Ken films stopped releasing new product, they attempted to put out a single 400' digest of 'Return of the Jedi' as their final release, but for reasons I can't remember it proved impossible.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 15, 2005, 03:14 PM:

Hey doug! Let us know when you do with a link!

All the best!!

OSI

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on August 15, 2005, 06:02 PM:

Doug, It must be from a different source. I wonder if its from one of the German sources [Wink]

Kev.

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