A New Hope’ Is Being Released for the First Time in a Quarter Century

Laugh it up, fuzzball, because one of the rarest films in cinema history is soon hitting the big screen. The British Film Institute (BFI) announced that they will be screening an original cut of Star Wars as it premiered in 1977. This will mark the first time in decades that the unaltered version of the film, later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, will be screened theatrically. This will surely make it a must-see event for fans who are able to snag tickets.

However, don’t expect to run to your local theater and catch the original film. Rather, the unedited version of Star Wars will be screened as part of the BFI’s Film on Film Festival. The original cut will screen on the festival’s opening night, June 12, at the BFI’s Southbank theater in London. In addition to the unedited cut of the film, attendees will be able to see historical archives and material from the film, according to the BFI, including deleted screnes and on-set Polaroids.

For those who are able to make it to the event, they will be able to see Star Wars exactly as it was seen by viewers in 1977. The film will be presented “exactly as experienced by audiences on its original release, screening from one of the precious handful of dye transfer IB Technicolor prints produced for the first British release, preserved in the BFI National Archive,” said the BFI.

The Original Cut of ‘Star Wars’ is Incredibly Rare

The original cut of Star Wars is typically locked away in the Jedi Archives, and it hasn’t been aired theatrically in decades. Typically, the special editions of the Star Wars original trilogy, helmed by George Lucas in 1997 as “updates” to his original version of the films, is considered the canon version by Lucasfilm and Disney. As a result, the unedited cut is very hard to find, even for at-home viewers.

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Source: BFI