Cast your mind back, lightsaber-wielding relics of a certain age, to the first time you saw the 1977 theatrical cut of Star Wars. Was it in a cinema, surrounded by gaggles of wide-eyed space cadets astounded by this glittering, laser-blasted disco ball? Or perhaps on a VHS recorded off ITV’s small-screen premiere in 1982? Perhaps, if you’re under 30, you’ve never actually seen it, and a Star Wars without crappy CGI Jabbas, Greedo shooting first and gratuitous Tatooine dinosaurs is something you can’t even imagine. Maybe you actually think it’s called A New Hope, and is a sequel to all those brilliant films about Anakin Skywalker, trade route embargos, and midichlorians.
And perhaps you’re right. It’s so long since we’ve seen the original version of Star Wars, our collective memories of it as a gritty, charming space western may be nothing more than a mass hallucination. After all, George Lucas – the man who dreamed this whole saga up after falling asleep with his face in a pile of Kurosawa films and Flash Gordon comics – has spent years insisting the 1997 Special Edition is vastly superior. What if … terrifying thought … he’s actually right?
