This is the scene where in the original script we first see Luke talking to his lifelong best friend Biggs Darklighter. In the Special Edition of A New Hope that came out in 1997, Luke and Biggs are reunited just before they fly off along with the other Rebels to take on the Death Star. This deleted scene puts that re-introduced bit into proper context. But otherwise, it does tend to drag the story down... had it made it into the final cut. And it must be said: Luke's dialogue with the droid at the beginning of the scene is awfully clumsy.
This scene never made it into any publicly-viewed cut of Star Wars. But strangely, for years there were many people who swore that they at least saw Luke and Biggs having this conversation when they watched Star Wars at the theater. The first time I ever heard of it (including pictures) was from the Star Wars illustrate storybook that came out around the same time as the movie, and the speculation is that a lot of people saw those pictures and somehow "grafted" them into their memories of the movie itself. I know: that sounds a bit wacky. But I've personally met folks who to this day swear that they witnessed this scene firsthand in a theater. And there have been a few rare cases where a film's print got out with material that was supposed to have been excised. So who knows...?
In addition to Biggs, we also see Fixer, Camie, Windy, and Deak. Camie was played by Koo Stark, who wound up being an actress in what some consider to be "soft porno" and later on had a relationship with Prince Andrew. Here's a better pic of Stark as Camie...
If only George Lucas hadn't taken this scene out, 'cuz Koo was this close to being the hottest babe ever made into a Star Wars action figure...
When are they going to release some of this footage on a special disc???? While I can see why some of it was cut, it's fascinating to watch...
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be reviewing the Blade Runner 5-disc set (the one in the Voight-Kampf-style briefcase) pretty soon, and after going through that I seriously believe that George Lucas should give EVERY movie in the Star Wars saga that same kind of lush treatment. I would love to see the Tosche Station scene and the other deleted material in something like that for A New Hope. With the Blade Runner set Ridley Scott set the bar for how a classic movie should be treated on DVD.
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