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Found a bootleg VHS of The Empire Strikes Back where Han shoots first... and last, and in between
I was digging through a box of old tapes my uncle left me from his time selling used movies at flea markets in the 90s. One tape had no label, just a faded "Star Wars 2" scribbled in sharpie. Popped it in and right away I knew something was off because the audio was like 2 seconds behind the video. Then the Cantina scene rolls around and Han blasts Greedo before he even finishes talking. But here's the weird part, after the blaster shot they cut to a different camera angle where Han shoots again at the empty chair. I rewound it four times because I thought my VCR was eating the tape. Turns out someone spliced together a rough cut from a workprint or something, because there's random extra scenes like Luke milking a different creature on Tatooine that I've never seen in any version. Has anyone else run into a bootleg that had footage that straight up doesn't exist in the official releases?
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amy1548d ago
Hold up, are you sure that was a different creature Luke was milking? I've seen some pretty weird bootleg cuts before but that sounds more like a different movie spliced in, maybe someone's old Star Wars fan film or something? The Han shooting twice thing is actually kind of documented though, some of those really rough workprints that leaked out of the editing bay had weird alternate takes like that because editors were still figuring out the scene. But yeah, the audio being off by 2 seconds is a dead giveaway that someone just jammed a bunch of random footage together without caring about syncing it right. I've got a buddy who collects these things and he says most of them are just people mashing up different laserdisc releases or TV broadcasts with amateur editing. Your uncle's tape sounds like a fun piece of history even if it's not a real lost version, you know?
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ryan_ellis8d agoOG Member
Yeah that's rough, I feel for your uncle getting stuck with a bootleg like that.
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