U.K. Revenge of the Jedi Teaser Trailer

[Steve_Danley]

Hi everyone,

With this being a U.K.-based forum, I thought I'd share an interesting collecting-related project that was recently published by the Academy Film Archive where I work as a cataloger.

Photos of a peculiar Revenge of the Jedi 35mm trailer had been posted on Rebelscum late last year, and over the following months I worked with the owner to have it preserved by the Academy and made available online to celebrate the May 25th Anniversary of Star Wars and Return of the Jedi's U.S. releases. As it turns out, it was of British origin and though not all that impressive on the surface, it's something that carried some significance in terms of where it fit within the history of Jedi's marketing and release in the U.K.

With the immense help of Lucasfilm compatriot and fellow collector Pete Vilmur, we put together this piece for the Academy's website:
http://www.oscars.org/news/heres-st...ver-seen-unless-you-were-british-theater-1982

The full background on the trailer's discovery, identification, and preservation is covered in this SWCA blog post:
http://blog.theswca.com/2016/06/provenance-is-paramount-uk-revenge.html

Having Star Wars crossover with my job brought about a good feeling that is difficult for me to describe.

I was wondering if anyone from "across the pond" happened to attend one of the double-bill screenings of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back in May of 1982 where this trailer was presumably shown, and if so, does it look familiar?

Hope you enjoy, thanks!

--Steve

 

[Snaketibe]

Great post! Many thanks for sharing this piece of Star Wars history.

 

[Vinyl Jawa]

Thanks Steve, great stuff.

 

[Michael Sith]

Great stuff, appreciate the post and thank you for taking the time to post for us all to share in a little piece of SW history 8)

 

[chipsteak]

I saw the double bill twice. I don't remember seeing the trailer, for what that's worth. ( i.e. not much - maybe we were late! ).

The December 1983 UK release date is certainly an odd one. Surely they wouldn't have been that shitty to us Brits - we didn't get the seven month delay treatment for ESB like we did for Star Wars, after all. I've got a wild guess feeling is that it wasn't shown routinely for that reason.

Thanks for your work on the clip. It's really nice to see something new-to-video turn up.

 

[bosk70]

Well that was short and sweet, don't remember seeing this at the time, or up to now, but well worth posting, love seeing old trailers , like Tetley, " lets the memories flood out", thanks for taking the time to post this on here Steve

 

[palitoyjunky]

Great stuff 8) Don't believe I have seen that before :!:

Thanks for sharing