i have this very afternoon, indeed early evening. spent some time going through boxes which were in storage but are now stored at home, diligently waiting to be unpacked. a dear friend had made a request for something, so i went to dig it out.
after consulting my lists and spreadsheets which featured certain aspects and elements of what was in boxes (i did indeed get to a stage where i could not be bothered to list them any more), i established that the thing i was requested for was, as you may well have guessed by this point, in box 27.
actually, my chum did not ask me for what was in this box as such. at least, so to speak, not in a direct way. the request was more one of did i still have the capability to convert something off of VHS to a DVD. the answer to that, of course is yes, and no, and maybe. yes as i have a standalone DVD recorder that you can wire a VHS into, no because i don't think i have a VHS player any more and maybe as it's entirely possible that a VHS player is packed up somewhere in my boxes.
anyway, my response was that it didn't matter if i could or not, because that which they wanted to be transformed from VHS to DVD had been done by someone else, and i did as point of fact have the DVD version of it. i suggested it might be easier for me to just dig out the already done DVD versions than it would be to source a VHS player, get him to ship video tapes to me and see what i could do.
no, not any of them ones. they are the discs that just happened to be visible at the top of box twenty seven when i opened it. i thought that for some reason you may well wish to see these three (superb) films at the top so that you might have a sort of "unboxing" experience with all of this.
Spiros took this image as he was off to some place where loads and loads of bankers meet, greet and basically do whatever it is that bankers do. banking, i suppose. why? he wanted to get a smart new tie off of that Waitrose place.
i say this is a new friend that Spiros has, but that's not true. whilst Sprios does really, really like meeting new men in public places and forming short but intense friendships with them, Spiros did not want to wake this chap up. he reckons that the scent and general appearance of the chap said that this bloke had recently had a fight with the ale, and that the ale had won with some considerable comfort.
should i be posting this picture? maybe. i am not sure what the law and that is, really. i suspect, however, that if a chap takes to public transport and is all aled up, then all bets are off, as this wasn't taken in a private location and was not taken in any sort of covert way. unless, of course, the fella owned that particular tube train, and Spiros has sneaked on to it to do a crafty picture. if that's the case, well sorry, and no it would not be the first such time that this had happened.
anyway, you probably want me to just get to whatever it is i spent several hours seeking out box twenty seven for. or you may well have just scrolled down to this point to see, so here you go.
yes, the Star Wars trilogy from the 70s and indeed 80s. as in, very much the versions from the 70s and indeed 80s. or some reason a lot of people have argued with me that these did not ever exist on DVD, and yet here they are. explain? sure.
when Star Wars got released on DVD, and indeed Blu Ray, the versions were "special editions". they featured some updated effects and a few extra scenes added. as with absolutely anything to do with Star Wars, a very small but exceptionally loud group of fans went off on one about this, demanding that "their" Star Wars be released on discs in the form and way it was as they saw it at the cinema.
depending on how you wish to look at it, George Lucas decided to either give them what they wanted or just simply wished for them to shut up, and so issued the original theatrical cuts on limited edition discs.
were the fans happy with this? of course not, don't be so foolish, they are Star Wars fans and thus are never happy. the films, as requested/demanded, did indeed get released exactly as they were in the 70s and 80s. that meant they featured the original release soundtracks too. the fans, look you see, said that they in fact wanted the original versions of the films, but only with the improved sound from the 90s versions.
a look at my smart Sledge Hammer! box sets? of course, my pleasure.
Sledge Hammer! was one of the funniest TV shows ever made, man. not a great many people saw it, but those who did invariably absolutely love it and have nothing but fond memories of it. yes, i did indeed have a pile of VHS tapes of it, taped off of the tele, but these discs do me just fine. i am glad, some two years later, to see them again now that they are out of their boxing.
a thing that has baffled me is the number of people who, when i have told them that i have these versions on discs, have said to me "no you do not as they have never been released on DVD". well, yes they were, and here you go. when were they put out, exactly? i think it was not much more than a year or so after the DVD box set of the special editions was released. 2004 or 2005, maybe, so that's 10 years they have been available.
am i one of the ones that insist the "original theatrical editions" are in some way superior, and should be the only versions of Star Wars that people watch? not really. i never really had any problems or issues with the changes made to the special edition versions. beyond the very, very tiresome "Han shoots first" argument, and that thing where they changed the ghost of one of the characters from one actor to another, the changes are subtle and do not really make all that much difference. except, you know, they are changes that the man that created and made the films, and indeed until recently owned them, wanted to make. a sort of "it is his train set" sort of thing.
if that's the case, why did i buy the limited editions? sheer curiosity. they looked like nice things to have, and they had Star Wars written on them. as it has turned out or indeed transpired, it is just as well that i did, for now my chum shall soon be able to watch them in the way he wants.
anyway, i've also bought all the released alternate cuts of things like Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now and the Kubrick films (the US version of The Shining for example, is vastly different to the one the rest of the world got). it just made sense to get these.
what am i listening to as i write this? this.
no, it was not also in box twenty seven. it was in another box that i got something else out of, but i was none the less thrilled to find this at the same time. i am quite happily listening to The King, Elvis Presley doing what only He did the best.
did, by any chance, some boxes fall on me as i looked for box twenty seven? yes, indeed they did, and one full of cups and mugs smashed me square in the nose. don't worry, though, for as far as i can tell none of the cups or mugs got broken.
to finish, a look at the actual discs inside these limited edition sets of the Star Wars films? surely.
why two discs? because you get the "special edition" on one, and the theatrical edition on the other. you are, then, free to choose whatever version of it that you would like to watch and do not need to cry to George Lucas, or anyone else on the internet, about it.
so, there you go. if you want to watch the original versions of them Star Wars films on DVD, it's still pretty easy to find these limited edition sets of them. enjoy, have fun.
i do indeed have a few other things to do posts on here, but later.
excellente à l'autre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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