I saw all the originals (Ep IV, V and VI) in the cinema when they were first released 
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ha same here!
Been a few years since a rewatch, was thinking it would be cool to see them as close to the 77/80/83 versions as possible.
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By dawns early light brings back such wonderful memories for me. My dad came back from the pub with a takeaway curry drunk as hell but in a very good mood (not guaranteed) and we found that film and had a great time watching it.
Another one of my all time favourite films is the 1995 remake of Bogarts classic ‘sahara’ starring Jim Bulushi. Its got an M3 lee in it and i saw one at a military show a few months ago and me and the owner gushed about “lulubelle” the only person I’ve met that had seen the film without me showing them.
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Man, it’s so funny you mention seeing it with your dad for the first time. It was the same for me. He saw that it was going to be on (HBO I think) and he and I watched it. He had just retired from the USAF, and from SAC no less, and told me all about the MITO and all the things they did that he had to do. You could tell that he was taking a big walk down memory lane, but I was hooked. Then I saw Flight of The Intruder in a movie theater and fell in love with aviation. But it was Strategic Air Command with Jimmy Stewart and that big, beautiful B-36 that sealed my fate as an aviation junkie. I’ve never looked back. Interestingly, he’s visiting for a few days. I might have to break it out for him.
I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of Sahara, but I’ll look it up.
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Absolutely stupendous film and cinematography. I love that film.
As for sahara. The 1940 version is probably “better” but the remake will always be my favourite. I watched it 6 months or so with my 6 year old even he loved it.
We saw the same tank at the show and he said “is that a sherman or is it lulubelle” amazing
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Was and still am a big fan of the Bogart version of Sahara but the Jim Belushi remake is a more than worthy successor. I recommend both versions equally.
Considering my initial disdain when I first saw it had been made the Jim Belushi version had a huge hurdle to clear.
Wheels
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The amazing thing is even though it’s THX the picture is just awful. 
LD isn’t even 480p I think? I’m not certain, but first-gen DVDs look better.
As the picture wasn’t restored, things are dull and blurry. The starfields are hard to make out, from the opening crawl through space battles and such.
I mean, when I got it, compared to cable and VHS, it was light-years better. But tech has drastically improved in the last 30 years. Just the special edition on LD looks many times better, although it has the original god-awful CG Jabba in New Hope. With each later release they worked on him to make him look like he does today in the 4K version.
I saw Ep IV a total of 5 times in the theater. On release twice, the re-release pre-ESB, the re-release pre-ROTJ, and then the 97 special ed.
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I’ve always wondered what laser disc looked like (friends parents had one but we didn’t get to touch it - too fancy!)
Snooping around the internet looks like there are quite a few different (grey-area) options for watching something pretty close to the 77 version, so I can safely cancel my ebay laser disc player bid 
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I take it you mean the picture quality and not the physical media itself? That was just an LP-sized CD that was thicker than either of them and weighed more to boot!
But yeah, while superior to broadcast and VHS (425 lines vs 240), it couldn’t match DVD (480) let alone the later stuff. However, I would say it’s about equivalent to a lot of the old Youtube videos at 360p or whatever that setting is.
The main improvement was letterbox. While standard broadcast or VHS would have lines of resolution “eaten up” by the black bars, the LD could natively expand the screen so all 425 lines were the actual picture and then the player just threw up the black bars. So on an HD TV, before Bluray, you got the full 425 shown in the middle of the screen which VHS could never do. Of course DVDs could do this too, but importantly the copy of the theatrical release on DVD that was the 2nd disc for the DVD release in 2007 or so was NOT this way–the black bars were part of the 480 lines.
That meant the LD copies were higher res than the DVDs of it.
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Yes, the picture quality - thanks that’s super interesting!
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I know what I’ll be watching in January…!
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I’ve been waiting for this Forever!!!
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Yes, I will be watching that one.
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Finally!
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I ordered the book it is based on from Waterstones today. Very much looking forward to Masters of the Air.
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Same.
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I flew over the filming site at Dalton Barracks a few times. Was cool seeing the mock up B17’s and trucks all set up
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It was in the where are you photos but god knows how long ago that was
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