The Original STAR WARS Theatrical Cut Is Getting a Public Screening for the First Time in Decades

For the first time in decades, some fans will get the chance to experience Star Wars the way it was originally shown in 1977, with no CGI add-ons, and no Greedo shooting first.

This June, the BFI Film on Film Festival in London is pulling off something fans have been wanting to see for years… a public screening of the unaltered original theatrical cut of Star Wars.

On Thursday, June 12th, the festival’s opening night, the BFI will screen one of the few remaining dye transfer IB Technicolor prints from the film’s original British release. According to the official site:

“Film on Film presents Star Wars exactly as experienced by audiences on its original release, screening from one of the precious handful of dye transfer IB Technicolor prints produced for the first British release, preserved in the BFI National Archive.”

Alongside the screening, fans will also get to see rare production materials from the making of the film, including “material from the original Star Wars continuity script, rare on-set Polaroids, annotations, and deleted scenes.”

This would be so cool to experience! Since 1997’s release of the Special Editions, George Lucas’s updated versions of the original trilogy have been the only ones widely available on Blu-ray, on streaming, and in every official re-release.

That has sparked decades of debate. For many fans, those early edits are cinematic history. But outside of a short-lived, poorly mastered 2006 DVD bonus release, the theatrical versions have been nearly impossible to find in the modern era.

This is a huge deal! The unaltered Star Wars has essentially been locked away in the Lucasfilm vault for close to 30 years. That it’s now being screened publicly, in 2025, on 35mm, from a Technicolor print is awesome.

The news comes not long after Star Wars fans caught a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment when the original cut briefly appeared on the Roku Cinema Box app. And while there’s no indication that this BFI screening means an official home media release is coming, it will spark fresh conversations about why that hasn’t happened yet.

Still, fans hoping this is the beginning of a broader restoration movement may want to manage expectations. Lucasfilm has long insisted the Special Editions are canon, and Disney’s current strategy hasn’t budged on that front.

So, if you're anywhere near London in June, go! Watching Star Wars as audiences saw it in 1977, with all its practical effects, optical composites, and original sound mix intact, is something few fans alive today have ever experienced on the big screen.