E.T. on UK Television

Song of the South has definately been on British TV because I have a copy recorded from BBC 2 probably about 6-7 years ago, and I'm sure it was aired in one of their late morning family film slots that they've usually done around half-term/holiday time.
 
ITV show the Star Wars films every year! And before that, Sky showed them practically every day while they had the rights to them. I wouldn't really call that "restricted access".
 
ITV don't show the Star Wars films every year.
Compared to all other films the SW films do have restricted access

When Sky show films they show them all on a very regular basis

Do you not look at Sky Movies listings ? :rolleyes:
 
I had a pirate VHS of ET back in September of 1982, but then again ALL releases were pirates in the Middle East at that time. Terrible copy of a (imo) terrible film, but at least the agents carried guns not walkie talkies and Elliot called his brother "penis-breath".
 
And thats precisely what they do on the dvd aswell as the dvd releases include the original version too.

Unlike George Lucas who sabotaged the dvd release of the original Star Wars versions Spielberg seems to have no such problems and has allowed perfect quality releases of ET and even the Bluray release of the original cinema cut of CE3K which was unseen for more than 20 years
 
How did George Lucas sabotage the DVD release of Star Wars exactly? I have the Limited Edition DVRAB of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back with the Digitally Remastered/Re-edited/Modified 1997 versions and the original 1977 and 1980 theatrical versions respectively on separate discs. Its good to see how much the Digitally Remastered versions had been cleaned up and to hear the DVD Commentary on the problems they faced & solved during production. Personally I thought the DVRAB were a bargain. Sure there were no extras to speak of (apart from the Lego Star Wars 2 game demo), but I was just glad to see them again in anamorphic wide-screen. :D

I didn't bother buying Return Of The Jedi as I didn't think much of the Remastered version of that film and the fact that it was more expensive than the other films for some strange reason!

The original cinema cut of Close Encounters was pretty good, but it left out one of my favourite scenes from the end of the film. Its the scene where Roy is in the ship looking at all the small alien ships coming together and it gets him emotionally, I've always liked that. I haven't seen it since, even in the TV version! That sucks!! :mad:
 
Lucas sabotaged the release of the original versions of the films by refusing to allow new anamorphic versions to be on the dvd's so that the quality would be as good as the touched up versions.

Lucas insisted the only available master for those versions was the old Laserdisc master - which is bollocks .

Ironically the remastered ROTJ is the only one I wont watch . He changed the song at the end (I know the original one is a bit cheesy but thats how Lucas made it and how it should be seen ). The main change I dont like is removing the face of Sebastian Shaw at the end

The reason the footage of Neary in the ship is missing is because nobody wants it - not even the director.
Spielberg wanted to add a few touches to the film in 1980 for its re-release and the only way he was allowed to do it was on condition that he filmed new scenes with Richard Dreyfuss (looking much older) showing the inside of the ship .
If you had not been blown away by what was shown up to that point , a few light effects would not make it any better.

Spielberg quickly disowned the footage which is why its no longer seen on tv
The recent dvd and Bluray releases have Spielbergs approved theatrical version and his Directors cut too aswell as the loathed Special Edition
 
We had a pirate copy too after seeing it at the cinema, luckily my parents checked the quality of it before showing it to me and my brother otherwise they'd have ended up showing us Deep Throat - the guy in the video shop misheard them.
 
Yes Song of the South has been shown at least twice on BBC Two in the last 10 years in a morning slot, so that Wiki article is a little incorrect :)
 
I wondered why after looking at old TV listings on the TV Room + website that old films from the 1940's and 1950's where given primetime slots on BBC1 and ITV. That is why then due to the 10 year gap from the films cinema release to the TV broadcast.
 
I remember there was a long period where the Star Wars films weren't shown on UK television. ITV shown the series in the early 1990's for one last time and then weren't shown again until 2001 or 2002, so at least a 10 year delay in them being shown again on terrestrial TV. I'm not sure about Sky Movies though.
 
Yes you're right.
CJC's memory is cheating him.

I don't think that the SW movies get shown on ITV2 etc either.

ITV will likely show them once more next year then they will go away again until they appear to promote the Bluray releases
 
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