Star Wars Related Lost Film Black Angel To Screen After 33 Years

Karloff

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Star Wars Related Lost Film Black Angel To Screen After 33 Years



This 25 minute fantasy short turned up - after years of searching - in Universal Studios' archive.

Roger Christian, who created the Alien set's distinctive look and won an Academy Award for his set design work on Star Wars, once created a 25 minute fantasy short intended to air just before screenings of Empire Strikes Back. This film, Black Angel, ended up only showing in the UK, Australia and Scandinavia, before vanishing into the mists of time. Christian lost his copy, 20th Century Fox's copies had long since vanished, and even George Lucas no longer had a print. For 33 years, Black Angel effectively ceased to exist, until finally the archivist at Universal discovered a tin with negatives and elements of Black Angel. "I've been tracking this down and it seems to point to you," the archivist told Christian. "Do you think it's yours?" It was, and it has been restored. Black Angel will get its first public showing in three decades at a California theatre in Marin County, early in October.

Christian made Black Angel for about £25,000, with just enough cast, crew and equipment to fit into two cars and a camper wagon. The film tells the story of a knight, drawn into a strange, parallel world, in which his maiden is held captive by an evil knight, the Black Angel of the title. It first got a showing at Pinewood Studios, for Lucas and a number of other film luminaries. "I was under the desk in fright at the back of the theatre," Christian recalls. But after its limited theatrical release, Black Angel didn't show up again on VHS or DVD, and when Christian lost his copy 20 years ago, he thought it might have gone for good. Then he got the call from Universal, and the restoration process started.

When Christian first got hold of Black Angel, his first thought was to release it again in downloadable form, or perhaps even in a cinematic release. Then his inner doubts took over. "I was just debating, 'Should I ever release this or not?'" Christian remembers. "Maybe it doesn't stand up to the mythology." But in the end he couldn't live with himself if he didn't do something with it, hence the (very) limited theatrical release at the Mill Valley Film Festival [http://www.mvff.com/]. After that, Christian isn't sure what to do with it, but says he still wants to distribute it somehow. How, is the question. If you've a yen to see Black Angel, California in October is the place you want to be.

Source: Ars Technica [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/once-lost-star-wars-related-short-to-screen-for-the-first-time-in-33-years/]


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templar1138a

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Okay... but how exactly is this Star Wars related? Unless the Black Angel is Vader.

I suppose I could see that being the case. I have to remember that this was made between Episodes IV and V, before they even GOT those numbers, and LONG before the expanded universe got pioneered... I get the feeling this film will kinda suck.
 

MrBaskerville

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Okay, there´s no way i´m not going to watch this. I love 80s fantasy movies, and from the image this looks like something i might enjoy a lot. I´m defineately very curious as i think i have seen most of the stuff that´s worth watching from that period and genre (i hope not though...).

It´s safe to say, you just don´t make stuff like this anymore, closes thing is probably Harry Potter 2 and that´s still so far removed from the 80s as it gets.
 

Jadak

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templar1138a said:
Okay... but how exactly is this Star Wars related? Unless the Black Angel is Vader.

I suppose I could see that being the case. I have to remember that this was made between Episodes IV and V, before they even GOT those numbers, and LONG before the expanded universe got pioneered... I get the feeling this film will kinda suck.
It's a misleading title. Its only "Star Wars related" in the sense that it was originally intended to be screened before Star Wars screenings.

So... Related only by proximity, not by content (Or as it's otherwise known, not related).
 

Tarkand

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Jadak said:
templar1138a said:
Okay... but how exactly is this Star Wars related? Unless the Black Angel is Vader.

I suppose I could see that being the case. I have to remember that this was made between Episodes IV and V, before they even GOT those numbers, and LONG before the expanded universe got pioneered... I get the feeling this film will kinda suck.
It's a misleading title. Its only "Star Wars related" in the sense that it was originally intended to be screened before Star Wars screenings.

So... Related only by proximity, not by content (Or as it's otherwise known, not related).
Except for that bit where Christian has doubt on weither or not it will 'hold up to the mythology' - what mythology?

Ok, that doesn't mean it's related to Star Wars... but it's related to something at least.
 

Scarim Coral

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I take it Universal is not very oragnise and is a mess if they lost something like that and to find it again many years later.
 

STENDEC1

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So they can find this short film lost to the ages for 33 years and restore it to projection-ready quality, yet George Lucas insists that the original versions of the Star Wars trilogy are long gone/beyond repair? Uh huh...
 

templar1138a

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Jadak said:
templar1138a said:
Okay... but how exactly is this Star Wars related? Unless the Black Angel is Vader.

I suppose I could see that being the case. I have to remember that this was made between Episodes IV and V, before they even GOT those numbers, and LONG before the expanded universe got pioneered... I get the feeling this film will kinda suck.
It's a misleading title. Its only "Star Wars related" in the sense that it was originally intended to be screened before Star Wars screenings.

So... Related only by proximity, not by content (Or as it's otherwise known, not related).
The Escapist making misleading titles in order to get people to read articles about practically nothing? *overdramatic gasp* Why I never!
 

The Material Sheep

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templar1138a said:
Jadak said:
templar1138a said:
Okay... but how exactly is this Star Wars related? Unless the Black Angel is Vader.

I suppose I could see that being the case. I have to remember that this was made between Episodes IV and V, before they even GOT those numbers, and LONG before the expanded universe got pioneered... I get the feeling this film will kinda suck.
It's a misleading title. Its only "Star Wars related" in the sense that it was originally intended to be screened before Star Wars screenings.

So... Related only by proximity, not by content (Or as it's otherwise known, not related).
The Escapist making misleading titles in order to get people to read articles about practically nothing? *overdramatic gasp* Why I never!
Yeah but this is a really big low for them... I mean its got hardly anything related to star wars in it.
 

MrBaskerville

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Tarkand said:
Jadak said:
templar1138a said:
Okay... but how exactly is this Star Wars related? Unless the Black Angel is Vader.

I suppose I could see that being the case. I have to remember that this was made between Episodes IV and V, before they even GOT those numbers, and LONG before the expanded universe got pioneered... I get the feeling this film will kinda suck.
It's a misleading title. Its only "Star Wars related" in the sense that it was originally intended to be screened before Star Wars screenings.

So... Related only by proximity, not by content (Or as it's otherwise known, not related).
Except for that bit where Christian has doubt on weither or not it will 'hold up to the mythology' - what mythology?

Ok, that doesn't mean it's related to Star Wars... but it's related to something at least.
Well, it´s a lost movie that is known for being lost and only seen by a few. That´s the mythology he´s talking about :p.
 

MrBaskerville

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STENDEC1 said:
So they can find this short film lost to the ages for 33 years and restore it to projection-ready quality, yet George Lucas insists that the original versions of the Star Wars trilogy are long gone/beyond repair? Uh huh...
It´s probably true, their archives are huge and these things have a bad habit of detereorating really fast if they aren´t taken care of (one guy almost destroyed ever master of everything Leonard Cohen ever recorded a couple of years back), so i´m sure Lucas is right when he says that. But there´s no excuse why he can´t just take the remasters and remove all the new stuff, a lot of it could be fixed via editing.
 

Jadak

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Tarkand said:
Except for that bit where Christian has doubt on weither or not it will 'hold up to the mythology' - what mythology?

Ok, that doesn't mean it's related to Star Wars... but it's related to something at least.
That bit is also misleading.. Although given that it's a fantasy film, the mythology would clearly still not be that of Star Wars.

The full quote from the article reads:

?It is this mythic thing. I was talking with the Shadowlocked [another great Black Angel resource] editor about it and I was just debating, ?Should I ever release this or not??? Christian said. ?Maybe it doesn?t stand up to the mythology. It?s an ongoing discussion of old films and whether the image of them that remains in the subconscious gets tainted by what comes now, 30 years or more after.
So by the sounds of, he's mostly just pondering "Does this movie suck balls from a modern perspective on fantasy movies, as it won't have the decades old bias from nostalgic fans supporting it"
 

Scribblesense

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People have been looking for this film for years. Here's a crash course:

http://www.shadowlocked.com/20100104137/opinion-features/the-lost-film-that-accompanied-the-empire-strikes-back.html

It's awesome that they finally found it, and even if time has completely blown its influence out of proportion I'd still love to see this one day. Hopefully they put it up online.
 

BoogieManFL

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Yeah I'm also going to jump with most of you, I don't see any intelligent or mention-worthy way this is related to Star Wars either. Misleading article title.
 

Jadak

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Scarim Coral said:
I take it Universal is not very oragnise and is a mess if they lost something like that and to find it again many years later.
It wasn't theirs to begin with. As the article speculates, when the studio that was responsible for these things closed down, they believe everything may have been sent in bulk to Universal. Now, Universal has a guy going through that old crap that isn't organized because someone else didn't bother, and is organizing it. Kind of the opposite of what you're thinking, really.
 

Micalas

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Scribblesense said:
People have been looking for this film for years. Here's a crash course:

http://www.shadowlocked.com/20100104137/opinion-features/the-lost-film-that-accompanied-the-empire-strikes-back.html

It's awesome that they finally found it, and even if time has completely blown its influence out of proportion I'd still love to see this one day. Hopefully they put it up online.
Thanks for the link! I don't know much about this movie, but I'd definitly like to know more.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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templar1138a said:
Jadak said:
th3dark3rsh33p said:
BoogieManFL said:
Did you read the article?

The short film was created by Roger Christian who worked on the set design of Star Wars (and won an Oscar for it). The film originally came about from Lucas going "thanks for the work you did, here is some film equipment and some money and go crazy" with the end result being shown before Episode V. It isn't related universe wise, but there certainly is multiple real world connections to Star Wars.

So (for once) the Escapist title is correct.
 

Jadak

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Ed130 said:
Did you read the article?

The short film was created by Roger Christian who worked on the set design of Star Wars (and won an Oscar for it). The film originally came about from Lucas going "thanks for the work you did, here is some film equipment and some money and go crazy" with the end result being shown before Episode V. It isn't related universe wise, but there certainly is multiple real world connections to Star Wars.

So (for once) the Escapist title is correct.
Did you even read the post you're quoting? Like I said, related by proximity, not by content. That's how I worded it, and that's what you just described in your rebuttal.