‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ will be screened from the original cut, not the remastered version.
For its 50th anniversary, the original 1977 Star Wars will be released on IMAX 70mm on February 19, 2027 for the first time ever, LucasFilm announced. It will be joined on IMAX screens later in the year by the newest film in the series, Star Wars: Starfighter, set to debut on May 28, 2027 — 50 years after the first Star Wars film’s weekend premiere.
You may be wondering whether the original film or digitally remastered version will be shown on IMAX screens. To my relief, the answer is the former. The IMAX 70mm prints will be struck from a “newly restored version of the original movie,” LucasFilm wrote. It’s not clear how the restoration was done, though hopefully it didn’t involve too much digital manipulation.
If that’s accurate, then the IMAX 70mm news is almost burying the lede. For many Star Wars fans, the ability to see the first film in its original form without the added scenes and digital effects will be a Holy Grail quest worth the price of admission alone. The original has only every been (officially) screened twice since 1997, both times at a UK film festival last year. That said, seeing it on 59 by 79 foot IMAX screens with John Williams’ score in 12-channel surround sound will be pretty sweet too.
As for Star Wars: Starfighter, it appears to have been shot digitally on Sony’s IMAX-certified CineAlta Venice 2 cameras (reportedly wielded during the film’s production by Tom Cruise at one point) in an 8.6K source and 4K master format. That means that the film will need to be upscaled and digitally converted to IMAX 70mm, which can exceed 14K resolution. Still, that will be far and away the best way to see the movie, so you may want to think about booking your tickets for both the original 1977 Star Wars and Starfighter as soon as possible — here’s my guide on where to find IMAX 70mm theaters.
