In October a long-lost piece of “Star Wars” history will make its return to theaters.
No, it’s not long lost footage of Luke, Leia and Han. Instead, it’s “Black Angel,” a 25-minute short that showed before “The Empire Strikes Back” in Australia and parts of Europe during the movie’s original 1980 theatrical run.
The film, the directorial debut of Roger Christian, who served as the artistic director on 1977’s “Star Wars,” will screen at the Mill Valley Film Festival in Marin County, CA, on October 13, reports Ars Technica.
The 25-minute flick, which tells the tale of a knight returning from the Crusades who’s transported to a mystical world after falling into a river, was made between the first two films in the franchise, with financial help from George Lucas.
“When I made it, George Lucas was wonderful. In a way it was a thank you to me because I stood by his side on the first ‘Star Wars,’” Christian told the website. “They hated or disliked the film that went out with the first ‘Star Wars,’ George felt it wasn’t connecting with the audience. It wasn’t right. He’d been searching for a short film to make with [Empire] and it was just sheer chance.”
The film was never released on Video or DVD, and was instead archived. But through unforeseen archive and studio closures, all existing copies of the film, including Christian’s, seemed to disappear. After more than 20 years of searching – and with the film having gained cult status among fans because of its rarity – the director had given up hope of ever seeing the film again.
But in December 2011, an archivist from Universal Studios contacted Christian to say he had a tin marked “Black Angel” and that it seemed to belong to him.
“He said, ‘We found this tin of film labeled Black Angel, and it seems to point to you,’” Christian told Wired in 2012. “I wrote back, ‘You just made my Christmas for the last 20 years.’”
At first Christianson thought about making the film available as an online download, but now – thanks to some dedicated fans with film restoration connections – the film will be seen on the big screen, the way it was always meant to be viewed.