Pirating the Pirates

Περίληψη

Home video release images from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966). Clockwise from top-left: Arrow Video (4K UHD, 2025), Kino Lorber (4K UHD, 2021), MGM (4K Blu-ray, 2014), MGM (DVD, 1998).

“People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. ”

—George Lucas, 1988

“To me, it [the original Star Wars trilogy] doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it.”

—George Lucas, 2004

Vancouver, 2011: My then-roommate Willa Ross and I are at our wit’s end in one of Simon Fraser University’s characteristically antiseptic editing suites, having just spent the weekend hacking together three distinct copies of Sergio Leone’s 1966 western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, all il...