Today, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is available digitally, ahead of its upcoming Blu-ray and 3D home releases. But another version of the movie is actually available today too — one that’s light on dialogue. Well, not just light. There’s literally none.
AU editor’s note: Movies Anywhere, the service offering this cut of the film, isn’t available in Australia, but hopefully we’ll get some way of accessing it down under.
Speaking to Prime Video during a Facebook Live segment about the home release of the movie, director Rian Johnson revealed that (in the US, at least), Movies Anywhere will be offering a special music-only version of the movie for anyone who signs up for the app and connects their digital copy of the film to it. It’s The Last Jedi, but with no dialogue, no ambient noise, no sound effects, just pure, 100 per cent John Williams goodness. Johnson said:
One thing I’m really excited about with it, that I really want to talk up, and this was something that I really pushed to figure out a way to do, it’s a really special thing. We’re going to have a music-only version of the movie. Basically, we did a mix where there’s no dialogue, no sound effects, no backgrounds, nothing but the score playing at regular perfect level. So you can watch it like a silent film just with John [Williams’] score. If you do this, it’s incredible because you see the nuance that he rides the emotion of the scene with, and it’s being able to just focus on that music.
It’s a very cool bonus for people already grabbing the movie digitally, and a rare chance to experience a blockbuster in such a unique way. But man, it would have been delightfully silly to go all in on this: black and white, amped up film grain, a vaudevillian version of the soundtrack, insert cards for key dialogue. Star Wars: The Last Jedi: The 1928 Cut, basically. Sure, maybe three other people who aren’t me would watch that, but imagine it!
[/Film]