New Original Star Wars Trilogy Edits/Alterations

[nobody]

There's a great short article here about Lucas's latest revisions to the original Star Wars films (changed yet again for the DVD release)...

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2004-09/09/11.30.film

I'm glad I eventually learned to loathe the entire Star Wars universe (except for Xbox's "Knights of the Old Republic" game. That game was fantastic)- or else I'd be spending all my money on the same damn movies, over and over again.

[trekgeezer]

Now he has Greedo and Han shooting at the same time. Mustn't have Han being a cold blooded killer. Funny how it didn't bother anybody for  like 20 years before he did the Special Editions.

That's the only thing that got me about these.  I've always said he can do what he wants, he owns the films.  Most producers can't say that.

[Dave Munger]

I own my cat. If I treated it the way he treats his films, I'd be locked up.

[saintmort]

He deserves every south park joke thrown at him

[George]

I'm one of the few people who enjoy the updates but I don't buy every version of the film.  I view the process a little differently.  I owned an erector set as a kid.  It was great!!  As new parts became available, I added to my collection to make the set do more things and have more options.  I view Star Wars the same way.  Uncle George is just adding to the film as new technology comes along.

I do have one suggestion for him.  In the new set, it would be great to have the original theatrical version AND his latest incarnations...simply for comparison and postarity's sake.

[odinn7]

Ya know, I'm sick of everyone messing with my childhood. Lucas bastardizing Star Wars, the new Planet of the Apes, Starsky and Hutch, I could go on.

Greedo shooting at the same time as Han? That, to me, changes the whole Solo character. I think that one scene, in it's original form, summed up what Han Solo was all about. So, years later, let's just change it because...well, because...hmm, uh...because we can! Lucas is an ass.

[trekgeezer]

Oh good, now  we start the George Lucas bashing tirades.  Have fun, I've got more useful ways to expend my energy.

[Yaddo42]

That presss release quoted in the story may have associated Lucas' name with the word "artist" more times than has ever happened in his entire career.

As for the changes, talk about muddying the waters even more about Han vs. Greedo. I don't care how much you "smooth out" the Jabba at Mos Eisley scene, still robs you of the mystery of seeing Jabba for THE FIRST TIME in ROTJ, He was a name with a sinster and intimidating reputation when the films first came out until  you finally saw him, it was great buildup over the course of the films. Now he's just a slug with an ever worsening glandular problem. Plus the pointless inclusion of Boba Fett lurking in the background of the Mos Eisley scene is made worse by the end of it when they cut to angle and Fett turns to stare into the camera, when the earlier angles showed that in the direction he's facing once he turns was just a blank wall.

I know they're just movies, but there's something Orwellian about changing your old films to attempt to make the lackluster prequels make more sense. At least they left in the "Old Man" Vader. I guess the adding of the ghostly Christensen at the end is supposed to say that Anakin "died" when he became Vader, or rather that Vader "killed" Anakin as we were told so long ago.

I'll probably watch them to give myself something to get angry about and get it out of my sysytem, but I can't see buying them. A recovering fanboy has to take a stand somewhere.

Lucas should challenge himself by using the full capabilities of LucasArts/Skywalker Ranch to make the Holiday Special match his "original vision" since that must be why it sucked, the technology was just lacking to make it good or entertaining or coherent at the time.

[daveblackeye15]

I think there is something I dunno "wrong" about changing your creations so they can "fit in" with your new creations. I bet when Lucs does 7-9 he'll go back and make changes to episode 1-3 and proabably more to 4-6.

Now I wouldn't mind so much if he would release the original version (cleaned up and remastered of course). I know! There should be a set of each movie that includes all three version of the movies. 1st) Original 2nd)1997 stuff 3rd) new stuff.

If would make the originals affafiable then it wouldn't feel like he was messing something up.

[Fearless Freep]

I think there is something I dunno "wrong" about changing your creations so they can "fit in" with your new creations.

Lucas once said that movies were never finished, just abandoned.

As a musician, I can certainly understand the desire to go back and change what you've done before to make it match more closely with what you really want it to say.

[Yaddo42]

The line about an "artistic" work being abandoned, rather than finished goes back much further than Lucas. But there's also something to be said for realizing that your work is so popular and/or well regarded and leaving it the hell alone. You can cross that line of trying to put too much of yourself or what you wanted into in a work.

I want to make comparisons to music that is over-produced and too slick, since Lucas has become so enamored with CGI and graphics and re-editing, at the expense of plotting, character development, and dialogue (areas of weakness for him anyway, he seems to be the only one who doesn't know it or doesn't care). I wish he had tried to make his prequels mesh with what he has done already rather than trying to retcon the stories so many knew and loved to fit with works in progress (Eps. I-III).

[Dave Munger]

I'm not much of a purist, really, and in priciple, I see nothing wrong with improving things. Back when Woody Allen and everyone were upset about colorization, I thought that since these old movies just get shown on TV now anyway, you can just turn the color all the way down if you prefer to see them as they were made. Things like the flaming ring shockwave thing added to the explosion of the Death Star don't bug me. But some of this stuff clearly lowers the quality of the movies, like stuff that changes Han Solo's character. Maybe the reason all the criticism is bouncing off of Lucas is that he thinks it's all coming from anal retentive purists who'd object just as strenuously to removing a scene where you can see strings holding up the Millenium Falcon, if there were a scene like that in A New Hope. A lot of people who make great things seem never to GET them, like the people who made Seinfeld thought it was about nothing (haven't they ever SEEN a sitcom before? None of them are about more stuff than Seinfeld's about, except M*A*S*H maybe), and that the characters are all sociopaths (when Jerry mugged that old lady for the marble rye because he ~cared~ about his friend, this was the noblest act in the history of sitcoms). Way off topic here.

[Mr. Hockstatter]

Yeah, like Stairway to Heaven remixed with some rapping in it.

[Dave Munger]

COME WITH ME, UGH!!! I guess that was Puffy yelling over Cashmere that I was thinking of. I like Cashmere even better than Stairway though. At least they started playing the real song on the radio more after that.

[AndyC]

I don't know about the argument that an artist can continue to mess with his work. I've never heard of a painter walking into a gallery or someone's home and tinkering with a finished piece. Likewise, as a writer, once something of mine is in print, I just have to say it's good enough.

In the case of Star Wars, we're talking about something that has become a part of movie history, and a part of our popular culture. The argument can be made that it belongs to the world, regardless of who owns it.

As for Lucas, I wonder if he's just afraid to let his movies get old. What he's doing to keep his masterpiece current is a lot like an aging woman who, in her vanity, desperately keeps running back to the surgeon to be cut and pulled and stitched into an increasingly grotesque imitation of youth.