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.
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.
I own my cat. If I treated it the way he treats his films, I'd be locked up.
He deserves every south park joke thrown at him
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.
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.
Oh good, now we start the George Lucas bashing tirades. Have fun, I've got more useful ways to expend my energy.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Yeah, like Stairway to Heaven remixed with some rapping in it.
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.
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.
AndyC wrote:
>
> 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.
You hit the nail right on the head Andy.
I completely agree.
I've always liked them as they were.
Granted, some of the newer special FX are kinda cool, especially the re-done scenes of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back.
I have always thought that Empire could've used a couple of touches here & there.
It was his tinkering of the very first film that was the worst of all.
Post Edited (09-11-04 16:33)
I watched Lucas on the Charlie Rose show and he said that when he made the first Stars Wars he felt like he only had about 25% of what he wanted to do on the screen. Although he said in reality he had about 75% of what he wanted in it.
Many artists and writers change their work later. Michelangelo painted over part of the Sistine Chape he'd already finished. Edgar Allan Poe wrote different versions of some of his poems because he wasn't satisfied with them. J. R. R, Tolkein published the Hobbit in 1937 and then after he published LOTR, he went back and rewrote part of the Hobbit to include the story of the ring.
George Lucas is far from the first guy to go back and tinker with his work. If you like the original trilogy as first released, hang on to your VHS. I've got mine.
trek_geezer wrote:
> If you like the original trilogy as first
> released, hang on to your VHS. I've got mine.
I've got 'em, but they lack the quality and longevity of DVDs.
It's not so much the tinkering as messing with history that bothers me. The revised films are not what became such a phenomenon in the 70s and 80s. I would agree that the original, untampered films should also be released, either on their own, or with the new versions.
Of course, the fact that only the revised versions are getting a DVD release makes me wonder if Lucas is deliberately trying to wipe the originals out of existance, at least for the general public. It's like he's trying to mess with our collective memory.
As for the changes themselves, I don't mind seeing a few technical enhancements, or a few planned effects that couldn't be done at the time. As long as the originals are preserved and there is some documentation of the changes, that's OK. But changing the nature of characters, or even replacing actors with people who weren't around at the time just seems wrong to me, under any circumstances.
Post Edited (09-14-04 07:13)
....and Lucas can go screw himself.
AndyC that's what I've been saying, I agree with you. Preserve the originals and you can do whatever the hell you want Lucas. JUST PUT THEM ON DVD!!
I went into a local video game shop today (9-17-04) and they had the new Star Wars DVD playing on one of their televisions.
Apparently they had got ahold of the box set somehow before it's official release..
I watched the entire "Assault on the Death Star" scene from the end of Episode 4 along with probably 5 or 6 other customers that were there and WOW! What an improvement in the image!
It was great to see how sharp and crystal clear Star Wars was on DVD.
It looks fantastic!
Post Edited (09-18-04 03:12)
The biggest mistake George Lucas ever made was putting the original original original (see how rediculous this is) trilogy on laserdisc. From what I understand there are several people making DVDs out of them.
Since he isn't giving people what they want, people are finding a way to get it without his help. He will probably be forced into releasing the OOOT when the bootlegs saturate his market.
It is also a possibility that he intends to release the unaltered versions once everybody has bought the spruced up ones.
Like new movies that come out with a plain DVD, then a super-duper special edition to wring more money out of the real fans. He might be aiming at the wider market with this release, but once sales slow down, he could come out with the original movies for the fans who can't be without them, even after they've shelled out 60 bucks already.
Coming out with the originals first, he probably wouldn't have as good an opportunity for double dipping. If the fans had the originals, they could more easily say the new versions weren't worth buying. To a large degree, that's what happened with the VHS release a few years back.
If people figure the new ones are all they're getting on DVD, even the fans might cave in and buy them (I almost did) along with the general public who don't really care what he's done to them. But the serious fans will still long for the original, untouched versions, and will gladly fork over another 60 bucks in a couple of years if they become available.
Lucas could make big bucks on his tweaked and twisted version, then turn around and throw the fans a bone, and rake in a bunch more. In the end, he'll sell more of the new version anyway, but a lot of people will own both. I'd say that's win-win for George Lucas.
I don't get how everyone fully acknowledges Lucas's greedy nature but still chooses to support him in his neverending quest for money.
Like I said before, if anybody wants the Original Trilogy theatrical releases (the way it was meant to be seen), e-mail me. I know a guy that sold me a nicely packaged set and the quality is outstanding by far...