More changes to Star Wars?
Published November 21, 2003
Rumors are flying that George Lucas is planning still more changes to the original Star Wars trilogy. The full list can be found here.The original "Han shooting Greedo first" scene is back in, but there is also a lot of new stuff included. Lucas is denying the rumors, of course, but he also said that we'd grow to love Jar Jar. Anyway, it seems to me that some of these are pretty outlandish. For example, how are they going to make changes to the Obi-Wan/Darth Vader lightsaber duel when Alec Guiness is dead? The rumors of extended dogfight footage at the Death star in A New Hope have been around since before the original Special Edition, so I'm not sure how likely it is that it will be included here.
Most of the other rumors consist of replacing characters with CGI and adding in music from the prequels. There's also a rumor that more Ewoks will be added to Return of the Jedi (bad idea), and that more of them will die (excellent idea). Some of these rumored changes wouldn't be terrible (is anyone really going to object to the white boxes around the ships being removed), but most of them are either pointless or just downright awful. Yoda never looked as good as he did in the original trilogy, so why go back and make his face in The Empire Strikes Back computer generated? Why insert scenes of Jar Jar into Return of the Jedi? Do the old movies really need to be overhauled? Bootleg copies of the original, unaltered trilogy on DVD are very popular at comic book conventions; I think the public would thrilled if Lucas would just stop fiddling with Star Wars altogether.
I doubt that the changes will the original trilogy will be this extensive, but the sad thing is, it's entirely believable that George Lucas would do something like this. If there were rumors that he was going to insert the entire Star Wars Christmas Special into The Empire Strikes Back and digitally replace Mark Hamill with LaToya Jackson, I would have a hard time dismissing them out of hand. George Lucas seems to make changes to the movies without actually thinking about them first. There's also talk that Lucas will be "revamping" Episode 1, but unless he's going to replace all the Jar Jar scenes with more lightsaber battles with Darth Maul, I can't see anyone caring too much. Lucas can make whatever changes to the movies he wants, but I hope he realizes there's a substantial amount of people who would like to see him just leave them alone.
- More changes to Star Wars?
- Published: November 21, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: SF
- Writer: Chris Puzak
- Chris Puzak's BC Writer page
- Chris Puzak's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
It appears both Lucas and Spielberg, same generation film geeks, seem to have an obsession with tinkering with their films after completion. Didn't Spielberg also redo "Close Encounters," "Duel" and "Jaws?" Frankly, no amount of tinkering is going to save "Star Wars Episode 1." But let's be frank. Lucas' mission/purpose in life will forever be the "Star Wars" films. They will be his legacy. Can we blame him for obsessively trying to achieve a form of perfection? One can argue his artistic depth, but one cannot argue his love for his creations.
I think it was E.T. and Close Encounters of The Third Kind that Spielberg was mucking about with. The problem I have with Lucas is not that he's changing things in the original trilogy, but that he's not doing a particularly good job of it. There were some nice aspects to the special editions, there were also some parts that just plain didn't work. The problem is that Lucas is surrounded by people who won't speak up and say "You know what George, that's not a good idea".
There are some movies that really beenfit from tinkering, such as Touch of Evil. But I don't think there's much you can do with the Star Wars trilogy. Inserting CGI into the original bad just looks terrible and doesn't add anything to the movie. The puppets and models of the original trilogy just plain look better.
I'd like to see Lucas move on from Star Wars. Thx-1138 and American Graphitti are both fine movies; I believe he could make movies like that again. I just wish he'd realize that it's a lost cause endlessly trying to improve movies taht are already as good as they're going to get.
George Lucas must be stopped. His tinkering is ruining many great movies.
I wish he would leave them alone too. But they belong to HIM -- he can do what he darn well pleases with them.
He should fix "Howard the Duck".
Hey, if he wants to do a Director's Cut, then more power to him, but he should also release/sell the original unedited for the purists.
Some of the changes being made do improve the movies. I have been a Star Wars fan from day one, and have read all the novelizations. Adding the Solo/Jabba scene in the hanger bay on Tatooine was an improvement. Having Boba Fett the was not.
Naturally, South Park had an outstanding episode [#609 Free Hat] in which the boys went into an Indiana Jones type adventure to rescue the film masters before Lucas could screw with them.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/10332)
I think Lucas is hitting the bong kind of hard in his later years, but I am pleased to hear the truth finally come out. Han shot first, dad-gummit!