A Small Victory

I am all for "new" editions where the special effects are upgraded, but why change a great story?

"Dorothy, just click your heals once so we have some extra time for product placement"

Not having seen the revised version, I guess I'll have to at least rent it when it finally comes out.

I'm pretty sure I won't buy the new ones. Hopefully I'm not alone, and Lucas will learn that, although this isn't a democracy, it is capitalism. I'd like to think there's a pretty good market for the original films on DVD.

Sadly, I probably would buy the big boxed set you describe...

For every "new, improved, extended, highlighted, re-formatted, retrofitted extra-special super edition" DVD release comes my promise that I positively will not cave in and buy it.

I've got a better track record with New Year's resolutions, and I gave up on making those a decade ago. Curse you, greedy filmmakers!

Fuck Lucas!

I have VHS editions of the originals.

I was pissed enough when the first two prequels came to DVD in the full screen version. Are you fucking kidding me, pan and scan for a movie touted for its incredible landscapes???!?? And then a year later the fulkl screen version is released?? Are you fucking kidding me? It was bad enough with VHS.

In fact I will bet that this DVD release will also be in full instead of widescreen so the greedy bastard can release the wide screen version after Episode 3.

And you know the special features will be wack.

What I want is the damn original scene with Jabba where he's a man. Dammit.

Greedo fires first! oh. my. gawd. you have no idea how much that absolutely bugs the motherfuckin shit out of me. i mean, come on. how the hell can greedo miss a guy who's sitting across the friggin table? puh-LEEZ.

that bugs me almost as much as that wussy jabba that han talks to. the only, ONLY good thing to come out of those re-writes is that 3 second scene where the falcon lifts off out of Mos Eisley, and you see the engines before they flare up.

that being said, i'll be one of the first in line to buy those stupid DVDs

I'm not buying any of it. Screw George Lucas. As far as I'm concerned, when that bastard unleashed JarJar Binks and the monumentally bad Hayden Christensen on us, he got the last dollar he'll ever get out of me.

Over at www.thedigitalbits.com and on the official site there is no mention of which version will be released - I'm unable to corroborate an 'official' release statement on which version it is. Frankly, if it is the special ed ones then to hell with 'em. He got enough of my money in VHS. He gets one shot for DVD, and one only.

I read a few months back that they were changing the Greedo scene back to the original, but I'll believe it when I see it. According to everything I've heard, Lucas refuses to ever release the original versions. Glad I own a set on laserdisc!

Heh....I was saying something similar in my blog earlier today. I'll spend money on the DVDs because I love these movies, and I do it knowing full well that George Lucas (and for that matter, his pal Spielberg, with his exchange-guns-for-walkie-talkies crap) is a schmuck. Your prediction seems right-on, too, when you consider Spielberg did it with E.T.

Gimme a Han that shoots first and a SW universe devoid of Gungans, and I'll be a happier fan. But either way, I'll be a DVD-owning fan.

Sigh.

What I would like to see is a revised version in which Han shoots Jar Jar, instead of Greedo. And Han would shoot first, of course, and then jump on the table and shoot him again and again and again and again and again! And then he'd kick the corpse in the head, and then shit on it, and then shoot it again and again and again and again and again and again! A then he wouldn't even give the bartender a clean-up fee. And then he'd run back into the cantina and shoot Jar Jar again and again and again and again and again!

Come to think of it, my revised version would consist entirely of Han shooting Jar Jar again and again and again and again and again and again and again!

I'm just having visions of tying Lucas down and giving him the Clockwork Orange treatment with that episode of South Park.

#$!@(@$ Lucas!

He lost me with the Ewoks.

D

The only way I'll ever buy the prequels on dvd is if they have an extensive wardrobe commentary and closeups. You know, for research purposes. Not because I'm addicted to pretty dresses or anything.

I'm with Shell on the wardrobe commentary and close-ups. Not because of Princess Leia's slave girl outfit or anything.

Loony lib Lucas just doesn't like the original anymore because he felt that Solo's actions were unilateral and preemptive. Han should have gathered a meaningful coalition of cantia creatures to express the will of Mos Eisley according to the precepts of interstellar law.

I don't think you should buy the bastardized DVDs. That's not the way to enjoy these films. As a little green guy once told me, "Decide you must what to serve them best. If you bought them now, have them you could, but you would destroy all for which we have fought and suffered." Or something like that.

Leia's Metal Bikini

And Lucas is a dick.

Wow... apparently lots of us need to vent. Maybe we need a Fuck George Lucas / Han Shoots First limerick contest or something?

Well now. As annoyed as I am with some of the special edition, I'm not really bugged by the who shoots first bit. That musical number in RotJ is what really should go. But I'll buy it anyway. To do otherwise seems to be more of the "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face". After all, they're STILL great movies.

And I'll always have the originals on VHS.

There's no way in hell I'm buying ANY version of Star Wars other than the ones I saw in theaters in the 1970s and 1980s. George Lucas can kiss my ENTIRE ass.

And I didn't buy Spielberg's dippy "walkie-talkies" edition of E.T., either.

why am i surprised by this? following the link to leia's metal bikini, i found a site with a petition to release the original versions on DVD.

and they really have a "han shoots first" button.

I don't know why Lucas doesn't take a page out of Speilberg's book, and include both versions on the DVD like they did with E.T. How hard would that be? I don't see how it would tarnish his 'artistic vision'.

"Greedo" ... how appropriate.

Okay, I found the reference to Lucas changing the Greedo scene back. Turns out I actually blogged about it back in Dec -- no wonder it semed familiar! The news came from the Digital Bits website, via SciFi Wire, and it also discussed other rumoured changes like replacing the actor who originally was Anakin under the mask, with Hayden's face.

I'm sorry, but I fear that alot of you guys are not going to like what I have to say here. I don't care that Lucas made changes to the original series, I dont care if he made it so that Solo shot first, I don't care if he decided to make a prequel trilogy. It's his series, he has the right to do what he wants with it. If he went back and mad Darth Vader a tap dancing ballerina, I wouldn't care (well maybe alittle).

The Star Wars movies where never about art, They where never about oscar caliber acting, what they where was Lucas tribute to the Sci-fi serials he watched as a kid.

For people who say that the new trilogy is just a bunch of special effects with a shoe-string plot, guess what? The same could be said about alot of the original trilogy. Don't get me wrong, I loved those movies just as much as anyone, but you can bet your sweet ass that alot of these same complaints made against the current series were thrown against the original trilogy when it first came out.

Dammit, i'm just so sick and tired of hearing these arguments from people, Lucas decided to cave the wishes of his rabid fans and make a new Star Wars movie, and since it's not good enough, his fans scream and rave at him again.

Well, when these DVD's come out, you can bet i'll own three of them, and i'll be watching thema long with my copies of the three prequel movies.

That's it, i've said what I had to say. Damn it feels good to get that out.

This still bugs the hell out of me. I want the movie I saw 19 times in a drive in when I was a wee one in '77, not the bastardized one I saw with my ex in '97 (I decided not to see the "special" editions of Empire and Jedi after watching the butchering of the first one, and to this day I still haven't seen them).

Will I buy the FAKE DVD set? Of course. Why? Because it's #@*&%!$ Star Wars and I'm a #@*&%$ lemming.

GAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

(Don't ask how I found this place, bacause I have no idea :-P, but Hi!)

Well, no Matt, they aren't his movies. We could argue the technicalities of it, the Constitution says artists should have exclusive right to their writings for a limited time and argue how long that limited time should be. But the import thing is to promote "the progress of science and useful arts". What the hell kind of filmmaker tries his best to prevent his movie from being seen? How does preventing his movie from being seen "progress art"?

This goes beyond mere changes in a movie. I think it's great that there are director's cuts, extended versions, etc. And I want creative people to get paid for their work. But look at how Lucas is using his copyright. The originals are not being shown on TV, they're not being sold in stores, and they are never going to be shown or sold again. He is removing them from the public domain, taking a movie millions adored and trying to hide it from them. This does not benefit anybody, except maybe people who get on eBay with the laserdisc version. The problem isn't with the changes, or the relative artistic merit of Star Wars. They're archival issues, mainly. Those VHS tapes are not going to last forever. The film stock won't either (if it hasn't been destroyed already). Christ, the more I think about it, the more sick it makes me.

Folks should keep things in perspective. How many people nowadays feel so strongly about the Buck Rodgers/Flash Gordon/Etc. serials that were Lucas' inspiration? Not too many, since many have passed on. Even today, there are kids who saw the revised versions of these films, and it is those versions that are their treasured memories.

I agree that it is sad that Mr. Lucas fails to honor the memories of the fans who made Star Wars a phenomenon back in the late '70s/early '80s. But, in some ways, even the originals can't match up with my memory of them. Too much water under the bridge since then.

They say 'you can't go home again.' George, for whatever reason, wants to make sure that saying holds true for his Star Wars Universe. Speaking as one of those teens whose whole world was Star Wars for a while back then, I say, thanks George, for reminding me that no one's dream world but my own is one I can keep trust in.

Personally, I don't care to spend the time or money reliving what is now clearly his little kingdom. It may be your ball, George, but it's I who don't want to play with you any more!

Well, I believe this. The reason that so many people are ragging on these prequels is because we've changed as a society since the origina;s release. I can promise you that if Phantom Menace-final movie had been released back in the late 70's/early 80's instead of A new Hope-Return, it would be them that people would be remembering.

Heck, people would probably be laughing there heads of at Jar-Jar and calling the droids annoying and stupid.

We, as people, have changed too much to really enjoy a good Star Wars movie.

That's my opinion.

Okay, I think you've gone beyond the "fanboy" line. You are obsessing over a what, 5 second addition to the original. I know it changes the dynamics of the character, but COME ON, aren't your getting a little bent out of shape out of something that's trivial? I loved the originals-I own all but 1 of the Star Wars Action Fleet. I just can't get worked up over the who-shoots-who first controversy.

P.S. Even with the change to the new version, Democrats would insist that Greedo posed no imminent threat and Han would not have been justified to shoot him.

The "Greedo shoots first" is less than a second, but there are a lot of other additions that are longer than a second. Greedo shooting first is just one of the more egregious. And it's really stupid and annoying. Little things do matter in movies. If Michael Curtiz had digitally inserted a fart joke in the middle of Bogart and Bergman's farewell scene in "Casablanca", would you shrug and say "it's only a 5 second addition"?

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan and I probably won't be buying any of the DVD's. I enjoyed the original in spite of its paper-thin substance, and thought The Empire Strikes Back was really an inspired film, but none of the three subsequent releases has done much for me.

I have no problem with an artist changing his work of art over time. That's a natural human impulse. However, I do have a problem with someone taking the originals out of circulation. That's sheer arrogance, to effectively tell people they shouldn't care about the original work because the artist in his infinite wisdom has chosen to make it "better". The paying Star Wars fans made George Lucas a zillionaire, yet he seems to hold them in contempt...

I actually liked most of the updated bits in the Star Wars film.

There was a lot of neat things in the background, like the little cambots following the troopers around, or the shuttle lifting off near where the search party found the escape pod, etc.

But yes, the part about Greedo sucked. Especially since the shot looks like the blaster malfunctioned. The angle was just totally wrong. Also, IIRC, wasn't the reason for putting that in so "it would look like self defense"? If true, then it's a lame excuse.

I guess Lucas and Spielberg must have been drinking together one night and came up with this notion that sanitizing their movies was a noble and correct thing to do.....I hate this revision as much as I hate the scene in E.T. when the Secret Service guys try to stop the boys at the park as they try to take E.T. to meet his ship, and E.T. levitates them all in the air on their bikes and they ride/fly right over the men, who are pointing rifles and guns at them. Except in the new release, they aren't holding guns and rifles any more. They're aiming cell phones at the kids.

Blech.

Ryan , I havent laughed that hard in a LONG time.

I am personally just sick of Lucas trying to whore himself to all the other popular themes. It was bad enough that he charmed Joseph Campbell into describing his story as the Ultimate Myth...he just HAD to come out and say that it was TOLKIEN that inspired Luke Skywalker!!!!

This from a guy who just started out saying "hey man, I just wanted to make a space movie!"

Lucas is shit-headed. I'll keep the few SW collectibles that mean something to me because there is a lot of sentimentality and nostalgia attached to it (memories of meeting my now-husband and ESB are intertwined), but I'll be damned if I ever give his productions the time of day now. Tolkien was MY first love before I decided to like Star Wars and he still is, but for far better reasons than whether or not a certain scene was changed.

Lucas just needs someone to tell him to STOP - QUITE MESSING WITH IT. PEOPLE ALREADY LIKED IT.

What's interesting is that by changing that scene, Lucas undermines Han Solo's personal journey and the reasons for his transformation.

When we first meet Solo, he is egocentric, materialistic, and supremely disinterested in anything that doesn't further his favorite cause - himself. He ridicules the entire notion of "The Force" and tells Obi Wan and Luke that they are guaranteeing themselves an early demise by joining the rebellion. His manner of speech and all of his actions reflect his character, and taking Greedo out the way he did is what we would expect from this man. It isn't until the end of the movie that he surprises everyone, including himself, when he experiences a change of heart -and an attack of conscience - and he returns to knock Darth Vader off of Luke's tail at the perfect moment, giving Luke the chance to get the shot off that destroys the Death Star.

No writer worth his salt would compromise a story's integrity by changing a character's behavior so radically. He should be ashamed of himself.