George Lucas Needs to STOP

Star Wars (1977 and 2008), The Empire Strikes Back (1980 and 2008), and Return of the Jedi (1983 and 2008) written by George Lucas, starring Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford

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George Lucas, in case you were wondering, you’ve massively screwed up this time. And I do mean massively. The Star Wars Holiday Special, Howard the Duck, and the Star Wars prequels starring a bunch of nicely established names wasn’t bad enough. Oh no. You had to continue on your snowballing roll downhill and scribble over The Mona Lisa with a Sharpie.

My dear readers, I’m referring to Lucas’s latest re-re-re-re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy. Or what’s left of it, after Lucas edited, CGI-ed, and “brought what he initially imagined to reality.” Frankly, I’m appalled at what his imagination has managed to trample upon (I’m watching the boxed set that was re-released in 2008). Why on earth would he do this to such an enormous piece of film history?! It’s truly as though someone in the 8^th grade decided to rewrite the Declaration of Independence – the mere thought is as sacrilegious as it is petrifying. And yet, that’s what’s happened here with the re-releases of these classic films. Why don’t you take out Humphrey Bogart and add Robert Pattinson into Casa Blanca while you’re at it, George? You’ve got the technology, and who knows? You might get those squealy teenaged girls into the theatres to watch something that was “how you originally envisioned it.” Bleeech.

In the first place, calling them Episodes IV, V, and VI is reprehensible. Just because they’re second in timeline to what Lucas considers Anakin Skywalker’s descent into evil doesn’t mean that they should come after seeing those vomit-inducing prequels. A person just starting into the Star Wars universe should avoid seeing these prequels until they have a firm grip on the originals as truly being the changers of history, and not just film and CGI-wise.

When Star Wars (now called Star Wars: A New Hope) was released in 1977 to a stunned and delighted audience, it reaffirmed the feelings that serious changes in the United States government was needed. Star Wars was aimed at a younger crowd (NOT AT 12 YEAR-OLDS) that was deeply disturbed by the Vietnam War which had ended just two years earlier. Many of their friends, brothers, fathers, boyfriends, and husbands had been drafted into a war by a government that acted more like a bully than a protector and provider. The rightfully disruptive and “we’ll-win-freedom-at-all-costs” feelings engendered by the Rebellion featured in Star Wars easily paralleled those of the people who had seen tremendous and scary changes inside of one decade.

The Empire in Star Wars continues to be amazingly evil, even to today’s first time viewers. The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi don’t quite capture the clean-cut, shiny evil that Governor Tarkin and Darth Vader portray, and this may be because of how the Rebellion is portrayed. At this point, the Rebellion is little more than a motley crew of teenaged and slightly older kids whose uniforms are comprised of whatever they can find. Their bases are constantly changing and they’ll take shelter wherever they can find, even in some of the most random, hostile environment planets. Also, the Empire doesn’t mind using whatever it wants to ignobly squish this budding revolution – in fact, Star Wars doesn’t shy away from letting us see how the Rebellion loses several battles and important fighters.

In the “re-mastered version” of 2008, George Lucas didn’t mess with this one as much. Just added some color here and there, changed out sound effects for louder and more excessive noises, added some sequences of screaming animals, floating robots, a busier Mos Eisley, etc.

Oh. And the ever-so-controversial scene in which “Han Solo shot first.” But a quick view at the original, undoctored scene will show the viewer that not only did Han Solo shoot first, he was the only one to have shot anything. Greedo never had a chance, which is how it should have been in the first place. Way to go, Lucas.

Courtesy of itswalky.com

The Empire Strikes Back was also relatively untouched, with the exception of a particular scene that pissed me off to no end.

Here is the original scene:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKtciRCVpFE&feature=related

George Lucas inserted something entirely different in 2004, with different dialogue and with the Emperor that we actually see in Return of the Jedi. Truly, I can understand changing something such as Emperor in ESB for continuity’s sake. But on a completely picky note, why do we have to see the Emperor’s entire face? It would have been much better to have obscured everything but his mouth so that the mystery and horror behind his character could have been extended into Return of the Jedi. However, changing dialogue is an absolute no-no, especially when it is not needed and the original dialogue is just fine as it is.

Proceeding onto Return of the Jedi, we come to the weakest edition of the original Star Wars trilogy. Most people will agree it was weaker to begin with (the Rebellion is shown as winning many more battles, the Emperor is killed, Darth Vader is turned from the Dark Side back to Anakin Skywalker – in general, things are much more positive in RotJ than they are in SW or ESB) and the cutesy Ewoks didn’t help matters, either. Additionally, Lucas wrote another Death Star into the plot. Seriously, could he have come up with anything original? The first Death Star was frightening in SW, but how hard is it to come up with something just as maniacal and yet even more powerful than the first Death Star?

Some people might gripe about the ending celebrations that we see across the galaxy at the death of the Emperor, but I personally prefer it over what the original sequences showed. Although, I will say that Coruscant (the headquarters for the Empire) probably wasn’t celebrating as heavily as they were and that Tatooine probably wouldn’t have done the same, simply because they were a culture that didn’t seem to care as much about what went on outside their own desert planet.

But the scene that seems to piss more Star Wars fans off than ever is the remastered scene in which the late Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the newly restored (and dead) Anakin Skywalker are smiling down upon Luke nd his personal reflections. The Anakin we see in the 1983 ending is played by Sebastian Shaw. This is the Anakin that Luke sees just before Anakin dies of his injuries. But in the remastered 2004 ending, Sebastian Shaw is no longer smiling down upon Luke, it’s Hayden Christensen!

The original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgNPUXilkl0

The 2004 version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6NYswem3as

This is wrong on two large levels:

1. It should be illegal to change such an emotional and powerful ending to something that only serves to link an incredible series to a horrible series.
2. The fact that a young adult Anakin is in that particular scene negates the fact that the old Anakin whom we see just before he dies reformed his heart in the first place. Is Lucas trying to tell us that the young adult Anakin he stupidly inserted was the last time that Anakin was good? That the older Anakin was lying when he said that “there was some good still left in him?”

George Lucas was once ranked up there among Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppolla, Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Stanley Kubrick, Clint Eastwood, Mike Nichols and Ridley Scott. But arguably, since his only real contributions to film history is the original Star Wars trilogy, American Graffiti, and THX-1138, I see real merit in knocking him off the “20 Top Directors” list. A director constantly needs to be making films that make a positive difference, and this hasn’t happened in nearly 30 years with Lucas.

So listen to your fans, George. And stop trying to make those classics of yours “better.”

1977, 1980, and 1983 versions of original Star Wars trilogy:

2004/2008 “remastered” versions of original Star Wars trilogy:

A random, yet AWESOME picture I discovered during my forays into the Intrawebs. If anyone knows the name of the original artist, I would love to hear about it. :)