pop-break’s angry nerds open up about Star Wars‘ debut on Blu-Ray …
Three Angry Nerds returns with Michael Dworkis, Daniel Cohen, and Jason Stives’ current declaration against all things infallible to nerd culture. This week’s installment:
With the recently announced alterations to the Star Wars blu-ray release, why does George Lucas insist on constantly molesting my childhood?
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Michael Dworkis
Preserving films should be common sense. It goes beyond me why people have the inkling of thought that any film needs to be improved upon years or decades after their original release. I certainly do not, and there is a man who agrees with me. Not just any man, but the Star Wars god himself, George Lucas.
I hopped into my time machine and traveled back to March 3, 1988. The place is Washington, D.C., and I found myself sitting in attendance in Congress. The debate for the day was not about world economics or collapsing stock markets, but the destruction of pure American cinema, falling to money-hungry corporations who re-color and re-master old films simply for added profits. After getting over my disorientation from traveling through time, I looked up, and my dear friend George Lucas was at the podium.
“People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society.”
Wait, What? George Lucas, you hypocrite bastard! [For the entire speech, click here.]
This is not the first time Star Wars was modified. From 1993-95, he took it upon himself to re-master the original trilogy, adding in scenes, recreating effects and even some dialogue that was not present in the original. Those modifications were tolerable. But then, after the release of the Prequel Trilogy, Lucas went off the deep end. Replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen, completely changing the concluding celebration on Endor to show other worlds, and … and … Greedo shot first? Stop changing things! What is the point of a few more explosions or laser sounds? I see no valid reason for yet another release of the Star Wars trilogy. If explosions and lasers are the reason, then clearly Lucas has become a follower of Michael Bay-ism.
George. You were my friend. You have forsaken your roots. The years of fame and diving into a giant vault of money with Scrooge McDuck have caused you to lose sight over what is important. The lesson learned, is you do not fix something that was never broken.
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Daniel Cohen
George Lucas is at it again! With the Star Wars Blu-Rays out, he’s made more alterations. Look, I came to terms with Greedo shooting first and Jabba’s Palace turning into an upscale New York night club years ago. But seriously, how many more times can a movie be edited?
Now a couple of these changes like the Ewoks blinking and Yoda becoming digitized in The Phantom Menace, I really don’t care. I’m not going to cry into my Boba Fett pillow that Phantom Menace was altered. But there are a few things I can’t let slide. In A New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi makes the sound of a Krayt dragon. It was subtle, and I never really gave it much thought. But Lucas felt the need to alter this. Now it sounds like a stampede of banthas running over a gang of Smurfs. It’s just ridiculous! Why does the Krayt dragon sound effect need to be changed! This is barely a thing in the movie anyway!
But the change that made me re-think my love of Star Wars is what Lucas does at the end of Return Of The Jedi. We all remember Revenge Of The Sith. The scene where Vader is given the suit is an amazing moment, but it’s almost ruined by the ‘Noooooooooooooo’ he shouts at the end. This is widely considered one of the worst moments in the entire Saga, yet crazy old George Lucas felt it was necessary to throw one in during the most important moment of Return of the Jedi. I’m convinced Lucas did this just to piss people off. He knows everyone complained about the ‘Noooooooooo’ in Sith, so he just wanted to rile us up. There is no way in hell he sat down and thought this was actually a good idea. It’s the same theory I have as to why Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is about aliens. He just wanted to upset people for their reaction towards the prequels.
Look, ultimately this doesn’t matter. You can buy the original theatrical versions on DVD. I own them, and never have to watch these altered abominations. I do find it interesting that The Empire Strikes Back is usually left alone. Sure, there have been some digital buildings added to Cloud City, and a few dialogue tweaks, but other than that, Empire has been pretty much unharmed. That movie is so good, that even Lucas is ilk …. you know what, I can’t screw with that one.
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Jason Stives
There is a great joke by comedian Brian Posehn about how watching the first two Star Wars prequels is like being repeatedly molested in the ear by your drunk Uncle at Christmas time. A bit over-the-top maybe, but for the fan boy within, it’s the exact feeling I have felt about those films, that as the phrased has been for some time now, “George Lucas raped my childhood.”
Unconventionally, as I always seem to do in these rants, I pull back in my harshness towards the subject, and George Lucas is really no exception to the rule, even though he has been slowly destroying my childhood since the word pod racing came into my personal dictionary. With this recent revelation that Lucas has been secretly altering the original Star Wars trilogy for its October Blu-Ray release, I can’t comprehend if I’m livid over these changes or excepting from an artistic perspective the need to reflect on one’s work, even if it is for meaningless reasons.
Now, I haven’t always felt this way about the altering of these films especially since my only time seeing the original Star Wars trilogy on the big screen was the highly panned Special Edition re-releases in 1997. At the time, it was a chance to see what my parents saw 20 years prior, even if things were altered like the inclusion of lost Jabba sequence from A New Hope. When I got older, and I studied film in college, I understood how poor of a decision it was, especially when you add a ridiculous song with Si Snoodle and a creature that looks like furry balls in Jedi.
Then of course, the dark chapter of my youth ends with the prequels. With whatever great intent George had for continuing the saga, he greatly damaged the perception of continuity and the overall originality the initial three films presented. However, it shouldn’t be all hate towards the man who created sci-fi the Wizard Of Oz for an entire generation.
I’m not trying to put his decisions in reason because some of them are just greatly ridiculous but also Lucas has every formidable right to do what he wants with his films. Because of how he was treated by studio heads when he released American Graffiti in 1973, Lucas is very very protective of his films, and considering his success in the 35 years since the original Star Wars release, who can blame him As much as I hate The Clone Wars, it’s successful, it expands an official cannon storyline to the Star Wars universe and doing that is all well and good because he is the creator of one of the greatest cultural revolutions in pop culture history.
That being said, the subtle and unnecessary changes that he has donned upon these re-releases are as blasphemous as his involvement in Howard The Duck. First, he wants to make Ewoks blink, as if those little bastards weren’t annoying enough, and then of all things, adds an unnecessary “No!” prior to Darth Vader’s sudden aid of his son at the hands of the Emperor. Look ,it’s not going to end the world and the high heavens won’t fall, but there are no fundamental reasons for these rather daft changes. Han shooting Greedo was a sin in favor of preserving the perceived goodness of some who is basically a crook, but flapping Ewok eyelids and negative shouts that don’t silence acts of gallantry are pretty unnecessary. I’m not living over this but it’s easy to say that they are stupid moves that constantly change the original craftsmanship that Lucas put into his own films. So to paraphrase Mr. Posehn again, George take your wiener out of my ear, because despite your advances, I am not enticed by your poisoned candy. Step away from the 9-year-old me!
