Changes ARE being made to Star Wars DVDs.

[Kain]

Originally posted by ET Warrior

Gah, I wouldn't mind if they had their stupid changes if they'd at least release the ORIGINAL original trilogy on DVD aswell. Then I could be happy with my real star wars, and everyone that wants to can have their fake star wars.

 

This is the most sense you've ever made in any thread.

[Kain]

Originally posted by ET Warrior

Gah, I wouldn't mind if they had their stupid changes if they'd at least release the ORIGINAL original trilogy on DVD aswell. Then I could be happy with my real star wars, and everyone that wants to can have their fake star wars.

 

This is the most sense you've ever made in any thread.

 

@Pal: Screw you. That last scene is bull****.

[Kurgan]

It's Lucas's story but c'mon.

 

Swapping in Hayden for Shaw just doesn't make a whole lot of sense (maybe he'll explain it on the DVD commentary.. or in Episode III?).

 

First off, I'm assuming that when he was making ROTJ he figured any prequel films (if they would be made at all) would take place a LONG time before the classic trilogy.

 

I remember thinking that the Empire lasted for 50 years, and other stuff that turned out not to be true, such as the idea that the Jedi fought the Mandalorians in the Clone Wars, etc.

 

This was based on piecemeal comments from Lucas over the last 20 years and speculation in the EU.

 

Since the time between the two trilogies has apparently shrunk ("official" sources claim that there's 20 years between Episode III and IV and that TPM took place 32 or 33 years before ANH), that would make more sense to have a younger Anakin.

 

Shaw was in his 70's when he appeared (and good thing he's dead now or he'd be pissed that he was being edited out of the movie after 20 years even if he just had a small part, it was an important one), but according to the new timeline Anakin would only be in his 40's by the time of his unmasking.

 

The argument that "Anakin appears as he was when he was a light jedi" is goofy, because he TURNED BACK from the Darkside when he was an old man! So logically, he was "good" again, and so he should have appeared as he was when he died, perhaps with his injuries healed (so in other words, the ghost we saw in the regular and SE editions).

 

In all the reports I've seen the pics of Vader unmasked is still 70 something Shaw, but with his eyebrows removed and his eyes painted a different color. So why does he suddenly get 50 years younger when he's a ghost?

 

At least they should have put Hayden in "middle aged" makeup for the new shot, rather than as he appears in Episode III (3 short years after AOTCm, where all 20 something Anakin does is get a new hairstyle).

 

Or are we to believe that Vader also aged rapidly (Dark Side 'super aging' like the EU claims happened to Palpatine?) or somehow his injuries made him look 30 years older than he really was?

 

I can only imagine that the ghosts of Obi-Wan and Yoda are thinking, when they look over at Anakin "man, we're still old geezers and you get to be a teen heart throb for all eternity, and you were the bad guy! Bastard..."

 

; )

[Kurgan]

Let's not start a flame war here. I think Lucas has every right to paste Jar Jar into every scene if he wants to. But...

 

...he has a duty to cinema history and all the people who made him rich watching these films as they grew up to provide the original films (as they were shown in theaters circa 1983 and then on home video for 20-14 years before the SE's were made) in a digital format that will last (unlike VHS tapes which stretch and break, and LaserDisks which are defunk in the Western market and dying elsewhere and prone to things like "laser rot" etc).

 

If Lucas really intends to wait until 2007 to release the "original films" on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray then... well, dang it George.

 

He's just being stubborn about this, because even though he's clearly doing it to make money, he could make even MORE money by releasing the originals.

 

I don't mind the SFX fixes, it's just these changes, like Greedo shooting first and Hayden replacing Shaw, that get me. He's changing the story! He can't say that he didn't have the technology for it back in the day, he obviously just changed his mind after 20 years and then decided to change it. To fit in better with his prequels...

 

Better that he would have just made the prequels to fit the classic trilogy, methinks.

 

 

PS: That reviewer is full of it. Sure he can ramble on about how stupid people are for criticizing Lucas's cannabilizing the classics (the he made of course).

 

What he doesn't realize is that what many of us critics are arguing is NOT that making the SE's or these new DVD is a sin. Or that Lucas has no right to modify his own films. Rather its the idea that the old films "don't exist" that Lucas is pushing on us (after we've grown up with these classics and lavished our money and attention on them... to his benefit) and not making the originals available.

 

The originals have been out of print for almost 10 years (the last VHS/LD release of the widescreen trilogy was in like 1995 IIRC). So if you want to get them now you either have to dig up an old copy or line some bootlegger's pockets (with money Lucas himself could easily pocket if he'd just slap "version 1" of each movie on a disc and package it along with the rest like so many other directors have done like with ET, Alien Quadraligy and Robo-Cop).

 

This reviewer associates bashing Lucas's ACTION (not making the originals available on the superior digital format, effectively saying "screw you" to all the Star Wars fans who held onto the series from 1977-1997) to bashing Lucas HIMSELF. He associates bashing Lucas with bashing Star Wars.

 

Nah, I love Star Wars, I'm grateful to Lucas. I even like the Special Editions, but I want the chance to own the originals as well. There's a demand for 'em, Lucas is just being stubborn. The reviewer instead gets pissy and insults me saying I live in my parent's basement and whine about stuff on my little message board. Yeah, and he's so high and mighty talking on IGN. Right. ; )

 

Last time I checked being a Star Wars fan didn't mean you had to believe in everything that Lucas says and does. Due to the mass campaign of fans, the DVD's of the Prequels were released a lot sooner than Lucas originally said, and the OT too. So maybe the fans will eventually wear him down and he'll release the originals.

 

I just hope he isn't hoping to wait until we all have HD DVD players or Blu-Ray players to make that a reality. I remember when they said that there wouldn't be any Star Wars DVDs (period) until Episode III was finished. At the time there was speculation that LucasFilm was invested in DivX (the rival DVD format). Anyway, I just wish he'd appease the fans. He has nothing to lose by doing so.

[Spider AL]

He's just being stubborn about this,

The man's a big disembodied bottom. As you say, this mania is ego-driven, not practical. On the one hand he's obsessed with editing his classic old films so that they'll appear up to date to a new audience, so one might say he wants the films to remain top of the line... On the other hand he's producing sub-standard prequels which are laughably badly scripted and directed (by him) and not only this... he's infecting what is almost universally accepted as classic (the original trilogy) with the mediocrity of the prequels.

 

Why, George? We wanted to forget the prequels ever existed while we watched the original trilogy. We'd even have put up with the manky "special editions" instead of the originals... But you've gone too far with this. Hayden? In RotJ? George Lucas, you deserve a painful end, and I'm not talking about injuries to your bottom.

 

Which would be good too.

[Mex]

Originally posted by Kain

@Pal: Screw you. That last scene is bull****.

 

Boo-hoo. You think whining on a forum is ever going to change the last scene?

[Spider AL]

Boo-hoo. You think whining on a forum is ever going to change the last scene?

I was under the impression that a forum like this one was a place for people to air their views, not a place to try to belittle others, as you have done.

[Kurgan]

No reason to flame each other, as I said.

 

You are correct, one person whining changes nothing. But thousands of people or tens of thousands can change something. Etc.

 

I have no problem with Lucas making the DVD's with edited scenes, but he should release the originals as well (just like he released them on LaserDisk and VHS, only with the superior visual and audio quality possible now with DVD).

 

PS: My disagreement with the reviewer on IGN, I should clarify (since there are several articles on that list page). Jeremy Conrad rants about the "Superior Editions" and that's where my comments were directed. He insults fans who just want the originals released on DVD, by erecting a strawman that they're all just frustrated nerds living in their parent's basement and making death threats to Lucas because they're emotionally insecure.

; )

[Spider AL]

Jeremy Conrad rants about the "Superior Editions" and that's where my comments were directed. He insults fans who just want the originals released on DVD, by erecting a strawman that they're all just frustrated nerds living in their parent's basement and making death threats to Lucas because they're emotionally insecure.

Quite. It's easy for someone like Conrad to kick people while they're down... and we certainly are at a low ebb currently. Ergh... Hayden...

[manoman81]

I think that it's cool that they changed some of the voices and cleared up the audio. As for switching out actors, I dont know about that.

 

 

Using Ian Mcdormid I think is a cool idea. The Emperor fomr Empire (I think) looked wrong and weird. The make-up of the time made him look like he had a swollen, black eye. As for changing Anakin, bad move. Should have left that alone.

 

[Kurgan]

Adam Tierney makes some not quite so nasty (but also disagreeable) remarks.

 

He claims that we all "own multiple copies" of the trilogy, and that we'll keep stacking up the copies no matter what.

 

Thank you, no.

 

I own ONE copy of the trilogy, the Special Editions on VHS. And these were the pan 'n' scan versions too (I saw the widescreen editions in stores a week later, I was pissed!).

 

The next version of the trilogy I'm getting are the DVD's.

 

Lucas himself re-edited and added new CGI stuff to THX-1138 for DVD, but guess what? He also made the original, un-modified version available as well.

 

But suddenly when it comes to Star Wars, only the 2004 editions exist. Ooookay.

 

And what's all this "Original Vision" crap?

 

Lucas could have made Greedo shoot first back in 1977 easily. He could have had Anakin appear as a handsome 21 year old if he wanted to (granted, he couldn't have forseen Hayden C playing the part since he was just a baby at the time). All of that stuff wasn't due to budget limitations or studio execs forcing their views on him. So really it's just a case of Lucas changing his mind a few decades later and wanting to hype his prequels more.

 

Again, updating the visual effects is fine, and changing the story is fine but make the original version (with the original story, in which Anakin is an old man, Han Solo gets the drop on the guy who's about to murder him, etc.) available for the folks who grew up with them.

 

Lucas isn't evil, but he can make mistakes, as he's clearly doing here by not preserving these classics. It's akin to colorizing black & white films. Well, it goes beyond that (and people excuse colorization because the people who made and starred in those films are dead so they can't argue), because he's changing the story and the characters, not just how the film looks.

 

One intelligent argument I've heard is that he's been tweaking the films all along. He's put in the "Episode IV" into ANH, he's switched some of the lines around (alternate dialouge) etc. But that's a far cry from changing the actual events.

 

It's like if you made an award-winning movie about the life and death of Abraham Lincoln. Then 20 years later you decided that John Wilkes Booth was too sympathetic of a character to shoot the president in cold blood, so you edit the film so that Abe takes a shot at Booth (and misses). Now that's history, Star Wars is made up, but still. Star Wars is a part of history, and the movie that won all those awards and the admiration of the fans isn't the Special Edition, but the ones that were shown in theaters from 1977-1983.

 

What Adam Tierney is saying is that we fans are just too in love with Star Wars that we're all hypocrites.

 

We hate Lucas but we do everything he says and in a sense it's just, because Uncle Lucas always knows best. So stop whining.

 

Well, again, if the fans hadn't whined we'd still be waiting for the original trilogy on DVD. We probably wouldn't even have the prequels (if the fans didn't care about Star Wars, he wouldn't have bothered to try to milk the cash cow one more time).

 

Speaking of revisionism, is anyone else bothered that Star Trek Enterprise looks more futuristic and "visually pretty" than the Original Series?

 

Prequels to Sci Fi will always look better than the original because of the evolution of visual effects (unless you deliberately use more primitive techniques to duplicate the look). And modifying SFX has nothing to do with the changes Lucas is making. It has nothing to do with Greedo Shooting First or Anakin appearing as a young man in ghost form, etc.

 

I have a feeling that this may not be the last time Lucas re-edits the films. And when he does it again you'll have people complaining then and people complaining back saying that Lucas "intended it this way all along." *Sigh*

 

As to putting in Ian M. to play Palpatine in ESB I know a lot of fans wanted to see that for a long time. Changing the dialouge though was unnecessary. And re-dubbing Boba Fett's voice? Uh, okay. Boba didn't have an accent in AOTC did he? And his dad died when he was just a little kid. Yet 20 some years later he's got his dad's exact accent. Okay... I guess accents are genetic now.

 

And as long as he's replacing the old actors with the prequel ones, why doesn't he put in CGI Yoda and Ewan McGregor for the ghost scene of ROTJ? Why does only Anakin get to be his prequel self in the Jedi Afterlife?

 

Is Lucas not willing to go the extra mile to put the old films in line with the new ones, or is he just doing this to create controversy with the fans and a few film critics? (the "rebel" in him again, struggling to be in the limelight again, going with the theme of one earlier IGN reviewers)

[Mike Windu]

Taken from a conversation between myself and someone who will not be revealed.

 

 

me:see, hayden was not in the original SW

that is a change

change is altering.

change is indifferent

it is perception that we view it as better or worse.

 

person: gl didn't change anything, this is how it was meant to be in the first place, it was planned

to be like it is in the dvds

 

me: SW is in the eye of the beholder and no matter what we say to each other we will retain our own opinions.

well if he wanted it to be like the dvds.

he should have done it in the first place.

it'd be like led zeppelin changing stairway to heaven

or replacing Johnny Depp with Viggo Mortensen

 

[Kurgan]

Agreed. Like I said, anyone with some sense can see that the "original vision" thing is pure nonesense. Lucas changed his mind, that's all. He claims it was his original vision to have it like this all along, but anyone can see that's hooey. Didn't he have control of his own films once ANH was a smashing success? And it's not as if the technology didn't exist back then.

 

Lucas has changed his mind quite a few times about the movies. He was going to make 12 movies, then 9, then 6. That's fine, obviously tastes change, money changes, technology changes, etc. But Lucas is being dishonest to claim that he "never said those things" and "wanted it this way all along." Coulda fooled me. ; )

 

And why did he wait so long to re-edit the films? He was a rich man in 1983 (still is). He could have taken the Jabba puppet used in ROTJ and matt him into the scene with Han Solo (or re-film it completely since Harrison Ford was only 5 years older, and makeup can fix that easily).

 

I think the SE's were just a publicity stunt to get Star Wars hype going for the prequels. Just as this DVD stunt is an attempt to keep the hype machine going for Episode III (since he needs to keep the attention of all the fans who've been let down by I & II). The fact that we only get one disc of extras and half of them are unrelated to the movies is also annoying.

 

So he's holding out for another edition is my guess, and more revisions. I just hope he comes to his senses and releases the originals. That would shut up all the complaints instantly. If the elite Lucas apologists really wanted all the "fanboys" to "shut up" they'd be in favor of the release of the originals. It only makes sense...

 

So again, the "original vision" argument, while it's one that Lucas himself makes, is bogus.

 

As of right now I don't own the original Star Wars movies. None, zero, nadda. All I have is an inferior version of the SE's (pan 'n' scan) on an inferior format (VHS). I can legally purchase some used LaserDisks (off Ebay, hopefully for a reasonable price) along with a LaserDisk player, and hopefully encode them onto DVD-R and get something that will last and looks decent.

 

Or I could go on ebay and buy the THX Enhanced widescreen VHS box set (hopefully in decent condition) and encode those. It wouldn't look as nice as an encode of the LaserDisks, but at least I'd have the movies in their original forms to view side by side with the "Superior Editions" (heh).

 

That's not a "bootleg" because it would be something I created myself. Bootlegging implies you're selling that modified version illicitly (which some people are doing and have been doing ever since DVD's came out back in '97). Of course releasing the originals would dry up the bootleg Star Wars dvd market in a hurry.

[Kurgan]

Argh.. can you tell I've posted these same comments in numerous other threads on this subject? Heh.

 

Anyway, one more thing I forgot to say...

 

I DO think that the SFX tweaks we've seen so far look better than the SE tweaks.

 

The Rancor DOES look better, Jabba DOES look better, etc. I don't mind that stuff at all. Tweak the Jabba scene all you want George, 'cause it wasn't in the original.

 

The Greedo scene DOES look better than in the SE, but not as good as the original scene, because it made sense for Han to shoot first, it wasn't against his character at all, it was completely logical. Removing shots of Imperial Officers having flames on their chests from where they were shot... um okay. Why did he remove that in the SE? Was he afraid of losing his PG Rating (no chance of that, if anything PG movies get away with a lot more these days, just look at the "extreme by comparison" violence and adult themes in AOTC, a modern PG movie)? Is he afraid that showing humans being killed by the good guys is bad for kids to see? Dunno about that.

 

So yes, fixing the Special Editions's additions with the 2004 DVD's is fine and dandy. But changing more of the story and character is just stupid. If he's going to do that, make the originals available. If you make a re-edited version of Casablanca where Bogart's character shoots his former lover's husband and says "baby, you and me belong together" and they get married and changes the ending, fine, but don't keep me from the original version if I like that one better.

 

As we can see, Lucas plain changes his mind. All of these changes he could have made to the SE's in 1997 (the plot/character changes). Don't tell me photoshopping Hayden's face onto Anakin's body couldn't have been done then. Sure, Hayden was only 16 at the time, but still. He looks so dang young (even in his mid 20's) that he'd still need a ton of makeup to look like a 40+ year old. A lot of SFX tweaks that could have been made (like the fizzling out lightsabers in ANH) weren't done for the SE. They were so obvious... why did he waste money making Greedo shoot first when he could have fixed those sabers? I can only imagine that he mismanaged the thing and ran over budget, thus leaving some of those changes on the cutting room floor. It would be interesting to see what he says about that on the 2004 DVD commentaries. But I imagine instead we'll get the usual Lucas "party-line" about how he always intended it this way, and just forget the past.

[TK-8252]

Originally posted by Kurgan

Removing shots of Imperial Officers having flames on their chests from where they were shot... um okay. Why did he remove that in the SE? Was he afraid of losing his PG Rating (no chance of that, if anything PG movies get away with a lot more these days, just look at the "extreme by comparison" violence and adult themes in AOTC, a modern PG movie)? Is he afraid that showing humans being killed by the good guys is bad for kids to see? Dunno about that.

 

According to this site, yes, the burn effects were censored. Things were different in the 90's!

 

And... silly silly Kurgan... didn't you follow the story? The Imperials are the good guys, and the Rebels are the bad guys.

[Mike Windu]

*cries*

 

I won't get to see people burn when they get shot?

[Kain]

Originally posted by Pal™

Boo-hoo. You think whining on a forum is ever going to change the last scene?

 

You think being a smartass is going to get people to like you? You're seriously loosing seriousness points when you make little spoiled prick comments like that.

[Troopr-Undr-Fir]

I don't understand the big deal with the changes...

 

George is not some all powerful god that controls everything. Granted he did create the the movies, but he also created a Universe. One that takes A LOT of time and effort create new stories and even modify. He be only a man... And only a man that I have seen some threaten with death. Over a freakin triology that he created and has had the (i think) courtesy of not letting it fall into a black hole and stagnate (ie Star Trek). So if anything we should bow our heads and give thanks (not really, but it gets a point across ) to a man that just wants to make a more enjoyable movie series for us the viewers. So if you are someone who thinks GL literally stole something from you... What does a single release mean to the memory you had of first time seeing the Star Destroyer crawling over your head? Memories are forever, not trivial releases.

 

 

I strongly encourage you to keep my little tid bit in mind

[Kain]

OMFG, I don't believe this. You all complain and bitch about how much Hayden sucks, but then you're all on his balls when he's replacing Shaw in RotJ. Make up your damned minds.

[Troopr-Undr-Fir]

Originally posted by Kain

OMFG, I don't believe this. You all complain and bitch about how much Hayden sucks, but then you're all on his balls when he's replacing Shaw in RotJ. Make up your damned minds.

 

Why must you always generalise about people. People have opinions, and opinions are not always going to be the same, or how you like them to be. SO that doesn't mean you have to belittle someone for not sharing your views.

 

Now for the sake of not starting a flame war with someone I like, I will now go masterba... I mean comb my hair.

[Spider AL]

So if anything we should bow our heads and give thanks (not really, but it gets a point across ) to a man that just wants to make a more enjoyable movie series for us the viewers. So if you are someone who thinks GL literally stole something from you... What does a single release mean to the memory you had of first time seeing the Star Destroyer crawling over your head? Memories are forever, not trivial releases.

While I agree that some people take it a little too seriously, I hardly think we should thank Lucas.

 

The original films weren't Lucas' project alone. What about all the fine actors that managed to deliver his crappy lines with CONVICTION? What about Harrison Ford stopping Lucas from giving Han a big pink Ming the Merciless collar? What about all the other people that made what was essentially a badly written, badly realised idea WORK?

 

He's crapping on them, because in his arrogance he thinks that because he owns the legal rights, he is morally justified in doing what he does, which is degrading classic movies. He's always been the same, changing actor's roles and voices without even notifying them first, taking sole credit for everything... The man's a reprobate of the first water.

 

Adding Hayden in to RotJ is a disservice to the original actor, who gave of his time and skill to produce the character of Anakin. Adding Hayden is a disservice to the fans who have kept Lucas in his little eutopia of a ranch for years. And worst of all, adding Hayden is the type of revisionist act that is a disservice to HISTORY. Art can't be revised by the artist once it's shown, ESPECIALLY not when the artist didn't create the work alone. Thank god, thank GOD, for fans who have produced rips of the Laserdiscs.

[Troopr-Undr-Fir]

*ahem*

 

So if you are someone who thinks GL literally stole something from you... What does a single release mean to the memory you had of first time seeing the Star Destroyer crawling over your head? Memories are forever, not trivial releases.

 

[Mike Windu]

Memories are forever.

 

Now instead of seeing Shaw, I'll forever have the picture of Hayden

 

You do understand that there are people who haven't seen the OT...?

[Spider AL]

So if you are someone who thinks GL literally stole something from you... What does a single release mean to the memory you had of first time seeing the Star Destroyer crawling over your head? Memories are forever, not trivial releases.

"Ahem," and saying it twice doesn't make it any less... wrong.

 

The entire point of buying a medium like DVD is so that you can watch high quality copies of films over and over again. Who wants to watch a revisionist nightmare cut that drives out that which you enjoyed about the original film in the first place AT ALL, let alone repeatedly?

[Troopr-Undr-Fir]

Originally posted by Spider AL

"Ahem," and saying it twice doesn't make it any less... wrong.

 

The entire point of buying a medium like DVD is so that you can watch high quality copies of films over and over again. Who wants to watch a revisionist nightmare cut that drives out that which you enjoyed about the original film in the first place AT ALL, let alone repeatedly?

 

 

Wrong in your eyes, but not everyone has your eyes

 

You do understand that there are people who haven't seen the OT...?

 

Yeah, so what's the problem? They have the pleasure of seeing it fully realized. I really don't see why a few changes make a difference to them.

 

Not that I'm saying they shouldn't be able to see the original trilogy. But is it not the same movie? Only with a new coat of paint.