In case you missed it, George Lucas has gone in and made still more changes to the “Star Wars” movies, so they’ll be extra special when he releases them on Blu-Ray in a few weeks.
(George Lucas is also converting all 6 “Star Wars” movies into 3D, beginning with Episode I: The Phantom Menace. No word on whether he’ll do anything to make the 3D versions extra special, too.)
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the ways George Lucas is making the Blu-Ray edition extra special:
He’s replacing the puppet Yoda with a computer-drawn cartoon of Yoda in Episode I.
He’s replacing the scary howl Obi-Wan uses to frighten the Sandpeople.
He’s using computer animation to make the door of Jabba’s palace look bigger.
He’s using computer animation to allow the Ewoks to blink and look around.
He’s making it clear that Vader feels bad by having him scream ”NOOOO!” when the Emperor zaps Luke with lightning bolts.
Some people on the Internet are upset by this – Simon Pegg tweeted that having Vader scream “NOOOO!” was “another … clueless revision” and “a fucking shame” — but I’m OK with it, and I’ll tell you why:
- I loved the “Star Wars” movies when I was a kid, but I had an epiphany a few years ago, around the first time Lucas went in and messed with them. I thought, if George Lucas doesn’t care about these movies, why should I?
- There’s really nothing anyone can do to screw up the prequels or “Return of the Jedi,” because they’re pretty bad to begin with. (You could improve the prequels, though, by deleting most of Jar Jar’s scenes, which someone did.)
- George Lucas owns the negatives, so he can do whatever he wants with them, and there’s the fanboys can do about it, except stop giving him their cash, which they probably won’t do.
- I bought the original trilogy on VHS, and I bought them on DVD, and I refuse to buy them again, so I don’t care what’s on the discs.
- I kind of feel sorry for George Lucas. Seriously.
George Lucas has been talking for years about taking his profits from the “Star Wars” franchise and making personal, smaller-scale films, but he hasn’t, maybe because he doesn’t want to, or maybe because he’s forgotten how to make small, personal films since he made “American Graffiti.”
What he has done is produce the Indiana Jones movies and “Willow” and “Howard the Duck” and “Tucker” and make more “Star Wars” movies and cartoons. He’s also working on a live-action “Star Wars” TV series.
“You get sidetracked easily,” Lucas told The New York Times a few years ago.
George Lucas does have a non-”Star Wars”-related moving coming out soon, a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, called “Red Tails.”
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American aviators in the U.S. armed forces. The military was segregated, but they fought to prove themselves worthy of fighting for their country in World War II.
It’s a terrific story about courage and fighting for what’s right, but George Lucas, who’s been working on this movie for over 20 years, told the LA Times in 1990, “I see the movie less as a race picture than as an aerial action adventure.”
This is like saying, “I see ‘The Hangover’ less as a broad comedy and more as a look at how alcohol and drugs can destroy lives.” It sort of misses the point.
So, while there are some stirring speeches in the “Red Tails” trailer, what you remember most are the computer-animated dogfights that wouldn’t be out of place in a “Star Wars” movie.
Hunh, I never looked at it that way, that if George Lucas doesn’t care about these movies, why should I?
Jim, I felt the same way about my beloved Kentucky Wildcats a few years ago when the school brought Billy Gillespie back after his disaster of a first season. I used to watch the games and scream at the TV, but then I thought, if the school doesn’t give a crap, why should I?
I wonder, do you feel sorry for him because you sense he’s trapped inside George Lucas?
I mean that seriously.
I think you’re saying you think he may have initially intended to tell the story of the Tuskegee Airmen but then in the course of becoming George Lucas, he had no other option but to make Red Tails an aerial action movie. That is sad and it happens too often to great artists.
Interesting comment. Is the pressure coming from him because he is afraid to break out of his idiom or is he feeling pressure from the market who he thinks demand that he produce something Star Wars like.
I just don’t think he relates well to people or human stories. I read a book a few years about the 60s generation of filmmakers, and it talked about how George Lucas hired someone else to basically direct the actors in American Graffiti. Lucas was just into making sure the cars looked cool.
We’re all about the Star Wars in our family with a 7 year old boy. He constantly watches them including the animated Clone Wars. 2 Years ago he was Darth Vador for Halloween and last year one of the other bad guys wearing white (but not a Storm Trooper) and this year, he wants a different “bad guy” He loves building Star Wars Legos, etc.
I never knew there was so much like Wookiepedia, I stumbled across one day!
I’ve lost my enthusiasm for Star Wars, but I’m still going to take the kids to see at the movies in 3D when Lucas starts rereleasing them in 2012 because, well, because it’s Star Wars, and I think it’ll be cool to take ‘em to see a Star Wars movie in the theater.
You’ve summed it up in words I’ve been grasping at for years, ‘If George Lucas doesn’t care about these movies, why should I?’ Lucas has long since proven he got a bit lucky with Star Wars. He had some good ideas but the best parts of Star Wars were often the contributions of the people around him, and the worst stuff came when he was powerful enough to block out dissenting voices.
Something I learned long ago is that everyone needs an editor. Everyone needs someone to say, “I’m sorry, but this doesn’t make any sense.” George Lucas is rich enough that he doesn’t have to have someone from the studio saying, “I think it would be better this way,” but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need someone looking over his shoulder and pushing him to make it better.
I had never watched the original three until this weekend when Spike had a marathon and I was too lazy to do much else. I actually really enjoyed them. A lot.
I care about the movies because if you get past all the special effects and messing around, it’s really a good story. I like a good story. I’ll watch paint dry if the storyline is good.
I’m not saying I didn’t see flaws, but I could get past those flaws pretty easily, and I’m usually a very tough critic.
What I will say about messing with the originals is that you shouldn’t do it just to do it. The deleted scenes Lucas added back to the originals were redundant and didn’t add anything to the story. I noticed Han Solo says the exact same line to the bounty hunter in the bar as he does to Jabba in the hangar scene that isn’t in the orginals. I totally see why the scenes were deleted in the first place! But they’re such a small part of the movie that I can ignore them and still enjoy it.
On the other hand, I’d miss puppet Yoda. Computer animation can’t possibly have the same look. And it’s not necessarily going to be better. I love Yoda.
(And Willow is one of my all-time favorite movies ever.)
I have to admit, I’ve never seen it, although we own a copy on DVD. It was a birthday present for my wife. Supposedly, you’re supposed to give a gift made of willow on a certain birthday, and when her sister couldn’t find a nice willow basket or something, she gave her a copy of the movie.
I loved two-thirds of the original trilogy. Star Wars was great, and Empire was even better. I can understand going back and fixing some of the special effects, but a lot of the changes at best weren’t necessary and at worse hurt the movie. For example, in the original edit, when the bounty hunter finds Han in the cantina, Han shoots him. It wasn’t until one of the special editions that Lucas decided to have the bounty hunter shoot first, so that Han would be shooting in self-defense, but that completely changes Han’s character.
Supposedly, he’s only digitizing the Yoda of the prequels (which didn’t look much like Yoda, anyway, when you see ‘em side by side), but give him time.
I saw it in the theater about 50 times when it came out. I was 12 at the time and in love with Val Kilmer (I’d never seen him in anything before that — not even Top Gun!).
But it’s really stood the test of time for me. I bought it for my daughter a few years ago because I thought she would like it. I hadn’t watched it in a while at the time, and was blown away by it once again when we watched it then. It’s just really good story, but I tend to really enjoy movies and books in that genre. It’s more fantasy than science fiction (like Star Wars). The ride horses and there’s a lot of magic, but no technology or anything. The acting is phenomenal, too.
The actor who plays Willow is also in the Harry Potter movies. He looks totally different.
That’s Warwick Davis. He’s also Wicket, the main Ewok, in Star Wars. Yes, I spout this kind of useless trivia when I’m watching movies with the kids. It drives ‘em nuts.
Yes, that’s right! I knew he was an Ewok, but I forgot for a moment.
George’s first mistake was directing the films himself. Those were the worst. Good storyteller but….