A Hate Letter to George Lucas

[kathygnome]

So for once tivo has failed us and there's just, junk. I do a little bit of surfing and come across A&E's Star Wars: Empire of Dreams. It's a mostly self-serving promo, more for the legend of The Galactic Gasbag than for his latest installment.

But then they get to the assembly of the movie (would never have happened without King George, He had to fire the editor and do it himself, all while holding off the evil studio execs)... But there it is. An image that I haven't seen since the second release, a few months before the release of The Empire Strikes back.

The music starts...

STAR WARS
It is a period of civil war...

Did you notice it in it's Glory? But even more, in it's beautiful simplicity? Not just what is there, but what isn't?

They showed the original crawl. The real one. The crawl so many people have told me didn't exist. The one that gives the name of the picture as what it was: Star Wars. And which does not include the words of the First Forgotten Sin "Episode IV: A New Hope." The name of the film is Star Wars. Just Star Wars thank you. No episodes. No Joe Campbell nonsense. Just a really really incredible science ficiton film based very heavily in old serials and classic SF novels.

And there followed so many original effects that he's "fixed." And they're wonderful. And it all reminded me once again of how much I love that film and how much I resent George Lucas for destroying it and stealing my childhood.

Well, I'm off to watch The Star Wars Christmas Special. I notice they didn't include any of those choice moments of drama in their retrospective.

Oh yeah, I hate you George

Comments

[niftoria.livejournal.com]

HAN SHOT FIRST DAMMIT!

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

The Great Abomination.

[transsexualjedi.livejournal.com]

The first movie sucks.

Fan of the series, and still feel that way.

;)

[dashingdeviant.livejournal.com]

Empire's obviously the best one.

[transsexualjedi.livejournal.com]

Of course! It's because Irvin Kirshner directed it. His commentary track on the DVD is wonderful.

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

Except there is no DVD of The Empire Strikes Back...

[transsexualjedi.livejournal.com]

Sure there is. It's in the Box Set release at the end of last year.

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

That's not the Empire Strikes Back, it's the politically corrected recut reefected abomination.

[transsexualjedi.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes*

What about the Special Edition of Empire actually offends you so greatly? I can understand the butchering of Star Wars, but Empire was barely touched by comparison.

[dashingdeviant.livejournal.com]

*waits for reference, even though she's not even supposed to be here today ;)*

[redwick.livejournal.com]

I have the Original Three on Laserdisc and Han was the *only* one who shot.

[dashingdeviant.livejournal.com]

A guy in my department has the laserdisc editions on "evaluation DVD copies" ahem, and made me "further evaluation copies". Kathy, would you like to see if I can copy those DVDs for you?

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

OMG the originals?! On DVD?! Yeah... I'd kill for those...

I can tolerate anything where Han shoots first.

Though isn't one of the LD editions the original original with the no-episode iv crawl?

[dashingdeviant.livejournal.com]

As long as you don't kill me. ;)

It might be, it is definitely Han shooting first - Sten did refer to them as "the way the movies are supposed to be", though I'm not sure if he remembers the no-episode IV version (I think he's late 20s, so too young to have seen it in the theatres).

[(Anonymous)]

The original trilogy is on DVD, and has been for a few months. Unfortunately, to your chargrin, it is the special editions.

[malinki-nuikila.livejournal.com]

Personally, I wonder what Sigmund would think of lightsabers.

[megan-of-gondor.livejournal.com]

It's odd, I never understood the anger over what has been changed in the original trilogy. Maybe it was because I didn't come in to Star Wars until I was 15, around the same time the Special Editions came out. I had seen both versions, and much preferred the special editions. The changes in the movies I don't see as a bad thing in the least. I guess I don't understand what the anger is about in reference to the original trilogy. In the prequels, I can see it. A world that was once rich with characters and story is unfortunately lacking until the final Revenge of the Sith. Even Sith, while considerably better than Phantom Menace and Clones in terms of characters and story is still not as good as the original three(Don't get me wrong though, I really loved it ^_^ ). I guess to me, what makes Star Wars appealing is the characterization, how the main characters interact with each other and evolve. Unfortunately, the prequel triology for the most part is lacking that.

And in that, it brings me back to the special editions vs the original versions. Changes in such things as the opening crawl to Han shooting a scant millisecond after Greedo don't bother me because they don't change the movie for me. The characters are still very much there, their development over the movies still remains a big draw. The rest are just minor details, tweaks that Lucas apparently wanted worked out. The story is the same, the characters are the same. That's all I ask. :)

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

The story isn't the same and the characters aren't the same in terms of Han shooting first.

I saw these films as a child and that was the ultimate Han scene. The whole story of Han in SW is about someone turning around. And that begins with his cold blooded killing of "Greedo." It sets a definition of a character that will be changed.

And you had to be there. That was the scene that everyone in elementary school talked about. It was the definition of Han. Han was cool and hard cause he shot the guy without ever giving him a chance.

The anger is basically over our childhood being stolen and repaved.

[megan-of-gondor.livejournal.com]

*Shrug* All my replies I can think of are more argumentative than I'd like. And I've had enough geeky arguments for one lifetime, thank you. ;)

I have not seen the new ones...

[sovayfox.livejournal.com]

But just reading all about the changes pisses me off. I agree, that is one of the reasons I really liked Han as a character.
"The anger is basically over our childhood being stolen and repaved. "
I totally agree according to everything I have read. Uck. Wish I had my original tapes still. My parents showed me that movie series as a child. Lucas is such a bastard.