The Special Editions Are the Movies, Get Over It

[Galvatron]

The Jabba scene in ANH was a miss too. It was needlessly repetitive given how much of the same information was conveyed to the audience just minutes before when Han spoke to Greedo. It also looked terrible in 1997.

[Darth Yan]

Pretty much. Some of the changes absolutely SHOULD have been made (again, cleaning the rancor scene up), others were just detrimental (we didn't need that asinine musical number in Jabba's palace.)

[Galvatron]

I don't think I'd have cared either way about the musical number if the alien designs weren't so cartoonish and stupid in ROTJ.



It looked dumb in 1983 too, but the SE made it even worse. At least Lapti Nek was somewhat catchy.

[Adam Reynolds]

The Jabba scene in ANH was a miss too. It was needlessly repetitive given how much of the same information was conveyed to the audience just minutes before when Han spoke to Greedo. It also looked terrible in 1997.

The other thing is that the power dynamic itself is odd, especially when Han is able to step on Jabba's tail and get away with it.

[Mange]

My main bitch about the Special Edition Movies is the one that got the most Nerd Rage.

HAN SHOT FIRST.

No, Han didn't shoot first; it was only Han who fired his weapon.

[Galvatron]

The fact that Greedo MISSED at such a close range is even dumber. Nothing about the alteration makes sense.

The Jabba scene in ANH was a miss too. It was needlessly repetitive given how much of the same information was conveyed to the audience just minutes before when Han spoke to Greedo. It also looked terrible in 1997.

The other thing is that the power dynamic itself is odd, especially when Han is able to step on Jabba's tail and get away with it.

Dishonorable mention for inserting Boba Fett just so he can mug for the camera.

[Formless]

I want to completely bypass this whole Nerd Dickwaving bullshit as well as the Artistic License nonsense and point out the real problem real people have with the Special Editions. This comes from someone who only grew up with the original wave of special editions but never had to endure Lucas adding a pointless "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" to the throne room scene of RotJ. I have only ever known the special editions. They were my childhood, and will always have a special place in my heart.

Its historic revisionism.

That's it.

That's the reason.

The original cut is an important piece of film history. And there is no official way to watch it at the level of quality that people who watched it back in 1977 did. The fact the technology and the effects look worse than what Lucas could do later is irrelevant. In fact, its important for film historians to be able to watch the original to see what difference the new technology actually made to the look of the film. Its also important just to be able to see the film because, and try to follow this, canon is meaningless to a film historian. The actual film is what matters. The editing, the scripting, the acting, the models, the original sound design, the original lighting and color scheme, all of the real world technical details most nerds seem to dismiss as irrelevant because it doesn't effect some stupid argument about their jiggatons.

Even though ironically, knowing how cameras work was crucial to figuring out how many of those jiggatons they had to work with. But how many of the people still here have the skills to work out the destructive energy needed to blow up an asteroid on their own, anyway? I am humble enough to admit I do not.

To put it another way, the Library of Congress offered to put Star Wars in their archives of historically important films. When Lucas said he would only give them the Special Editions, they said no, because that was missing the goddamn point of "HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT FILMS." To this day, he is the only filmmaker I know of to stupidly put "artistic integrity" above that honor. And in the process, pissed off a lot of fans who didn't care about canon, they just wanted to see the film as they remembered it.

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*And yes, I am aware that the original cut has technically been put on the Blu-rays, but its well known that for some goddamn reason a color filter was put over it to try and make it look more like the prequels, which is again missing the point of historical preservation. It also just ruins the look of the movie in general. I am also aware that there are the laserdisc releases, which are very high quality versions of the original cut; but they aren't perfect, I think they do cut some scenes because of the limitations of the medium, and they aren't in film quality. Blu-ray can do better these days. Also, the laser discs are rare, as are laser disc players. I've even seen some people say that for the cut in quality, the VHS releases are actually closer to the color of the original movie. And yes, lastly I know that is confirmed because someone actually found an original 40mm film reel of the movie and unofficially released it after careful preservation. However, that isn't an official release, and film preservationists would really rather not have to deal with copyright law. They would rather Lucasfilm just give the Library of Congress the original cut already!

[Galvatron]

Careful. You might get accused of lies, nonsense, character assassination and just plain stupidity for saying all that.

[Ralin]

Careful. You might get accused of lies, nonsense, character assassination and just plain stupidity for saying all that.

Stow the nerd rage, fanwhore. I'm sure you're masturbating to his posts even as we speak. I am very smart.

[Solauren]

L.O.C should ask Disney for cuts of each version of the film.
"A Historically Significant film trilogy, and the pattern of it's altering...."

[Galvatron]

Careful. You might get accused of lies, nonsense, character assassination and just plain stupidity for saying all that.

Stow the nerd rage, fanwhore. I'm sure you're masturbating to his posts even as we speak. I am very smart.

That's pretty spot-on.

[Elfdart]

The Jabba scene in ANH was a miss too. It was needlessly repetitive given how much of the same information was conveyed to the audience just minutes before when Han spoke to Greedo. It also looked terrible in 1997.

The other thing is that the power dynamic itself is odd, especially when Han is able to step on Jabba's tail and get away with it.

I guess you missed where Chewbacca had his crossbow drawn and his hand on the trigger. Scenes like this are pretty common and they make perfect sense because while the bad guy could have the hero blown away for being so disrespectful, there's a good chance that the baddie will get blasted too:

[Galvatron]

Here's another change made to the 1997 SE of TESB that was so utterly stupid it was removed from all the subsequent revisions.

[Formless]

That was an addition? I really had no idea.

This is why we need the original for comparison. With all the respect I have to the man, whatever Lucas' vision may have been, what made him famous was the movies he actually made.

[Galvatron]

You can even tell it was Ian McDiarmid's scream from ROTJ. It wasn't just a stupid change, it was lazy too.

[Tribble]

IMO an artist has the right to do whatever s/he wants with the work.

If Leonardo Da Vinci came back to life and decided that what the Mona Lisa really needed is googley eyes, a cartoon handlebar moustache and her holding a big giant purple dildo, that’s his choice. If he wanted that to be the “Canon” version all along, that’s fine.

It wouldn’t make his alterations automatically immune from criticism though.

[Tribble]

Timed out.

I respect that whatever alterations George Lucas / Disney made are now the “official” versions; that doesn’t mean I have to like them the same way I do the theatrical cut.

Quite frankly I find many (though not all) of the alterations at best pointless and at worst detracting from the theatrical versions, so I prefer watching as close to the original cuts as possible.

[Darth Yan]

Lucas has the right to make changes; some of them even are legitimate. Others however have no reason for being there or drag the product down. Elfdart seems to have a "Lucas can do no wrong" mentality. The guy gets a lot of unfair flak but there are plenty of things to criticize him for.

[Galvatron]

Another change that always grated on me was this...



Which was then followed by a wholly unnecessary insertion of scenes showing his flight and landing on the Executor intercut with the Falcon's escape from Bespin.

[Gandalf]

Lucas has the right to make changes; some of them even are legitimate. Others however have no reason for being there or drag the product down.

So? As I understand it, his films, his choice. Some things work, some won't.

Also, I'm not sure legitimate is the word you want to use there.

[Darth Yan]

Fair enough, but did we REALLY need that asinine musical number in ROTJ?

The other issue is that Elfdart comes off as very "Lucas can do no wrong" at times, which gets irritating.

[Gandalf]

Fair enough, but did we REALLY need that asinine musical number in ROTJ?

Need, no. There's a lot of stuff that can be classed as not needed, but a nice spectacle of some sort, which I would say is a big part of Lucas's filmmaking style. Big ships and explosions look awesome on screen, and so do the fighters tearing around like it's WW2.

Some things pay off, and some don't. Like the cave scene in ESB. I see what it's trying to do thematically, but as the Family Guy special points out, it stops the film in its tracks. I don't particularly care for it, but I'm not at all bothered that they tried.

[Darth Yan]

Fair enough, but did we REALLY need that asinine musical number in ROTJ?

Need, no. There's a lot of stuff that can be classed as not needed, but a nice spectacle of some sort, which I would say is a big part of Lucas's filmmaking style. Big ships and explosions look awesome on screen, and so do the fighters tearing around like it's WW2.

Some things pay off, and some don't. Like the cave scene in ESB. I see what it's trying to do thematically, but as the Family Guy special points out, it stops the film in its tracks. I don't particularly care for it, but I'm not at all bothered that they tried.

I'd say it serves a story purpose, foreshadowing the test Luke will face on Bespin.

[Gandalf]

That's why I said I can see what it's trying to do.

The cave scene gets top marks for intent. The Force is mysterious. As one becomes more powerful with it, they need to be aware of the darkness within not just the Force, but within oneself. That makes sense. Execution wise, it falls down a bit and reads like a weird art house scene in an otherwise popcorn film.

[Darth Yan]

Heartily disagree on that score but whatever.

My general feeling is that some of the changes worked well. Others were really fucking stupid and pointing that out is fine.