|
OH, WE TOOK it personally. We’d watched Episodes IV through VI until we could recite every line of dialogue along with the characters. But we took it further. Everyone knew what an X-wing starfighter was, but we could describe, in detail, the differences between the A-wing, the B-wing, and the Y-wing. We knew which future cast member of Cheers had a bit part in Empire Strikes Back (John Ratzenberger, a/k/a Cliff Clavin). We pointed out where the Storm Trooper in the background hit his head on a low-hanging Death Star doorway. We held every single frame of these movies close to our hearts. And then George Lucas changed them. Of course we took it personally. Granted, if you want to get into the legality of the matter, Star Wars is technically Lucas’s property. And by all accounts, the man never wanted to be the father of the modern blockbuster. A recent Wired profile revealed that Lucas had always envisioned himself as a dangerous experimental filmmaker. While he doesn’t come right out and say so, one gets the distinct impression that he finds his franchise’s ravenous fan base more than a little distasteful. Were the allegedly "special" editions of the original films, released theatrically in 1997, nothing more than a passive-aggressive eruption of the resentment that had festered inside him for two decades? Consider some of the, er, creative changes made to the original films. Certainly the most egregious "improvement" was Greedo shooting first. If you’re a fan, you’re already nodding in agreement. If you’re not, let me quickly summarize: in the 1977 release of Star Wars, a bounty hunter named Greedo corners Han Solo at the Mos Eisley cantina, and Han simply murders Greedo in cold blood before taking off in the Millennium Falcon. Thus, it is all the more impressive that such a selfish loner would bail Luke out at the end of the film, at the risk of his own life. In the new version, Greedo fires at Han and misses, despite sitting approximately two feet from him, and Han’s salvo can be interpreted purely as self-defense. Any of us would have done the same. Most of the changes were more subtle, and more insidious. Many of the new visual effects were generated on high-powered computers, and lacked the reassuring tangibility of the original physical effects. Whereas the Death Star explosion was once a fuzzy analog light show, in the revision it was a slick, unnaturally white computer simulation. It’s not that computer effects are inherently bad — the two recent films didn’t suck because of the graphics — but A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi used to be one thing, and now they are another. Allegedly, the original (or "uncorrupted") trilogy will never be seen again, on DVD or otherwise. That’s the real insult. That’s the real reason the changes are such an affront. We all have a story about the first time we saw Star Wars, but it’ll be hard to share that with kids whose introduction to the series includes Han Solo having a bizarre, useless conversation with Jabba the Hutt in A New Hope. Altering the original trilogy was like putting a hat on the Mona Lisa. On the other hand, George Lucas could change the celebration at the end of Return of the Jedi to include a group of Ewoks playing Weezer’s "Beverly Hills," and it still wouldn’t suck as much as The Phantom Menace. Mitch Krpata can be reached at mkrpata[a]phx.com
|
