As long as he doesn’t change the scenes from ESB where Yoda is teaching Luke… though in the ESB commentary George says that if he had the technology of today back when they were making that film he would have had made Yoda a CGI character that bounced around between the trees instead of riding on Luke’s back…
… God help us.
I’m going to rent first and see if 1080’s all that and a box of power converters.
After the second film in the prequel trilogy I swore that I’d never spend any money on anything Star Wars ever again.
I’ve held firm on that promise to myself.
Just like George Lucas.
*<remembers the Ewoks in the next movie>
*
Yes. Yes he would.
The filming of The Empire Strikes Back was done between March and September of 1979. There was post-production work and the film premiered on May 17, 1980. So let’s assume for my hypothetical that Lucas died sometime in late 1980 and it had no impact on the making of the second film.
Apparently the Ewoks blink now in Jedi. Haven’t seen a video clip yet, but this is getting stupid. These changes did not need to happen.
I really don’t understand why he keeps doing this. He has said repeatedly that he wants to move on from SW and do smaller projects. Yet he keeps going back and monkeying with it.
I only had the trilogy on video and then DVD when he finally released the un-“improved” versions. I’m happy with it and don’t see a reason to buy it again.
Star Trek did it right by just updating the special effects and leaving the rest alone.
My guess is fear of failure. If he puts out a brand new work, it’ll have to stand on its own merits. Let’s face the facts, all of the work Lucas has done in the last thirty years shows that he’s not as great as his early reputation indicated and anything new he does will probably be deeply flawed. So he keeps reliving his glory days.
Only if after the emperor explodes, he turns around and yells “Yesss!”, a la Napoleon Dynamite.
Or “WINNING!”
That seems so commonsensical an observation that I have a hard time imagining how anyone can work up any objection to it. That would be more in keeping with the sort of mentor/sensei archetype that Yoda was modeled on, and the original concept art describes a more sprightly figure.
Yoda became a passive backpack because it was the only practical way to make the character available for dialog while Luke was being active. Of course they would have made him move independently if they could have - the “harness ride” was compromise and you have to admit that even when we were ten it looked a bit lame in parts, with that inert rubber head bouncing around back there.
Now, if he announced an intention to paint the passive Yoda out and retroactively insert a CGI jumpin’ jedi Yoda in, I could muster a certain amount of indignant protest - but it’s silly to argue that the original series’ flaws are somehow tauntaunlogically perfect visions, just because that’s how they were made in the first place. As an effect, Yoda had plenty of room for improvement.
Money making? I guess he thinks tweaked versions will sell better. I wish I could believe that people won’t buy these when released, but I’m sure they will.
I wonder what the timing is on the whole Greedo shoots first thingy now.
Excellent.
Oh my God! George Lucas died in 1980, and it’s his evil twin that’s taken over and fucked things up ever since!
I’m aware. Art from adversity.
Honestly, these seem like very minor changes which hardly seem worth bothering about. It’s not as if the original theatrical releases were flawless masterpieces. I am a fan of the movies but they have plenty of bad acting,writing and special effects.
“George Lucas is out there. He can’t be bargained with. He can’t be reasoned with. He doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”
While I’m not surprised to hear that that was the original preference, I’d say that his limitations forced Lucas into the correct choice. That whole training sequence is about Luke shedding his doubts and his childish misconceptions, and the frail Yoda is of a piece with that theme. Yes, he recognizes that the force can be powerful and that Yoda knows how to use it, but that whole time Luke is struggling because this doesn’t match up with the kind of obvious heroism that he expected, and his interactions with Yoda are all the time colored by that initial reaction of shocked disbelief. He only starts to really get it when Yoda pulls the X-Wing out of the swamp (and it’s worth noting that, largely because of the frail Yoda, this moment is almost as awing for the audience as it for Luke).
A hyper-kinetic Yoda kinda throws a wrench into those works. Luke’s initial shock would be limited to “You?! You’re so small and … oh, but you’re also an acrobat-cum-ninja who could clearly take my head off in an instant if he cared.” He would be immediately awed, not immediately skeptical. I’m not saying such a choice couldn’t possibly have worked, just that it would turn that whole Degobah sequence into something else, thematically.
I like the way you think. Your brain is very smart.
I’m sure if the original had Yoda bouncing around and Greedo shooting first and Darth Vader saying no folks would just as adamantly think those are inviolate. I think they shouldn’t be changed because I want the original movie I saw, not because I think they are some sort of perfectly constructed pieces to the Star Wars story.
