# Lucas "Fixing" Star Wars **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 22, 2004, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421 "2004-09-22T02:07:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/61 "2004-09-24T14:43:32Z")
> [@shy guy](#): > > Well, yes, I think that’s huge bullshit. Wait a few years and you’d sell tons of original Star Wars DVDs marketing them as the “originals”. _Especially_ if they put different special features or something on them. I don’t think they would sell very well. I don’t think most people give a shit whether Greedo fires first or whether the explosions have rings around them. Selling a new version of something you’ve already sold, and calling it “original,” comes close to looking like a rip-off. Sure, they’d probably sell enough copies to turn a profit, but squeaking by like that isn’t Lucas’ style: he wants Star Wars to be massive, to be not just a movie series but a cultural event. Re-releasing the DVDs would carry a huge whiff of “Again?” He’d have to explain to the public why they should buy his movies again, and I don’t think it’s possible to do it without denigrating either one (cheesy 70s effects and sets) or the other (fussy, overdone, intrusive digital effects and editing). ---
**Author:** ![Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/aeb1de/32.png) [@Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kel_Varnsen_Latex_Division)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/62 "2004-09-24T14:46:21Z")
> [@Middlecase](#): > > Once he’s finished Revenge Of The Sith {an anagram, incidentally…} Revenge of the Shit? ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/63 "2004-09-24T15:08:24Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > You will never see a legitimate release of the original films while Lucas is alive. It’s highly unlikely you’ll see one after his death, unless his estate is managed by someone with no regard for his wishes, something that is also very unlikely. Actually, I think it’s pretty likely we’ll see them after his death. I doubt he’s so adamant about it that he’d put it in his will. It seems like his recent comments are more that he doesn’t want to be bothered with it, not that he’d take legal action to prevent it. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/64 "2004-09-24T15:13:59Z")
> [@gonzoron](#): > > Actually, I think it’s pretty likely we’ll see them after his death. I doubt he’s so adamant about it that he’d put it in his will. It seems like his recent comments are more that he doesn’t want to be bothered with it, not that he’d take legal action to prevent it. If his estate is controlled by his family, he wouldn’t have to put anything into his will; his kids undoubtedly know (or will know) how he feels about the matter, and would respect his wishes. I take him at his word when he says the current versions are the movies as he wants them to be; am I the only one? ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/65 "2004-09-24T16:03:48Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > I take him at his word when he says the current versions are the movies as he wants them to be; am I the only one? No. I’m another one who isn’t all that bothered by the changes. I don’t particularly like that Greedo shoots first, but it doesn’t even come close to ruining the experience for me. I also like the prequels…I think they’re both better than Ep. 3. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/66 "2004-09-24T16:23:43Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > I also like the prequels…I think they’re both better than Ep. 3. On what is that assumption based? What do you know about episode 3? ---
**Author:** ![Mikahw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Mikahw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikahw)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/67 "2004-09-24T17:00:14Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > I take him at his word when he says the current versions are the movies as he wants them to be; am I the only one? Sure, maybe that’s the way he wants them now. What about in a week or so, when he’ll figure out that there’s something else that he should have changed? ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/68 "2004-09-24T18:17:08Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > No. > > I’m another one who isn’t all that bothered by the changes. I don’t particularly like that Greedo shoots first, but it doesn’t even come close to ruining the experience for me. I also like the prequels…I think they’re both better than Ep. 3. I assume you mean episode 4 or something. But I agree in general, none of the changes are even close to being important to me. And I will always appreciate George Lucas for having a vision ad making it happen. Not just making a fantastically entertaining series of movies, but also the way they are made, the way they look and the sound. Lucas’ innovation in sound are almost as imoprtant as anything else he has done. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/69 "2004-09-24T18:59:25Z")
Bah! Leave the original as is. In 50 or a 100 years someone can do a remake. That’s fine. Don’t screw with the original. Ooh, I think these paintings in the Sistine Chapel would look so much nicer if we put diapers on the nudes. ---
**Author:** ![jeevmon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@jeevmon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jeevmon)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/70 "2004-09-24T19:19:13Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > Greedo shooting first? I honestly don’t care. Well, that proves that you have a healthy sense of priorities. The people bellyaching about Greedo shooting first and all the rest just remind me that [Shatner](http://snltranscripts.jt.org/86/86hgetalife.phtml) was on to something. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/71 "2004-09-24T19:35:29Z")
Excellent link **jeevmon**. I had not seen that skit. Funny stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/72 "2004-09-24T19:41:42Z")
I son’t have a problem with Lucas wanting to “improve” his original films. If he doesn’t like the original, then he can change it. Nor am I _offended_ by the changes. Was mystifies me is his choice oe what to change and what not to change. Someone (The thread is too long to go look) said they didn’t like how he left the computer readouts untouched. That does make me wonder why he would put in beautiful CG dogfighting footage and then in the middle have a targeting display that looks like “Pong.” Those shots look like they would be way easier to fix than some of the changes he did make. Changing the font on the tractor beam controls involved footage with a moving actor whereas updating the targeting in the fighters would mean simply substituting new footage of a monitor screen. So if you’re going to make an expensive change on detail #1, why not do the easier/cheaper change on detail #2? As for the “boxes” around the starships, I wondered about that as well. The boxes show up much more on video because of the much narrower black/white contrast. It’s far less visible in the theater. Apparently, the masking around the models was done with paper or tape of some kind except for the small “Box” immediately around the model. The remainder was filled in by hand with black ink. The ink wasn’t quite as opaque so you got a square “halo” around each fighter. ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/73 "2004-09-24T20:05:42Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > 'Cause, y’know, screaming is scary. And all this time, I operated under the assumption that _in space, no one can hear you scream_ ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/74 "2004-09-24T20:06:39Z")
> [@\[quote=Middlecase](#): > > Once he’s finished Revenge Of The Sith {an anagram, incidentally…} Kel Varnsen - Latex Division]Revenge of the Shit? [/QUOTE] The Fight Overseen? Eighteenth Of Revs? Five Hens Together? Fever Is Thee Thong? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/75 "2004-09-25T00:54:33Z")
> [@gonzoron](#): > > Actually, I think it’s pretty likely we’ll see them after his death. I doubt he’s so adamant about it that he’d put it in his will. It seems like his recent comments are more that he doesn’t want to be bothered with it, not that he’d take legal action to prevent it. You would be completely wrong about that. The aspect of all this that many people argue as hypocrisy is that George Lucas supports an artist changing their own films as much as they like, but he is adamantly against people changing someone else’s films. Which is not hypocritical at all, really. As Lucas is such a stickler for such things, it’s clear his strict wishes, as complete singular owner of the franchise, to never go back and release the originals will be firmly adhered to. I can safely say that would be a 100% guarantee, and he will have legally bound his successors to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2004, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/76 "2004-09-25T04:31:39Z")
> [@adam yax](#): > > On what is that assumption based? What do you know about episode 3? Oops…I meant Ep. 6. My bad. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2004, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/77 "2004-09-25T06:28:20Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > I agree in general, none of the changes are even close to being important to me. And I will always appreciate George Lucas for having a vision ad making it happen. Not just making a fantastically entertaining series of movies, but also the way they are made, the way they look and the sound. Lucas’ innovation in sound are almost as imoprtant as anything else he has done. I agree 100% with this post. The changes are minor and really don’t have much bearing at all on the entirety of the movies. One thing that does get lost in this Lucas sucks stuff is that without Lucas’ vision and his drive to get ‘Star Wars’ done (with great pressure against it) we wouldn’t have the movies and the cultural phenomenon in the first place. Then again, some movie fans say it would be just as well ;). Star Wars and Jaws changed the face of movies and brought in the notion of the ‘blockbuster’. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/78 "2004-09-25T07:07:23Z")
Lucas may be a moneygrubbing hack these days, but you have to give him credit for taking his fortune and using it to improve the industry as a whole. THX, Industrial Light and Magic, Skywalker Sound, digital movie projection, Pixar… ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2004, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/79 "2004-09-25T19:37:30Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > As for the “boxes” around the starships, I wondered about that as well. The boxes show up much more on video because of the much narrower black/white contrast. It’s far less visible in the theater. Apparently, the masking around the models was done with paper or tape of some kind except for the small “Box” immediately around the model. The remainder was filled in by hand with black ink. The ink wasn’t quite as opaque so you got a square “halo” around each fighter. Not quite. I’ve seen various “making of” shows about bluescreen technology and the DykstraFlex, and they explained in thusly: You have a computer controlled camera. Whatever movement you make with the camera can be exactly duplicated by a computer so that it’s possible to film the same subject twice with absolutely identical passes. So: You place a model of a TIE fighter on a transparent stand and put a blue background behind it. You then film the TIE fighter normally with color film, moving the camera in such a way that it looks like the TIE fighter is whooshing past you. Then, you load the camera with black-and-white film and film the TIE fighter a second time **overexposed** , using that computer controller to make the camera perform exactly the same moves as you did the first time. Even when you overexpose black-and-white film, it isn’t sensitive to blue light, so what you get on the celluloid negative of your black-and-white overexposed film pass is a _clear transparent background_ with a black TIE fighter silhouette in the middle of it. A “positive” celluloid print of this negative will have a black background with a clear TIE-fighter-shaped hole in it. Now comes the fun part. Say you have a film of some background stars. You want to show your TIE fighter whooshing past with the stars in the background, but you want the TIE fighter to be seen “blocking” the light from the stars it passes in front of (i.e. you don’t want your images to look like double-exposures). So, for **each frame** of the film you’ve shot, you do the following: (1) Project a light through your film of the background stars, with your black-and-white negative (the one with the TIE-fighter-shaped silhouette on it) in front of it. Shine this onto a frame of a fresh piece of film. (2) Project a light through your color film of the TIE fighter, with your black-and-white positive print (the one with the black background and the TIE-fighter-shaped hole on it) in front of it. Shine this onto the **same** frame of film that you exposed in step (1). Voilá. Your TIE fighter is now whooshing past you in deep space, with no stars visible through its body. The not-quite-black squares around the TIE fighter are a side effect of another part of this process I didn’t mention. Ya see, the black background on the black-and-white positive print isn’t **totally** opaque. A little bit of the projected color frame (the one with the blue background) will get through it in step (2) above. The effect is minimal when viewed in a theater, but is more pronounced when transferred to video. For filmmakers, however, the main concern is that there can be little areas on the fringes of the blue background that the overexposed film was shot against that have visible artifacts on them, which would show up as unwanted transparent holes in the positive black-and-white print. To prevent blue light from the color bluescreen film of the TIE fighter from getting through these potential holes, the entire color film sequence is first put through a manual matting process where black mattes with a quick-and-dirty square hole in them are overlaid onto the frames of color film, framing the TIE fighter (wherever the TIE fighter image happens to lie within the frame). So, when the little extraneous bit of light bleeds through the black-and-white positive print in step (2), it shows up as a vaguely not-quite-black bluish square around the TIE fighter. ---
**Author:** ![pesch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pesch/32/4925_2.png) [@pesch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pesch)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2004, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421/80 "2004-09-25T22:31:49Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > As Lucas is such a stickler for such things, it’s clear his strict wishes, as complete singular owner of the franchise, to never go back and release the originals will be firmly adhered to. I can safely say that would be a 100% guarantee, and he will have legally bound his successors to do so. It’ll work as well with Lucas as it did for Margaret Mitchell, who specifically didn’t want a sequel to “Gone With The Wind.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucas-fixing-star-wars/265421.md?page=5)