Nah, bootleg DVD!
I won’t be surprised if the original cuts of the movies are available as hidden features on the DVDs.
Sir! Are you saying that you don’t find Jar Jar Binks to be the wittiest breath of fresh air to grace the silver screen since Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
Mesa not think so, Tracer. 
I said that I didn’t like 99% of the first movie; that 1% of gold was of course the irrepressible Jar-Jar Binks, and his comic blustering chief Gungan boss. I kept hoping that the action scenes would go by quickly so that we could get back to more of Jar-Jar’s side-splitting antics. It was all I could do to regain my composure, wipe a tear from my eye, and shake my head saying “Oh, Jar-Jar! Will you never learn!”
Actually, it’s somewhat unsettling what a Lucas apologist I’d gotten to be. “Well, the pod race was neat.” “And he’s got to put stuff in there for the kids to follow.” But then, of course, I remembered Star Wars, and how the action scenes actually made sense in the plot instead of feeling as if they’d been shoehorned in to make videogames out of. And I was 6 years old when I saw the original movie, and I didn’t need a bumbling CG muppet to get me into the movie.
And I definitely didn’t need wisecracks from C-3PO that sounded as if they were taken out of Highlights magazine. “Oh, I’m beside myself!” “This is no way to get ahead!” “I ain’t got nobody!” I’d better stop now before I go out to Skywalker Ranch and start beating people up.
This just in! The Star Wars DVD will have a new special scene where Han talks Guido down as they communicate over their walkie-talkies (no blasters involved). 
Stop giving him ideas!
Can someone explain to me what the uproar over Greedo shooting first is?
I apologize if it’s incredibly obvious.
Do you mean besides the fact that it completely changes the character of Han Solo?
Nerd alert! (for me)
Ok: In the original film Han Solo is about to leave when a bounty hunter named Greedo catches him and tells him that he’s going to collect on the bounty on Solo’s head. He sits him down and gloats for a bit before Solo cooly shoots him under the table and casually leaves the bar.
In the Special Edition George decided that Han was too honourable to shoot Greedo like that so clumsily edited in a 2 second shot where Greedo for no reason attempts to shoot Han (after gloating about how he was going to take him in alive), MISSES him from 2 feet away after he had his gun pointed at him for 5 minutes and then gets shot under the table.
It’s just a very clumsy way to make Han more 2 dimensionally heroic and doesn’t work.
Well, in the original Star Wars, Han secretly draws his gun and shoots Greedo without warning. It establiahed him as someone who was a bit darker than most of the rest of the cast, who didn’t care about fair fights or giving people second chances. It made Han out to be a bit of a pirate. This also made his reappearance at the end more dramatic, as it showed he had grown during the course of the movie.
In the Special Edition, they edited in a first shot by Greedo, which aside from taking away Han’s hard edge, just looked incredibly hokey. He’s two feet away from Han with his gun pointed directly at his chest. To miss him, the bolt has to leave the gun barrel at a forty-five degree angle. Neither Greedo not Han even react to the shot: Greedo’s hand doesn’t recoil, and Han doesn’t flich from the giant explosion three feet from his head. It was an unnecessary and ineptly executed change.
Damn you, Goldfish!
Waitaminit! The Lugnuts song is gone? Gone forever?
Well, not forever since have it on video tape. I see a huge black market in Original Release Star Wars DVDs in the near future.
The Greedo retcon is also a problem for two other reasons:
- There is no way you can argue that Han shoots him in cold blood. In the original version it is clear that Greedo is going to kill Han. The dialogue (from memory!) is:
Greedo: You can tell that to Jabba. He may only take your ship.
Han: Over my dead body.
Greedo: That’s the idea. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.
To say that Han firing after that is cold-blooded murder is ridiculous. So the first ‘reason’ for changing it is silly.
- Lucas’ second ‘reason’ for changing this is, presumably, the same as all his other changes : “the Special Editions are what he wanted the films to be originally, but time and money restraints way back when did not allow them to happen.” Apparently back in 1977, the technology to allow Greedo to shoot first just simply didn’t exist. Even Gary Kurtz, the producer has said this is a stupid and silly claim to make.
So we’re left with a pointless and stupid change to an existing, classic scene, which adds nothing to the movie and in facts detracts from the development of a main character.
Has Lucas “betrayed my youth” by doing this? No, not any more than he already has. It’s become a dark time for Star Wars fans. It’s becoming harder and harder to maintain the spark of joy that the original Star Wars gave me when I saw it back in 1977. IF he releases the ‘Special Editions’ on DVD, I don’t know what I’ll do. I have the widescreen original editions on VHS and am looking into getting them transferred to DVD, if for no reason than the medium is more permanent.
Where there’s a market…there’s a supplier. If the United States government can’t stop drugs what makes anyone think that Lucas could stop a huge bootleg DVD market?
I just wish I had connections to get myself one.
It’s funny but last week I was sitting around with some friends and they channel surfed onto Star Wars being broadcast. One of them wondered if this was the “real one” or the “screwed up one” and I replied that we’d know when Greedo shot first. The other two hadn’t seen the Special Editions before and responded much like shy guy. I tried to explain for a few minutes but we were coming up on the scene so I told them to watch. The scene plays out, Greedo gets his shot in, and my friends say in unison “What the hell was that!?”
In addition to what was mentioned before, I should point out that the first Greedo shot isn’t even put in well. It’s jumpy and awkward. Not that a well done initial shot would have been good but it just makes it worse.
Finally, I’ve got to say that the Special Editions ruin the pacing in the film. Those two to three minutes of establishing shots showing off Lucas’s CGI technology drag the film to a halt. It’s especially noticiable in Star Wars on the approach to the Death Star which seems to take forever and a day…
I like both versions-I believe they did have to be restored because the color and sound was deteriorating on the old film reels.
As for the new RotJ song, I really do like it-(the one at the end), but as an Ewok fan (YUB YUB!!!), I do miss the old one. I like seeing them tear down the statue of Palpy.
I just wish there was more Wedge footage. And maybe some of Hobbie and Janson. I’m a pilot girl.
Or the time and money didn’t exist, like Lucas said. Remember that Star Wars was shot on an extremely tight budget. It’s very possible that Lucas wanted to shoot it both ways, but due to fluffs or whatever didn’t have the wherewithal to get a good take of the scene where Greedo shot first.
“Connections?”
They’re sold on freaking ebay, dude. You just have to catch the auction before the Lucasdrones find it and have it shut down.
Gollum- Good use of a quirky CGI character.
JarJar- Awful use of a quirky CGI character.
Do you think Lucas cringes at the success of LOTR? It just incredibly outshines his series in manner of storytelling and CG quality. I think the bar has been raised and Lucas can’t keep up.
Yoda was supposed to be the groundbreaking CGI character of the year, but OMG was Gollum incredible!! Put yoda to shame.