One more time: Star Wars Special Edition/remake sucks..

The BBQ Pit
1

Fuck you, George Lucas, fuck you very much. Yes, I know this has been covered before, but it’s still infuriating.

Fox was running it yesterday (Sunday) as a lead-in to some football game, so I finally get around to taping it. And I’m sitting there watching it with Bonzo, and explaining it to him, the parts where George, with his Hollywood mandate to do whatever the hell he wants 'cause he’s The Man with the Box Office Mojo, tidies it all up to make it more 90s Family Friendly.

First of all, the number one irritation is having Greedo shoot first. Yes, I know it’s been covered, it still pisses me off, because it’s so pointless. The whole point of the original version is you got to see this neat character development where Han Solo is redeemed by jumping in at the last minute, and before he can be a Redeemed Bad Guy, he has to BE a Bad Guy (are you paying attention, George? No, obviously not, too busy counting your Phantom Menace marketing tie-in dollars).

Also, Bonzo even noticed that it didn’t make sense, plotwise. He said, “Hey, why would he want to kill him? Han Solo didn’t give him the money yet. I thought he was going to take him back to Jabba and let Jabba torture the money out of him, or something like that.” Yes, my son, you are wise beyond your years.

He also observed, consolingly, “Well, Mom, you can hardly see Greedo’s shot anyway, it just kind of bounces off the napkin holder or something.”

Then, later, Number Two irritation, is this absolutely pointless little scene that shows Han Solo at the Mos Eisley spaceport begging Jabba for more time, “I can get the money, I swear”, and Jabba believes him, and lets him go! Now, is this believeable? Jabba’s the kind of guy who sends around leg-breakers like Greedo, what, he’s suddenly going to do the Big Seventh Heaven episode Right Thing and cave? I said to Bonzo, “Now, this wasn’t in the original version, either.” And Bonzo considered this for a minute, thinking about how it made things different, and he said, “Yeah, suddenly Jabba’s a Good Guy”. I said, “Yeah, so it doesn’t make sense, if Jabba’s gonna have Princess Leia half-naked and in chains in Empire and have Han Solo frozen–why’s he doing that, if he’s a Good Guy?”

So I have now punished George for the third (?) year running, by NOT buying a copy of any of his Star Wars movies on video. At first it was just cheapness–“oh, they’ll always be available at the video store, why buy a copy when you can rent it for a dollar”? But after his Special Edition remake came out, I started a personal crusade to resist buying any Star Wars videos. My family thinks I’m kinda touched in the head on the subject of the remake, but, well, we all have our little pet peeves, and this is one of mine.

Anyway, thank you for listening. I’m starting to feel like the Old Codger in some science fiction story or other, who remembers the way it Really Was, before the Pod Aliens came to Earth and started remaking all the old movies. “Yes, children, it’s true–in the original version, Scarlett did NOT get Rhett back again…”

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Thank you.

I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but I feel there was something kind of cool about having little to no idea who Jabba the Hutt was until Episode VI.* In ANH, you hear about some shadowy menacing figure named “Jabba” and get the vague idea that he’s evil and dangerous. Then Empire comes along and you learn a little more, but he still remains an enigma. Then finally, Jedi pulls away the curtain for the dramatic reveal, and you’re like “Oh, so THAT’S Jabba the Hutt!” followed by the very satisfying denouement. Yes, Jabba’s presence in ANH Special Edition is utterly useless.
*I obviously never read any of the Star Wars novels or anything like that.

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Why, Duck Duck Goose, why oh why must you pour salt in the wounds with your excellent observations and arguments as to why Star Wars, The Dance Remix Edition was a travesty that should never have left the greedy atmosphere of the boardroom. I had very nearly forgotten, and then you had to go and bring it up again.
sigh.
It’s all so painful.

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I am so glad, then, that I never saw the “original.” I just don’t think I could stand it if Scarlett didn’t get back her Rhett. That would have been heartbreaking! With that sort of logic, you might find an old copy of Love Story and Ali McGraw might not recover from her mysterious disease. That would have been so depressing!

That is why we have second releases, to correct the obvious errors of the earlier attempts.

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Here you go, Duck. Ebay’s got four people selling VHS copies of the original SW, prior to Lucas’ “special edition” tinkering.

They’re cheap, too-- no bids so far on 3 of the 4. You can probably snatch a copy (or, God forbid, the whole original trilogy) for $2.50. Cheaper than renting, even if you could find the original. Which you can’t.

And the best part is, when you buy an out-of-print item off eBay, you guarantee that absolutely no money goes into Lucas’ pocket! It’s the ultimate in protest commerce.

May the Force… well, you get the point.

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The link wrapped on me and put an extra space in. And the “preview” option shows me that it’s happening again.

Heck, use the link above and manually remove the space in the word “query”. That’ll fix it.

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you’ll have to excuse me…i know nothing of html…

as for the OP, Don’t get me wrong. I hate the remakes, its such an awful blend of computer images with puppetry. However, I hope these answer your irritations.

Your right about Greedo shooting first, Star Wars follows the whole 50’s theme of a classic western - a good cowboy can’t shoot first. I took a film class on this. If you do the comparision to most 50’s movies, they all follow the same general plot as StarWars. It’s what makes the audience “love” the character immediately. Lucas followed the same plot line that made blockbusters before, and it worked. For today’s audience it doesn’t work tho. I’m also sure there’s more to the story then movie length allows to be explained, but its still unexcusable.

However, I did previously learn from my StarWarsFreaks friends that Han Solo was originally “BAD”. He worked for the Empire before fleeing them etc. etc… It’s in the books if you read the story. My friend figures it’ll be told in either episode 2 or more likely 3. So it is due to Lucas’ bad choice of episodes to show first. Yet he couldn’t clearly explain that >i don’t think< in ANH.

If you’ve seen the making of the remakes of StarWars they aired 24/7 on SciFi then you would have also seen that while Jabba was originally a big worm thing - when Lucas was first making the movie, he was going to make Jabba just a big ol’fat man. That part was actually written into the actual story, and was going to be in the original, but they canned using the humanJabba, and it would have cost to much to make a puppetwormJabba that could walk around.

Not that i’m disagreeing, I hate the remaked episodes >although for other reasons<. I just wanted to fill you in with information. Reading the books >i haven’t doen it< explains alot.

I am super pissed with the mixing of comp images with puppets. Can it not be more obvious which is older? Which was added? ESPECIALLY with Jabba, where in one scene he looks shiney/glossy/liquidy and the original looks tougher/harder/realer. I’m also upset that once all the episodes are released together you’ll go from 3 computer enhanced movies followed by 3 puppet movies. It just doesn’t have a good flow to it for me. A movie should flow visually just as much as its storyline.

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I found the added musical number (since when is Star Wars a musical anyway) in Jedi somehow fouled up the scene where Leia is being dragged into the pit, but I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe I’m just not 14 anymore, but it seemed much more sexually charged when there weren’t muppets dancing in front of the whole scene.

Nothing more sad than for a young visionary to do something right only to have his older senile self go back and screw it all up.

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As far as the re-editing-he had to some of it for the re-release for the anniversary-the original film was in TERRIBLE shape.
He also decided to go back and fix things he originally wanted to put in, but had to drop due to time and money.

Also, if you read the books, you’ll see Jabba didn’t really want Greedo to go after Han-Greedo was just a punk kid with a puffed up ego.

Call me crazy, but I’m so in love with Star Wars that I don’t mind the re-editing, the special edition, Episode One.
Hell, I even love Jar Jar!

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Nah, sorry, Guin, I’m with Mullaney–“Nothing more sad than for a young visionary to do something right only to have his older senile self go back and screw it all up.”

I’d sure hate to see Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese go back and remake some of their early hot-blooded crazy-man stuff, especially with the intention of making their early Anti-Heroes into 90s Nice Guys.

I think the Star Wars remake has “cash in” written all over it, not “oops, I wanna go back and make the movie I really wanted to make.” It’s perfectly possible to digitally remaster a print without tampering with what’s actually on film.

And, um, you did know the “books” are just novelizations cranked out by ghostwriters hired by George and told what the storyline is supposed to be? The movie came first, out of whole cloth and George’s imagination, with a healthy boost from a ton of Grade B horse operas and bargain-basement sci-fi. Then came the “books”. :slight_smile:

You know, there are doctors who can help you with that Jar-Jar thing, Guin. :smiley:

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I know, I know.

Well, perhaps adding in scenes, yes. But they DID have to fix the sound and the color-the film was faded and scratchy.
It really needed to be fixed. THAT was necessary. It was deteriorating.

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A friend in my Philosophy class put it best: “After twenty years of stalling, he owed the fans more than that.” The only thing that was done right was the re-doing of some of the space battle scenes, in my opinion, and the re-designing of Mos Eisley spaceport (made it look like a huge city rather than a small town).

Everything else was what I call the “Midichlorian Effect”.

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And another thing, DDG. The Death Star explodes all wrong in the New ‘n’ Improved SW.

In the original, they just strapped a bomb to the model and set off while filming in slo-mo. On screen it had a shock wave that turned into a giant cascade of sparks that fell forever. It really looked like a behemoth machine had blownup.

Enter the Computer Guys. Now it’s a conjuring trick. POOF - no Death Star! And no cool explosion either! Good thing I have the older version.

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While I agree that Greedo shooting first blows, I think that overall there are good points to both versions. The new “remix” is overall much more visually appealing. However the original had it’s charm in the way Lucas overcame a limited budget.

The new scene with Jabba had been filmed originally with a live actor and then cut. They just superimposed the Jabba likeness over the old footage.

I like to think of it like cars. The old 63 Mustang was a classic. The new Mustangs don’t have the same pananche, but they do have fuel injection, disc brakes, AM/FM, AC, etc. Both have there advantages.

I own widescreen editions of both versions of the trilogy.

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Thank you for reminding me of the Death of the Pony Car.
[goes off to slit wrists]

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You got a 63 Mustang you wanna sell? be kinda intersted in what it looks like! :wink: they didn’t come out til 64.

I also don’t like the way Greedo shot first, Han shooting him was the WHOLE point. I don’t remember much about the Has and Jaba, but I thought has basically said “I’ve got a big shipment and you’ll get your money right after that. You kill me you get nothing.” I can see Jaba letting Han go to get his money. I don’t think I even saw the remake of Jedi because I thought Empire wasn’t worth the money to see again so I skipped it.

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It’s so sad that one of my former film-making heroes is now on my list of people I’d like to shove a rabid weasel up their ass. Is he gonna re-release these movies on VHS every year with just enough extras to get the fans to buy 'em until episodes 1,2,and 3 are done so he can do the same with them??? Then he’ll probably be doing the same bullshit with the DVD’s…IF he ever gets off his retro-changing ass and does that. Duck Duck Goose, you are SO right about directors going back and reworking early films…leave well enough alone! I can see it in some situations, such as Lucas spiffing up the F/X in some scenese, i.e. Mos Eisley, but the whole Greedo thing and the shudder disco sequence at Jabba’s club 54 makes me puke. Episode I was one of the biggest disappointments of my life, and I am NOT holding my breath for the next two films…I’m putting all my bets on the Lord Of The Rings films! :stuck_out_tongue:

BTW, they’re doing the same damn things with the SW soundtracks in case you haven’t noticed. They re-released the EpI score with stuff left of the initial disk, and I’m willing to bet good ole’ american currency that they’re gonna do the same fucking thing with EpII…money grubbing fucking dildo-heads.

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Ok, Ok! 1964 1/2. There you happy?
Hey, I never said I could count! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Not to mention it is not even a new effect. It is a recycled one turned on its’ side. The original was from Star Trek VI “The Undiscovered Country” when Praxis, a Klingon mooon, was destroyed right after the opening credits rolled. If you watch the credits from Star Wars “The Dance Remix Edition” (LOL!), I believe the Death Star explosion is credited to someone who has “PRAXIS” as a nickname. All they did was turn it on its’ side so the “shock wave” went up and down instead of side to side.

I did like the updated CG battle scene at the end, though…

Regards.