Besides he obvious complaints, I think that the addition of quite a few Gratuitous FX Shots that were liberally peppered through the movies threw off the pacing. Instead of jumping to the battle at the end of Star Wars quickly after the briefing we get what felt like ten minutes of shots of X-Wings flying by not doing anything.
I also have to point out that at the end of Return of the Jedi pretty much the entire rebel fleet was wiped out. I think ENN would mention that and the rebels wouldn’t be in any position to do anything with the chaos following. They’ll likely have the broken remains of their forces quickly rounded up by those seeking power now that the Emperor is out of the way as demonstrations of their effectiveness to the population of the Empire.
That’s one thing I can’t understand. Lucas is constantly accused of “pandering to the fanboys”… yet, conversely, he’s constantly pissing the fanboys off.
Maybe he likes to torture us with all sort of weirdnesses (like Greedo shooting first), but occasionally throws us a bone (like letting us see Boba Fett in all his Mandalorian glory).
According to the X-Wing series of novels, Ysanne Isard, one of the Emperor’s high-ranking intelligence officers, ordered a massacre of those responsible for the statue incident shortly after what we see in the film.
Some of the Special Edition features are fine. I can accept the Jabba sequence in A New Hope (although Han stepping on Jabba’s tail looked like they cut out Harrison Ford from the negative and lifted him up and back down. It was very jerky and shaky). Can’t stand the Greedo shoots first and misses from three feet away. I found a problem with the Empire Strikes Back Cloud City special features, though. Lucas was so excited about the ability to insert windows into what was originally a wall that he went overboard and put outside-view windows on interior walls. A couple examples I noticed:
-When Lando is telling Han and Leia about “supply problems of every kind” they walk past a large round window looking out over Cloud City. The stairs that they just came down curves up TOWARDS the window. If the stairs continue spiraling up the top of the window would be blocked off. If the stairs straighten up out-of-site then wherever the stairs lead should have been visible.
-When Lando is taking Han and the gang to Darth Vader they walk past a large all-window wall with elevators moving outside and no structure outside related to the building they are in. As they walk away the angle changes and there is another round window with Chewbacca walking in front of it. There is no structure outside that window. That means that the group got to the area near the large windows over a sort of skyway bridge, but there is no building across from them to come from. And a couple seconds later when the door is opened to reveal Darth Vader there is another window behind HIM. When Han takes a blaster shot at Vader there is now a hall behind them leading to another all-window wall (which would be just to the right of the round window that Chewy walked past) where the Stormtroopers come from. Of course this hall (with passages coming from left and right) was not visible from the window just two feet to the side.
Maybe if Lucas and company would step away from those computers for a few minutes and look at how the real world looks we might all be better off.
That’s only because Lucas is trying to appease both the fanboys and the casual viewers at the same time, and the fanboys are so hypersensitive they dislike any attempts to do the latter.
Take Jar-Jar Binks, for instance. 9 out of 10 Star Wars fanboys will say that the character was an embarassment that should never have hit the screen. Whereas someone coming from the position of a casual viewer can see a need for him – he provides some necessary comic relief, offsetting the serious nature of the other characters and the somber aspects of the Phantom Menace plot (c’mon, ten-year-old Anakin leaving his mother is not something you casually float out to an audience).
Boba Fett’s appearance in the revised ANH, on the other hand, was purely to juice the fanboys. It contributed nothing to the movie at all – but it sure made the fanboys shriek like cheerleaders…
In the original version of A New Hope, in the Cantina scene on Tattoine, Han is approaced by Greedo, a bounty hunter. Greedo and Han talk, and once it becomes obvious that Greedo intends to turn Han in to Jabba, Han (without a second’s hesitation) fires, killing Greedo.
In the revised version, Han sits around after Greedo says he’s taking Han in and Greedo gets off a shot first (he misses Han by about two feet…when he’s three feet away :rolleyes:) THEN Han shoots.
I’ve heard three reasons that people hate it.
#1) The way it was edited looks horrible. It looks “doctored”
#2) Han starts out as an amoral, self-absorbed “thug” who kills without hesitation, but by the end grows to a likeable and responsible person. By removing the “thugishness” of Han shooting first, he doesn’t grow at all.
#3) Han is a decisive man-of-action. By having him wait for Greedo to get off a potshot shows Han to be…well…an idiot who’s only alive because Greedo is the single worst shot in the entire universe. (Missing your target by two feet from across a booth at McDonalds also makes Greedo look like such a bumbling incompetent that Han actually looks like a bully when he shoots back. It’s obvious Greedo couldn’t hit the ground, let alone a human-sized target)
My take is a little from all three. Either way, many people feel it was a stupid change.
I only saw it mentioned once upthread, but I found this one to be as unforgivable as Greedo shooting first – Luke screams when he falls at the end of “ESB.”
What?!? Why does he scream? HE LET GO. You’re telling me that a near-Jedi who just got his hand chopped off by one of the most evil sonsabitches in the galaxy, who by the way just casually mentioned he was his FATHER, makes the decision not to join him in evil, consciously drops to his almost certain death, and then reconsiders it all as soon as he lets go? Fuck that.
So between that and the Greedo scene, we lose eighty percent of the character growth in the entire series.
Greedo’s stupidity was always fairly obvious. That still does not adequately explain why he tried to shoot Han, and yet later we hear a ruthless bounty hunter say he’s worthless dead. I’m sure even Greedo knew the difference between “alive” and “dead.” It’s silly to think the scene was added to match the “Canon” books. The scene was added to make Han more politically correct.
The movies are chock full of stuff like this, because they weren’t planned out ahead of time and the dialogue is generally brutal. It’s not a big deal, since the first two movies are still classics, but hey, they’re there.
Btw, guys; it’s called STAR WARS, dammit, not “A New Hope.” Arrrrgh!
Anyone notice that Greedo’s shot looks like it hits where han is digging into the stucco?
Maybe Han is ruthless afterall. He knows that Greedo’s species is easily fixated on superficial damage to walls and will focus on the damage no matter what. Han knowing Greedo was dumb enough to shoot, just created some damage knowing Greedo would be even dumber to focus his attention to the scratch on the wall. Greedo tries to shoot but hits the flaw he has been hoplessly fixating on, and Han, gun already drawn, ruthlessly guns down the idiot who he knows wil not be able to hit him.
This theory would work to make Han like a Thug and Greedo a fool.
I have to say I’ve hated everything done to Star Wars after the orginal trilogy. All the CGI additions have just looked terrible becase the lighting angles didn’t match-- expect to see them all redone in another 20 years if Lucas if still around.
I think Phantom Menace is the single worst piece of Banthacrap to come out of Hollywood in decades, and I’ve had enough. I ain’t seeing Clones or the next film.
I’m glad that at least Star Trek has been able to keep the televised drivel of Voyager and Enterprise off the big screen, but I’m starting to have doubts about X.
What “Special Edition”? There is no “Special Edition”.
waves hand
cough Ahem, I said, There is no “Special Edition”.
waves hand
looks at hand
Dangit, what’s wrong with this thing?
Seriously, I don’t have a problem with the subtle touches (the shadows under the sandspeeders, for instance), but everything bigger than that was a mistake. The original Death Star explosion, for instance, was far better than the revised. The scene with Jabba in the first (fourth) one served no purpose, and the celebrations at the end of Jedi? I’m sorry, but even with Vader and the Emperor dead and the Death Star destroyed, an entity as huge as the Empire does not fall overnight. Expect at least ten years for Leia et al to put things back together in some semblence of order.
I think we can all agree that there are objections to most of the changes in the Special Editions. I personally reserve the juiciest spittle of embittered, bilious wrath for the Han Solo Shoots First, Play-Doh Jabba Factory, Screaming Jedi, Bring My Shuttle, and the re-inserted Close The Blast Doors scenes. The other changes I could live with or without, for the most part.
But you know, it occurs to me that we could come up with even worse changes to make to the Special Special Edition.
With that in mind, here are my suggestions for awful, terrible, hideous, disfigured lumps of editorial historical revisionism that could be perpetrated against the bulkwarks of modern mythos.
Special Special Edition (2008).
Jar Jar is digitally inserted into every scene in Ep4, Ep5, and Ep6.
Stormtroopers carry walkie-talkies instead of blasters. (Hey, they never hit anything important anyway.)
Luke’s haircut is made presentable, but now he looks like “Hanson.”
Ian McDiarmid replaces Clive Revill in the Emperor-hologram scene in Ep5, except now is a CGI construct less believeable than bikini pinups of Lara Croft.
Han Solo’s Special Edition line, “It’s all right, I can see a lot better now” is replaced with “It’s all right, I never had hibernation sickness, I was only fooling.”
Aunt Beru’s looped lines are redubbed by Fran Drescher.
The sweeping John Williams asteroid theme is replaced by the music from the 1979 arcade game “Asteroids.”
Ultra Special Special Edition (2012)
Chewbacca is digitally removed from every shot and replaced with Jar Jar Binks. Han Solo’s line “It’s not wise to upset a Wookiee” is replaced with, “It’s not wise to upset a Gungan.”
Footage is added of Imperial Academy forces being trained in weapons use by Don Knotts.
Digital lip-sync technology is used to change Luke’s line “Nooo-ooo-ooo-oooooo!” into “Yippee!”
To make it more obvious that Senator/Chancellor Palpatine is really the Emperor in disguise, a set of Groucho glasses is added to every shot of the Emperor. To every shot of Palpatine is added a halo.
The Wampa Ice Creature is now a cameo role played by Shaquille O’Neal, complete with musical number and dancing girls in skimpy fur bikinis. The scene goes on tour as the “Wampa Ice Capades.”
The entire John Williams score is scrapped and replaced with Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” Some fanboys claim it fits with spooky synchronicity in certain scenes, usually after the imbibement of several non-prescription herbal remedies.
Incredibly Special Ultra Re-release Special Special Edition (2025)
Jar Jar Binks is made a Jedi Knight.
Jar Jar Binks destroys the Death Star.
Jar Jar Binks is shown to be a cunning and foresighted adversary who allowed himself to be manipulated by Palpatine into proposing legislation to create the Imperial Army. Says Jar Jar in Episode 2, “Revenge of Jar Jar,” “Nowsa meesa has a eeeevil Emperor where meesa want!”
Luke Skywalker is digitally erased from the picture and replaced with a member of the 2025 Swedish Bikini Team.
C-3PO is re-dubbed by Dennis Franz.
R2-D2 is given the BFG from Doom II and goes on a rampage in Cloud City to rescue C-3PO’s disconnected parts.
Han Solo no longer accidentally activates Boba Fett’s jetpack to send him careening into the Sarlacc Pit. Instead, Han indicates that Boba Fett’s shoe is untied, whereupon the bounty hunter looks down, trips over his own foot, shoots himself in the neck, gets tangled up in his own grappling hook cord, and says “D’oh!” a la Homer Simpson. Fett then windmills his arms wildly on the edge of the skiff, falls into a batch of wet cement, and explodes with near-nuclear force. Han Solo then quips, “The fool! He doesn’t even have shoelaces.”
Governor Tarkin, Han Solo, and Jabba the Hutt replaced with an aging Mike Myers doing Dr. Evil, Austin Powers, and Fat Bastard, respectively. The Ewoks are replaced with Mini-Mes.
Correct me if I am wrong but in the theatrical verision of the Special Empire, I seem to recal that being the exact case. I was surprised when my video tape had the original emperor.
I figured it wasn’t false memory as they had the second emperor on the cover. Hey isn’t that a scratch in the paint over there…
I concur with most of the sentiments shared regarding Lucas re-editing the original movies to pander to various sources.
What bothers me is what exactly where they rebelling against in the Empire? The Death Star was one of the largest public works projects, the imperial army was quite strong and employed many citizens of the Empire and the trains ran on time. It’s not like Vader was rounding up non-humans and rendering their fat into soap or the Emperor was annexing planets which have historically been part of the Empire. If he was, those planets were already part of the original Republic which became the Empire.
IIRC, Han isn’t really much of a bad guy when he shoots first anyway (I HATE Greedo shooting first 10 times more than anything else in the special edition). When Han tells him “Over my dead body”, Greedo replies “That’s the idea” and “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time”, essentially telling Han that he’s gonna shoot him. So when Han shoots Greedo before Greedo can shoot him, Han is a decisive man of action but he has essentially acted in self defense!
Lucas’ change doesn’t make him a “better guy”, it makes him a wimpy idiot. And makes Lucas look amazingly dumb in the process. Especially when combined with the “growing from a self absorbed rogue to a man of principle theme.”
