In Defense of George Lucas

I don’t care if I’m in the minority on this… but it needs to be said.

I love the Star Wars movies, and have enjoyed them ever since I saw the first film in 1977 at the old Cine 1-2-3-4-5-6 behind Northway Mall.  Yes, I wished I could have been part of the series – I fancied myself as more of a Han Solo than a Luke Skywalker, but that’s just me.  I saw the sequels – and the prequels – when they hit the movie theaters, and when the films were initially released on VHS tapes and CED optical discs, I bought them.

I even bought the DVD’s of the six films, as well as the additional DVD’s that showed the New Hope / Empire Strikes Back / Return of the Jedi trilogy as they originally appeared in the theaters, as opposed to the re-edited versions released in the 1990’s.

There is currently excitement around the Star Wars fanbase that the entire six-movie series will be released on Blu-Ray disc later this September.  This is exciting.  This is fantastic.  All six motion pictures in the cleanest, sharpest visual and sonic treatments possible.

Except… George Lucas, the genius who created the Star Wars franchise, has decided to update a few things here and there in the film.  One could argue that George Lucas should keep his meddling hands off of our memories, and arguably most of the “changes” are either color corrections, digital edits of framing errors, or the removal of dust specs that might show up like big black blotches on a Blu-Ray presentation.

And then there’s this scene.

It’s from Return of the Jedi, and it’s the climactic scene where the Emperor and Luke Skywalker have their final confrontation.  Some background.  Luke Skywalker already knows that Darth Vader is really Anikin Skywalker, Luke’s father.  So does the Emperor.  Doesn’t matter.  Luke’s going to get electrocuted with the power of the dark side of the Force.  Watch the scene.

Now here’s the scene as it appears in the upcoming Star Wars Blu-Ray discs.  See if you notice anything different.

You heard right.  The previously silent Darth Vader says “No.”  And then, he shouts “Noooooo!!!!” as he tosses the Emperor into the chasm.

That wasn’t there before…

And now it is.

And the entire Star Wars universe is going nuts.  “How dare George Lucas fiddle with our memories of how this great scene should be viewed?”  Harry Knowles of the Ain’t It Cool website goes even further, saying, “It was already such a perfect moment. As Luke, dying under the Emperor’s torrent of force lightning, calls out to his father to help him, Vader stares quietly, looks at his son, then at the Emperor, and makes his decision. And he DOESN’T SAY A THING. That’s what makes it so powerful. You could almost see the thought process behind the mask, as Vader slowly comes out of the fog of 20+ years of evil. It’s a grand, amazing moment and the pinnacle of the trilogy, in my opinion. And George Lucas just ruined it.”

And normally I would agree with the general sentiment.  Normally I would have shaken my fist, “Curse you, George Lucas!” and all that.

But then I think for a couple of moments, and I realize something.

It’s not my film.

It’s George Lucas’ films.

And he’s still editing them, more than 35 years after their initial release.

Lucas’ argument has always been that the story he told back in 1977 was limited by the technology available at the time to create his film.  He used miniatures rather than computer animation.  He used puppetry instead of CGI.  He took what would have been a nine-hour uber-epic and trimmed it into a cohesive two-hour movie – then two sequels – and eventually, three prequels.  And as he built every portion of the movie, he had to make edits to the originals so that all would flow together.  He had to insert a digital image of Hayden Christiansen into the final “Jedi ghost scene” of Return of the Jedi so that people who saw the prequels wouldn’t wonder why there was an unknown actor playing Anikin Skywalker.  “Mommy?  Who’s this Sebastian Shaw person?”

As a motion picture aficionado, I am always intrigued by the “Director’s Cut.”  With the Director’s Cut, we get two versions of the film – the one that appeared in the theaters, and the one that the director really wanted to release.  Example.  In Fatal Attraction, did you know that the Director’s Cut features Glenn Close’s character killing herself and Michael Douglas’ character going to jail, framed for her murder?

And how many different versions of Blade Runner exist today?  Seven?

Here’s something else.  As a silent film fan, I never realized that Charlie Chaplin actually kissed Georgia Hale in the final scene from The Gold Rush, because Chaplin edited the climactic kiss out of the film when it was re-released in 1942.  When the film was recently restored, the kiss footage was placed back into the picture.  Chaplin originally felt that the kiss detracted from the overall public perspective of his Tramp character, and he removed it from the picture – but, again, that was his choice to do.  And we now have two different versions of the film available on home video today – the original 1920’s print and the updated 1942 edition.

And it’s not like George Lucas doesn’t acknowledge what people want.  He had the original trilogy released on DVD a few years ago (Han Solo shoots first – Star Wars fans know what I’m talking about).  But overall, George Lucas isn’t just creating a movie franchise based on fan vote.  He’s creating a mythology, a genre, a fictional universe in the same way that George R.R. Martin has created Westeros, J.R.R. Tolkien has envisioned Middle Earth, or William Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County.

George Lucas has at least given us a choice of how we want to see our beloved films.  We can either watch them on DVD in the original 1970’s / 1980’s versions, or we can watch them with as close to what George Lucas originally envisioned – and waited for the technology to catch up to his vision – which will be released on Blu-Ray on September 16.  It’s his film.  He can edit it as he sees fit.  He’s already given us the original versions “as seen in theaters,” now he just wants to create something closer to his original concept.

It’s not like he found every copy of the film and smashed each edition with a big, fat anvil – and then poured kerosene on the remains and threw lit matches on the pile.

I think he’s saving that effort for the Star Wars Holiday Special.