[Chefelf]

When the "Special Edition" movies were released in 1997, that was the first real split of Star Wars fans. There were the people that supported the SE's and the purists who though the OT should have remained untouched. This, ultimately, set the stage for the Prequel Gushers vs. Prequel Bashers that we see today.

Here's what I wonder: Are there people who think that the "Special Edition" movies were great but the new, revised, "Special Edition DVDs" are uncool.

If those people exist it would be really weird.

[barend]

first edition fuck up lovers?


hmmm...

it happened with the goth scene...

there are so many layers there....

the current goths are like tenthwave post cool...

i'm like third wave cool... or something...
which means i like all the original stuff, but i also listen to nine inch nails and a couple skinny puppy rip offs...

but first wave special edition fans... that's just odd...

i went and saw them at the movies, cause i was just happy to see it on the big screne... + I was exited about the additions... it sounded right in theory... but when i saw how little care had been taken into splicing them in, how little care for maintaining the original atmosphere, and so on i just wanted to vomit in annoyance!!!

mayb the original vision was to have tatooine full of stupid shit running around so it looked like one of thos mad magazine scenes taking the piss out of 'where's waldo' with all sorts of crazy comical madness goin on... but the desolate tatooine i grew up with sold the point better...

it's like fight club... having the main character die at the end worked in the book... but would fucked up the film... there is no space for post mortem narration...

the original plan with SW was to make a shit film: George Lucas
buget restricted good film: Me and you and a bunch of others
first wave SE revision: ? the people you are asking about
second wave history eraser button: a large group of A-holes who would have bought the DVDs if they were six hours of static and white noise... (which they virtually were - but high grade digital)

interesting...

[The Scornful Roman]

Err... *raises hand* I came into the Star Wars as a result of the theatrically released SEs. I'd seen the OT once, maybe, at my relatives' house when I was very little, but I really got into the movies when I saw them on the big screen. And I loved them. I remember that I walked out of A New Hope with this huge, goofy grin on my face-- I was a convert, sold and bought.

So, I can't really hate the SEs. I think that for the sake of those who saw and loved the OT as it was originally released, that they should be preserved and loved on DVD, right along with the SEs. That would be the Ultimate Box Set, and with the technology today, it is possable and affordable. (Think "Alien Quadrilogy": two versions on one disc, due to seamless branching tech.) Most of the films that I love have Special Editions, but preserving the originals is important, in my eyes.

But the prequels... let's just say that they were like a cold splash of water to the face. I don't like them; they feel like they're made for small children, with the Gungans and the ridiculous battlescenes and the annoyingly Earth-bound accents that suddenly every alien seems to have. I wish that the prequels had concentrated more on Palpitine, and Darth Maul, and the politics behind the conspiracy to overthrow the Republic. Make it some real cloak and dagger, I, Claudius style stuff. Instead, we get Gungans and Natalie Portman and Jake Lloyd acting stiffly and stupid CGI that'll look cartoonish in a few years.

So, no, I don't even know if I'll buy the Original Trilogy at all. I'm not so much angry about the changes in the films (though I do think that re-dubbing Fett's voice and CGI-ing Hayden Christiansen into Shaw's place is horrible, 'cause it will only remind me of the prequels). But the prequels are where I feel that George Lucas has REALLY dropped the ball, and so far, he's dropped it so badly that Episode 3 will have to be a real rouser if I'm ever going to count myself a rabid fan again.

[ernesttomlinson]

My experience was like the Scornful Roman's: the experience of seeing all three Star Wars movies on the big screen (back when there were still single-screen theatres in San Diego), even in, er, somewhat edited form, really sold me on Star Wars. Of course now I know more about the original films, having obtained copies of them for my collection; and even at the time, although I was largely unfamiliar with the originals, I could tell that certain scenes were patently fakey. Of course I like the originals better and I wish that Lucas had confined himself merely to making a new, restored print, like was done with Vertigo, Rear Window, and other classic movies a few years ago. But I can't bring myself quite to hate the SE films either.

Which scornful Roman, by the way? I can think of a few (Martial and Juvenal come to mind.)

[Just your average movie goer]

Ah, the Special Editions. What can I say about them?

I enjoyed seeing Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back on the big screen. And I enjoyed seeing those 30 or so minutes of Return of the Jedi that are half-decent.

Now, the changes...

Every single one of them leapt out of the screen at me. Many of them were bad...

Greedo shooting first and the Jabba scene were the worst obviously. The new musical number in Return of the Jedi is terrible too.

However, I enjoyed some of the changes, like seeing the Mellenium Falcon launching out of Docking Bay 94, some new X-Wing shots and the new environments that were added to the Cloud City sequence. Despite the impossibility of everyone in the galaxy celebrating the destruction of the Death Star Version 2.0 at the end of Return of the Jedi, I liked the new ending and its music as well.

On that ending, you have to remember that the original one was the "Yub yub" song. Let's not get too sentimental about that one, people. It was also nice to get away from Endor for a bit, even if just for a few seconds, because we'd already spent more than an hour on that boring locale.


Unfortunately, as Barend already pointed out, the new material was not blended in well at all. And it was hard for me to believe that money had been spent on such an amateur job.

The cloud city sequence is where this is most noticeable. One second, there's a large window with a sweeping view of the city. The next second, it's gone. They also made a complete hash of sequencing things with the timing of the music. And it's all out of place.

Just on a seperate note, I also particular hated THIS change in the sequence...

Vader - Bring my shuttle. -> Vader - alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival.


So what do I think of these things?

They were good because they gave us a chance to see these movies on the big screen, the way they were meant to be seen. There were some nice things added in, such as some nice new X-Wing shots and the expanded Cloud City environments.

But they were bad because the changes were not blended in with much care (although the X-wing shots were incorporated well). And also some of the changes were extremely horrible... but not as horrible as the DVD changes obviously.

For me, mixed reviews. Am I a fan of these things? Not really but I was happy to get a chance to see these films on the big screen*.

* If you are wondering however, NO. I would not want to see the DVD Editions on the big screen. George has gone WAY WAY WAY too far this time.

[Helena]

Scornful Roman - nice to see another person who'd have liked to see true political intrigue in the Prequels, rather than the kindergarten-level stuff Lucas gave us. And you're an I, Claudius fan - I love that book!

[Chefelf]

Wow, so Lucas really DID expose an entirely new generation to Star Wars through the Special Edition releases. Fascinating. I always just figured he was making that crap up.

[ernesttomlinson]

Yeah, we striplings who were mewling babies (or who weren't even around at all) in the '70s had to get our Star Wars in whatever way we could. And, because my family was, er, not much into entertainment, it's not like I could have seen the movies on the home VCR. (I remember the first time I saw one was at a friend's birthday party; his folks had a VCR and we all watched Tron. I don't remember a thing about it except the bad computer graphics and that David Warner was in it.)

I'll say this other good thing about the Special Edition of Star Wars: it was the first time I got to see something of the spirit of fandom. My brother and I went to see the movie at a now defunct theatre in San Diego, the Cinema 21 (http://www.silverscreens.com/en_sd.html - scroll down a little), and even though we arrived reasonably early there were people lined up completely circling the theatre and trailing out for many yards away. (I'm trying to remember whether anyone was dressed in a black cloak or anything like that in imitation of Vader. I think there were one or two.) When the opening fanfare resounded through the theatre, a great cheer went up. I'll never forget that experience.

By contrast, I remember how anticlimactic was our watching Return of the Jedi at a smaller single-screen theatre in San Diego, the Valley Circle, also gone now. It wasn't that impressive a theatre, for one thing. Also, the air of excited fandom wasn't there; I have no definite memories of the affair, which is probably a good sign of how unimpressive it was.

[The Scornful Roman]

Which scornful Roman, by the way?  I can think of a few (Martial and Juvenal come to mind.)

My screenname comes from the Passion of the Christ film-- there's a Roman soldier in it called, simply, The Scornful Roman, and he's played by one Emilio De Marchi. Since I'm probably the only De Marchi fan in existence, I've taken his character's name as an alias for this site and one other.

And, yes, Lucas did create a new generation of fans with the SEs. I'd always liked sci-fi and fantasy before Star Wars, but my fandom with it spawned in turn fandoms in the X-Files, The Matrix, Babylon 5...

[The Scornful Roman]

Scornful Roman - nice to see another person who'd have liked to see true political intrigue in the Prequels, rather than the kindergarten-level stuff Lucas gave us. And you're an I, Claudius fan - I love that book!

Thanks for the welcome, and yes, what the first movie definitely needed was more Palpitine, more Maul, more Valorum, more intrigue. We needed to see Palpitine interacting with the Senate and with individual Senators. It would have been great to see him talking with Chancellor Valorum. Showing Palpitine's supporters-- people who are trying to use him as a front for their own ends, or people who are taken in by his show of good-naturedness-- would have been great, too. We should have been introduced to Bail Organa and Mon Mothma right off the bat, IMHO, since they will become fierce opponents of Palpitine later.

To use another analogy, the films should have been more like The Godfather; slower-paced, perhaps more adult films that deal with people's ambitions and choices; who they support and why they support him. I have a lot of other theories on how I would do Eps. 1&2 as well, but I'll make a seperate thread about that.

[Michel Orla]

Scornful Roman - nice to see another person who'd have liked to see true political intrigue in the Prequels, rather than the kindergarten-level stuff Lucas gave us. And you're an I, Claudius fan - I love that book!

The BBC mini series is awesome too. Some of the best acting you'll ever see. Lucas liked to borrow ideas from other stories for the OT, too bad he didn't do it for the PT. I, Claudius redone into the Star wars universe would've worked better. Palpatine could've been the Claudius character. An idiot nobody took serious until he was Emperor. Would've been much better than the lame Sidious character. Anakin could've even resembled Caligula. Now there was a pyscho who was at least interesting.

[The Scornful Roman]

Scornful Roman - nice to see another person who'd have liked to see true political intrigue in the Prequels, rather than the kindergarten-level stuff Lucas gave us. And you're an I, Claudius fan - I love that book!

The BBC mini series is awesome too. Some of the best acting you'll ever see. Lucas liked to borrow ideas from other stories for the OT, too bad he didn't do it for the PT. I, Claudius redone into the Star wars universe would've worked better. Palpatine could've been the Claudius character. An idiot nobody took serious until he was Emperor. Would've been much better than the lame Sidious character. Anakin could've even resembled Caligula. Now there was a pyscho who was at least interesting.

Yeah, I saw at least part of that a long time ago, when I was very young. All I can remember is a bunch of guys with togas walking around on a really cool mosaic floor. Regarding Lucas ripping it off; sure, go ahead. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all, and if you're going to plagiarize something, admit it freely and make your version the best possible thing that you can.

Lucas should learn that. Or re-learn it.

[Michel Orla]

Sometimes the best form of entertainment is a rework of a classic piece of entertainment, fiction or non fiction. Stories with universal truths that can be handed down decade by decade and not lose meaning. The best of the OT (Empire) has that quality. And much of it is based on Greek mythology, as is Star Wars. And Episode 4 was also based on a great Kurosawa film The Hidden Fortress. Sadly, Lucas forget this key ingredient when he decided to make the PT from his own imagination, which is sadly lacking many things

[Helena]

The BBC mini series is awesome too. Some of the best acting you'll ever see.

I've seen some of it (only the first few episodes, unfortunately). You're right, it's excellent.

[Jacen]

The SEs are IMHO quite good. If anyone of you would have seen the Making-Of, nobody would say that it's an amateur job! Well, yes, there are some scenes that could have been done better, but if you compare the almost destroyed old version with the recolored new special edition, you would notice that they really did a good job.
For example, Tatooine at the beginning of episode 4 is MUCH better than in the original version. Now what I am really missing is a better fight Obi Wan vs. Darth Vader or Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker, but it's impossible to replace those scenes with scenes like that.

Leaving the OTs untouched would have destroyed them completely, so restauration was required. New added scenes or not: As a whole I think the additions are good.

Talking about the prequels... huh, now that's another story and doesn't belong to the topic ^^

Quote:
"We should have been introduced to Bail Organa and Mon Mothma right off the bat, IMHO, since they will become fierce opponents of Palpitine later."

Oh com'on. If you want to have Bail Organa and Mon Mothma more introduced, check the deleted scenes. There you can find some scenes with them talking about Palpatine, right before they are going to take Palpatine to task. I really dunno why Lucas deleted these scenes... they probably fitted very well.

This post has been edited by Jacen: 02 March 2006 - 05:54 PM