Wookie Here

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A week to go before the original Star Wars trilogy hits DVD for the first time and geekdom is already in orbit. OK, technically this is not the original original trilogy as George Lucas opted to make a few, ahem, improvements.

NEXT: Cheka This Out

Jeff Taylor is a contributing editor at Reason.

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  1. Nathan

    George Lucas has lost his marbles. Someone posted the commentary track around the whole "who shot who first" mess he made of the Greedo vs. Han scene. Basically he said he changed it because it enhanced the heroic nature of Han (a hero apparently never fires first). He then went on to bitch about trying to get Spielberg to make the same type of change in Raiders of the Lost Ark (presumably the "hey, watch me twirl my sward," "Hey, watch me shoot you" scene).

    He sure knows how to suck the fun out of anything by making sure its "morally" correct 24/7.

  2. Shawn Smith

    Too bad South Park has already done the "Directors are destroying our favorite movies" episode. Seeing Spielberg's animated head blow up was pretty fun.

    I heard that there are NO original negatives of Star Wars Episode 4 left, because they were all pretty much trashed trying to meet the original demand back in the 70's. I don't know if that's true or not, but it would explain some things.

  3. Hendrix

    Can we please pass a law stating visionary artists have to shoot themselves (or else someone will shoot them) when they turn 35?

  4. TWC

    I had something really clever to say but it went away by the time I was done thumbing through the "changes". Some of that stuff was pretty obscure but some of it was just frikkin great...

  5. Dave Straub

    Hilarious!

  6. Nobody Important

    Someone posted the commentary track around the whole "who shot who first" mess he made of the Greedo vs. Han scene. Basically he said he changed it because it enhanced the heroic nature of Han (a hero apparently never fires first). He then went on to bitch about trying to get Spielberg to make the same type of change in Raiders of the Lost Ark

    At least he didn't replace Han Solo's pistol with a radio (as Speilberg did with the federal agents in E.T. (because we all know that federal agents would never threaten a child with a firearm.)

  7. Poor Humor Alert

    "Cheka this out" and "Wookie here" back to back?

    Shame on you.

  8. Czar

    I'm surprised we don't see Reason linking to SA more often. The SA forums are full of cynical libertarian types, and thank God for it.

  9. There is a plentiful supply of DVDs burnt from the original trilogy's laserdisc release, including artfully rendered menus and case graphics that match the episode I and II DVDs. There's also a toggle function that lets you choose whether you want to see the opening crawl text with or without "A New Hope" added to the top. Some have converted the Laserdisc Surroundsound into a makeshift 5.1 audio mix. These discs have been circulating for close to two years.
    I, ahem, have never seen one but I hear they look and sound gorgeous.

  10. isildur

    Czar, this is the second time in recent memory. (Look for an earlier H&R link to the TERRIBLE SECRET OF SPACE.) Twice is enough to shake the little compartments in my head up, but good.

  11. Eric II

    More than a full year after the travesty known as Episode 1 was released, Lucas dismissed the uproar over Jar-Jar Binks as being nothing more than the work of "guys who spend all their time writing stuff on the Internet." I think that response amounts to the final word on Lucas' current state of denial/dementia.

  12. I heard that there are NO original negatives of Star Wars Episode 4 left, because they were all pretty much trashed trying to meet the original demand back in the 70's. I don't know if that's true or not, but it would explain some things.

    Fortunately it's irrelevant; all the elements needed for a nice cleaned-up version of the original cut are sitting on disk somewhere at Lucasfilm. All they have to do is wait for Lucas to choke on a muffin, and they can finally build and issue a release without all the ex post facto fingerpainting on top of it.

    Has Martin Scorsese ever deigned to comment on Lucas' endless reworking of his movies? You'd think that as a contemporary of Lucas and an advocate for film preservation that he'd have something to say about it. With the newly-mangled version of THX1138 that came out this month, none of the films Lucas has ever directed are commercially available in their originally-released form, with the possible exception of Episodes I+II (to which I've paid as little attention as possible).

  13. "Cheka this out" and "Wookie here" back to back?

    I hereby apologize for "Cheka This Out." Though it does become a little bit funny if you imagine Ali G saying it.

  14. George

    New Changes to the Star Wars Saga
    http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2374

  15. Sweatartikel http://versandhaus.gelago.de/cat16854/Damen/Hosen/Tunnelzug/Sweatartikel/

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