CT Rumor: Disney to Release Unaltered Old Trilogy on BR

1. This one's really all up to perception and opinion, so there we go

5. I wasn't talking about the ROTJ one, I meant the ROTS "big no." It isn't comically bad. It hurts. And of course he sounds confused in the ROTJ scene; he's conflicted. Again, which version is stronger is all up to opinion. Personally, I feel it's much more impacting with the added "big no" than without.

6. To the Force, Anakin had sort of "stopped" aging when it last saw him and not Vader. When Anakin was back, he was restored to the way the Force remembered him. I'm sort of personifying the Force here, but there's not really a better way I can think to describe it

 

darth-sinister

Yeah, that was his introduction, and he was a short, stout man wearing a Game of Thrones costume. The fact remains that when they cut that scene, they siphoned information and dialogue verbatim into the preceding Greedo scene, Gary Kurtz directly stated that. It's completely superfluous, and ruins the two reveals that were in the films that people saw, that were released into theaters as finished products. As for I-IX, that's a completely different debate, but I don't think the Saga works when viewed in that order. More than anything, it comes down to the fact that A New Hope was designed to be an introduction to Star Wars, whereas The Phantom Menace builds off three films of knowledge. The OT is built around discovery, the PT around dramatic irony, the ST reverts back to the first.

As I've stated before, I don't actually care who shoots first, to be honest, it does nothing to Han's character, but the new version just looks horrendous and ruins the intensity, energy, and pacing of the scene. That to me is the biggest issue, but regardless, Greedo never fired.

Yes, Wingreen's yell of "What the" is retained, he should be thrilled to still be a part of the film. I'm aware of that, but the Clones spent a lot of time being trained by Jango, and they then spent a lot of time around each other; it makes sense that they would pick up and retain that accent, since accents aren't hereditary. Boba, however, spent 25 years between Attack of the Clones and The Empire Strikes Back, from the ages of 10-35, running around with people that weren't Jango or the Clones. It would make sense that he would pick up different inflections; it didn't need to be changed.

What was the point? To shift the focus from something dramatic to... whatever the band's performance was, or to needlessly showcase CGI at the expense of dramatic narrative? Both rationales are equally awful.

Well, Luke already yelled out "Nooo!" when Vader threatened to turn Leia, so they already hit that quota and Hamill's voice had all the emotion and anguish Vader's retconned yell didn't have.

And yes, he went back to being Anakin as opposed to a Dark Side possessed monster, but despite the fact that he had gone back to the Light Side, he still committed atrocious acts. It's emotionally resonant if he's Anakin once more; it's not emotionally resonant for the films to visually suggest he didn't do horrendous things, or that those things no longer mattered. Redemption doesn't result in erasure of the past.

 

The dialogue in the finished film contains new information that makes the scene work and not so redundant. Thus it works.

To which I reply with this...

"It'll be a very different experience, because when Darth Vader walks into that spaceship with the princess, they're going to think, 'Oh my God, that's Anakin!' and they're gonna see Luke and think, 'Oh my God, that's his son!' And rather than a surprise when he says, 'I am your father,' it'll be like, 'Oh my God, finally he's told him!'"

--George Lucas, Guardian Unlimited.

"If you see them in order it completely twists things about. A lot of the tricks of IV, V and VI no longer exist. The real struggle of the twins to save their father becomes apparent, whereas it didn't exist at all the first time [audiences saw Episodes IV, V and VI]. Now Darth Vader is a tragic character who's lost everything. He's basically a bitter old man in a suit.

"I am your father" was a real shock. Now it's a real reward. Finally, the son knows what we already know.

Its a really different suspense structure. Part of the fun for me was completely flipping upside down the dramatic track of the original movies. If you watch them the way it was released, IV, V, VI, I, II, III - you get one kind of movie. If you watch I through VI you get a completely different movie. One or two generations have seen it one way, and the next generations will see it in a completely different way.

It's an extremely modern, almost interactive movie making. You take blocks and move them around, and you come out with different emotional states."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith.

Ergo, Lucas designed the films to work either way. You learn about the Force throughout the PT and in more detail once you get to the OT.

It's not just the accent, but it is the voice itself. The vocal chords and voice box are mostly unique to each person. You can sound similar to family members, but your voice is still your own. That part won't change due to a twenty year difference. Even without an accent, Boba would still sound like Jango.

As Lucas said on the 97 VHS box set, the point was to have this surreal and unusual dance number going on.

Quota my eye.

Anakin isn't redeemed for his crimes. He just becomes good again. It isn't erasing the past but showing us the good man who was still inside. Or as it was put here...

"In addition to the Zen-like Force that "surrounds us and penetrates us...(and) binds the galaxy together," as Obi-wan tells Luke, another Eastern religious element can be found in Vader's resemblance to demons that, in the Buddhist tradition, were at one time human and, through the actions of Buddha or his followers, are freed from their demonic state.

They usually wind up dying and through death are released from their demonic state. Again, that's a parallel to Vader, who is only freed at the point of his death."

--Shanti Fader, USA Today article and "Star Wars And Philosophy."

"This little scene where he burns his father's body, it wasn't originally in the script. But I decided it gave more closure in terms of Luke's relationship to his father, letting go of his father. Even though later on, as we get to the end of the movie, as he joins the Force, he was able to retain his original identity, it's because of Obi-Wan and Yoda, who learnt how to do that: how to join the Force at will and then retain your identity. But it was his 'identity as he was when he died as Anakin Skywalker.'"

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary.

For the shot in which Luke Skywalker sees his father appear as a spirit in the company of Yoda and Obi-Wan, Hayden Christensen has been inserted in place of Sebastian Shaw. Following a brief discussion, Lucas confirms that he does not want to age Christensen, explaining that Anakin has reverted to who he was when he went over to the dark side.

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith.

"[Hayden in ROTJ] was added because it was a way of finishing off the series. The idea was that [Anakin's] inner person would go back to where we left off when it turned to the dark side -- when [Anakin] got burned up and everything, but before [he] got burned up. So when [he] comes back to the good side of the Force, that it's [his] FORMER PERSONA that survives NOT the DARTH VADER PERSONA."

--George Lucas AOL interview, 2005.

 

Not the Star Wars that we know now though. Only the version in which Darth Vader killed Luke's father and Obi-Wan is giving Luke (who does not have a sister nor is he in hiding) the Lightsaber his father meant for him. TESB then "completely twists things about" and ROTJ again.

The PT has enormous amounts of discovery all the way through anyway. Besides that for us as fans it hardly matters. We are not like the vast majority who are going to see these movies once or twice not over and over again.

It's quite possible that we are going to be ahead of the characters on first viewing just like anyone who watch the PT first is but they still discovers things but in a different way as was intended.

Exactly.

Once any "surprises" are out they stay out. You can't unknow them. So the thing that makes the reveal so powerful today isn't that we know but that Luke doesn't know and that already happened before the prequels came out. The great thing they added was that now we know Anakin's story as well which makes it all the more stronger in story and character.

 

It's not about the reveals, but the way the films are made. The OT is made with the intent of bringing the viewer into a new world, and gradually leading them along an unknown path. The PT brings the viewer into a world they already know, but a version that's different and plays with their expectations, leading them to a predetermined destination by way of a path that's at once both familiar and unfamiliar. I genuinely think that release order makes the PT, and the saga as a whole, a richer experience. Nothing can change the fact that Lucas admittedly made it up as he went along, film to film. Darth Vader is not Luke's father in A New Hope, and Leia isn't his sister in that film or The Empire Strikes Back. Despite the fact that these things are revealed to be so later on, and when we go back to earlier films those revelations are in our heads, nothing can change the intent behind the original work. The world is revealed most naturally in the order it was made, rather than the order the events occurred in. They're not history, but art, and they reflect where their creator was at during various stages in life, and reflect the times in which they were made.

More so than not having access to the films I grew up with, because the SE are intrinsically different experiences, I think that's what bothers me about them the most: They're trying to change the past, in order to make it align with the present. There should be consistency, but the PT should have more elegantly aligned itself with the original versions of the OT, rather than the OT being altered no less than three times to align with the PT. That didn't happen, and I think it's something that Lucas, and the fans, should have simply learned to live with. Again, these films are art, and fictional stories, not historical narratives, and I'd rather something not line up 100% between the OT and PT than have the films changed decades after their release to compensate. As opposed to having things altered to line up with Lucas' present impression of the world he created, we should instead be able to see how that view changed over time. In a way, we're being deprived of seeing Lucas' growth as a creative individual over the course of 28 years.

I've also decided I'm going to stop debating any of the OOT vs. SE discussions on here. It's not a particularly useful application of my time, and I know it's being debated between two sets of people that have very fixed opinions on which version they prefer, and the reasons for their preferences, and even if I may strongly disagree with some of the views or arguments made in support of those views, I respect everyone's opinion on here. I just want to close by saying that I hope sometime soon the OOT is given a release befitting of its cultural and artistic importance, and I really do hope that Lucas is okay with this. Whether or not he feels the original versions of the films are unfinished or inferior to the SE, they still changed millions of people's lives, and some dated effects are nothing to be ashamed of, or in any way diminish the brilliance of his work or the work of all those that contributed to bringing his imagination to life.

 

Well said PymParticles.

 

Well said, sir.

I concur that the circular arguments are a waste of time as well. I have backed off many myself. Differences aren't as horrible as some attempt to paint them here anyways.

 

All I want is the original versions on Blu-Ray and to not have to buy the SEs AT ALL. There really is not point arguing about the changes anymore, the divide is never going to be healed.

 

Not only that, but people talk how they want to talk. Boba Fett had that loss as a kid and spent the next several years brooding and then as an outlaw bounty hunter. He would change how he presented himself and become aware of his own sinister reputation, so he would get use to talking that way. Lots of people talk nothing like their parents, and especially don't talk like they did as kids. Look around and hear some people using manners of speech and pronunciation now when they didn't a decade or two decades ago.
It's one thing to favor these changes but something else entirely to be against it existing, and clearly those people are so stuck on the idea of canon that they forget the nuances of film and structure and merely see the originals as conflicting. I wonder about the mindset of those who supposedly like a film but then continue to supposedly like it as it is actually changed. The differences between the "Lapti Nek" scene and the "Jedi Rocks" scene are so great they can't possibly be regarded with an "I don't care which song is there one way or another." You're either simply indifferent to the movie or you just like a different movie.

 

Yep. Let us say for the sake of argument that the OOT sucks and the revisions are awesome. I still want the OOT. I don't care if George Lucas and the entire population of planet Earth hates the OOT. I want the OOT on Blu-Ray. I am certain that more than enough people also want the OOT on Blu-Ray to make it profitable. The idea that it would be a money-loser is preposterous.

 

It was pure Lucas that we haven't got it by now. His vendetta. Fox would've loved to release it. In 2004, had he simply released both versions, the past decade would have been much more pleasant for him.

So when he tries and starts the pity party of people bashing him on the net, he brought at least part of it on himself. Either man up and take the flak or do something to stop it, and expecting people to automatically accept everything he does isn't it.

 

Uh, you completely misread my post. John Williams composed the Star Wars Main Theme in B-flat major, the same key as the Fox Fanfare. He did that on purpose because he wanted the two pieces of music to match, and said he considers the Star Wars theme to be an extension of the Fox Fanfare.

 

That makes sense. The fanfare blends into the opening Star Wars theme so well.

 

Except you only base this on your knowledge of the films as they are now. If you were to show it to someone who has never seen the films in the order of how they were released, as other people have done, they get a whole different view and still wind up enjoying the films regardless. That was the point in Lucas saying, "One or two generations have seen it one way, and the next generations will see it in a completely different way." That was why he put I-VI on the packaging as he did, not to mention the title crawls. And the thing is, a lot of what you said about art goes over the head of a lot of people who just want simple entertainment. They're not looking at the life of Lucas, they're looking at a bunch of movies made over a twenty year period.

Even if Lucas had decided he wasn't going to make the PT, he was still going to make these changes because ever since ANH came out, he was wanting to make changes. Here, for instance, he talked about changing the Dianoga in 1977, while being interviewed for Rolling Stone Magazine.


I felt one scene didn't quite work: the one where they almost get crushed by the moving walls in the trash bin. That octopus creature was unsatisfying. I believe it was called a Dia-noga in the script.

The Dia-noga was originally supposed to be a giant, sort of filmy, clear, transparent jellyfish kind of thing that came shooting out of the water, with all these jellylike tentacles with little veins running through them. So first the special-effects people came up with this giant 8-foot-high, 12-foot-wide brown turd that was bigger than the set, and that just didn't work. We finally got it down to where it was just one tentacle. That was all they could really accomplish.

And an eyeball.

Well, the eyeball we did later, we did that in California with the second unit; we did that in the backyard. I never really got a monster. They spent an enormous amount of money building these giant things with hydraulics and all kinds of stuff and they looked terrible. And I said, I only want something sort of ethereal. But they kept wanting to build these giant things and I said, you don't need that, let's just put a bunch of cellophane on a string and pull it up out of the water or something. It got so ridiculous, I finally just said look, give me one long tentacle. What I really would have liked to have had was a bunch of tentacles. I have always had a problem with that scene. There was one like it in THX which I cut out. He fell into a trash masher, and there was a giant ratlike creature in there with him. I have never been able to accomplish it, and I don't know why.

The creature is in there to eat the garbage?

Yes, he eats the garbage. The idea was the Dia-noga knows that the doors are going to close and the walls are going to close in and mash the garbage, and he sort of pushes himself against the floor and does whatever he does to survive, and he can't eat the kid right then. It is a slightly esoteric idea. I still want the sequence and someday I will get something on the screen.

So even then, Lucas was talking about getting certain shots changed and getting his vision for that scene out there. It wasn't the Dianoga other than the eye. But it showed his mindset in August of that year.

 

Lol thread is funny...poor fans

 

I've already expressed my intent to no longer debate these back-and-forth points, and I'm not, but I think you're misreading what Lucas is saying. He never said "Yeah, I'm going to go back and change the film in a few years," he said he wants to someday do the scene the way he envisioned it. He said he tried to do it in THX-1138 and failed, and tried to do it once more in Star Wars only to come away disappointed again. "I have never been able to accomplish it, and I don't know why." "I still want the sequence and someday I will get something on the screen." This to me sounds like Lucas is suggesting that he intends to eventually get in on screen in a completely different movie, since he'd already tried to do it in two previous films only to meet failure. He's not talking about altering a pre-existing work.

 

I doubt they will ever get Realsed but you can keep on hoping.

 

Can you provide a source for that number please?

 

And yet you get all argumentative when people make pot shots at the PT.

 

One person does not represent an entire section of the fandom, just saying

And ya Cooly could you tone it down a little please, no need for another fan war

 

It sounds like the nos monster from Episode III was his last-ditch attempt to do that kind of sequence. It's a shame that that also had to be cut. And then he almost did it in TCW...but the show got cancelled before that episode got past the animatics stage. That sequence must be cursed.

 

Which episode in TCW?

 

The Utapau arc which they released the animatics for on sw.com.

 

Well at least he tried?

 

He didn't say that, but given what he did two years later when he began tinkering with the films and you can see a correlation.