Now that Lucasfilm has officially announced that the entire ‘Star Wars’ film series will be released on Blu-ray later this year, I have to ask whether people are still willing to give George Lucas their hard-earned money after the way he’s treated fans over the years?
On September 18th, the ‘Star Wars’ cycle will be sold in three variations. You can choose to buy just the Original Trilogy (Episodes IV – VI), just the Prequel Trilogy (Episodes I – III), or the entire 6-film Complete Saga. The latter will also include a bunch of exclusive supplements that you can’t get in the smaller box sets.
As many of you probably already realize, I’m one of those disgruntled ‘Star Wars’ fans who hates all of the changes that George Lucas has made to the original trilogy. I hate every new piece of footage he added, and every stupid CG effect he plastered on top of footage originally shot in the 1970s or 1980s. I understand that Lucas has a right to change whatever he wants to change, but I think he also has an obligation to fans and to cinema history to restore the original versions of these movies to the best possible quality. Instead, the last official release of the unaltered movies we got was a set of crummy non-anamorphic letterbox DVDs that featured decade-old Laserdisc transfers.
Lucas claims that it would be “too expensive” to restore the original movies. That’s bullshit on a lot of different levels. First off, Lucas is sitting on a personal fortune in the quadrillions of dollars. He has no right to complain about anything being too expensive. Further, 90% of the restoration work was already done when he made his stupid “Special Edition” versions of the movies. All he really still has to restore is the other 10% of footage that hasn’t been replaced with CGI. And, it’s not like Lucas would actually be the one paying for such a restoration, anyway. When the 1997 Special Editions were created, Lucas convinced 20th Century Fox to pay for all the restoration work, as a condition of the distribution contract for the prequel trilogy. He could no doubt easily strike up a similar arrangement now. No, the real reason that George Lucas won’t restore the original trilogy is that he hates those movies and hates all of his fans who want to see them.
Will I buy the ‘Star Wars’ Blu-rays this September anyway? I haven’t decided yet. How about you?
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Kenny Kraly Jr
And George Lucas enjoys star wars and star wars fans for you to say he hates star wars is dum and wrong in my opionion.
EM
You know what else is dumb? Spelling dumb “dum” amid your plethora of other hideous contortions of the English language, then expecting us to be awed by your standards of intellectualism, all in an attempt to stifle dissent to your personal opinion (sorry—“opionion”).
Dick Ward
I love that this argument is happening on a poll from January 🙂
EM
Lucas could easily end it by releasing what the fans want…
Kenny Kraly Jr
George Lucas does cares about star wars I understand some people are upset that only the special editions are the only versions of the films that will be out on the blu-ray box set but their his versions of the films he want’s to release. They are his movies he can do what ever he wants to them.
EM
I think there’s no dearth of understanding of the basics of copyright law here: legally, Lucas does have the right to release or not release whatever versions of his films he wants to. But what about ethically? As I have quoted before, Lucas himself has said that “[o]ur cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten” by replacing films with newer versions, as such “would be a great loss to our society”.
Lucas likes to think of himself as an artist, but what is art? Art is not simply made by an artist. It is also informed by its audience. A film cannot be a tearjerker unless the audience cries. Actors are not stars unless audiences make them so. Fictional planets do not exist unless the audience willingly suspends its disbelief and allows those planets to be created in its minds. It is the audience’s participation that completes the act of art’s creation. And it’s certainly the audience’s participation that made Lucas wealthy enough to turn into a Howard Hughes.
Star Wars may legally belong to Lucas and his corporate structures, but morally it also belongs to us.