Hmm. Only hours after hearing the news about the original, unaltered Star Wars movies being released, my buzz is crumbling because of all the rumors flying around the ‘net about them. Basically, folks are suggesting that my long-awaited grail is going to turn out to be a half-hearted effort at best. According to a USA Today article, “the original films’ video quality will not match up to that of the restored versions.” The article quotes a Lucasfilm employee as saying, “It is state of the art, as of 1993, and that’s not as good as state of the art 2006.”
So what the hell does that mean? Will this release be, as Chenopup suggested in his comments on the previous entry, no better in the video-quality department than one of those old 12-inch laserdiscs (which, if you don’t remember them, were better than VHS but not nearly as sharp and clear as current DVDs)? I simply can’t accept that a decent-quality digital print of the original films doesn’t exist somewhere in the Lucasfilm Archives. Given what I know about the Lucas operation’s meticulous preservation of everything related to these movies (think of the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark), it just doesn’t make sense to me that Lucas wouldn’t have kept a copy of the pre-revision versions, regardless of how obsolete he may believe those versions to be. And I’d like to give Uncle George the benefit of the doubt for not being stupid enough, or stubborn enough, to enrage old-timers like me by not selling us something that’s actually worth owning. Surely now that he’s come far enough down off his high horse to actually release the original cuts, he’ll go far enough to make them worth our time and money, won’t he?
I’ll admit that this may just be the undying hope of my inner seven-year-old. Is it possible that Lucas really is tone-deaf enough, petty enough, vain enough, or unmindful enough of his already badly wounded reputation among his own fans, to answer our hopes and wishes with a symbolic “screw you?” Anything’s possible… George may throw us a soft, fuzzy-looking mess just to shut us up. Or this talk of poor quality may be just the Internet churning out its usual half-digested stew of nonsense and fear.
In other words, I’m going to try and reserve judgment until I learn a little more about these releases. I’ve followed the DVD business enough to know that disc specifications can and do change suddenly, sometimes only days before the final release, so you never really know what’s coming down the chute until you put it in your player, or at least read something on the ‘net from someone who has. It wasn’t clear until only days before it hit the shelves whether or not the double-disc E.T. set would even contain the original version of that film, let alone how good it would look. So I’m holding out for the possibility that we’ll learn as the release date nears that George has actually given some respect to his early work (and his early fans) by doing a good job on these things.
However, if there’s anything I’ve grudgingly come to accept about my former hero George Lucas, it’s that marketing comes first, there’s always a bigger goal, and there’s always going to be another release on down the line. The guys at The Digital Bits apparently feel the same:
Keep in mind that 2007 is the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars, so I’d be shocked if Lucasfilm didn’t have something up their sleeves to commemorate that. We know that they’ve been working on an uber-ultimate super box set of all six films, so it makes sense that we might see that for the anniversary. Maybe it will be available in just standard DVD, or maybe both standard and high-definition – we don’t know. It might very well be that Lucas is hoping that by releasing the original theatrical versions of these films now on standard DVD, he can avoid having to include them in a future high-def box set release. You know… sort of a “let’s get ’em out of the way now” sort of thing.
You know what, though? I’d be perfectly happy if that is what’s going on here (i.e., that Lucas is releasing the originals on standard DVD so he doesn’t have to put them in the high-def set), assuming that the quality is up to current DVD standards. I’m perfectly happy with the current standards and am in no hurry to upgrade to high-def. I just wish there wasn’t so damn much mystery about what’s going on. After all the crap Lucas has taken from his own fans in recent years, you’d think he’d be eager to “end this destructive conflict and restore order to the Galaxy.” Giving the old-school fans like me a decent release of the originals in September as well as a clear roadmap about this rumored uber-set would go a long way toward doing that. It isn’t even like he has to admit that he was wrong about the original versions. As I suggested to Cheno earlier, this upcoming two-disc set is a pretty painless way to handle the whole deal. Assuming that the quality is there for the “bonus” theatrical cuts, everyone will be happy. Lucas will be selling us his preferred version, we’ll be buying our preferred version, the Great Flanneled One will save face, and Han will shoot first.
At least, that’s how it would work in a world where things made sense. How it will work here in this world is anybody’s guess…
Jason, there’s no subtext to my question and I have no strong opinion on the subject . . . Why do you prefer the original to the restored, extended edition of Star Wars?
Where should I begin, Robert? This is a big subject for me, probably bigger than this particular forum can contain…
My biggest reason is just a firm belief in the principle of not trying to fix something that’s not broken. With very, very few exceptions, I never think the revised version of movies or books is superior to the original, just as I rarely (if ever) enjoy out-and-out remakes. Usually scenes are deleted, etc., for a good reason. Good non-Star Wars example: Dances with Wolves. Original cut: long, but I loved it. Revised and expanded version: turgid and overblown, burdened with a subplot that adds nothing to the story that we couldn’t infer.
As far as specific changes to Star Wars and its sequels, I feel like they change meanings, characterization (“Han shoots first” says something very specific about what kind of man he is, and sets up a particular evolutionary arc for him), and, in some cases, screw with the pacing of what used to be pretty tight stories. The stories worked perfectly well (okay, maybe not perfectly, but quite well) for 20 years, so why change them simply because the technology now exists to do so?
In the case of a historically important film like Star Wars (important to the technical and business side of filmmaking, at least), tinkering is even less desirable. It wasn’t the 1997 special-edition version that had the big impact on the industry and on pop culture; it was the ’77 version. That’s the one that ought to be preserved but, to hear Lucas tell it, isn’t worthy of saving.
And finally, the versions I saw as a kid are the ones I have an emotional connection to. I simply want them to remain exactly as they were when I first saw them. God knows nothing else in this life endures, why can’t our movies?
Many people don’t think the revisions change that much, but they do. Consider the feel of Mos Eisley – in ’77, it really was the hind end of space, practically deserted; in the new version, it’s much more populous, at least if you count cartoon dinosaurs as population. It changes the tone of the scenes and the overall impression you get of that location.
What really gets me, I guess, is the issue of availability. My real concern about all the revisionism that goes on these days is that earlier versions are shoved aside and forgotten in favor of the “definitive vision,” which more often than not is created only to sell a few more DVDs to people that already own the original. (Ridley Scott has some very funny remarks in his commentary track on the revised version of Alien about why that project was actually done. It wasn’t because he was dissatisfied with the original cut…) As long as the ’77 version remained available in a quality form to those who prefer it, George could put out a new revision every month as far as I care…
“I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them.”
George Lucas, speaking against the colorization of black and white films.
People make me mad and my bum hurts even more. It’s the hypocrisy of the whole thing and it comes from everywhere. We’ve got director cuts, we’ve got unrated cuts, super special editions, 29th anniversary editions. What makes this the more galling is that it isn’t (as far as I can tell) the studios who are doing this. It’s one man, albeit a flanneled man, who thinks he knows better than anyone else what should or should not be seen. Now of course he is a director and has to believe that otherwise he wouldn’t direct in the first place. But movies, and especially Star Wars, aren’t really his anymore. They’re part of the public conciousness. If you want to mess with it at least leave the unmessed (read good) versions to. E.T. had it. So did The Abyss. Not that hard to do.
Tangentially, or however you spell it, the 2005 Season fo Doctor Who is very cool.
Well I’ll put money down that they are the prints cleaned up for the THX VHS releases in 1995 since there wasn’t anything released in 1993 that I can recall. If it’s a clean transfer (the THX looked really good) then I’ll be happy.
We just have to face that Lucas is fairly psycho and can’t compete with the past. I’m still really surprised that Lucasfilm is allowing this though at all.
Steve, that’s a great quote to throw back in George’s face. It is sadly ironic (or perhaps hypocritical) that he is so worried about the integrity of the Three Stooges flicks he liked as a kid but doesn’t seem to understand the concern people our age have for the integrity of the films we liked as children. There is no intellectual difference between colorizing an old black-and-whiter (another abomination brought to us by the wonderful computer; thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be very popular anymore)and adding CG dinosaurs to a pre-CG film. Unless, of course, you’re George Lucas.
Cheno, I had a hunch all the way along that George would eventually offer the originals again, either because he’s a marketing genius who planned this all along (build lots and lots of demand through threats of scarcity, so you sell gazillions) or just because he was going to have no choice but to bow to the inevitable. I tend to think it’s the latter; I believe he was honestly surprised by the loyalty so many showed to the earlier versions. Now, whether he honors us with something worth looking remains to be seen. If he’s smart, he will…
Oh, and Steve, I’ve heard the new Who is pretty cool — I intend to netflix it.