It’s been a while since I last addressed the matter of Star Wars on DVD — specifically, George Lucas’ stubborn and frustrating determination that the general public will never again see the pre-1997, unrevised (which, by the way, is quite a different animal from unrestored) editions of the classic original trilogy in any kind of high-quality video format.
For those of you who may have only recently joined us, let me state for the record that I am not one of these “George Lucas raped my childhood” types. I didn’t think the prequels were all that bad, Jar-Jar Binks is not the end of western civilization, and I don’t even begrudge George becoming very, very wealthy by exploiting the devotion of his fans. After all, nobody held a blaster to our heads and forced us to buy yet another box set of the same damn movies we already own five copies of, and it’s not like Lucasfilm is the only company guilty of practicing the “double-dip” marketing strategy. Hell, I don’t even particularly mind that he chose to use our beloved franchise as a test platform for his ideas about digital filmmaking — which I suspect was his true (and probably only) interest in revisiting Star Wars all along — and I also forgive him the sin of not being the man he was 35 years ago. People age, and their thinking about a lot of things changes along the way, and sometimes their skills decline, too. That’s life.
But the one thing I can’t forgive is The Great Flanneled One’s zeal to suppress the earlier, more significant editions of three of the most important movies of the last 50 years.* It wasn’t the Special Editions that changed everything for Hollywood, and I don’t understand George’s lack of respect for film history, if not for his own fans (I’m the first to admit that hard-core fans can sometimes be pretty damn annoying). Even so, his position on Star Wars is downright hypocritical given his support for film preservation in general; he’s been quoted as saying that he’s concerned about saving the films he watched when he was young. Just not the films people of my generation watched when we were young, apparently.
But don’t take my rant for it. Consider this lengthy but well-reasoned op-ed that outlines the history of the situation and makes a passionate argument on behalf of both old-school fanboys and general cinephiles (I count myself as both, incidentally). The following point, in particular, is the thing I wish we could somehow get through George’s thick skull:
Lucas’ preference [for the revised versions] and some sort of “auteur” argument is not even really what the issue is about; it’s a strawman defense. No one ever has suggested that the Special Edition — Lucas’ “Director’s Version” — be suppressed, or replaced. That a filmmaker gets to re-shape their film the way they want is a great privilege that every director should enjoy, and no one should deny Lucas this. The issue is: releasing the original does not nullify the director’s cut. Everyone would have treated the Special Edition as the final artistic statement of the director.
Just like no one ignores the Final Cut of BLADE RUNNER just because the theatrical cut is on video, and no one feels that the director’s cut of BRAZIL is nullified by the existence of the shortened “Love Conquers All” version. When Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL comes out in a deluxe edition later this year it will contain both the reconstructed director’s cut that Welles had prepared as well as the important theatrical release. Historical posterity is important — it is important that students of film and audiences interested in history be able to see what films were like at the time they were actually made, and for audiences to continue to enjoy and watch them.
. . .
While the “Special Editions” are the same basic films, they do not in any way represent the look or experience of their original groundbreaking releases. This is an important issue in contemporary cinema, especially because, unlike any other films of historical significance that have not been restored (I actually can’t think of any—DVD has offered remarkable historic preservation of all the major classics), they are not being withheld due to neglect by the studio but due to a crusade of deliberate revisionism. In my opinion, this suppression of some of the cinema’s classics represents one of the most heinous crimes against the medium, and one that people should take very seriously.
Hear, hear. I’ve made these same basic points many times, but I think this does a better job of it than I ever have.
Now, anyone have any ideas on how we could find George’s private e-mail address and spam him silly with copies of this article until he finally reads it and understands our perspective?
* (Yes, you read that correctly: I believe the original trilogy, and the very first Star Wars in particular, are the most influential films of the latter half of the 20th Century. I can’t think of any other single film that had that kind of impact on the way movies are made, marketed, released, and exhibited, or on what kinds of movies are made, or that made such a strong contribution to popular culture and to the English language. Try and come up with a stronger example. Go on, I’ll wait…)
Ishtar
Maybe that one’s an example of how not to make a movie… although honestly, it’s been so long since I saw it I don’t remember what’s so awful about it.
Jason, as a disclaimer, while I do not have as strong feeling as you do about this, I certainly agree with the premise that cinematic history needs to be preserved.
That being said, I think the bottom line here is, well, the bottom line. I cannot imagine that releasing a 30-year-old unrevised version of a movie would be more profitable than releasing a “new” edition. No matter how many students of cinema would prefer to own the original version, many more would be tickled by the “surprises” contained in a revised one to go out and buy it. I admit, I’m one of those – although I draw the line at owning just one copy of any movie.
It would be great if every subsequent revised DVD release included the original version as the bonus, but that is such an unlikely scenario…
I’ve had the original non-edited on VHS tape, and the original edited on DVD.
I think i gave up the DVD to Ilya. Or was it the other way around. I don’t remember.
I prefer the original non-edited.
Ilya, there are many examples of films that have been released on DVD in recent years with multiple versions in the same package, and all with the same visual quality: Blade Runner and Brazil are mentioned above, of course, as is the upcoming Touch of Evil set, but there’s also Apocalypse Now, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., The Abyss, and Alien (curious how it seems to mostly be the filmmakers who emerged in the ’70s — Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola, Ridley Scott, and, to a lesser extent, James Cameron — who are prone to this sort of “director’s cut” tinkering; some kind of generational insecurity perhaps?). The classic Bogart picture The Maltese Falcon was technically the third cinematic version of Hammett’s novel, but even though few people remember the earlier attempts at the source material, the recent DVD release included all three films. I believe The Big Sleep DVD also includes multiple versions.
Obviously there is a demand for this sort of thing and some kind of reasonable profit expectation; also, in this particular case, I think the potential profit of a properly restored, anamorphically encoded DVD release of the unrevised edition would be huge. The 2006 “bonus feature” release doesn’t count in the minds of many movie buffs because it consisted of a 13-year-old transfer done for the pre-DVD laserdisc release. The old laserdiscs had far lower resolution than even standard DVD, let alone the new Blu-Rays, and that transfer looks like hell on modern HDTVs. It’s soft and muddy, like watching a work print or something, and it left the impression in the minds of many fans that George was giving us the finger. Compare this shoddy thing to the four-disc Blade Runner set, which offers all four major versions of that film in the same beautifully high visual quality.
It’s not that I think every future home-video release of Star Wars should include the unrevised cut. I agree, that would be silly. But I wish George would grant his masterpiece the same respect that his contemporaries and friends have given their biggest films. What’d I’d like to see is a three-disc collection, similar to the recent Close Encounters 30th anniversary set that included the ’77, ’81, and ’98 cuts of that movie, all in high quality transfers. In the case of Star Wars, such as set would consist of anamorphic transfers of the ’77 theatrical release (or more likely the 1980 version, after “A New Hope” was added to the prologue and certain issues with the sound mix were resolved, which would be fine by me), the ’97 Special Edition, and the 2006 “I-Just-Can’t-Leave-Well-Enough-Alone” Edition. That way, history is preserved, purists are happy, Lucas gets his preferred cut into everybody’s hands whether we want it or not, and people can watch whichever version they want. There is precedent for this, and I guarantee it would sell. George just doesn’t want to admit that a lot of people didn’t like his little “surprises.”
Oh, and of course, we’d need similar three-disc collections for Empire and Return of the Jedi. The first Star Wars suffered from the most tinkering, but the other two deserve the historic preservation treatment as well.
Kisintin, your memory fails you. I don’t have Star Wars on DVD – and I wouldn’t give my only keeping even to a loving brother 🙂
Jason, your point is well taken. If Lucas included the unedited original just once on the various DVD re-releases, your rant would have never happened…
Correct, Ilya. 🙂
The sad thing is that George had the chance to make everything right with that 2006 release, but instead of doing it right — a nice anamorphic transfer — he handed us that old one and then got indignant when fans of the original edit weren’t satisfied. He seems to be almost willfully dense on this matter…