Star Wars 1977

Today's post is a lazy one, because I'm essentially just going to rehash an email I sent to Scott Kurtz today in reference to his post on his wildly successful webcomic PVP. LucasFilm recently announced that they are finally going to release the original cut of the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD, something they swore they would never do. The only version currently available on DVD (or new in store in any format) was the special edition version released in the late 90's. You can find out more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Shot_First about the changes. Most people are being ridiculous about the whole thing. I actually read a site once where someone did a shot by shot comparison, and he was enraged that Darth Vader's light saber had changed in color ever so slightly. Seriosuly.

I'm not a fan of the special editions because the CGI additions. They just feel completely out of place in the movie and don't mesh with the original effects in a natural way at all. They're completely different in style and tone from the original practical effects and even if you've never seen the movie, it couldn't be more obvious what's new and what's old. The best effects support the story and stay out of it's way. The new effects do the exact opposite, drawing attention to themselves.

Anyway, on the Kurtz's post.

But the marketing train over at Lucasfilm has been playing us fans like suckers ever since they started re-editing the trilogy. Hasn't the Lucas camp been swearing on Bibles since the late 1990's that they would NEVER, EVER release the theatrical versions of these movies on DVD? And since then, how many versions of the original Trilogy have been put out for fans to purchase in lieu of what they truly wanted? Two or three at least. And we bought them. What else could we do?"

I agree entirely with his post except this part. What else could you have done? You could have not bought them. If everyone who complained about the special editions had not bought them, we would have been watching the original cuts years ago even if they really didn't ever intend to put out the original cut. Lucas has proven time after time that he couldn't care less about making good movies any more (and while his skills as a director/screen writer are always questionable, I really do believe he WANTED to make good movies in the 70's). He cares about making bank. Period. Lucas is greedy, but you guys let him do it, so part of me can't blame him.

Here we see LucasFilm muscle forcing another mild mannered citizen to purchase all six Star Wars movies

Everyone acts as if they have no choice in the matter, that they HAVE to purchase the new hot thing even if it's clearly not what they really want. To create a not entirely on topic allegory, it's the same thing we're seeing with the MacBooks. The whine problem everyone is organizing protests over was clearly known to anyone frequenting the forums they're all whining in now, but if they had exercised the tiniest amount of self control and just not bought the damn thing until Apple fixed it, the problem would have been fixed by now.