It seems some people just can’t leave well enough alone. I refer, of course, to George Lucas, and his celebrated Star Wars franchise. Though in this case, I’m not just referring to his revisions of his original trilogy, but also to his apparent inability to stop baiting fans that are irritated over the changes. In a brief Q&A with the Hollywood Reporter, George makes a couple of remarks about the whole thing that have, of course, served only to further fuel the flames. Now, in truth I don’t have it in me to get terribly upset about the whole fiasco — and I’ve gone on record before as saying that some fans’ reactions go over the line from exhibiting justifiable upset to unnecessary offense — but I’ve never liked the changes, or the way that Lucas has reacted to people who just want to have the original, unadulterated versions of the movies in the best format possible. But amongst his comments here, George does have one interesting one — he states that changes to movies happen all the time, and that he’s the only one who catches any flak for it.
And you know… while he’s not exactly correct there, he’s not entirely wrong, either. Director’s cuts, re-inserted scenes, and the occasional altered ending (though usually just an extended version) are indeed nothing new to movies. George Lucas didn’t invent any of that. And on the whole I don’t think I’d hold any of that against Lucas any more than I would against anybody else. So, in the dual interests of fairness and hashing out just what the problem is with his revisions, I thought I’d take a look and see if I could determine what, for me, were the conditions on making revisions to a film. Continue reading
