Deleted scenes from the “Star Wars” original trilogy — As a huge “Star Wars” nerd, this gets me pretty excited.
However, I just can’t bring myself to buy the new Blu-Ray release (and that’s not because I don’t have a Blu-Ray player, either).
George Lucas is only releasing his “special edition” cuts of the film on Blu-Ray. They will not contain the “original” theatrical release cuts at all — you know, the ones people actually saw in theaters without the CGI.
Frankly though, it’s more than just the CGI that people are against — it’s the revisionist attitude Lucas takes toward the original prints. He has Han Solo shoot second in his standoff with Greedo, recasting Solo as a guy who only shoots in self defense and not to get the jump on the bounty hunter who clearly wants to bring him in to collect his reward.
But that’s not nearly as bad as the final scenes from “Return of the Jedi”, where we see Luke looking at the ghost spirits of Yoda, Obi-Wan and Anakin, where Anakin’s ghost — played originally by actor Sebastian Shaw — has been digitally changed to the prequel’s actor, Hayden Christensen.
What’s made things worse is that Lucas hates his original creations and refused steadfastly for years to release “cleaned up” versions of the original trilogy for DVD. Eventually, “dirty” prints were released on DVD in 2008 — but only if you bought the special edition trilogy, too.
And now, the Blu-Ray release once again gives the snub to the originals. Lucasfilm has given lots of questionable reasons — one involving cost, which is ridiculous since almost every fan would buy the original trilogy in a heartbeat at double the cost — of why the original prints weren’t remastered for a Blu-Ray release. Instead, the only high-definition release of the movie for home audiences will be the special edition abominations.
As a nerd, this is really disappointing. I love “Star Wars” and it played a huge roll in making me the geek I am today. I want to have a legitimate copy of the film to own and am willing to pay handsomely for it.
Instead, I’m forced to hang on to my bootleg copies of the original trilogy that were ripped off of the LaserDisc release that I bought at a comic book convention for $20. This is what Lucas is pushing his biggest fans toward: piracy and the black market.
Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he thinks nerds like me are outliers and don’t comprise a significant portion of his demographic, which might certainly be true. But for decades it’s felt like betrayal, refusing to acknowledge a child is his. I don’t understand why he’s so ashamed of the film that made him a millionaire several times over and sparked the imagination of generations. When you read about all the crazy shit that he put up with and the insane risks he took to get his film made, it makes it even more baffling why he dislikes that original cut so much that he wishes it never existed.
It’s as if he wants to make three entire movies “deleted scenes”.
