Oh Dear God NO!

Get a bunch of sci fi geeks in a room and mention the original “Star Wars” trilogy, and you will most likely be presented with one of the biggest nerd-gasms that you’ve ever seen. Now, mention the special editions and the prequel trilogy, and get ready for some serious nerd rage. I don’t think a single series of films creates so much passion from both ends of the spectrum, ever. In fact, I’m one of the most passionate about this one.
To me, the original “Star Wars” trilogy is something that is very special. They are among the small group of films that I saw at a very young age that first got me very interested in movies to begin with. I have seen them so many times over the years and yet I still cannot get tired of them. In fact, and this something I’m a little bit embarrassed to mention, I’ve sat down and watch the whole trilogy more than once in a single sitting.
However, I have some bones to pick with George Lucas. This guy just pisses me off, but not like Michael Bay (There is an almost endless list there, but that’s another story). No good old George pisses me off for just one reason: HE WON’T LEAVE STAR WARS ALONE! Why?! Do you really want to know? The guy wants money, that’s it. Lucas is a business man, and he was very smart when he made the first movies. Thanks to contracts and such, Lucas made off with a butt load of cash as well as the rights to the entire franchise. Granted with that money he did do things like help preserve classic films, helped create some of the recent advances in video and sound editing technology, and of course, through the creation of Lucas film, produced some other movies like “Indiana Jones”. Then, things started to drop off for George, (“Howard the Duck” anyone?) so basically, since he has the rights he can just reissue them in someway to make a quick buck since they are some of the most popular movies of all time and all. And he’s absolutely right, people will buy them again and again. (Talking from experience here.)
Then in the mid 90’s, something weird happened. First, the films were re-released in theaters, which was exciting for me because I had only been able to see them on video. It was awesome to get a chance to see these movies on the big screen, but these weren’t the same movies. They were the “Special” editions, and yeah, I could make the obvious joke here, but I won’t. Basically, Lucas was apparently always frustrated about certain things in the movies or had things he wanted to do but couldn’t due to effects limitations at the time. So he went back and added new scenes, effects and all that. And ooooooooh the back lash. First of all, the films are still relatively CGI free, most of the big effects scenes stay the same, which means the new CGI effects stand out. A lot. Like a sore thumb that keeps getting bigger because someone is constantly smashing it with a hammer. I mean they just stop the movies in their tracks. I could see why he wanted to do this, but good god, I never thought I’d see something so poorly done, AND IT WAS FUCKING STAR WARS!!! And just to show I’m not just being petty, I actually enjoyed it when Spielberg did the exact same thing to “E.T.” later. The changes he made worked in the movie’s favor and were done in far FAR better taste. I’ll admit that while the special editions don’t piss me off as much of the wastes of time that are the prequels (I’ll save that fun for another day.) they still bug me because it seems that they are the ones that Lucas has decided are his versions, so when finally released on DVD (Oh yeah, Mr. Lucas is also a freaking genius at building the anticipation on these things because the DVD release took FOREVER.) all us fans were royally pissed that there was no option to see the movies unaltered.
I must again ask why? There are tons of movies that were released different from what the filmmakers envisioned, but there is a director’s cut with it on the DVD. In fact, allow me to list some of these just from my own collection, off the top of my head.

- The “Alien” films
- The Abyss
- Apocalypse Now
- Blade Runner (seriously, every one of the five different versions is available for the fans to watch on this one)
- Dawn of the Dead
- E.T. (Why, yes George, Steven IS less of a dick than you.)
- Gladiator
- Terminator 2

In less than a minute, I just listed 11 movies. All of which have both versions of the movie available to the viewer, all in full quality. That’s a good thing. Even if the extended version wasn’t the “director’s cut” like the alternate version of Ridley Scott’s “Alien”, it’s still an option and it’s down to the viewer’s preference. This kind of set up makes everyone happy! And yes, I know that there has been a DVD release that DOES feature the original versions now, but they were released much later, and they are not remastered like the special editions were, which there is no excuse for because the films had to be remastered just to do the special editions. (Implying something there George?) So basically, you might as well dust off the VCR and track the films down on tape, which is what I did.
And finally I make it to the point. It has been announced that starting next year, all the “Star Wars” will be rereleased in theaters, IN 3D! No! Just no! If you want to rerelease these films again, don’t bother with the prequels and give us the unaltered versions of the originals, hell I’ll go see the special editions again, but for the love of god, don’t fuck with these movies anymore.
This is a really, really, really stupid idea. First of all, the prequels aren’t that old, Episode 1 only recently turned 10, and then other two are still fresh in the minds of people that went to see them. Also, this time you have no excuse George, you had final cut, free reign, AND the bleeding edge of special effect possibility at your finger tips, why are you changing them now? Oh, are you jealous that James Cameron broke the box office records with “Avatar”? Mad that the man actually was the only person that could top the box office of his last movie “Titanic”? Well, I’m sorry George, but this isn’t the way. You may have been able to hide what you were doing before, but here, there is no hiding it. You want more fucking money. I again must beg for the unaltered versions. Those are what people fell in love with. That is how you got so far. Can you even imagine how much all the fans you’ve pissed off would love to go and see those movies in theaters? Most of them never got to see the unaltered versions in theaters, the logic sounds pretty solid to me. And as a brief aside; to hell with 3D anyway. It’s a stupid gimmick that mostly gets used to cover up when a movie doesn’t have much going for it to begin with. And it’s also Hollywood getting desperate like when TV came out big in the 50’s, and they did the exact same thing! The only reason I let “Avatar” get away with it is because I saw it in 2D and to be honest, I still enjoyed it as a movie. It was entertaining. And that’s more than I can for the “Star Wars” prequels. Think about it people, do you really want Jar Jar Binks coming off the screen? I mean really?