Anyone who doubted that George Lucas was going to make more changes to the Star Wars movies got a rude awakening this week when various sites reported that Lucas has added blinking Ewoks, additional desert rocks, and anguished Skywalkers yelling “NO!” in climactic scenes. Plenty of people are upset about this, and we’ll see whether this affects sales of the Blu-Rays coming out this month. But I’m going to take a different tack. At this point, I don’t think Lucas has gone too far. I don’t think he’s gone far enough.
He should just bite the bullet and remake Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
Maybe he doesn’t want to trudge back to Tunisia. Fine. Do them as animated films, in the same style as the Clone Wars TV show. Use the original soundtracks if he likes, or hire new actors to do the voices. Heck, since Lucas has managed to create a whole new audience of Star Wars fans who know Cad Bane better than Lobot, an animated version of Luke and Leia’s story might be just what the doctor ordered.
‘Cause here’s the thing. Movies filmed with 70s and 80s technology are never gonna look the way 2011 George Lucas wants them to, and they probably won’t look like 1976 George Lucas wanted them to either. But slapping some 2011 effects on a frame here and there and trying to edit in a few bits of dialogue to the audio track is just going to call attention to the patch job. Nobody’s satisfied. So go ahead. Start from scratch. Stick Emperor Palpatine in Episode IV. Show Bail Organa trying to save Alderaan. Do all the crazy effects shots you want. Those of us with fond memories of 1977 through 1983 can hang out with our VHS, laserdisc and DVD copies, and the audience that likes the prequels and TV show can see the story end in a way that’s familiar to them.
And then, some time in 2027, he can start all over again. Yeah, he’ll be 83, but I expect he’ll have himself digitized by then anyway.