Want to see a potential good result of Disney milling the Star Wars universe for everything it’s worth? Read:
Unadulterated, “pure” versions of the original Star Wars films are difficult to come by. Except for one sad, low-resolution release on DVD in 2006 (which we’ll discuss in a moment), the films have only been available in their modified “Special Edition” forms since 1997, when George Lucas re-released the films to theaters with a series of changes. Some of those changes aren’t bad at all—the fancy new attack on the Death Star in Episode IV is perfectly cromulent—but others are absolutely terrible. In Return of the Jedi, Jabba’s palace gains an asinine CGI-filled song-and-dance interlude. Dialogue is butchered in Empire Strikes Back. And in the first movie, perhaps most famously, Han no longer shoots first.
Each subsequent release has piled on more and more changes, culminating in the Star Wars Blu-ray release, which now has Return of the Jedi climaxing with Darth Vader howling “NOOOOOOOO!” as he flings the Emperor into the shaft (spoiler alert from 1983, I guess). For every round of changes, the fan outcry for an unedited original release has grown. And now that Disney has its hands wrapped firmly around the Star Wars steering wheel, the company seems to be in the perfect position to give the fans what they want.
It all depends on the analog source material, which the story reports is “actually in pretty terrible shape.”
Better start restoring it now, is all I have to say about that.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member