North of San Francisco, Calif., in affluent, rural Marin County, there is a place called Skywalker Ranch. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. The lord and master of this property is an enormous slug who speaks in an indecipherable alien tongue. He commands immense wealth and is widely influential in one of the least respected professions in America.
A reclusive baron of organized crime? No. George Lucas.
These are supposed to be heady days for devotees of Lucas's long-beloved science fiction franchise, Star Wars. After stringing them along for years and abusing them with two terrible prequels
intended to introduce the story and characters from the original 1977 film, Lucas finally released Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi on DVD last month. Geekoids from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe quivered with glee as they anticipated the release. Almost to a one, however, they were disappointed.
For reasons he has never satisfactorily explained, Lucas meddles constantly with his late-70s and early-80s work, hurting the glorious space opera as much as he's helped it. With each new release of the trilogy on VHS, there came some kind of improvement to the films: First he cleaned and sweetened his original soundtrack for a THX release, then polished and redid the deteriorating original prints of the film. In 1997, Lucas re-released all three original movies with new material, altered subtly or glaringly with computer animation. Many of those changes were simply cosmetic, to correct the antiquated visual effects he'd originally used. But there was also more intense meddling, most notably in the final scenes of Return of the Jedi where Our Heroes' ad hoc celebration was replaced with a slick, polished space-party montage. In the DVDs, he's done it again.
Even casual Star Wars viewers know about the encounter between rogue smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Greedo, a green-skinned assassin who aims to collect the price on Solo's head. In the original version, after some banter, Solo draws his laser pistol and kills Greedo in cold blood. More than an expository speech ever could, this established Han as a scoundrel. But inexplicably, Lucas changed the scene in 1997, making Greedo fire first over Han's shoulder. And in the newly released DVD, Han and Greedo fire pointlessly at the same time, Greedo still missing wide, Han still hitting his mark.
Worse, in the DVDs Lucas has inserted elements from his prequel films into the originals. In the original conclusion to Jedi, after our hero Luke Skywalker has rescued his dying father Anakin Skywalker from evil, Anakin and other characters appear to Luke to smile warmly on his success in fighting the Dark Side. Sebastian Shaw was originally cast for this role, a slightly graying, fatherly man who stands next to Alec Guinness and Yoda (who is a puppet) to silently praise Luke's victory. But in the DVD version, that smirking jackanapes Hayden Christensen -whose hammy pouting robbed Episode II: Attack of the Clones of any dignity -appears next to Guinness. He mugs impishly for the camera and kills what should be the most poignant moment in the series.
It is a point of unfortunate irony that, whereas Lucas was instrumental in creating some of the most enjoyable films of the modern era, he also has single-handedly come close to destroying them. Last week, watchful geekoids passed around the trailer for the next installment in the series, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
which after initial viewings looks approximately as lame as its predecessors. We're expecting the same stilted dialogue and awkward romantic exchanges, and whereas Lucas wants us to be dazzled by his entirely computer-animated special effects, they will be flat and cartoonish.
Why is Lucas doing this? Perhaps he realizes that the Star Wars days were the peak of his career, or that after he made the movies he'd always be pigeonholed as an action movie filmmaker. With the prequels and their endless merchandising, he's found a way to prolong those days and make more money while doing it. Unfortunately, because he owns something that millions of others hold dear, he can ruin it with impunity.
-Phil Ewing is The Post's managing editor. Send him an e-mail at philip.ewing@ohiou.edu.
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