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Starwars Episode 1 DVD?
|GopheR| writes "Mr. George changed his mind and is planning to release episode 1 on DVD before 2005? If The digital bits rumormill is right, then he probably did change his mind. " Note that they don't really have a date set, and Lucas hasn't said he *won't* release DVDs... just that it'll be years before they do. To bad. I own two copies of the original trilogy on VHS (Original and Special edition) but I've sworn off video. I woulda bought the DVD the day it came out, but I won't spend a penny on VHS.
Personally, I'd much rather see the original (you know, the "good") Star Wars episodes on DVD before anything else, including an episode 1 DVD or even before the theatrical release of episode 2.
I think Lucas ought to hand Ep. 2 over to a director who knows how to make movies not suck ass and work on doing his required lot of smarmy, self-congradulatory psudo-interviews which he seems to think we all want to see on the DVD version and just get them out.
I mean, do we really want to see more of Jar Jar? Wouldn't you rather have the original movies with digital sound and picture?
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
WRT the supposed inherent right to rule, Leia and Luke earned their role in the rebellion. It should be noted perhaps that Leia doesn't run the rebellion, Mon-Mothma does. Later, in the books, Mon-Mothma steps down and Leia is ELECTED president, she in turn steps down to be replaced by Borsk Fe'lya. Luke's only permanent command is Rougue squadron. He is head of the Jedi academy, but only because others choose to follow him.
As for the "Elites" acting on a whim, the lesson is rather that you should follow your conscience, something that is lacking in modern times. As for accountability, during the rebellion all the charactors are accountable to the leaders of the rebellion, in the New Republic, everybody is accountable to the senate. Even the jedi are accountable. This was true in the old Republic as well. The actions of the Jedi had to be accounted for to the Jedi Council, who were in turn accountable to the (elected)President.
Darth Vader was never forgiven, by anyone. Not by Luke, certainly never by Leia. Brin points out the amount of havoc that Yoda, Obi-Wan and Anakin have caused but the potential for things to have turned out worse is immense. If Yoda had not trained the Skywalkers, there would have been no-one to stand aginst the Emperor at all. Palpatine and Darth Maul would have had complete rule over the galaxy. Yoda's training Anakin gave him the inner strength to return to tha light at the end. If it had only been Palpatine trainiing him, then there would have been no light side in him. As Obi-Wan pointed out, may things that seem untrue, just depend on your point of view. If Brin thinks that the world is black and white, he should think again. Not only is the world shades of grey, but that shade changes depending on the light you look at them in.
Star Wars makes no claim that leadership is inherited. The force may be inherited, but in the Star Wars universe, there are force strong individuals are born to families otherwise without any trace of the force. Secondly, over the timespan that we have to study, there were two force strong President, out of the five that we know about, in a saga specifically about the force. There are also very few force strong individuals in positions of power in other institutions across the galaxy.
The last, about justified human emotions turning people evil. We see this in everyday life, incidents across the world have led to a greater concern for the safety of children, a perfectly justified emotion, the hatred of evil. But this emotion has led to programs like WAVE America that was discussed recentlt on slashdot. Brin's "Perfectly justifiable emotions" are among the seven "deadly" sins. In our fight agains the Nazis, we produced Bomber Harris and argument still rages to this day as to whether he was better or worse than the enemy we were fighting. For those of you who don't know him, Bomber Harris led the British bomber command during the second world war. The phrase "Kill them all, let God sort them out" is attributed to him. This was in reference to German civillians and how he could know that he was killing only the guilty with his large scale bombing raids. One lesson that we should learn from that war is that hatred breeds evil, Germany learned to hate and created the Nazis. While hate seems justifiable, it inevitably leads to someone or some people becoming worse than those they hate.
In response to your last point, Vader was not forgiven, ever, by anyone.
It was my understanding that when they released the DVD it was to be done "right" meaning with deleted scenes, directors cuts, etc. and that Mr. Lucas would not have time to do this until after the other 2 episodes are completed. I for one would like to see it on DVD and will not pay for VHS but I can see where he does have a point. I dont see why there cannot be two versions, one of the movie released now and a collectors edition a few years from now. just my 2 cents