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George Lucas May Be Completely Evil
gabec writes "Sci-fi Wire is reporting a couple rumors about the changes being made to the original Star Wars trilogy for its next release. That being that Natalie Portman may be being inserted into Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and that universally reviled Jar Jar Binks may be being inserted into Episode IV: A New Hope. May The Force forbid." Mind you this is reported as rumor, but it's so unsurprisingly possible...
I'm not sure if this is even a good idea.
It might work for continuity purposes (in George Lucas' mind), but frankly, most Star Wars fans prefer Episodes IV-VI to be as unchanged as possible even after Episode III is released. Lucas will be accused to overtinkering with the first Star Wars trilogy, and that won't win him friends among old-time Star Wars fandom, that's to be sure.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
and luke thought his father died when he was very young, too. what's you're bloody point?
SPOILER
luke's father isn't dead. he wnet to the dark side and became darth vader.
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...that wants to eliminate copyrights so ANYONE can make changes like this on a whim?
Yeah, count my vote on that one.
First I want to say that any lengthy insert would be a disaster. I think their is no argument at all on that subject.
I can , however, see where a small insert would be helpfull to the story line. Something like a shot of jar jar watching luke meet obiwan and saying "the circle starts again" or something similar IANASW( I am not a script writer). A small item to help tie the first three with the next three. With the way that these movies were filmed, in reverse order, Something like this may be necesary to make them feel as a whole series again.
The other possibility is that he needs to add elements to tie the last three to the middle three. For an example having queen amadala show in return to say that she was never gone but hiding out and once the emporer is defeated we need to go do this. He may have excluded these parts in the original filming becuase it would have created a cliff hanger in the movie that would not be resolved for 30 to 40 years. Now he can add it and start the work, striving for a completed nine movies over three sets of three.
The point is a little dash of extra may not be so bad, have to see it to judge. Let's just hope this is not done as some marketting stunt to get us all buy the movies AGAIN.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
Personally, I don't care what he does to his movie. The sad part for me is that all the work done on restoring footage and reworking original soundtracks is all thrown into these modified special editions. The _original_ films now only exist as worn VHS tapes. The first special editions were different; not necessarily better, but different. Any further rounds of modification will be different still.
It's sad that the original films have become lost to consumers, and presumably will stay lost. How about if he releases the original, restored (but unaltered) movies on DVD first. Then he's free to add Jar Jar, Natalie Portman, Samuel Jackson, Matt LeBlanc or whoever the hell else he wants to Episodes IV-VI.
Except that Luke and Leia are twins. My guess is that in Episode 3, Obi-Wan takes Luke and Amadala takes Leia and they hide them, raise them etc. Likely Leia remembers her real mother cause she lived with her for a short time before her mother dies.
He owes you a good movie? Listen to yourself.
The "true fans." This is the problem with the movie industry. Everyone is so busy catering to the "true fans" that people forget about making good films. "Oooo, the Tolkien fans won't like it if we take something out of the book." "Oooo, the Star Wars fans won't like it if we put Jar Jar in the next movie."
The fans' opinion does not matter. If you are truly concerned with artists making good films, then quit expecting them to cater to your every whim. It is not your film. Even if you have every single Star Wars figure, book, bedspread, drinking glass, etc., you still have no say in what an artist puts into his art. You don't hear art collectors saying "I like Starry Night, but I wish Van Gogh had put some more red in it. He owed it to us to paint a picture that we'd like."
If you don't like what the artist has to say, how his story is told, or what accent his characters speak with then don't buy his work. No one is forcing you.
You are truly the epitomy of a consumer.
Many (not all) of us *do* want general freedom to modify the original films in this manner.
We also want to have the choice of retaining the film in its original presentation.
Lucas seems bent on changing the "Star Wars" movies a bit more with every major release so that the only way to get the original films may one day be to buy the VHS copies on eBay somewhere.
Pfah to that. Not *everyone* wants to see the films "enhanced" with new footage, and I'd like to have the choice of not seeing it when I watch the film.
Oh, and calling Star Wars one of the most epic stories ever written is pathetic. Read some books for God's sake. Ever heard of The Illiad? The Odyssey? The Maha-Barata? Fucking BEOWULF, for God's sake! Get out more!
The movies are the sole intellectual property of GEORGE LUCAS.
Ok, I agree, George Lucas owns those movies. But the ideas he put down on film in episodes 4-6 are our common experience. They are part of our culture. We know what happened in the first star wars trilogy and we know what didn't happen.
I'm from Boston, and I know that in 1986, the Red Sox lost the world series on a grounder through the legs of Bill Buckner. I also know that the Red Sox DID NOT win the world series, have not since 1918. As much as I wish it could be otherwise, this is the way the world is.
Fiction is otherwise, but it's still a shared common experience. We all know Luke lost his hand in episode 5. We all know Han was encased in carbonite. We all know Yoda dies in episode 6. These are as much facts for us as the 1986 world series or the Apollo moon landing or 9/11/2001 or Tiennanmen Square.
Now, suppose George Lucas could rewrite history. Would we approve? No, of course not. This is, in many ways, no different. Jar Jar Binks was not in "A New Hope". But now Lucas is saying "No, no, I can change history. I own this Intellectual Property and can do as I wish with it.". In short, yes, he CAN make a mockery of our common heritage. I, for one, certainly hope he doesn't.
Episodes 4-6 stand on their own as a saga of epic proportions. They live on in my mind as memories of happy days in the past, before the dark times, before Jar Jar. I only hope my children will have the opportunity to feel the same way.
Every time you release an altered version of a previously copyrighted work, you can claim a NEW copyright. So if ANH gets re-edited and re-released in 2002, it gets a fresh copyright date -- 2002 -- without having to actually be a new work from scratch.
I'm not sure of the legal standing of this wrt to the original version, but for practical purposes it's probably effective as a method to extend copyright forever.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?