Slashdot Mirror
Why Star Wars Should be Left to the Fans
Aguazul writes "The BBC has an interesting take on George Lucas's meddling with our memories: 'Fans of Star Wars are not happy. Someone has been tampering with their movie history.' They speculate on who really owns a piece of art. Even the artist doesn't really know what he's created, and a work doesn't become 'something' until given value by an audience: 'the artist is merely the medium for his or her work.' Many people contributed to the Star Wars trilogy. Is Lucas' over-inflated idea of his own importance in the process the reason he is stopping people seeing the unmodified originals?"
"The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests."
and
"Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself."
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
It is morally right that the creator of a work should have complete control over it for all time immemorial. You don't see people messing with The Iliad -- it exists today in exactly the same format that Homer wrote it down, and the changes that he penciled in to later editions have been faithfully reproduced. The same is true with the plays of Shakespeare, which are always performed with exactly the same script and stage directions that the Bard himself took to the copyright office before the original performances. And music also has never been altered after composition -- the composers intent is always honored by the performer, and the audience would demand no less.
I don't see any reason we should give Lucas any less than the complete and total control over his creations enjoyed by Homer, Shakespeare, and Bach. To afford him anything else would be tragic.
There is an exellent article outlining what Lucas has done to the original negative. tl;dr: in the 90's Lucas restored the negative of the original release, and then subsequently nearly completely butchered it while at the same time destroying all copies of the theatrical release (except privately owned vhs and laserdisks, of course). At this point the only thing that exists is a 1080p scan of the film. All of the restored negative does still exist, though. It's just not assembled into something that could produce anything. It is possible to re-assemble that restoration, which by all accounts is stunning.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
I think an interesting parallel is the BBC TV series Red Dwarf. It was originally was made on a shoestring budget where you could see the 100W light bulb in the back of the model ship in shots. later, after the show had been well received and the budget had gone up considerably, they went back and "remastered" the first three seasons. They cleaned up the footage nicely, but then they also went and CGI'd it, edited some of the dialogue and generally messed about with it.
the reaction to this version was generally pretty negative and fans weren't happy with the changes made. Now if you go and buy the show on DVD, it's the original version you'll find. The remastered is pretty hard to find. The BBC took in board the criticism and gave the fans (you know, the ones paying) what they wanted, which was the original show they fell in love with.
david
It's Lucas' right, but he's an ass for not letting us have the restoration without additions as it's something that had to happen whether he was going to crap it up again or not. So you're right, and everyone who wants his head on a pike is right, too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually, the thing there is that it's only been in the last few hundred years that artists were willing to start taking credit for work they produced. Prior to about the 19th century, it was God or a muse that did the work, the artist just put down on paper or however else the results.
The consumer is where the works ultimately go, if they're not able to soak into the consumer then there isn't really much art going on. Personally, I find it annoying, but ultimately have to accept that it's not what I make of my work that ultimately matters, it's what the viewer makes of it. Sometimes it's pretty amazing and other times it's pretty depressing.
As far as Star Wars goes, I've been saying for years that George needs to recognize that at this point the fans own the work, and that he really needs to rerelease the original versions, perhaps rescan and remastered, but from the original materials with the highest fidelity in mind. It's arrogant of him to not recognize that he managed to bottle lightning and to leave it as is.
Uhm, most films are about fictional characters. Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Harry Potter, Avatar, to name a few.
But it IS a defining moment, because hey, this guy is going to deliver our heroes to someplace safe. But he just shot someone. In cold blood. Can we trust this guy to bring our heroes safely to their destination? Who knows. We're excited and tense.
And now we have this new version. Where he politely follows the Geneva convention and Rules of Engagement of civilized people everywhere. No ambiguity - we can trust him. We wait for the inevitable discovery of his golden heart. Meh.
There is a huge difference there that changes the whole movie up to where he overcomes his greed. It's open heart surgery on a living movie. And I hate it.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
If that was a reason anyone could accept, Metropolis would have gotten a makeover years ago and the old one would have been destroyed.
The charm and a lot of the value those original versions of Star Wars had was due to the limitations and how they managed to work around them. The first scene (ya know, where Leia's ship gets badgered by a Star Destroyer) was awesome at the time, I remember how the theater went wild at the very first scene of the movie just from it being so awesome. Today, of course it isn't as impressive anymore, we're used to such scenes by now. But that's not what made the movie a classic. What did was that in its time it had the maybe best and certainly some of the most impressive special effects. Giving them a makeover does of course improve them, but it also cheapens them. Today, this is something every second movie will show. And I'm not talking about the "old" special effects, I'm talking about the remakes.
Yes, the redos make the movie look less impressive. Not more. Less. It becomes yet another space opera movie. The special effects introduced later are nothing special anymore, they're a staple of the industry. What made them impressive was that they could pull them off in that time without the aid of perfect CGI, with a lot of work and detailed models. That's what made it special and great.
Take any Anderson TV show (talking about their real, not puppet, shows, namely Space 1999 and UFO). By today's standards, of course the special effects look dated and, at best, cute. What makes both shows a classic and made them develop a cult following was that they put a LOT of work into it to make it believable with the limited means of the times.
Just like with Star Wars. Star Wars produced today would simply be yet another SciFi movie. The same special effects as anyone, and let's be blunt, the story is nothing special, it's an average fantasy story that's been transported into a SciFi setting, which has been done before and since. Today, with the "augmented" effects, it would probably drown in the rest of the genre. And, well, the second trilogy shows that quite well.
What makes Star Wars the classic it is, is, that it was ahead of its time, that it set a standard few productions could meet for years to come. And in this standard it should be preserved. Yes, it looks dated. Of course it does, it's more than a quarter century old. But "augmenting" it cheapens the achievement, it cheapens the experience. There is of course nothing wrong with giving the movie a makeover and offering that augmented versions additionally, but the original one should be preserved.
To close the circle, do you think anyone would remember Metropolis today if it had been redone and remodeled every decade to update the technology? I mean, it's not like that movie has such a great story either.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You could compare using a CGI Yoda in some portions that were originally puppet Yoda to your example, but what about such decisions as not having Han shoot first? That's different, in that there was no change in technology at all, 'just' a change in the character. What new technology allowed Lucas to capture Greedo shooting first when it somehow couldn't be done that way originally? If you're going to compare this to a program, what about rewriting, say, an Ultima game so that which decisions lead to which endings is different?
Who is John Cabal?
to say nothing of the poor buggers that did those stunning model shots, only to find no remaining example of their work to show their grandchildren.
i bet Lucas even removed their names from the credits.