George Lucas knows how to make money.
You can almost hear the ringing of old fashioned cash registers in the background as a montage of his merchandising plays. And come on, this is America – capitalism is almost a state religion, right? Can’t fault a man for success.
But you can fault him for having absolutely no inkling what made his fanbase love him in the first place. Not that it matters: Indiana Jones and, to a much greater degree, Star Wars are so well-established that fan desire for them is now more or less self-sustaining. By opening up the sandbox to all sorts of artists, and by embracing fan work, Lucas cannily ensured that the emotional investment the audience cultivated with his films would be wide-sweeping.
I myself went through a huge Star Wars phase at about the age of 11-12. There were no prequels at that point, but there were tons of extended universe books to read, and of course, the original trilogy. My VHS copies were well-worn and well-loved, though I always fast-forwarded through the Leonard Maltin interviews with Lucas at the beginning of each tape. Even at twelve, I had little interest in what Lucas had to say, which should have been telling, given my contemporary obsession with Inside the Actors’ Studio.
I still own those VHS tapes, despite the fact I’m slowly replacing my collection with DVDs over time. I will keep those three until they wear out, because as of now, there is no other way for me to see the films as I remember them, with Han shooting first and without the unnecessary CGI aliens in every scene.
With the announcement that all six of the live-action Star Wars films were finally coming to Blu-Ray, I foolishly felt a spark of hope. After all, you can get a huge amount of data on a Blu-Ray disc. How hard could it be to include both the original theatrical release and the 1997 “special edition” so that fans could pick their movie?
Too hard, apparently. Lucas argued that releasing the theatrical versions on Blu-Ray would be “kind of an oxymoron, because the quality of the original is not very good.”
…George Lucas. If I were Jon Stewart, I would tell you to meet me at camera three.
The trajectory of the Star Wars universe, in the past decade or so, has been toward bigger and splashier effects. With the prequels, that’s fine. (Well, it would be fine if you had a real screenplay, though that is another kettle of fish.) But the originals were filmed in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. No one expects them to look like they were filmed yesterday.
I understand that putting grainy analog film on Blu-Ray is not the highest possible use of that technology. But what you have to understand is that it isn’t just about seeing the shiniest shiny possible. This is the way to see films now. By refusing to digitize the theatrical releases, you are barring anyone who doesn’t have a VHS player from ever seeing them again. (That, George, is most people – and it will be everyone when the tapes wear out.)
Many people point to Gary Kurtz’s departure after The Empire Strikes Back as the moment things went wrong, though the chicken-and-egg of it is under debate. Still, I can see it; Empire is considered by many (including me) to be the best movie and, frankly, the bittersweet ending to Return of the Jedi Kurtz says could have been is… well, it could have been some excellent filmmaking. You could have given your characters an arc, you see. The stakes could have been high – there’s a reason the end of Empire is a culture trope now.
If you want to make very expensive toy commercials now, I suppose that’s your business. But you have to realize that some fans are frustrated because the first two films, and especially Empire, were legitimately good movies. Not just engines of pop culture to ride around your money farm, but movies that made you care about the characters, that captured the cultural imagination in a way that’s very special.
Throw us a bone. Give us some way to see them as they were before you felt they needed “fixing.”
Back to the rest of you at camera one. Beyond my rant, there’s a larger point here: directors, like all artists, need to know when to let go. With the advent of DVD and Blu-Ray, we can now expect deleted scenes, makings-of, and director’s commentaries with some regularity. While these are sometimes interesting, I can’t help but feeling they can also serve to obscure, rather than illuminate, what’s great about the actual art they’re describing.
As long as you leave me the option to just watch the movie stand on its own, I’m fine with the fact that all these extras exist. But you have to know when to let your art go. Let the original stand or fall, and go make something new. Not a sequel, not a spin-off – new.
But then, of course, there are the toys to think of. After all, Life Day is coming.
The Exploding Macguffin 