FINALLY

FINALLY…

So, George Lucas seems to have finally listened to his fans and is to release unaltered editions of the original Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. News here: http://www.starwars.com/episode-iv/release/video/news20060503.html

It’s probably too late for a lot of us as owners of the original video tapes who were technically savvy enough already transferred them, but it’s nice to know that he’s listening.

That said, I do think there were actually some improvements here and there and all of them are exactly the kind of thing CG imagery is actually good at. The improved vistas in Cloud City, for example, or the new shot of Jabba’s sail barge were great. We don’t actually need to see the “Emperor’s Slugs” and, though it was nice to have the right face on the hologramme of him in Empire the new lines were so clunky as to be embarrassing.

But the badly-done Jabba scene – which he was right to cut in the first place – is going and, most importantly: Han shoots first!

That last always showed me how little George actually understood his own characters and just how much he undermined the Solo character by having him sit there meekly and wait to be shot at before killing Greedo. The point George somehow completely missed is not that this was a cold-blooded killing inappropriate in your hero, but that it shows Han could have become a bad guy unless he had met up with Luke & Ben. In many ways the ‘second’ trilogy is about redemption. Not just Anakin’s, but Han’s, too.

Thanks for giving it back to us, Mr Lucas.