From the pages of Blue Harvest Episode Ten...
Autumn 1996

In Defense of the Special Editions
by Mary Jo Fox

One day last July I wandered into a B. Dalton's near my house, and I decided to browse through the new issue of Sci Fi Universe magazine to see if it had any SW news.  Sci Fi Universe, and in particular its editor-in-chief Mark Altman, has been annoying me for quite some time.  After all, this is the mag that gave ROTJ a crappy "78%" but decided that some cheesy straight-to-video vampire flick merited a "95%."  I have long believed Altman is no true SW fan (he's much more interested in gushing about the flavor of the moment), but his editorial in the July issue was the last straw.  In this vitrolic rant, he savaged George Lucas for SOTE (which he'd called a stupid idea over the course of several issues) and especially for the SW Special Editions.  He said the money Lucasfilm is putting into the Special Editions would be better spent on allowing independent filmmakers to do their own versions of SW (what?!!).  He even said doing the SW Special Editions was immoral and injustifiable, as if he were discussing the torture of political prisoners.

This was the most infuriating thing I've read since Harlan Ellison's infamous SW bashfest several years back.  Sci Fi Universe had better hope the Unabomber isn't a SW fan...that's how upsetting this editorial was.

I believe it's time somebody defended Lucas's right to make the Special Editions.  I was fortunate enough to see clips of it at a con presentation given by Lucasfilm and during the IMAX film Special Effects:  Anything Can Happen.  If what I saw was any indication of what's to come, these films will be nothing short of astounding.  It will be like watching them for the first time all over again.

In Altman's editorial, he asked readers for their thoughts.  I have a feeling he's going to get a lot of xeroxed one-finger salutes.  Here, I will try something a tad more literate, where I will counter many of the arguments Altman raised in his editorial.

"Lucas doesn't know what he's doing"
SW is Lucas's sandbox, his magic kingdom to rule as he sees fit.  He is the one who wanted to do the Special Editions; this is not a situation where Ted Turner or some other outsider is altering the films to fit his own whims.

Lucas is not taking the decision to make the Special Editions lightly either.  He knows as well as anyone that his reputation rides on SW--if he totally botches this, there goes his career.  Really.  He's not crazy enough to take on this kind of project if he isn't able or willing to do his best.  I saw some of the conferences he had via satellite with the guys at ILM, and let me tell you, nothing got past him.  He had no problem with telling ILM to do something over and over until it was just right.  It looks to me that George knows perfectly well what he's doing.

"It's only to "
Altman says Lucas is sacrificing the trilogy purely to make a buck.  Of course Lucas hopes the Special Editions are a financial success.  That's how success overall is measured by the industry and the public.  If the Special Editions flop at the box office, they will be regarded as a failure even if they are an "artistic" success.  Lucasfilm is spending $15 million on restoring the films plus a heck of a lot more to promote them; they don't want to spend all that dough for nothing, do they?  Besides, when I last checked, we live in a capitalist society.  When did it suddenly become inherently wrong to ?

Even so, Lucas is not doing this purely for profit.  SW is his baby, and he cares too much about it to sell it out for a quick dollar.  If George was in it "only for the money," we would've seen about the 40th SW film by now.  He would've just sat back and let the studios do SW their way in return for fat royalty checks.  He would've squeezed SW dry for every penny he could get without regard as to whether the SW reputation holds up over time.  All you need to do is compare SW with other franchises that have been exploited to death by their creators or the studios that own them to realize that Lucas sees his universe as more than merely a money mill.


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"The Special Editions Will Displace the Originals"
Another one of Altman's arguments is that the Special Editions will displace the original classics, a la how Spielberg's cut of Close Encounters of the Third Kind displaced the original theatrical version.  My question is, so what?  In my opinion Spielberg's cut of CE3K was an improvement over the theatrical version.  The scenes restored to the director's cut were axed by the studio to meet time and budget constraints, not to mention the tastes of studio execs.  The later version actually made more sense plot-wise--and the spaceship interior looked cool.

During the Lucasfilm presentation, I saw a videotape of Lucas talking to John Williams.  In it he says every athlete wishes he or she could go back and re-do a play they messed up.  The Special Editions are his chance to re-do his missed plays.  ANH cost a mere $9 million to make in 1976; most comedies nowadays cost more than that.  Lucas had to deal with time constraints and technological constraints on top of a small budget.  As a result there were some scenes he had to settle for even though he was unhappy with them (like the cantina scene) and some he had to ax (like the restored scene with Han and Jabba).  If Lucas can now go back and bring the movies closer to the way he'd always envisioned them, what's the big deal?

Altman also complains that "purists" won't be able to find copies of the original trilogy.  Excuse me, but "purists" have had well over a decade to purchase the trilogy on Beta, VHS, letterboxed VHS, laserdisc, letterboxed laserdisc, remastered VHS in THX, and remastered laserdiscs in THX with no trouble at all.  Let us not forget cable t.v. either.  When Disney puts one of its animated classics on video, you only have 6 months to buy it, then it's gone for good.  You don't see any Disney fans complaining do you?

"It's going to ruin the movies"
Altman is utterly convinced that the new effects and scenes will somehow totally destroy the films.  First off, the guy hates ROTJ with a passion.  He says so in just about every issue of his publication.  I have no idea why he feels it could be ruined any more than he thinks it already is.  In any case, Lucas is not changing the plot.  He is not taking out any of the actors and replacing them with current Hollywood idols.  Most of what's occurring is improving the special effects and adding in short scenes that expand on what we've already seen.  The "radical" stuff we already know about:  the scene with Han and Jabba, enhancing the cantina creatures so that they look less like Halloween costumes, changing the music in Jabba's palace and adding more members to the Max Rebo Band, and the celebration scenes at the end of ROTJ.  They're barely touching TESB.  The way Altman and some others are talking, you'd think they were remaking the movies from scratch.

I think there are those who believe if you so much as change the way the best boy's name is spelled in the credits, that will just send the entire saga as we know it crashing into a heap of chaos.  But while these planned changes are certainly more than cosmetic, I doubt we'll be walking out of the theater saying, "What the hell was that?!"  And some things like the expanded ROTJ celebration scene will make more sense once the prequels are out.
 To put it succinctly, we're talking about a tummy tuck and liposuction, not Michael Jackson.

"Why not just make new movies?"
Even I had my doubts at first, but as an industry analyst put it back in 1994, "Rereleasing the trilogy is the smartest thing Lucas could do."  You can't have new films appear after 16 years and expect people to stampede into the theaters.  They need more than hardcore fans there; with all of the Trekkies in the world, note that none of the Trek films have come even close to what any of the SW films made.  They need Mr. and Mrs. Average Movie Go-er. The best way to reach them and re-introduce them to SW is through the Special Editions.  And young SW fans will at long last have the opportunity to view the trilogy in a movie theater, where it was meant to be seen.

As for Sci Fi Universe, I honestly don't know what Altman has against Lucas.  Maybe Lucasfilm rejected him for a job.  Whatever it is bugging him, if his purpose is just to bait SW fans and make us angry then we as fans ought not to support this publication.  We've come too far to be treated with such disrespect.

©1996 Blue Harvest

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