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Post #1034364

Author
GigoloJoe
Parent topic
'97 vs. '04 (and '11) - Your preference?
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1034364/action/topic#1034364
Date created
15-Jan-2017, 10:01 PM

Much Empire Emperor talk going on which is good. Probably my biggest problem with any of the changes over the years. Although - it appears some people don’t get why we need the original cuts at all…

Density said:

Wazzles said:
I hate the 04/11 emperor

I really don’t understand this. The old Emperor was just awful, it was the worst part of ESB and it stuck out like a sore thumb when viewed with the rest of the series. Literally the only possible reason I can imagine for preferring the chimpanzee-eyed old woman over Ian Fucking McDiarmid is nostalgia. That’s it. I mean seriously, ask yourself: If it was the other way around, would you still prefer the chimp Emperor? Hell no, you’d think it was among the most outrageous of all SE changes. Let’s not kid ourselves. If that was the only change George made, that would have been just fine with me.

The original is clearly superior in this scene. His appearance is more ghostly and sinister. The dialogue and delivery shows how the Emperor has Vader on strings, as if he’s controlling him through his speech. It’s completely effective and very out of the blue considering how commanding Vader was up to that point.

It’s such an important scene because it’s the first moment that takes you out of the narrative drive of the movie, explaining Vader’s motivation and highlighting what’s at stake in just a few lines.

Not to take away from Ian McDiarmid’s work in Jedi, deliciously wicked as it was, I sometimes find his emperor a little too obviously evil in the overall context of where the story was coming from. It would have been rather interesting to see the final showdown as more a battle of wits, illusion and manipulation with a slightly charming, non-cackling Emperor. Ironically, he gets closer to this in the prequels before he gets electrifried (in an otherwise painfully dull trilogy).

Nobody ever thought it was a problem that the two appearances didn’t match up before they changed it - and so it went for every other change. Completely unnecessary and often altered the meaning of a scene - as if Lucas never really understood what any of the subtext was i.e. Luke screaming after he chooses his own sacrifice.

All that being said, aside from Luke’s scream, I can’t think of anything the DVDs or Blurays put right, so the 97s win by default. Too many other unforgivable additions to the editions!