A few weeks ago some guy commented on my “Gary Kurtz on the Star Wars Special Edition” youtube upload, saying:
“I completely disagree with this man’s stance.”
I asked him why and he answered:
“I love the special editions.”
I stayed polite and tried to get a more detailed argument out of him by remarking:
“That is completely fine if you love them. Which version of the Special Edition do you like the most? To this day there are four versions of Special Editions: 1997 - The first Special Edition, 2004 - The DVD Special Edition (Haydens Ghost added to ROTJ, Ian McDiarmid added to ESB), 2012 - The Blu ray Special Edition (Darth Vaders ‘NOOO’ added to ROTJ), 2019 - The Disney + Special Edition (Greedos ‘Maclunkey’ added to ANH).”
His answer:
“2019. Those are the final definitive versions.”
Since he stayed by his one-sentence-replys, i had no desire to deepen the discussion any further.
This is what they all say though, as if it somehow invalidates everyone else’s thoughts and opinions. The thing is even if I did find the Special Editions to be superior, I would still want the original versions to be preserved and readily available in equal quality to the SE. There actually are several films in which I do find an alternate cut to be superior to the theatrical, but I wouldn’t want the theatrical cut to not be available just because I personally preferred a different version. It is this which I do not understand. People can like whichever version they want, but why does that mean that no other version should be available?
I can’t even remember the last time I watched any of the other versions of Blade Runner besides the Final Cut, but I am glad they were made available and I wouldn’t not want to own them. In the case of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I actually watch the Theatrical cut most often as that is the one I prefer. What is being done with the Star Wars films is to me a travesty, and should have never been allowed to happen to any film, let alone one coming from a man who once spoke in front of congress to bring awareness and advocated for the prevention of this exact scenario from happening.