Well, i guess here i am finally, i knew about this project since i first heard (and immediately after watched as well) “The People vs George Lucas” 8 years or so ago, yet i always failed to notice there was a forum attached.
[Schmultzy TL;DR on]
This actually brings me back way more than 8 years ago, first because Forums have ended up “surclassed” by social media (even though i always maintained this is the superior platform of the two, and not just because i have wonderful memories of experiences in forums throughout my teenage years) unfortunately, but also because back in december 2005 (i was only 15 back then) i joined my first SW fan club, which of course, had its own forum:
Great times were had, cons attended (here in Italy at least, never went to a Celebration in my life, and since Disney bought SW, i can confidently say i’ll never attend one in the future as well), prizes won, Force FX Master Replicas birthday gifted to, marriages witnessed, and, last but definitely not least, hundreds of hours of discussion about either the intricacies or broader topics about Star Wars happened.
I guess, at this point, that it’s safe to say Star Wars gave me a lot (it also took a lot, but that’s a WHOLE different topic right there), i’ve been somewhat pampered when it comes to the theatrical release of the OT, the annual convention i went to had the tradition of projecting the despecialized dvds the last 3 days of the event at midnight, and we would religiously watch them as if it were an actual ritual, which of course brought me back to when i first watched it as a kid in my older cousin’s room at my aunt’s attic.
The issue being: i never owned that particular release of dvds, mostly because i was still a kid and i couldn’t possibly ask my parents to buy me yet another SW set of DVDs, and later they became (justifiably so) pretty much impossible to find by conventional means, which brings me to finding out years later about the despecialized editions.
But dark times befell the franchise, by then Disney bought Star Wars, and for some years i couldn’t bring myself to even watch it (not only was i enamored with the OT, and to some degree and many many asterisks the Prequels as well, but to me the Expanded Universe played a huge part in the evolution of my fandom and the whole perspective i viewed its own Galaxy as a whole, so hearing of it being so unceremoniously canned just has been too much to take for a while), it’s been 4 years at this point that i internally made peace with my memories of SW, obviously it’s impossible for me to repress them, just as it was impossible for Anakin to repress his love for Padmé (many things could be said about their relationship, but such are the facts as we know them), and now i am content to simply reminisce of the good times i had, and maintain the few friendships i forged in the fan club years that stood the test of time, while revisiting at my convenience any piece of media from the original EU (i usually replay every year the whole Dark Forces saga, although KotOR also gets dusted off every random number of years, plus other various titles).
Of course the movies must be a part of all this, and even though i rewatch the prequels as well, it’s not as often as the OT for obvious reasons, but the special editions, especially with the updated changes in the Complete Saga box set, which i was gifted to back in 2011 are like a punch in the eye and a dropkick to the ear simultaneously, which is why i could never be thankful enough that this project exists, otherwise the OT would end up being the less revisited of the two, and boy would that be both strange and a shame.
[Schmultzy TL;DR off]
So now that i opened myself again to Star Wars (albeit in my own unique way), i feel like it’s about time that i joined again a platform to discuss at least some aspects of it, and why not the forum of the fan project that dedicates itself to preserving the theatrical versions of the original trilogy?
Thank you all for reading (TLDR or not) this, and a special thanks to HARMY and everyone else that participated by giving even the smallest input, the result is clearly a legendary feat that already is “worthy of recognition in the archives of the Jedi Order”
: )