I understand and respect your viewpoint Adam, but the thing is that I and many others were given a version of these films by George Lucas many years ago. We absorbed these versions. Then, 20 odd years later these version are taken away and altered, and new chapters are added which contradict the original story that we had been absorbing for 2 decades. It is very hard, if not impossible, to forget the originals because we had them for much longer than we have had these new 'visions'. Imagine if tomorrow the Walt Disney Company made an official statement that Mickey Mouse is, in fact, a rat and not a mouse at all. His new name is Mickey Rat. They then go back and digitally alter Mickey's appearence in every cartoon and movie to look more ratlike (longer snout, brown fur, etc). Future generations will embrace Mickey Rat, but how the hell are you and I ever going to forget the mouse? Or what if in 10 years Lucas decides to make some pre-prequels, in which he shows Jar-Jar's youth, and reveals that Jar Jar is actually the master of the Sith, and the whole thing was his idea, and palpatine was just a pawn. He then reedits the original prequels to elude to this, and when we hear the Gungan at the end of Jedi shouting 'weesa free!' it zooms in to show Jar Jar watching on and saying 'or so you think...HAHAHAH!!", leaving it open for episodes 7, 8, and 9 featuring the story of Luke fighting the Evil Darth Jar Jar, with the help of the ghost of his dead dad and the mother he never met, Padme (Padme's ability to come back as a force ghost despite having no force abilitys in life will be explained by some convoluted reasoning). If anybody mentions to George the fact that he stated he was never going to make episodes 7, 8 and 9, he would deny ever making that statement and mumble something about an original vision. What would you make of that? Would you accept that as part of the story? As you point out, for those that want the O-OT, it's out there on VHS and laserdisc, and luckily I have both, so I choose to watch the versions I am used to. I tried to work the prequels and changes into my vision of star wars (which, BTW, is a vision given to me by George Lucas. It's not like I made it up) but it just doesn't fit right so all I can do know is try to forget the newer versions and prequels and revert to my old memories, because that will be easier to do than forgetting my old memories and taking on new ones. Plus the fact that the prequels and all this storyline tweaking just hasn't been executed too well.
Originally posted by: Adamwankenobi So Anakin turned to Vader because of his love for someone? That shows the human side of him, which is supposed to be the whole point of the story.
No, that is not the point of the story. The original point was that even a good man can turn to evil if he gives into temptation, greed, anger etc. It's a very real danger that each of us faces throughout our life and we must be careful to not to fall into that trap. Lucas gave all us kids growing up in the 80s a message, a moral, a code to follow - be good, good things will happen, and you will ultimately be a much stronger person than those who take the quick and easy road to crime, etc. He also opened many of our young minds to the idea of spirituality, a force or higher being, a purpose, some kind of rhyme or reason to the workings of the universe. But then he took that away and gave us some shit about a dying wife and midichlorians. I'm not saying I actually believe in the force and if I practise I can be a jedi, but, metaphorically, the original star wars had so much to offer. But not anymore (the closest we got was some of the stuff Qui-Gon said in the phantom menace, but then he was killed in favour of CGI clone troopers and cackling, lightsabre wielding Emperors). I am currently reading the Original Star Wars Novel, written before ANH was released in the seventies, and although it is quite inaccurate, it captures the general feeling of Star Wars much better than any of this new stuff. That novel is Lucas' original vision because it is based on original scripts and drafts, and unlike a movie a book does not have budget or effects limitations.