You've got to be sh*tting me. So you are telling me that "Romeo and Juliet" has gone through numerous changes, and that "Homer's Oddessy" is constantly changing to match the author's original vision (because lord knows, a classic can't stand the test of time). I guess "Beowulf" hasn't been the same since "Beowulf: The Special Edition" that came out in 1256 in midevil theaters everywhere.
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First, I would never compare Shakespeare or Homer to Lucas.
Second, these stories were more than likely not written over the course of 20+ years.
Third, how do you know that a group of people (like some on this site) from those days didn't shit all over Romeo and Juliet or The Oddessy or Beowulf and say that those stories weren't the way THEY liked them to be. That they didn't hold true to what they believed was the authors original vision.
Fourth, for all we know these stories were ten times better in the original drafts but the authors changed the endings to be more commercially pleasing.