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Lucas' real reasons for changing the OT

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I was recently re-reading an Entertainment Weekly article about the "remaking of Star Wars" that came out prior to the 1977 Special Editions and a couple of people implied that there were two major reasons for the SE and neither had to do with George's "original vision." It was suggested that Lucas was testing the waters to see if there was still major interest in Star Wars. With the SW Trilogy SE's bringing in about $250 million domestically (that number would be a lot bigger now if you adjusted for inflation), it really wet people's appetites for the prequels. I think that had there not been a Special Edition release, Phantom Menace would have had the giant buildup that it did and probably would have made less money.

The other theory proposed in the article was that Lucas wanted his team to test out some of the cgi they were going to use in the prequel trilogy. Adding cgi Jabba into a 20 year old scene with Han Solo was a test-run of techniques Lucas would later use in the entire prequels. Hence, we had a zillion scenes were human actors were reacting to cgi characters added in later.

I think this makes a lot of sense. GL has since gotten so caught up in this "original vision" stuff that he can't go back and release restored versions of the OOT. That would contradict all the stuff he's said for the last 10+ years.
George Lucas was seduced by the dark side. The OOT ceased to exist in his mind and became the Special Editions...." "They're more maching now than movies. Twisted and evil."
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When was this article published? The more we see of the OT controversy in the press, the better. Maybe we can win this after all.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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The article was published back in 1997. It was the cover story for the "risks of 1997" issue. Titanic was considered one of the great risks of 1997 too. People were wondering if it would make back it's $200 million budget, hehe.
George Lucas was seduced by the dark side. The OOT ceased to exist in his mind and became the Special Editions...." "They're more maching now than movies. Twisted and evil."
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Originally posted by: JennyS1138
The article was published back in 1997. It was the cover story for the "risks of 1997" issue. Titanic was considered one of the great risks of 1997 too. People were wondering if it would make back it's $200 million budget, hehe.


Since there was nothing else better coming out and Leonardo de Caprio was a giant chick magnet at the time, it wasn't hard for it to make back all its money.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

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Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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that and it was pg-13 and had boobs....any horny teenager could get a massive ship sinking and boobs...all in the same movie.

...but on topic, I actually think that originally he was only intending these to be his "special" versions....as the moniker would suggest. Only in the back of his mind was he thinking "I wish I coulda done this shit back in the day." When they did so well in theaters (we all did our part here) he obviously thought people liked these versions a whole lot (when really most just wanted to see any type of Star Wars on the big screen) or at least didn't care he made changes.

So basically, I think he made the mistake of thinking everyone that saw the movies in 1997 in theaters really enjoyed the changes, or at minimum didn't mind, and therefore went forth with the "original vision" BS that he could now claim.

Just a thought tho....there are prolly articles that prove me wrong...but I don't have the time.

Hey look, a bear!

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Yup, by the time the SE came out in theaters he was already about to film TPM. So if the SE bombed its not like he would or could have backed out of the prequels. The SE was put into motion around the same time as the prequels, roughly 1993. This in itself however was likely a result of the mega-success of the Star Wars rennaisance which began in 1991 after Heir to the Emperor.
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Alot of defenders of Lucas's vision crap forget what he says on the '97 Laserdisk SE Interview: He was only going to release Star Wars: Episode IV to the theaters, and only touch up effects on that movie only, and the main inspiration was he always envisioned Mos Eisley much bigger. That is a key sentence, cause if he only wanted to touch up the original, that means he never had this huge vision of updating the OT, so all he is doing on each subsequent release is trying to tie the sagas through gimmicks like Hayden as a force ghost cause he couldn't write the PT to tie with the OT.

Lucas goes on to say after they touched up the Original SW, they had such a good time, they decided to touch up ESB & ROTJ. Translation: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Lets do the math, if I release 3 movies to the theaters instead of one, I can make triple the money, then video release.......

This whole vision crap and changing the OT is a bunch of crap, I honestly believe he is genuine about touching up the Original SW, cause I do believe there are things he wanted to do in '77 that he couldn't. But if you look at ESB & ROTJ, he didn't do that much, and the stuff he did were awful scene changes: Vader going to his shuttle on Cloud City, a new Wampa, Jedi Rocks, Hayden as a Force Ghost. He had to change something in each movie to sell this new product, or why would everyone go? The only drastic effects changes happen in the Original SW, everything else after that was just meddling and tinkering, and the 2004 release has two major changes and both try to tie the saga together.
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He should have saved his money on all the new FX- we would have STILL gone to see them again in the theaters, even without changes. A good revival with new prints would have been perfect with me. I went to see them in '97, in SPITE of the changes, most of which made me ill after I saw them

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I'm not getting the whole autuer theory, simply because of several things. I, especially as an aspiring filmaker, have incredible respect for directors. They are they are the ones who are the authors of the films in many way, and I enjoy seeing their vision in addition to the studios' in director's cuts and such. However, they are not the only ones who make films (Does anyone know how to contact Rick Baker? I doubt that he'd be thrilled with what was done to his work). Covering their work to fit in with your vision is all very well, but denying its availabily and even it's existence ism quite frankly, insulting to them (no Lucas-bashing intended, so please do not take it as such). Moreover, Lucas did not direct Empire or Jedi, and as Marquand has passed away, God rest his soul, there is no way of knowing what his opinion on such extensive alteration of his work would be. I'm not trying to rip Lucas a new one here, just attempting to make a few points.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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I've wondered about Lucas' validity as an auteur director of Star Wars, too. It seems that an auteur director gives the final film a signature touch no matter what film they are working on.

Lucas has admitted that he doesn't like directing that much. The only sweeping reason that I can see that he should be considered an auteur is that his movies (as a younger filmmaker) deal with issues of the innocent individual versus the dominating society. THX1138, American Grafitti, and Star Wars all have this theme to some extent.

Not sure if this makes ESB and ROTJ the works of an auteur filmmaker, though, since they were not Lucas' films as far as directing goes.

Also, it seems that his "auteur-ship" comes more from his story ideas than his directing, which seems pretty straight-forward and un-stylized to me.
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I do not think that one could be justified in considering Luca$h an auteur of any great ability. I think that the team he works with has always had a huge impact on the quality of the pieces. Also, changes in the teams have corresponded to marked changes in the tone and subject matter of the pieces.

Cahiers Du Cinema used Alfred Hitchcock as their model when first defining the auteur theory. It is clear, they suggested, that when one looks at the films Hitchcock had directed throughout his career, that his vision was at work in them all.

It seems to me that Luca$h has put the label of auteur on himself and that he has increasingly been treated as such by the teams he assembles for his projects. Probably because he selects people that treat him with that level of authority. He has also succeeded in convincing most of the world that he is an auteur and is solely responsible for the greatness of SW.

I think that, the more Luca$h is allowed to produce work like an auteur, the more it becomes clear how weak his talents are. Luca$h needs a strong team around him to channel his ideas, challenge his concepts, visualise the SW universe and shoot and edit the movies if they are to be good pieces of work. Otherwise, as with the PT, they become uneven, infantile pieces without memorable qualities.

An auteur is supposed to be an individual that controls (or influences) all aspects of the filmmaking process (screenwriting, production design, casting, direction, soundtracking, scoring, editing, etc.) in order to create the artistic work they envisioned.

Individuals that can justifiably be called an auteur are very rare.

Luca$h, I believe, has shown that he is not capable of producing films of quality as an auteur. The quality of the final product depends utterly on the team he works with and, critically, their ability to question him and make changes. In recent years he has surrounded himself with people who regard him as an auteur and produce whatever he asks for, no matter how good or bad it may be. I believe that that is why the PT is so inferior to the OOT.
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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I believe Dennis Muren on the '04 commentary admitted some of the Mos Eisley cg work was testing for the prequels. And Lucas said on the '97 interviews that he had the idea of "improving" the films in the back of his mind for a long time.

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What Star Wars fan before 1997 didn't consider the thought of a special edition with some improved graphics here and there? It was a neat idea back then; a fun experiment and alternate version. George Lucas just did a crappy job of it and put in way too many needless changes.

Also, nobody with a sane mind would have ever thought the original trilogy would actually be erased by its creator in favor of a special edition. It's so irrational.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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I was actually excited when I first heard about the SEs around 1995 or so. I thought it was a great idea, to clean up some of the matte lines, etc. I had no idea they were going to add CGI crap, delete the Ewok Song, Lapti Nek, etc.

The irony is that you can still see matte lines.

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Originally posted by: auraloffalwaffle
An auteur is supposed to be an individual that controls (or influences) all aspects of the filmmaking process (screenwriting, production design, casting, direction, soundtracking, scoring, editing, etc.) in order to create the artistic work they envisioned.
Thanks for the much-needed clarification. It would seem clear that, though Lucas influenced the final script of Star Wars, it was not in a truly auteur fashion, seeing as he handed it over to Gloria Katz and that other guy (what's his name?) for a final check. Where's Zombie84 when you need him to bring the behind-the-scenes expertise? Anyway, 30% of the script was written by people other than Lucas.

Originally posted by: auraloffalwaffle
Luca$h, I believe, has shown that he is not capable of producing films of quality as an auteur.

I tend to agree. As a collaborative story creator, he is amazing (please, don't let Indy 4 disprove this!). As a stand-alone filmmaker, he leaves much to be desired.

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Originally posted by: Mielr
The irony is that you can still see matte lines.

Can you give me an example? I gotta check this out!

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The matte lines around the Rancor's leg are still quite visible in ROTJ, and the square "garbage mattes" around the Tie-fighters can still be easily seen in SW. There are other examples, I'm sure, those are just the two I can think of right now...

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You can still see the freeze-frame blip on Luke as he turns off his lightsaber aboard the Millenium Falcon (after his success against the remote) in the original movie.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Mielr and Tiptup: Thanks for the info. I've noticed Luke's freeze frame blip before, but I've gotta see the matte lines!
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Personally, I don't consider the freeze-frame blip to be a flaw- there was really no other way for them to do that back then, and they'd have to really do some serious digital alterations to fix it, I think (maybe like they did in the 'greedo shoots first' scene in the SE, where Han's body moves so unnaturally). No thanks- I'd rather they just left the freeze-frame jump the way it is.

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I don't believe it would be too difficult to fix that blip with digital means. I'd most certainly rather see them devote a lot of money to fixing that in a SE than watching them put a shock wave around the destruction of the death star or putting a digital Jabba the Hutt into a scene with Han. :\

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Yeah, you're right. They would have been better off doing things like that... but I'm glad they haven't. Even if they could make it totally seamless, Mielr is right, there was no other way for them to do it back then. It was a film made in 1977, for crying out loud! I know I can forgive a few technical flaws in exchange for a great movie. I don't know why Lucas and his fanboys can't!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I agree that the original versions are the only versions of the trilogy that really count, but some small technical fixes for a secondary SE wouldn't offend me. Though a world with a reasonable SE existing alongside the theatrical releases will probably never exist, and thus I must support the O-OT only.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005