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Here's my stance — Page 5

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Originally posted by: Tiptup
Originally posted by: Obi Jeewhyen
Interesting, though, that people seem willing to give J.R.R. a pass on revising The Hobbit to fit with the later-composed The Lord of the Rings .... yet Lucas gets no such pass for sticking Hayden in Return of the Jedi, or deleting Yub Nub.


I hate the Hayden change because it sucks. Otherwise, I was never fond of the Yub Nub song and deemed that change superior.

The only principled objection I make to the special editions beyond obviously bad changes is the way George is trying to erase the originals with them and pretend they were his original vision; Tolkien never tried doing that as an author. All of the amazing art and historical success that went into the orginal versions of Star Wars films deserves immense respect. That ethic is beyond George Lucas' ownership rights in my opinion. Releasing quality home versions that try to capture the nature of the original versions as best as possible fit into this criticism for me as well. George Lucas has the legal right to destroy historical artwork, but not the moral right.


Bingo. I say change whatever you want as long as the originals aren't treated like they were never released in theaters and sold zillions of tickets. Star Wars is widely regarded as classic whether Lucas meant it to be or not and he's been milking that fame for years. Is what we ask for in return too much?
He big in nothing important in good elephant.

"Miss you, I will, Original Trilogy..."

"Your midichlorians are weak, Old man." -Darth Vader 2007 super deluxe extra special dipped in chocolate sauce edition.

http://prequelsstink.ytmnd.com/
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Dunno 'bout that. I'm sure an original version of The Hobbit in print would be pretty difficult to find. It's not like Tolkien or his publishers went out and burned all the old books, but ceasing to publish them is pretty much the same thing as Lucas ceasing to keep the O.T. up to current technical standards.

Frankly, releasing the O.T. on DVD in its laserdisc-quality form, with the original Star Wars crawl to boot, is far more of a historical preservation mode than ever has been done with The Hobbit.



If I'm wrong, and the original version of The Hobbit has found its way to print any time since the 1950's, please let me know and I will stand humbly corrected. Otherwise, it is a blantant double standard to forgive Tolkien and revile Lucas.


Because, in the end, it doesn't matter if you have the bad taste to dislike Yub Nub (teehee) ... it's what belongs in the movie,
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It exists in The Annotated works, but I don't think it exists as any separate modern publication of The Hobbit.

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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And just in case some have forgotten how GL thinks.

"The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it...I'm not going to spend the, we're talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it [the original OT] doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it."

- George Lucas

Riiiiiiight...http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews3/starwars/6-03-2004.jpg

I doubt tolkein would hold the same attitude.
He big in nothing important in good elephant.

"Miss you, I will, Original Trilogy..."

"Your midichlorians are weak, Old man." -Darth Vader 2007 super deluxe extra special dipped in chocolate sauce edition.

http://prequelsstink.ytmnd.com/
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Originally posted by: Wesyeed
And just in case some have forgotten how GL thinks.

"The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it...I'm not going to spend the, we're talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it [the original OT] doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it."

- George Lucas

Riiiiiiight...http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews3/starwars/6-03-2004.jpg



Jeez....what a fucking idiot. That quote just makes my blood boil. How can he say that the version he released into theaters, that so many people spent so much blood and sweat on is half finished? How can he say that a version with added CGI and Jabba is 50 percent more finished then the original? How? How? It baffles me. I hope George Lucas gets hit by a car one of these days, because he deserves it. So many people spent so much time and effort on these films, and then he says the originals were crap. I can't believe any of the relationships with people he had while making the OT still exist.

And any real filmmaker never calls the version they release to the public half finished. Did Peter Jackson say the LOTR theatricals were only half finished, because they didn't last 4 hours? No, he didn't. Do modern teen-movie creators call the theatricals unfinished because the unrated had more boobs? No, they don't. Lucas can rot in hell.

And this thing about Tolkien and the original Hobbit not being in wide circulation...I'm sorry but that is just not comparable to Lucas' films. First off, Tolkien can do whatever he wants to his books, because they're all his. The OT is not Lucas's, but a huge collaberation. And when a book is revised, its just natural that the other one stops getting published. Why would you spend the time publishing version one of a book, and versions two and three and all that? It's silly. You don't see the World Book 1992 being widly circulated, do you? An updated version came out. Not improved. Updated. They aren't trying to squander the old version, its just that in books, when a new printing comes out, they don't keep making the old printing.
Watch DarthEvil's Who Framed Darth Vader? video on YouTube!

You can also access the entire Horriffic Violence Theater Series from my Channel Page.
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It's silly to compare novels to textbooks and encyclopedias. And if you are, then it seems like you're quite in favor of revisionist history, since those kinds of books are frequently revised, and for good reason. But to say that one branch of fiction is free to be edited and re-edited while you bitch and complain about another branch of fiction being edited and re-edited just makes you sound wishy-washy. It's all the same thing. And like Obi Jeewhyen and I have already said, Tolkien had already covered his bases by saying that The Hobbit was Bilbo's lie. To change The Hobbit after that was counter-productive to that plan and is very much in line with Lucas's idiotic changes, in my opinion.

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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Originally posted by: Darth_Evil
How can he say that the version he released into theaters, that so many people spent so much blood and sweat on is half finished? How can he say that a version with added CGI and Jabba is 50 percent more finished then the original? How? How? It baffles me. I hope George Lucas gets hit by a car one of these days, because he deserves it. So many people spent so much time and effort on these films, and then he says the originals were crap. I can't believe any of the relationships with people he had while making the OT still exist.

And any real filmmaker never calls the version they release to the public half finished. Did Peter Jackson say the LOTR theatricals were only half finished, because they didn't last 4 hours? No, he didn't. Do modern teen-movie creators call the theatricals unfinished because the unrated had more boobs? No, they don't. Lucas can rot in hell.
He had to release it to theaters before he would have liked to. Back then, it didn't have the Jabba scene (one he actually filmed back then) now it does. Hence, it's more complete than it was before he put that scene in.

When would you have liked to have George hit by a car exactly? Should it have been right after he released ROTJ? After he released ANH?

Or before he even had the idea to make Star Wars in the first place?
Your focus determines your reality.
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While I am not exactly commending Darth_Evil for that Lucas death wish, I have to play semantics with you, Go-Mer, and point out that he said "one of these days", hence the future, hence not any of those time frames you mentioned.

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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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
Originally posted by: Darth_Evil
How can he say that the version he released into theaters, that so many people spent so much blood and sweat on is half finished? How can he say that a version with added CGI and Jabba is 50 percent more finished then the original? How? How? It baffles me. I hope George Lucas gets hit by a car one of these days, because he deserves it. So many people spent so much time and effort on these films, and then he says the originals were crap. I can't believe any of the relationships with people he had while making the OT still exist.

And any real filmmaker never calls the version they release to the public half finished. Did Peter Jackson say the LOTR theatricals were only half finished, because they didn't last 4 hours? No, he didn't. Do modern teen-movie creators call the theatricals unfinished because the unrated had more boobs? No, they don't. Lucas can rot in hell.
He had to release it to theaters before he would have liked to. Back then, it didn't have the Jabba scene (one he actually filmed back then) now it does. Hence, it's more complete than it was before he put that scene in.

When would you have liked to have George hit by a car exactly? Should it have been right after he released ROTJ? After he released ANH?

Or before he even had the idea to make Star Wars in the first place?


How about just before he gave birth to you?

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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I just think it's so admirable to wait until you have what you want from him before you hope he gets killed.
Your focus determines your reality.
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I just said I hope he gets hit by a car. Did I say anything about getting killed? Don't think so. A hit by a car wouldn't even equal the pain that he's inflicted on fans over the years, but it was the least grusome thing I could think of. (***joking***)

And Gaffer Tape, I get what you're saying about Tolkien and the hobbit, but that was not an intentional squandering of the old version. It just happens when a book is revised. The new version is put out, and they have no reason to keep publishing the old version. It's so much harder to do that with books, because if someone went to the bookstore looking for the hobbit and saw two versions labeled "original" and "Revised" they'd be confused as hell. Films are different. And you can find the original version of the hobbit. I'm not for editing and re-editing fiction books, as you so elequently put it. Tolkien only made that one major edit, and I'm not saying I'm all for authors dicking with they're books all the time. Tokien just changed that one bit, once, and he didn't force it on the fans. People who already bought the book weren't going to run out and buy the new printing, and it was the publishers that stopped printing the old version. You've got a very convincing arguement, but I think these two types of fiction and editing just can't be compared. In the end, everyone can have thier own opinion and it really doesn't matter what those opinions are. To each his own.

Plus, Tolkien didn't say "this is how it always was, the old version was just half written."
Watch DarthEvil's Who Framed Darth Vader? video on YouTube!

You can also access the entire Horriffic Violence Theater Series from my Channel Page.
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Here's my response to Lucas' claims about 'always wanting it this way'. Enjoy. Funnily enough you'll never find this from the special edition on dvd either. So I guess a point goes to the OT for making it on there in some form..

EEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH
He big in nothing important in good elephant.

"Miss you, I will, Original Trilogy..."

"Your midichlorians are weak, Old man." -Darth Vader 2007 super deluxe extra special dipped in chocolate sauce edition.

http://prequelsstink.ytmnd.com/
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the version I have of The Hobbit is from 1995, and has a note at the front stating:

" The Hobbit was first published in Septemper 1937. Its 1951 second edition (fifth impression) contains a significantly revised portion of Chapter V, Riddle in the Dark, which was done in order to bring the storyline of The Hobbit more in line with its sequal, The Lord of the Rings, then in progress. Tolkien made some further revisions to the American edition published by Ballantine Books in February 1966, and to the British edition published by George Allen & Unwin in paperback later that same year.

This newely reset edition is based on the third edition of 1966, but also contains a number of further corrections of misprints and errors. It represents as closely as possible Tolkien's final intended form. Readers interested in details of the changes made at various times to the text of The Hobbit are referred to Appendix A, Textual and Revisional Notes, of The Annotated Hobbit (1988), and J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography by Wayne G. Hammond, with the assistance of Douglas A. Anderson (1993)

Douglas A. Anderson
7th December 1994 "


They managed to get that info across without denials of it ever happening, or without refering to people that wish to find and enjoy the uneditted version as being " delightly deranged" or how ever Mr. Rick put it.

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why does the OT defy comparison to any other revised work?

First of all, books are books. By nature of their medium they're not subject to the constantly changing world of home video formats, to say nothing of actual film. Plus it's only one person working on a book whereas a film has many.

Close Encounters: Columbia released a "Special Edition" not too long after the film's original 1977 release. I think this was 1980 or so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the dvd edition does not have any added special effects that were found in the SE release, making it no more than a director's cut.

Apocalypse Now: both versions, enough said

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Paramount and Robert Wise gave it somewhat of a Special Edition treatment for the dvd. Even though they didn't include the original theatrical cut, they did include every single altered shot in its original unaltered form on disc 2 of the set, in addition to deleted scenes and scenes from the television cut.

Blade Runner: the '92 (or was it '91?) director's cut is just that and nothing else. Besides, we're finally getting the original theatrical next year.

Any argument about "Lucas didn't have the time or money" is pointless. The movie was several million dollars over budget when it was released in May of '77. To my knowledge, the only studio interference was the removal of "Episode IV A New Hope" in the opening crawl. I'll grant Lucas that one revision because, hell, it had nothing to do with money or technology. No amount of money would have achieved the SE's cgi because the technology did not exist in 1977, so please, Go-Mer, don't say one thing when you mean another. Dykstra's motion control was a huge step forward in '76/'77, that was something that had to be invented, and Lucas tries to stomp all over that in 1997 with outdated cgi? If Lucas really means what he said in that quote, I doubt he has much self respect.
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If he had enough time and money, he would have eventually employed CG techniques. We don't even have to guess at this, because that's what -did- happen afer enough time went by, he spent even more money to make that happen.

Lucas was pioneering the effects he used back then, his use of cutting edge effects today is no different.

He isn't stomping over Dykstra's work, he's merely enhancing his work. In fact, most of the spaceships we see in the preqels are done with models and motion control cameras right up to ROTS.

CG is just one more tool in his arsenal. Was it stomping all over the work of the optical compopsiters when he re composited the same elements digitally to remove the dark outline and transparancy effects they employed?
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Fang Zei
If Lucas really means what he said in that quote, I doubt he has much self respect.

I've always thought that very thing played a huge role in his ever-changing revisionist's-history BS of "what I really intended when I originally wrote the 9 - errr 6 - story double trilogy in the early 70s was...."

Having BSed and lied about statements for so long about so many of the aspects of his "original vision" and the goings on with the locations, budgets, directors, studio, etc, he has no choice but to stay the course with his lies about the past. He certainly can't come out 30 years later and say -

"There was never any grand vision, you guys have been right all along..."

"The Star Wars was just one story when I wrote it - a single 2 hour movie...."

"I know it's sounded more and more ridiculous with each new SE, but I kept digging myself in deeper with my lies..."

"I was making up stuff as I went along. The characters were never related to each other..."

"The marketing tie-ins decided major plot points..."

"I shouldn't have given all those magazine interviews back in the 70s. Too many people remember what I really said..."

"I shouldn't have tried to stretch a simple two hour film into a series of 6 films..."

He's so far down the revisionist's path, that he can't stop now.
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Can any of you prove he's lying?

He has only ever said that what he originaly wrote for ANH was way to big to make into one movie, so he took part of it and made it into ANH, and then re-used a lot of his other ideas in the subsequent films. His vision was to make a serial story in 6-9 parts. He didn't have it all fleshed out, but he had ideas for what kinds of things he wanted to touch on in the movies, and then he fleshed each episode out as he made them. He was working with a rough outline of what happened before ANH, and as he finished the classic trilogy he filled in most of the blanks that were logically carried over into the prequel story.

Lucas says that originally Vader and Anakin were different people, although Anakin's was always going to be a story of a fallen hero. It's just originaly this fall from grace got him killed at the hands of Darth Vader, but then Lucas decided to take that further and have him -become- Vader. I personaly think this was the right way to go. Lucas talks about how he was always thinking of themes of redemption and of fathers and sons, and of brothers and sisters. That doesn't mean he knew going into ANH that Leia would be Luke's sister, it's just that's a theme he had touched on in previous revisions of what finally became Star Wars.

Also he has always been up front about how he hadn't decided to make Luke and Leia related until sometime during the post production of ESB.

The magazine interview from the 70's I assume you are talking about involve the idea that Lucas could make 9 or even 12 films out of the story if he wanted to. Lucas isn't denying talking about that, he's just saying that he never did come up with material for more than 6 movies. He just said he -could- possibly do 9 or 12.

I don't see any reason why he should regret telling the full story.

You guys are so far down the assumption of "history" path, you guys act like you can prove he's lying.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Bantha Tracks Spring 1980:

"SW: At one point there were going to be twelve Star Wars films.

GL: I cut that number down to nine because the other three were tangential to the saga. Star Wars was the fourth story in the saga and was to have been called Star Wars: Episode Four A New Hope. But I decided people wouldn't understand the numbering system so we dropped it. For Empire, though, we're putting back the number and will call it Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back. After the third film in this trilogy we'll go back and make the first trilogy, which deals with the young Ben Kenobi and the young Darth Vader.

SW: What is the third trilogy about?

GL: It deals with the character that survives Star Wars III and his adventures."

More recently, Gary Kurtz also said there were 9 planned. George should just say "look, the story was already getting thin by Jedi, so I gave up on the 3rd trilogy".
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Originally posted by: Fang Zei
To my knowledge, the only studio interference was the removal of "Episode IV A New Hope" in the opening crawl.

Another of his lies.

If the studio made him remove the title, post-production - why was it written out and referred to as The Star Wars during shooting and on pre-production documentation and early one-sheet artwork? Even reproductions of the early scripts published and printed as recently as the mid-90s had only these titles - "The Adventures of Luke Starkiller", "Journal of the Whills", and "The Star Wars".

The phrase A New Hope came into existence a few years after Star Wars was released, after a sequel was planned - not prior to the original release and then vetoed by studio execs.

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Originally posted by: Guy Caballero
Bantha Tracks Spring 1980:

"SW: At one point there were going to be twelve Star Wars films.

GL: I cut that number down to nine because the other three were tangential to the saga. Star Wars was the fourth story in the saga and was to have been called Star Wars: Episode Four A New Hope. But I decided people wouldn't understand the numbering system so we dropped it. For Empire, though, we're putting back the number and will call it Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back. After the third film in this trilogy we'll go back and make the first trilogy, which deals with the young Ben Kenobi and the young Darth Vader.

SW: What is the third trilogy about?

GL: It deals with the character that survives Star Wars III and his adventures."

More recently, Gary Kurtz also said there were 9 planned. George should just say "look, the story was already getting thin by Jedi, so I gave up on the 3rd trilogy". Okay but when he says that it was all a media myth that he had 9 movies planned out, couldn't he be talking about how many movies he ended up coming up with material for? From what I understand the 9 movie concept would have included the Emperor surviving, and Luke and Anakin teaming up to finally vanquish him. If he took that idea and condensed it into the finaly of ROTJ, then in truth that was all the story he had come up with right?
Originally posted by: Anchorhead
Originally posted by: Fang Zei
To my knowledge, the only studio interference was the removal of "Episode IV A New Hope" in the opening crawl.

Another of his lies.

If the studio made him remove the title, post-production - why was it written out and referred to as The Star Wars during shooting and on pre-production documentation and early one-sheet artwork? Even reproductions of the early scripts published and printed as recently as the mid-90s had only these titles - "The Adventures of Luke Starkiller", "Journal of the Whills", and "The Star Wars".

The phrase A New Hope came into existence a few years after Star Wars was released, after a sequel was planned - not prior to the original release and then vetoed by studio execs.
Why would that have had to have been on the shooting and pre-production doccumentation for Lucas to have wanted to do that? Again it's an assumption on your part that he's lying simply because some documents don't happen to support it. They certainly don't disprove what he's saying.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Fang Zei
why does the OT defy comparison to any other revised work? ...
Close Encounters: Columbia released a "Special Edition" not too long after the film's original 1977 release. I think this was 1980 or so. Correct me if I'm wrong

You are correct about the year. But let's look into a better analogy than Lucas vs. Tolkien ... i.e., Lucas vs. Spielberg.

Something very close to the original 1977 version of Star Wars was just released on DVD. It has audio that is not original in some respects, and it's not up to modern standards of picture quality or animorphic presentation. Lucas has a "special edition" of this film which he prefers and has released the original version in less than optimal condition.

Spielberg has NEVER released the original 1977 version of Close Encounters on any sort of home video. Not VHS, not laserdisc*, and not DVD. (*The Criterion laserdisc that claimed to be 1977 original was not). Spielberg has said he disliked the 1980 "special edition" of CE3K, which was a compromise with Columbia Studios, and that his preferred version is a "directors cut" released in the late 90's. To my knowledge, he has never said he doesn't want the original to exist ... but it simply does not exist. Two very important scenes have not been seen by the public since 1978, when the original went out of theatrical release.

I don't know if the footage has been lost or what. But how can we give Steven Spielberg a pass when we want to hang George Lucas in efigy? Lucas' quote about the original Star Wars and O.T. is repulsive, but his actions in releasing even a substandard version of the O.T. and his 1977 masterpiece are immeasurably better than ZERO release of Spielberg's 1977 masterpiece.


I trust we are comparing apples and apples now, and there will be no more red herrings about books vs. films when it comes to artistic revisionism.

So what about it? Spielberg and Lucas. How come Steven gets no flak, while George should be "hit by a car?"



.
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Because that's apparently the way it is around here lately. Only George is the devil. Everybody else has "legitimate" reasons or "inoffensive" changes that "actually improve" the movie, while George's changes are horrible and wrong because of our subjective stance and love for Star Wars.

Just wait. Within five minutes, somebody's going to post something in Spielberg's defense about E.T., which is always the same defense. For the last time, people, if you're against changes being made in movies (or any type of art) be consistent! You can't just say one man's changes suck simply because you think they suck. A change is a change is a change, and if you don't like one of them based on that principle, you can't seriously be in favor of others.

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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Ugh - Go-Mer - you've gone too far ... even for you.

Presented with direct evidence that Lucas is lying about the title for Star Wars (yes, the fact that "A New Hope" NEVER appeared on ANYTHING prior to the release of the movie is very good evidence) ... you just come out with even more ridiculous bullshit about your hero-god.


I have tried my best to defend your right to offer up contrary opinions, even when you do so in the most annoying, every-other-post manner.


But now I must join the growing chorus who can only chant "Fuck Off" and "Go Away."


.


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Thanks to me, you didn't double-post. Problem solved.

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.