Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
According to Lucas, he had time and money to do 3 squib setups for that shot. Each one went off with bad timing. He said in one shot Greedo shot way before Han, in another Han shot way before greedo, and in the one they used, they both went off at about the same time, but you couldn't really tell that. He didn't have time or money to do more setups, so he decided to live with that and try to make it clear through the dialogue that "the idea" was to kill Han.
Yes, he did the best possible in the original version to make the best out of the shot footage. What you can see now in the SE, this faked cgi dodge by HAN, is probably far worse than any mistimed take of the original footage.
Every director has to cope with this fact, that you sometimes can not get what you want during shooting. Did it make the movie any worse? No. The scene worked perfectly in the original version. Sometimes, it is the limitations that drive people to excellency. Many real artists will confirm this.
Didn't Tolkein rewrite his works for future editions? Did he also re-publish his previous works along side his new editions each time?
I don't see the difference here with what Lucas has done.
I´m no Tolkien expert, so I cannot comment on this.
If this is all just "commercially driven rubbish" then why are any of you trying to preserve it for the sake of "artistic history"?
According to Lucas, he had time and money to do 3 squib setups for that shot. Each one went off with bad timing. He said in one shot Greedo shot way before Han, in another Han shot way before greedo, and in the one they used, they both went off at about the same time, but you couldn't really tell that. He didn't have time or money to do more setups, so he decided to live with that and try to make it clear through the dialogue that "the idea" was to kill Han.
Yes, he did the best possible in the original version to make the best out of the shot footage. What you can see now in the SE, this faked cgi dodge by HAN, is probably far worse than any mistimed take of the original footage.
Every director has to cope with this fact, that you sometimes can not get what you want during shooting. Did it make the movie any worse? No. The scene worked perfectly in the original version. Sometimes, it is the limitations that drive people to excellency. Many real artists will confirm this.
Didn't Tolkein rewrite his works for future editions? Did he also re-publish his previous works along side his new editions each time?
I don't see the difference here with what Lucas has done.
I´m no Tolkien expert, so I cannot comment on this.
If this is all just "commercially driven rubbish" then why are any of you trying to preserve it for the sake of "artistic history"?
No, what is done now to these films is commercially driven rubbish. Tell me, what artistic is about treating these movies basically as a commerical product, revising it every time it is going to be released, always adding gimmicks which are just there just to get tiny bits of new pieces for your money? If it´s really artistically driven, then I pity Lucas. Real artists know when they have to let go of their work, and they acknowledge that once you have it released, it becomes part of culture, part of the people who explore it. IF it would be for the art, then Lucas would be one hell of an uncertain artists, really not knowing what he wants to do. But luckily, I don´t think that any artistic ambitions are involved in the constant alteration of these classics. It´s the permanent answer to the question of the consumers "Hell, why am I gonna supposed to pay AGAIN for these old movies?".
Preservation is about preserving history. Not destroying original material. Star Wars is a 70´s movie, it looks and feels like a 70´s movie. And you know what? There is nothing bad about it! Nicolas Meyer said that every decade has its own way of making a movie. You see it in subtleties like camera work, acting, everything, the impact is always present. Once you temper with these works OVER 20 YEARS LATER, you create a hybrid, a fake Zombie. CGI does not belong in a movie from 1977 (unless of course it is 70´s cgi, like the impressive gouraud shaded computer face of Peter Fonda in Future World). IF Lucas had the technology of today back then, 3 COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MOVIES would have come out in 1977,80,83. Not just movies with cgi where you could put cgi in now, it would have influenced THE WHOLE creative process. The story would probably be different, with the writers knowing what could be done with cgi. The acting would be different, because they would have acted on green screen sets, instead of real locations. And this is one important point, which most people don´t understand today: these limitations were what made these movies great. What motivated everyone behind the camera to improvise, and make the best out of what was available. You can NEVER recreate this atmosphere, nor can you predict how these movies would have looked if the technology would have been different back then. This is the reason the original trilogy will NEVER, EVER fit together with the prequel trilogy, unless Lucas decides to remake them completely. I really vote for that: remake Episode IV-VI and let the originals be what they are. They are movies from 1977, 1980 and 1983. And as such, those movies HAVE TO BE preserved correctly, because they are part of motion picture history. Even the SE and SESE has to be preserved. They are documents of the late 20th, early 21st century cgi revisionism hype.