As fans of the films know, George Lucas has been happy to update and make changes to the original films over the years to achieve results he feels he always wanted to achieve back in the ‘70s. We asked Muren how he feels about updating effects from his work thirty years ago – from wholesale changes to touching up obvious imperfections.
“I was all in favour of doing some redos on the original Star Wars because we ran out of time on that. I wanted to redo about 30 or 40 shots and George wanted to redo some other ones. At some point I think it is OK.”
“But going back and trying to continue updating it based on the newest technology, I don’t know what I think.”
“Garbage mattes, definitely. It really messed up the original VHS tapes of Star Wars because everybody thought it was that way when it came out in the theatres, but of course they weren’t. It was just the transfer wasn’t done quite right.”
“So I’m all for getting it the way you saw it in the theatre – maybe that’s a better way of putting it.”
“As long as the original version is always available, then I think beyond that you can do whatever you want. Based on the generation who is seeing it. But I think the original version should always be available.”