kk650 said:
I don't want to offend anybody here but I think that some of you here should try to be a bit more objective about the changes that GL made to the Star Wars Original Trilogy, yes he made a lot of bad calls by making Greedo shoot first, adding Jabba to the first film, adding Jedi Rocks and Christensen to ROTJ etc. but that doesn't mean that ALL the changes he made, like cropping this cockpit shot, are automatically bad, give him a bit of credit. Some of the changes he made, especially to effects shots, were improvements IMHO. Remember that Star Wars would not exist without GL, he deserves our respect for that alone, even if he went off the deep end later on with some of the Special Edition changes.
It's hard for me to respect the man for various reasons.
One of the things that annoys me the most about Lucas is how he justify all his crappy decisions by saying "they're my movies".
Yes, Lucas made Star Wars... Or did he? He came up with the original concept yeah, but what he often fails to mention is that his script was rewritten by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who weren't even credited. And I don't need to remind anyone here that he didn't direct Empire and Jedi. So "his" movies? Not as much as he claims.
And now for my favorite trivia : he was so sure the final version of ANH would flop that he didn't even show up at the premiere. He even made a bet with Spielberg (which he lost), that Encounter of the Third Kind would have more success than Star Wars. That's how much Lucas believed in "his" movie 30 years ago ; yet today he keeps prancing around abusing "his" movies (yes at this point I'm calling it an abuse) to his heart's content.
But the worst part, in my opinion, happened when Lucas started to make decisions based on how it would affect toy sales, namely not killing Han in Jedi. I'm not saying killing Han would have been better or anything, but of all the reasons a director can think of for deciding the fate of one the main characters, the only one that popped in Mister Lucas' head was : "But if we kill him we'll sell less of his action figures so let's keep him alive and make more bucks !" Oh I'm sorry George for a moment there I thought you were a movie maker not a f***ing toy salesman!
So as much as I respect everyone's opinion on this matter he won't be getting my respect anytime soon. Not that he'll lose any sleep over it anyway.
All that being said you're right : all the SE and DVD changes weren't bad (I can't recall any good changes on the blu-ray apart from the CGI Yoda on TPM). But Lucas has added so much bad on Star Wars since Jedi it's hard to see the good he added.