A kids movie? So that’s why the original version was full of blood, exploding heads, arms being pulled off, humanoid looking aliens sliced into several pieces, alien bounty hunters being toasted alive? Yeah, a typical kids movie.
Yes, I know, he toned down most of the violence in post production and even more in the 1997 SE, but still the movies have many deaths, many arms cut off, the prequels have even things like that Anakin burning alive scene …
I dont know what version you watched, but the only blood I recall is Walrus-Man in the Cantina. The key difference being, it was a creature, a monster, not a human being. Thats why they could get away with it and not get an R rating. In the ANH, they never showed the actual action, only the aftermath e.g. the Beru/Owen skeletons. Had they shown the actual killing and burning, or the action of the sabre slicing off his arm, then it wouldve garnered an R rating most likley. Whose head exploded in ANH? WHose arm was pulled off in ANH? When I stated that it was aimed at kids, I was refrring to ANH specifically, not the later movies. Once ANH became a sucess, George was able to be a bit more liberal in the next films. He probably figured he should appeal to a broader demograph for more sucess. Had the PG-13 rating been around back then, ESB and ROTJ probably wouldve recieved a PG-13 rating.
I am talking about his “original vision”. We know that the first movie was planned to be much, MUCH more brutal. Some of the brutal scenes were shot, some of them were only planned, and even those who WERE shot were either edited down for the 1977 release or censored in the 1997 version.
Let’s be perfectly honest - he didn’t want to do a kids film. But he was forced to because he had the rights to the merchandise stuff.