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Originally posted by: Hardcore Legend
Oh dear Lord. Your analogies fail because it is still his house. He can paint it neon pink and no one can make him do otherwise. Everyone in the neighborhood can call him up and tell him they liked it the old color, and it was better the old color, but as long as he can sleep at night with it neon pink, that's his own choice, it's his house.
I want the OT to be availible as it was seen originally. But my personal wants have nothing to do with what George Lucas can do as an artist. If he wants to repaint the mural, it's his choice, it's his painting. Providing an unaltered copy of the painting for the masses would be nice, but there is no burden upon him to do so.
Bullsh--
Let me give you a situation. Let's suppose you saved up money to buy a copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 2. You have a Playstation 2, so you are intent on getting that version. So you go to buy it--but for some reason, even though you find a store that has it in stock, they say you are not allowed to buy it. The reason is because this version is "no longer acknowledged" by the creators. They then tell you that if you still want the game at all, you must buy the X-Box version, because it is "definitive." It doesn't matter to these guys that you have the money to buy the Playstation 2 version, that they actually do have it in stock, or that you don't have an X-Box. You either buy "the definitive version" or you don't buy the game at all.
Fortunately, the above scenario itself hasn't happened yet (because Capcom is nowhere near as bad as George Lucas), however that's essentially what is happening here.
The "house" example does not work, because the house is for Lucas and his family and no one else. Lucas did not make Star Wars for himself, he made it for an audience. What Lucas is doing is nigh-on being a dictator, telling us precisely WHAT we're allowed to watch or spend our hard-earned money on.
I mean, by that logic, I'm not allowed to complain about how greasy and unhealthy a McDonald's burger is because "it's their burger, they can make it however they want." Yea, they're making it, but they're not the ones who are gonna have that burger running down their digestive system, and they're not the ones shelling out money to buy those burgers--the customer is.
When you support George Lucas' changes, you're essentially saying that big rich guys are allowed to control what we can see and hear. From there, they start dicking the customer around, telling them what they are and aren't allowed to buy and treating them more and more like crap, and taking this high and mighty "you should be thankful you have Star Wars at all, you swine!" stance. At this rate, George Lucas could release a Star Wars Trilogy boxed set that is nothing but blank discs and claim it's his "original vision," and there would still be people defending that as being perfectly moral and ethical and saying we should "be thankful" he released Star Wars on DVD at all.
REALITY CHECK! We're not Oliver, starving at a sweathouse and requesting more to eat (and even if we were, that scene was played up to show how inhumane such establishments were). We're customers who work hard and earn the money, and it is our decision and OURS ALONE what we choose to spend it on. If Lucas isn't going to give me the Star Wars I want, then I would rather live with just my VHS copies--and if Georgey boy hasn't released the version I like by the time those tapes degrade, then I can just live without Star Wars. It'll be a big loss, but I'd rather accept that loss than let some guy I don't even know make me his bitch.