Besides "The films need to be the way I want them," has Lucas stated anything as to why the Blu-rays became the travesty that they are?

Zombie84 is the webmaster of Save Star Wars as well as the author of the book The Secret History of Star Wars which details the production of the original 1977 film.  His posts tend to be incredibly insightful and thought-out.  Unfortunately, he has a habit of disappearing.

To be honest, I figure it was more along the lines of a "good enough" approval from Lucas rather than a glowing appraisal aside from his additional changes for this set.  For someone who tinkers with them so often, he claims to not watch the movies too frequently - I believe every five years is his estimate.

Slowly going senile, I'd still chance a guess at. Partly because Uncle George's vision of the films changes so often, but also perhaps in favour of turning them into proper kid's films... possibly even starting an actual war or something!

1997 - an honest attempt to improve the films

2004 - chance to include his prequel parasites into OT

2011 - he was simply trolling the fans

imperialscum said:

1997 - an honest attempt to improve the films

2004 - chance to include his prequel parasites into OT

2011 - he was simply trolling the fans

I guess some would also describe the prequels being an honest attempt telling a backstory to the original trilogy. What makes the 1997 SE any more honest than the two video edits that followed? IMO there wasn't anything honest about it. In fact, most of it was just R&D and an experiment for ILM in preparation for the prequels. An experiment and a fun little 20th anniversary for the fans which have now sadly replaced the historical films. A butchering and bastardization of a beloved classic is how I would describe it.

The modern "filmmaking"-touches of Lucas we got a taste of in 1997 is very consistent with what we were presented with in 1999. Seriously, if Lucas was simply trolling the fans with his BD updates, what is it about those 2011 changes that are so radically different compared to the poor choices and filmmaking style seen in the '97 SE, Prequels, THX 1138 SE, '04 SE that makes people seriously think he would go to such length? Please, explain it to me.

The Terminator said:

At least Lucas had the courtesy to release the 1997 SE in VHS labeled as such. In 2004 and 2011 it was false advertising.  

It's only because it was released by Fox, later video releases when Lucas had bought the film labeled them without the Special Edition title.

Baronlando said:

The '97 certainly started out as an honest restoration, which the movie needed, even the original plan of a few shots wouldn't have been unreasonable, but then turned into a perfect storm of drunken digital crayon mayhem and classic movies being used as R&D. The lameness of the blu-rays is probably just basic cheapness.

True, it may have started out as an honest attempt at restoration but it was pretty clear from the beginning that Lucas was also going to revise the film. They started storyboarding changes to ANH in 1993, added Jabba in 1994 for example.

What I don't understand is why the heck did FOX pay for all this restoration and not release a home video release of that effort or even produced new prints before the drunken digital crayon mayhem began?  Instead they went with George's wishes and re-released the '93 telecine as a "Last time available" video in '95, simultaneously with this "restoration" being worked on. But I guess they were Lucas' lapdog at that point with the forthcoming prequels on the horizon. I don't think a restored original release on the shelves would have diminished the income for their Special Edition theatrical release either.

Fox is basically as much guilty as Lucas in this travesty.

Tobar said:

I don't know if it was trolling so much as indifference. I kind of imagine it going something like this.

Lucasfilm: Hey George, we're going to be releasing the original trilogy on blu-ray soon. Was there anything else you'd like to update for this release? It'd probably up the value for the collectors. You know how they are.

George: Um....well. I never was happy with that Krayt dragon call. Oh and I was always disappointed we couldn't find the right rock on location for Artoo to hide behind. I was never quite happy with Marquand's delivery of the death of the Emperor...needs more emotion somehow....OH and you're going to start work on the 3D releases soon right? Why not see what you can do with Jabba's door or something so we can get that out of the way now.

I honestly believe people inside Lucasfilm would just go up to George and ask for suggestions and then take whatever he came up with on the spot as law. What lead to the fall of 1313.

Here's a funny story from Marc Weilage, one of the colorists working on ANH and ROTJ in 2004:

BTW, note that there was stuff from the 2004 transfers I did where we ran out of time and Lucas was not able to get more fixes done. Whenever this happened on a specific shot, George would turn to his assistant and say, "note that as a BSI fix." After he left the room, I turned to my data op and asked, "what's a 'BSI'?" And he laughed and said, "that's a Boxed Set Issue, because George eventually wants to put all six films out as one set, which will be the final-final versions." To my knowledge, this set has yet to be released. http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/true-original-star-wars-trilogy-blu-rays-coming-in-2014-or-2015-from-disney.324294/page-7

To my knowledge that BSI was released in 2011.

msycamore said:

imperialscum said:

1997 - an honest attempt to improve the films

2004 - chance to include his prequel parasites into OT

2011 - he was simply trolling the fans

I guess some would also describe the prequels being an honest attempt telling a backstory to the original trilogy. What makes the 1997 SE any more honest than the two video edits that followed? IMO there wasn't anything honest about it. In fact, most of it was just R&D and an experiment for ILM in preparation for the prequels. An experiment and a fun little 20th anniversary for the fans which have now sadly replaced the historical films. A butchering and bastardization of a beloved classic is how I would describe it.

The modern "filmmaking"-touches of Lucas we got a taste of in 1997 is very consistent with what we were presented with in 1999. Seriously, if Lucas was simply trolling the fans with his BD updates, what is it about those 2011 changes that are so radically different compared to the poor choices and filmmaking style seen in the '97 SE, Prequels, THX 1138 SE, '04 SE that makes people seriously think he would go to such length? Please, explain it to me.

First of all, mind that this is my opinion. Unlike many of you around here, my favourite versions are 1997 SE. The important difference between 1997 SE and the following two releases is in the nature of the alterations.

Majority of the changes in 1997 were related to upgrading the SFX and audio (yes I pretty much love every one of them) and a few changed/additions to some story-related stuff (i.e. Greedo, which I don't like but can live with it, and new celebration song with shots of other planets, which I love - I can't stand YubNub crap).

On the other hand, in 2004 and 2011 most of the changes were basically PT related crap inserted into OT. Some of these include: Hayden in ghost scene, "NOOOOO", Boba Fett voice change, Emperor having prequel style make-up in ESB, JarJar screaming "wessa free!" in one of the celebration scenes, Dug in Jabba's palace, etc.

I second that. The CGI was good for its time, and I can probably live with the distracting background droids and Jabba's scene. The only things I can't stand are the Jedi Rocks sequence and - to a lesser extent - the whole Greedo thing (which is understandable, but not all that necessary). But I grew up with the GOUT (or at least the VHS versions which aren't much different) - and by the time I knew there'd been alterations, it was too late.

As far as what happened with 1313, ex members of Lucasarts were interviewed in one of the latest issues of Gameinformer, and basically said that LucasArts were taken over by movie people who had no understanding of how game development works, and would give them ridiculous tasks with barely any time to work on them. It's easier to whip something up for film than it is for video games, because bugs ruin a good game.

They would literally get started on a game, and would cancel it halfway through development, and this happened several times. I've got the magazine somewhere, I'll see if I can find it.

GlastoEls said:

But it's still the GOUT for me. The straw was the loss of Sebastian Shaw in Jedi.

Ghost scene change came in 2004. In 1997 Sebastian Shaw is still the ghost.

TV's Frink said:

You guys can live with the Greedo change?  Go sell that crazy somewhere else.

Has anyone died from it yet?