Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition

Last year, the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition was what everyone was talking about. For the first time in 20 years, Star Wars could be viewed again in a theater, on the big screen with theater sound, "the way it was meant to be seen." As if that wasn't enough(and it would have been), the picture and sound of each film was digitally remastered and new scenes were added, in addition to old cut scenes being put back in. On this page, I will present my opinions on the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition; first, what I think of the whole concept of doing a special edition in the first place, and secondly what I think of some of the changes that were(and some that weren't!) made.

Special Edition:
Should It Be Done?

There is a big controversy over whether or not George Lucas had the right to go and change the Star Wars Trilogy. There is one basic issue that must be addressed in this controversy and it is a basic one that concerns art in general, not just movies and not just Star Wars. That issue is, who owns a piece of art, the artist or the fans? Some argue that once an artist releases something to the public, it becomes property of the fans and the artist has no right to make changes to it, especially once it's been out for a while and attained the status of "classic." I don't think I need to argue how ridiculous this is. This is a basic property issue, and an artist obviously owns his creations. George Lucas, being the creator of the Star Wars Trilogy and therefore the owner, has the right to do whatever he wants with it and it will be official no matter what anyone else thinks. I have heard one person say, in protest to the Special Edition, that it's like straitening out the leaning tower of Pisa. To that I say that if the original artist who created the leaning tower of Pisa were still alive and he wanted to straiten out the tower, he would have every right to do so. I don't think anyone else does, however; so if someone besides Lucas were to go and change Star Wars without his permission I would be very upset. So please keep in mind as you read this page and any complaints I may have about the Special Edition that no matter how I feel personally about individual changes, I stand behind everything Lucas has done, and I support his right as owner of Star Wars to do what he wants with his creations.

Special Edition:
My Complaints

A big part of the promotion of the Special Edition was completeness, but there are still things that were not added back in that I was looing forward to seeing. There were some scenes at the beginning of A New Hope that show Luke on Tatooine spotting the space battle taking place above the planet with his binoculars, and also some scenes showing him with Biggs. If the purpose of the adding the Biggs and Luke scene near the end of the movie before the final battle was to add emotional impact to Biggs's death, then I really think that the scenes with Luke and Biggs together on Tatooine at the beginning should have been put back in, because I don't think the desired emotional impact is achieved without them. The scene near the end does not work by itself and is not enough to make me feel any attachment for the character. That is my only complaint about A New Hope.

The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition is the one I have the biggest problem with, and if it weren't for the awesome additions to Cloud City, I would almost say the changes do more harm to the movie than good. There are numerous dialogue changes that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, except to make changes for changes sake. My main problem though, is with the one scene in the entire Special Edition that I think was a mistake to add, and that is the scene with Darth Vader's shuttle near the end of the movie. This scene is not a scene that was supposed to be in but got cut, nor is it a scene that shows off any special effects that couldn't be done at the time, which is supposed to be the idea behind this special edition. It also doesn't add anything new to what happens in the movie, but simply unnecessarily shows us something that is understood offscreen anyway, and the insertion of it breaks up the flow of the final chase scene in the process.

This page has been viewedtimes..........