Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[Scarface32]

Originally Posted by motorheadache95

...but meshes a bit more with the style and tone of the prequels.

Originally Posted by IndyMLVC

Can you please explain exactly what "style" and "tone" was altered to fit the Complete Saga?

Originally Posted by motorheadache95

...Plus the things he changed retro-actively to fit the prequels-- the Hayden ghost

So what you're saying is that it makes complete sense that Anakin/Vader would revert to his younger self in death, but Obi-Wan remains an old man? And don't give me the same BS that Lucas gave, he was just trying to cover his butt after making this dumb change.

The BS excuse Lucas gave is: Anakin was good in his youth, but then became evil. So his force ghost reverted to the last time he was good.

[Arawn]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

So what you're saying is that it makes complete sense that Anakin/Vader would revert to his younger self in death, but Obi-Wan remains an old man?

Yes. Can you think of a major difference between Anakin and Obi-Wan?

Originally Posted by Scarface32

And don't give me the same BS that Lucas gave, he was just trying to cover his butt after making this dumb change.

Hysterical nonsense. For one thing, you're reimagining the timeline of events. Statements from him came out at the same time as the changes. He didn't make the change for no reason, and he didn't feel any pressure to provide a justification just because your butt got hurt.

Originally Posted by steel_breeze

Hey, I don't like it either…

I like it just fine, I spread that shit on bread!

[motorheadache95]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

So what you're saying is that it makes complete sense that Anakin/Vader would revert to his younger self in death, but Obi-Wan remains an old man? And don't give me the same BS that Lucas gave, he was just trying to cover his butt after making this dumb change.

The BS excuse Lucas gave is: Anakin was good in his youth, but then became evil. So his force ghost reverted to the last time he was good.

Don't know really and don't particularly care. We don't know anything about how force ghosts work anyway (unless it's explained in some book or something). Maybe they can just appear however they want. So maybe Anakin appears in the way he last recognized himself or knew himself to look before he was physically transformed into Vader? And maybe Obi-Wan and Yoda wanted to appear to Luke the way he'd recognize them for his benefit.

I don't think there's any point trying to figure out "the rules." They weren't established. The UOT Anakin ghost was meant to look like a fatherly figure, the man Luke unmasked at the end. The new one was meant to bring you back to seeing Anakin as he was before he became Darth Vader (which ONLY works if you're watching the prequels first, as Lucas wants it).

I'm not a really a fan of the alteration, mostly because I'm not a fan of the entire approach Lucas took with the prequels: to alter the originals to make them retro-active sequels. But it is what it is, and if I'm actually going to incorporate the prequels into the series, then I'll watch these versions. Most of the time I'd just assume watch the UOT by itself, though.

[svenge]

Originally Posted by Arawn

Can you think of a major difference between Anakin and Obi-Wan?

Obi-Wan was portrayed by competent actors?

[D2Girls]

Originally Posted by RBBrittain

One small problem with that scenario: Fox owns Ep IV permanently (even after 2020), and it's the one with the worst "special edition" changes. Lucasfilm may be able to force Fox to release the unaltered Ep IV when it's ready (much like the digital version), but Darth Iger may prefer handing Darth Murdoch (or his sons) a boatload of money so he can box Ep IV into whatever sets he wants.

I know they have the distribution rights.
Disney will just allow them to continue to release their own copy.
Iger seems to be good at establishing relationships, I have no doubt that some kind of agreement will be made, and quickly.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by D2Girls

I know they have the distribution rights.
Disney will just allow them to continue to release their own copy.
Iger seems to be good at establishing relationships, I have no doubt that some kind of agreement will be made, and quickly.

LucasFilm will just wait it out, then do some horsetrading for Episode IV distribution rights. Absolutely no reason to quickly make a deal to buy out a simple distribution fee.

[WhiteTim]

I've heard from someone that Lucas has the untouched OT vaulted and that LucasFilms only has the laserdisc prints

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by WhiteTim

I've heard from someone that Lucas has the untouched OT vaulted and that LucasFilms only has the laserdisc prints

Well, a) that's horsehockey, and b) Lucas doesn't own any of the materials anymore. Every scrap of negative is property of LucasFilm and therefore, by extension, their corporate parent.

[Ernest Rister]

Return of the Jedi Sarlacc Pit-themed toilet...

[MechaGodzilla]

The guy who did that doesn't seem to like Boba very much.

[Ernest Rister]

[Lutz]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

The BS excuse Lucas gave is: Anakin was good in his youth, but then became evil. So his force ghost reverted to the last time he was good.

Yeah and that makes it even weaker because the point of the ghost to begin with was to show the last time Anakin was good was when he reverted from evil to save his son!

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

The BS excuse Lucas gave is: Anakin was good in his youth, but then became evil. So his force ghost reverted to the last time he was good.

Is there any doubt that that was a justification, rather than a genuine story-based need for the change?

I always assumed he really matted Whingy-Anakin in, in an attempt to tie the ending back to the PTs, for those whose first entry to the SW galaxy was through those green-screen mish-mashes. And to make it seem like the whole thing was a unified "saga", the story of Anakin's redemption, and planned that way from the start.

Having grown up with the OT, and strongly disliked the character of Whingy-Anakin, I confess my response to that particular change was less than charitable.

[Blu-21]

Originally Posted by motorheadache95

Yeah I almost forgot the Palpatine change-- in the UOT the fact that it's not Ian McDiarmid was fairly minor, since you only see him in that brief scene and that his character fully shows up in Return of the Jedi.

Disagree. The change was also made with the sheer consistency in mind within the OT itself rather than the OT matching with the PT (although it works with that too obviously). McDiarmid plays the Emperor in ROTJ, and monkey face lady that plays the Emperor in ESB looks and sounds nothing like it. The different Emperors form one film to the next is obvious and very jarring in a trilogy context as well as in a franchise context.

As for how the change was exucted, it could have been a lot better. The dialog didn't need to be changed, and the make up should have matched the ROTJ version of the Emperor rather than the ROTS version.

[motorheadache95]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

Disagree. The change was also made with the sheer consistency in mind within the OT itself rather than the OT matching with the PT (although it works with that too obviously). McDiarmid plays the Emperor in ROTJ, and monkey face lady that plays the Emperor in ESB looks and sounds nothing like it. The different Emperors form one film to the next is obvious and very jarring in a trilogy context as well as in a franchise context.

As for how the change was exucted, it could have been a lot better. The dialog didn't need to be changed, and the make up should have matched the ROTJ version of the Emperor rather than the ROTS version.

Well yeah, I mean I do agree that the Emperor was wildly different and inconsistent no matter what. But what I was trying to say was that the impact of the inconsistency was much greater when viewing the entire "saga" in which Ian McDiarmid's Palpatine was such a central character in all but one of the 6 films (A New Hope where he is only mentioned and not shown).

Maybe its just me but back before all the prequels and stuff that inconsistency didnt really affect me much. It would bug me a lot more if I was watching Empire as the fifth movie and all of a sudden its like-- "Uh... thats totally not Palpatine."

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

Is there any doubt that that was a justification, rather than a genuine story-based need for the change?

I always assumed he really matted Whingy-Anakin in, in an attempt to tie the ending back to the PTs, for those whose first entry to the SW galaxy was through those green-screen mish-mashes. And to make it seem like the whole thing was a unified "saga", the story of Anakin's redemption, and planned that way from the start.

Having grown up with the OT, and strongly disliked the character of Whingy-Anakin, I confess my response to that particular change was less than charitable.

The change at the end of the JEDI wasn't made for original fans. It was made for future generations who watch the saga in chronological order. In that light, the change makes sense....

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

The change at the end of the JEDI was made for original fans. It was made for future generations who watch the saga in chronological order. In that light, the change makes sense....

I saw Star Wars when I was six...I sat outside a laserdisc rental store for an entire day waiting for a guy to return the Definitive Edition box set when I was 23 or 24. I'm about as much of an orginal fan as it gets.

The Hayden change doesn't bother me in the slightest. I think it's kinda moving, actually.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

The change at the end of the JEDI was made for original fans. It was made for future generations who watch the saga in chronological order. In that light, the change makes sense....

Don't agree, and I'm not sure who you mean by "original fans".

Padewan-Anakin's appearance there only makes sense if a) you're watching the film in the context of the PT, and b) you listen to Lucas' explanations given outside the film. Luke doesn't know Anakin from Adam, though of course he can guess who it is, so even in Lucas' explanation that the "ghosts" appear for Luke's benefit, why wouldn't he appear in the only form Luke's ever seen him in, as he originally did in the first cut of the film?

The "this is his appearance as when he lost his innocence" is, at best, a fudge; but really, for me the bottom line is that, if you have to go outside a film for public statements to make any sense of a moment in the film, then in storytelling terms that moment has failed.

[DuaneB]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know when the last time the original theatrical versions aired on television? I'm guessing probably sometime in late '95 or early '96.

[svenge]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

Don't agree, and I'm not sure who you mean by "original fans".

The only way Jumpman's post makes any sense (in terms of making a logical argument) is if he meant to type "wasn't for original fans".

I think what he meant to say is that the changing the Force ghost to be Emo Anakin, while pointless and revolting to those who saw and appreciate the original version of the OT, is supposed to tie everything together for those who grew up with the PT or something like that.

I don't agree with his argument, but at least it's coherent if interpreted in that way...