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Originally Posted by PeterTHX
The Blu-rays came out nearly 3 years ago yet we have people here just to bash them (never having bought them).
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Some people bought them, others didn't. I'm sure some of those bashing them still bought them since it's the only version of Star Wars currently available on Blu-Ray.
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Before the LucasFilm sale we had people openly wishing for the death of Lucas just for a chance to get unaltered Blu-rays. Yet I'm the bad guy.
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The problem here is that people who actually do make statements like that are in the very, very extreme minority.
Most people who are unhappy with what Lucas has done since 1997... the changes to the OT films and/or the prequels, while frustrated with those things, express their anger in a relatively level-headed manor. They state what they dislike about the newer films and changes to the older ones, sometimes passionately so. In some cases they may even speak of Lucas in a negative fashion, but keeping it still within reason (i.e. they
don't call him really vulgar names or wish him dead, etc.).
Then you have the extremists... the ones in the extreme minority that wish him dead, spam his daughter's twitter account, say that their childhoods have been "raped", etc.
And the problem with what you are doing here, as you have done before, is that you are looking at those extreme examples and painting anyone who is anything less than thrilled with what Lucas has done since '97 with that same brush. It's like getting a room of "criminals" together... the basis for which would be being charged with any kind of crime... with most of the offenses being relatively minor things (i.e. traffic violations, one-off occasions of pety theft when someone was young, etc). and then amongst that group there are one or two people who have raped and murdered on several occasions, and using those individuals as a basis to paint the entire group as criminal scum and chastise them for it.
And then you are using that extreme generalization of those with any degree of an anti-Lucas attitude as a basis of which to compare yourself to in order to make yourself look like Mr. innocent when frankly over the years on this message board (and not just in this thread or in regards to the topic of Star Wars) you've often had repeated difficultly in expressing yourself, especially in situations of disagreement, in a less than obnoxious manner.
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I really dislike Twilight and Fast & Furious. Do you see my posts anywhere in those threads? Nope. I let people enjoy what they enjoy, even if I don't. I don't feel compelled to attack them and what they like. I wish we could have the theatrical cuts of Dodgeball and Tropic Thunder on Blu-ray. Again, try and find a post where I attack those who prefer the cuts currently on Blu-ray, or where I wish bad things on Paramount or Fox.
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Well, once again in that last sentence you are doing the same thing again by basing everything around the extreme comparison, but putting that aside, there's a difference here.
Really hating Twilight or The Fast & The Furious series as a whole is different than Star Wars for most people. With SW, it's more of a love/hate relationship for many. It went from being something that they simply loved to something that really got complicated. And they still love the things that they loved from the get-go. What they get frustrated about is the stuff that has muddied it up ever since.
A lot of fans really enjoyed the originals and watched them repeatedly for years. Then Lucas changed them, refused to release the original versions again (at least in good quality anyway) as technology progressed and we got new formats (DVD and now Blu-Ray) that can present films in a much higher quality.
He then went on to make the prequels, which many, many, many people consider sub-par. While aspects of them are good, as a whole there's A LOT of problems with them.
Were the originals perfect? Hell no. But to quote Mark Hamil, Lucas "took scotch tape and Popsicle sticks and
really made something out of them."
The way I see it, the hallmark of good filmmaking is not making a flawless film. It's making a good, engaging films that most people not only enjoy, but care enough about the characters and the events there in that the problems and flaws with it either don't stand out or are easy to over look. A string might be hanging from a model or a creature mask may have limited movement, but it's what's being done with the material that make people either not notice or not care.
But Lucas has become a ball of irony in this sense from '97 onward.
He has tinkered several times with the OT to "improve it," and what he mainly has done in many people eyes is made it worse. The changes stand out for a lot of people who are familiar with the films. Some of the changes are just executed poorly in and of themselves, two examples involve Han Solo in ANH... the Greedo scene where when Greedo shoots, Han does this head-bob to dodge it, which looks unnatural and was obviously digitally added... and when he steps on Jabba's tale, Han gets all blurry and his movement is choppy since they digitally edited his movement very badly from walking around a human actor on the ground to stepping up and back down. Regardless of how the scenes change the dynamic of the film (which tends to be the main source of complaint), they are just executed SO badly that they just aren't convincing.
Then there's the prequels. These should have been Lucas's ultimate opus. Unlike the original Trilogy, in which he had to work with far fewer resources, much lesser technology, and had a studio to answer to (at least for ANH), and was just all around more limited.... these films were made after technology evolved and his empire (pun intended) was flourishing.
He had resources, independent of any studio the likes of which most filmmakers could only dream of having. He had no one standing in his way. His imagination was the only limit... or at least that should have been the case. These movies should have been the ultimate ideal Star Wars experience. They would not only have what made the original films great, but would have everything that the originals lacked.
But that's not what the end result was. What we got were three films that for the most part were pretty much on par with many phoned-in, film-by-committee, average, forgettable studio-commissioned summer "blockbusters" that plauge theaters ever year. That's not to say that all major studio films are bad... there are many good ones, but there are many, many bad ones and mediocre ones as well. The prequels fell more in line with the latter.
The only reason why these weren't forgettable like many of those mediocre-to-bad summer films is because they have the Star Wars named attached to them and were so highly anticipated. But the end result of what he made was more or less the same.
The irony in all of this is multi-layered.
Lucas disliked many aspects of the studio system, primarily studios making changes to his films. And under normal circumstances, the general concern of studios changing a director's vision is probably one that most film fans would share.
But at the same time, by making Star Wars, by creating ILM, and by helping to usher in the general concept of blockbuster filmmaking, he basically handed Hollywood the tools that have lead to redundant factory produced trite like the Fast & Furious films (of which I too am not a fan, and I do not bother posting about them). Yes, in all fairness those same tools have been used to make many great films as well, but none the less, he is in part at least indirectly responsible for the way things are these days.
The path that he has taken ironically mirrors that of Anakin in the prequels in many ways.
Anakin, influenced by the dark side, became blinded by believing that he was doing good things for all people in what were primarily selfish pursuits and endeavors (trying to keep HIS loved ones alive... but killings others, including children, in the process), and just all around did a lot of damage in what he felt was the name of "good."
Lucas was able to build his own empire thanks to the success of the OT. He could have made all kinds of great films if he really used these resources effectively. But really outside of the OT and the first 3 Indiana Jones movies, most things he has done either aren't all that memorable or are very controversial. And most of it has still been within the worlds of Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
He did the Young Indy TV series which had a following but was canceled due to low ratings and at best has a cult following and otherwise lurks in obscurity.
Then there's the OT changes and the prequels. And these are the areas where Lucas completes his own version of an Anakin-to-Vader-like transition.
Not only do the prequels disappoint many, but then there's the combo of the repeated changes to the OT and refusal to properly remaster the originals.
Lucas once claimed that after many years, as younger kids grew up with the newer versions of the OT, those versions would become the remembered ones and not the original versions. Yeah, that would have been true if he didn't keep tinkering with them every 7 years. Just as one version has been around long enough for that to happen, he changes them again. First in 97, then 2004 on DVD, then again in 2011 for the Blu-Ray. Here we are, only 3 years away from it being 20 years since the 20th anniversary Special Editions, and the "final" versions are currently less than 3 years old. And while not as numerous as those wanting the originals, I have seen comments of people who have grown up with either the 97 or 2004 versions and are disappointed with further changes that have happened since.
And by refusing to do the one thing that he could do to appease many of his detractors... release a quality restoration of the unaltered OT... he completes his transition to Vader-Lucas.
While many people would disagree with studios messing up a director's work, Lucas has become the opposite extreme. He became the ultimate example of a director who has gotten so lost in his own world and supposed vision (which apparently keeps changing) that he lost sight of the people who repeatedly paid to see these films, bought the merchandise, etc., leading to his success and empire in the first place. He became the ultimate example of a Filmmaker with too much power. And since commercially released movies are both a form of art, but also a product, those two things should be kept in balance. While a studio having too much power can be bad, a filmmaker with too much power can also be very bad. Things seem to work best when there's an appropriate degree of checks and balances between the two.
And those who defend Lucas say he can do what he wants based on artistic rights. And people are free to have that opinion. But I think there are limits. While it would be absurd for people to demand and expect Lucas to rework or remake the prequels more to their liking, and have to go out of his way to create something new or make new changes, etc. to their liking... it's equally absurd to hold back something that became such a huge part of culture and many people's lives.
Even if you want to argue that it's his right to do this, it's still a jerk move at the end of the day. It's funny how doing something completely selfish at the expense of others (something that doesn't even have that big of an impact on the person being selfish... i.e. those people watching a certain already existing version of films in the privacy of their own home) is considered by most to be a jerk move, but suddenly it's supposed to become acceptable and well within that person's right when it's done in the name of "art."
At the end of the day, he is just being a selfish jerk (or was before selling to Disney). And even if his intention is to do this in the name of art, it's still selfish. And if you want to argue that it's his right to be a jerk, fine. But then that goes both ways when it comes to the complaints about what he has done.
Lucas ironically created his own independent empire... the process of which lead to both him giving Hollywood the tools to make the modern day mediore-factory machine that it has become, and in staking his independence, formed his empire into something that pretty much completely mirrored it by way of making similar mediocre films, and did this up until he sold said empire off to a major studio within that system (all be it one that will hopefully do good things with it, but the end results remain to be seen).
And this is the guy that you feel should be defended.
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I am sick of the relentless negativity on this thread
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It exists for a reason. Lucas did a lot of contraversial thing that are unprecidented with a film franchise of this magnetude, and that had a major impact on a lot of people (a film series so big that they've sold action figures based on characters that are in the background for five seconds). That's not the kind of thing people forget about over night.
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and damned if I can't enjoy my Blu-rays of the Star Wars saga without you guys snarking on it all the time. It's beyond ridiculous.
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To reiterate what someone else said, how is people complaining on a message board stopping you from enjoying watching the Blu-Rays? Maybe it interferes with you discussing them, but it should have no impact on watching them.
And really, even if the comments were more positive, would it be any less redundant this many years later from both the release of these films and this Blu-Ray set? Whether it's people who have the love/hate relationship with the series rehashing their dislike, or the people who love it all high-fiving and chest-bumping each other about how they like the entire post-altered saga as is, it all amounts to a case of same s**t, different day.
Exactly what kind of whopping insights would you expect to find in a thread like this 3 years later if the complaints weren't happening?
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