New ‘Star Wars’ Blu-Ray Creates Controversy
Posted on September 4, 2011 at 8:00 am
George Lucas can’t stop fiddling with “Star Wars.” This week’s highly anticipated Blu-Ray release of Star Wars: The Complete Saga
And the Ewoks now have CGI-enhanced eyes that blink.
Nikki Finke cheekily quotes from Lucas’ 1988 testimony before Congress to her story on the controversy:
People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society.
In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.
Attention should be paid to this question of our soul, and not simply to accounting procedures. Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself.
Ross Lulppold of The Huffington Post has a funny piece with some other suggested changes Lucas might want to consider. Chewie in pants? Googly eyes for the Sarlaac? Stay tuned.
No offense to Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen, but Lucas could have blanked them out and replaced them with better actors and most people would be screaming ‘hurray’. Nell, I also found out that the original ending with Sebastian Shaw as the spirit of Anakin (1983 version) will not be in the blu-ray either. I am bummed! If I had known, I never would have ordered the blu-ray. I really wish George would do two versions that we could choose from. The originals for us die hards and the one with changes that ‘non’ die hards don’t mind.