How to Watch Star Wars, Part Two: The Special Editions Are the Movies, Get Over It - [Rick Worley]

[MithrandirOlorin]

youtu.be/xaeTOMvf67c

[clearspira]

My approach to this is the same as Chuck's. Some of the new scenes improve the films, some of them don't. It's not a zero sum game.

Kind of surprised Disney had never released the originals. I bet a lot of older fans would buy them. Rumour is that Lucas was petty enough to put that into his contract when he sold the franchise.

[MithrandirOlorin]

The video is agaisnt the very of notion of personal opinions, only the Artist matters, Lucas's contract with Disney most likely doesn't not allow them to change the films back.

[Frustration]

My approach to this is the same as Chuck's. Some of the new scenes improve the films, some of them don't.

Most of the new material is awful. Some little bit is an improvement - the reintroduction of Biggs in the first film makes the fighter run against the Death Star much more poignant.

There are more cases of the introduced material screwing up the scenes they're in than improving either them or the movies as a whole. Basically they're powerful arguments in favor of not encouraging people to mess with their earlier works. Spielberg has real talent, but his alterations to E.T. were a joke - a movie already rich in schmaltz being re-edited to cater to anti-gun activists? Horrible idea.

[MithrandirOlorin]

My approach to this is the same as Chuck's. Some of the new scenes improve the films, some of them don't.

Most of the new material is awful. Some little bit is an improvement - the reintroduction of Biggs in the first film makes the fighter run against the Death Star much more poignant.

There are more cases of the introduced material screwing up the scenes they're in than improving either them or the movies as a whole. Basically they're powerful arguments in favor of not encouraging people to mess with their earlier works. Spielberg has real talent, but his alterations to E.T. were a joke - a movie already rich in schmaltz being re-edited to cater to anti-gun activists? Horrible idea.

What a horrible Dystopia that would be.

[Frustration]

Full of agents pointing walkie-talkies around as though they're rifles? Yes, a genuine nightmare.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Maybe don't comment if you're not gonna actually watch the video.

[Frustration]

Three hours? Nah, I've seen what I consider to be the most relevant parts.

If they had limited the Special Editions to fixing effects gaffes - and actually gone through and fixed the most notable ones - I don't think anyone would have had a problem. It was the material they added that not only didn't match the appearance of the rest of the movies, but significantly altered the emotional reactions to the portrayed content for the worse, that everyone complained about.

It's things like those that convinced me Lucas is actually a terrible moviemaker - the best parts of his movies are the things that others added, and working on his own he has terrible judgment about what does and does not 'work'. Which is a true shame, as the original films are great classics and need to be preserved from Lucas' attempts to 'improve' them.

[Riedquat]

Three hours? Nah, I've seen what I consider to be the most relevant parts.

If they had limited the Special Editions to fixing effects gaffes - and actually gone through and fixed the most notable ones - I don't think anyone would have had a problem. It was the material they added that not only didn't match the appearance of the rest of the movies, but significantly altered the emotional reactions to the portrayed content for the worse, that everyone complained about.

It's things like those that convinced me Lucas is actually a terrible moviemaker - the best parts of his movies are the things that others added, and working on his own he has terrible judgment about what does and does not 'work'. Which is a true shame, as the original films are great classics and need to be preserved from Lucas' attempts to 'improve' them.

There were a few alterations I liked, IIRC the ones Chuck mentioned in general, but they were mostly background things rather than inserted scenes (and not all of the background changes were good). Making Cloud City feel a little more open and expansive for example, that was a decent change. The obvious additions though, none spring to mind that I found the films better for. Still like the films, I don't find they really detract (again, one or two definite exceptions).

[Frustration]

In fairness, most of the genuine improvements aren't noticeable, as they correct effects failures that a viewer might not notice at first but become obvious on repeat watching. But they didn't even correct all of those. The additions we notice is mostly stuff that doesn't work.

The Biggs Darklighter(?) scenes were good additions, and it's a little surprising they weren't in the original.