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Sep. 3rd, 2011 05:31 amSo it turns out that yet another release of the Star Wars trilogy is on the way with more of George Lucas' fixes.
I think part of what bugs people about the revisionism - what bugs me certainly - is this. At some level we're used to life and creativity moving along, which means that the past has value for its flaws as well. Star Wars is living film history that way - the first trilogy had flaws, sure, but you can see the development of effects driven and popular escapist movies through them. Something would probably have prompted the development of sci-fi blockbuster films from the boutique value of Trek reruns or Logan's Run and along with it the development of all the tech - a mix of puppetry and compositing playing into the development of CGI. Say what you will about Hollywood's current fixation on re-boots, that leaves the original intact, warts and all. You can always go back and see what Gone in Sixty Seconds looked like in the 70s, or see why audiences were so blown away when they sat down to watch King Kong back in the 30s. With the unending sea of Star Wars revisions that seems not to be an option. I think we are touching on something a lot deeper than just traditionalism, not just the superficiality of "this is what Return of the Jedi was like the first time I saw it."
While it's pretty clear that Lucas never actually had the great over-arching golden vision of SW like he claims, it's also clear that he's always wanted to make things better, shinier. Half the reason he made the movies was that he wanted to do Flash Gordon serials only better; the decision that there'd be not just one, not just three, but nine movies was pretty immediate. I have to wonder just how much Lucas' self-narrative is about being the heroic filmmaker who breaks the mold - and then does it again (he did start out as cool "outsider cinema" after all). He's clearly not about to sit back, look at his own creation, and say, hey, this is where I was in the 70s or 80s; it's valuable for that.
'Course the obvious thing that bugs people is the idea that Lucas sees the SW films as a way to make money ad infinitum. You notice he's not remaking Willow with more and more CG as per his "original vision."
I think part of what bugs people about the revisionism - what bugs me certainly - is this. At some level we're used to life and creativity moving along, which means that the past has value for its flaws as well. Star Wars is living film history that way - the first trilogy had flaws, sure, but you can see the development of effects driven and popular escapist movies through them. Something would probably have prompted the development of sci-fi blockbuster films from the boutique value of Trek reruns or Logan's Run and along with it the development of all the tech - a mix of puppetry and compositing playing into the development of CGI. Say what you will about Hollywood's current fixation on re-boots, that leaves the original intact, warts and all. You can always go back and see what Gone in Sixty Seconds looked like in the 70s, or see why audiences were so blown away when they sat down to watch King Kong back in the 30s. With the unending sea of Star Wars revisions that seems not to be an option. I think we are touching on something a lot deeper than just traditionalism, not just the superficiality of "this is what Return of the Jedi was like the first time I saw it."
While it's pretty clear that Lucas never actually had the great over-arching golden vision of SW like he claims, it's also clear that he's always wanted to make things better, shinier. Half the reason he made the movies was that he wanted to do Flash Gordon serials only better; the decision that there'd be not just one, not just three, but nine movies was pretty immediate. I have to wonder just how much Lucas' self-narrative is about being the heroic filmmaker who breaks the mold - and then does it again (he did start out as cool "outsider cinema" after all). He's clearly not about to sit back, look at his own creation, and say, hey, this is where I was in the 70s or 80s; it's valuable for that.
'Course the obvious thing that bugs people is the idea that Lucas sees the SW films as a way to make money ad infinitum. You notice he's not remaking Willow with more and more CG as per his "original vision."