Star Wars Question

[RockaFowler]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but I thought I would try.

Does anyone have the original Star Wars movies on VHS/DVD?? Not the ones that Lucas released on DVD recently. The reason I ask is that there are so many changes in themovies I have on DVD, that I feel I'm watching different movies. I know that Spike TV has been showing all of the Star Wars movies and they have inserted the "new scenes". So, it had me thinking about how everyone else remembers the movies. How Lucas butchered them or how they were originally released??

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Ummmm...

What actually is your question?

[JTG of the PRB]

2. For me, I remember the "updated" versions the most.

I barely remember seeing the old VHS versions any more. When I first started getting into Star Wars was back in 1997 (I think?) when they did the theatrical re-releases that had all the extra goodies in them. I was 14 them, went and saw them in the theatres, and I loved them.

I know I watched the original VHS versions with my dad years ago, but I barely remember them now.

[DarkTirade]

3. I don't have the VHS tapes myself, but my parents have them

and so those were the ones I grew up with.

Of course, this is coming from a guy who owns and/or has read just about every single Star Wars novel ever written. :)

[cynatnite]

4. I clearly remember the original Star Wars as it was released in theaters...

I will never forget it.

The other two...well, not so much.

I'm fine with the changes he's made to all three of them, too.

[harmonicon]

5. I have several versions on VHS...

... all "original" versions.... they released it many different times. What sucks is that I can't remember if any of them are widescreen, which would mean that I don't have a single copy of any of the movies in their "real" version. I watched some of the "updated" (butchered) versions in the theatre when they were released and couldn't bare to watch all of them. So, yeah, I remember the original versions. There must be a way to get the real movies on DVD some how, right? That would suck if there wasn't, though I'm sure someone has made a bootleg of the letterbox VHS remastered edition on DVD if it isn't officially available.

For the same sort of reasons I didn't buy the new Blade Runner box set.... maybe I will... I don't know. In that case, I actually think the re-released movie is better than the original, but changing it even more now that I've been watching one version for 15 years seems kinda silly.

[Frank Cannon]

21. The original versions are available on DVD

I just got my nephew a copy of the original Star Wars and it contained BOTH versions, the film as released in 1977 and the updated version. Lucas made a lot of dumb changes to that movie.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. I've seen both and the insertions didn't bother me.

[The Straight Story]

7. My friend back in Ohio has it on VHS from the theater (1977) someone made

Bad quality though :)

I think you can still get something called a 'laser disc' with the original movie ;)

[edbermac]

8. Most changes were some spiffed up FX shots.

In the original a scene with Han and Jabba was cut with an actor playing Jabba, the new version added a CGI Jabba. And also the famous 'Han shot first' scene was redone. The worst addition was some sort of CGI rock group in Jabba's lair for Return Of The Jedi. And Hayden Christensen replaced Sebastian Shaw at the end of ROTJ for the celebration scenes on different planets with some new music.

[pokerfan]

20. Han lets Greedo Shoot First

That's the worst change. It turned Ford's character into an idiot.

"Oh, would you stop! Luke Skywalker this, Luke Skywalker that. I am sick of hearing about that little fruit!" - Red Foreman (That 70's Show)

[Frank Cannon]

22. For the last time, Han never shot first

He shot ONLY!

[pokerfan]

23. In version 3.0

they both shoot at the same time.

[Frank Cannon]

24. I might not have seen that particular one

WTF was George Lucas thinking?

[pokerfan]

25. Maybe in version 4.0, Greedo's blaster jams

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first

In the 2004 DVD release, the disputed scene was altered again to have Solo and Greedo shooting at almost the same time

[MorningGlow]

9. I have the VHS versions of the originals, no mucking about

I don't like it when George messes with them--when he does that, he's messing with my youth, dammit! I don't care if he made the movies--once he released them and they became part of the zeitgeist, they became OUR movies!
:rofl:

But you know, a tweak here and there bothers me, but not as much as the "midichlorians being the source of the Force" copout. THAT really cheesed me off--it was like he needed to pander to folks who were making fun of spirituality. Well I got news for ya, George--you were right the first time--the Force IS something that binds the universe together, and it's got nothing to do with little bugaboos in your bloodstream. Sheesh.

:rant:

Why yes, I am rather passionate about my Star Wars. How can you tell? :D

[Orrex]

11. Midichlorians killed The Force in just five little syllables

Very probably a more egregious piece of technobabble than anything ever uttered by Seven of Nine.

One is reminded of the ST:TOS episode Plato's Stepchildren, in which Spock and Kirk dose themselves up with some bizarro chemical that endows them with vast telekinetic abilities, so that they can overpower the local tyrant.

Presumably, one need only shoot himself full of midichlorians and sit back to wait for The Force to come knocking!


Lame. Lame. Lame.

[Dr. Strange]

13. Now wait just a parsec...

you're not dissin' Lucas' technical wizardry there are you?

[Orrex]

14. See, here's the part I don't understand

Qui-Gonn (a name clearly chosen as some sort of half-assed nod to qigong) taps young Anakin's vein, then somehow sends this to Obi Wan, who's mile away aboard the goodship silver-whatsit. How does he do this? Does he have a palm-sized transporter? Is it some kind of mini-hematology lab? Neither technology (or anything else so specifically advanced) appears anywhere else in the hexalogy, so why did George go the trouble of showing it, except to make it stand out like a sore thumb?

Could it be that he's not that great a director?


Nah!

[Nevernose]

17. FYI, a parsec is a unit of space, not time.

The infamous "Kessel Run" mentioned in Episode IV was a challenge based on not how fast the voyage would be, but on how close a ship could come to a black hole without being sucked in, requiring both piloting ability and speed. The closer one could come to the black hole in the Kessel system and not die a horrible death, the greater one's chances of avoiding Imperial blockades.

Lucas is a genius. Even if it took 15 years, another writer, and an Expanded Universe novel to explain that particular part of his genius to us.

[Orrex]

29. LOL! Everyone knows that--even DuStrange!

But as you say, the genius of Lucas is indeed subtle, requiring careful explanation for us mere mortals to comprehend.

:rofl:

[cynatnite]

12. He was pandering to us trekkers...

:P

[oedura]

19. I seriously doubt...

...Lucas was trying to pander to folks who were making fun of spirituality. Unless what I've heard is total BS, he's gotten heavily into "God" himself.

Whatever his reasoning, the whole midichlorian thing is an insanely stupid idea. With just a few keystrokes on his laptop, he took the Jedi Knights and transformed them from a spiritual order who had tapped into the source of the universe's power into a bunch of guys with really bad cases of intergalactic herpes.

Way to go, George.

[stuntcat]

10. whenever I watch the new dvd's..

Which is pretty often :blush: I recognize the changes while I'm watching, I guess I've watched them enough to be used to the changes BUT if I got out my VHS tapes it would be more like old times, since the changes kind of put me off somehow.. I know my memories are being violated.

I saved my vhs tapes but I haven't played them in like 10 years!

[OmahaBlueDog]

15. IIRC, Lucas released the "original" prints on DVD in 2006

So, at the end of "ROTJ", some guy you've never seen before is Anakin -- not the guy from the last 3 movies.

[Orrex]

16. And Obiwan is some old guy we haven't seen in the last three movies, too

WTF is up with that?

[Deja Q]

27. Chronology; when their characters died or turned evil

Obi Wan is Alec Guinness because he was always good.

We get the Younger Hayden in ROTJ, at the point before he died. Unfortunately, Hayden does not look right, and given Vader turned good just before death (like how any serial killer or rapist would do), we should have the same old geezer shimmering instead of Hayden... of course, Vader was probably faking it, which would then justify Hayden's appearance.

[Orrex]

28. I can only imagine Luke thinking

Who's that kid who looks like Winger standing next to Ben and Yoda? And where's my dad?

That bit of retconning is almost, though admittedly not quite, as bad as Greedo-shoots-first. A restraining order should forbid Lucas to come within 100 miles of the original trilogy.

[Captain Angry]

18. I grew up with the originals.

So it will always be that version that I remember.

The only change I liked in the 1997 re-releases was the new Ewok song at the end. I really like that version.

Lucas got lazy. They spent a zillion dollars on the remakes in 1997 but they didn't fix any of the really bad effects in ROTJ.

But the originals are still magic to me. The best day of my childhood was in 1980. I had my 7th birthday party on the sidewalk in line for opening day of Empire Strikes Back. My mom and some other saint took me and 10 other 7 year olds to see it. We had the Star Wars paper tablecloth, and the Star Wars plates, and ate Star Wars cake. And 50 total strangers sang happy birthday to me. So, the originals will always be the ones for me.

[Deja Q]

26. I had the laserdiscs for a while...

The recent $13 DVD offerings do have the original theatrical releases as a 2nd disc... But not even anamorphic; they were transfers of the existing laserdiscs!

The adding to the original was pointless.

A few scenes added into "Empire" were okay, and having the Emperor blow the finale was a mixed bag (they try not to give it away so directly) -- at least it's the proper Emperor, Ian McDermid...

"Return" was pointless; I prefer the original muppets and music to the hack put into their place.

The new f/x, when they don't work, come across as being an arcade game.

The original f/x in of itself were masterpieces; I can see where CGI allowed more fluid shots, blah blah, but he should still be proud of the originals.

[grannylib]

30. It's hard to say; I was lucky enough to see the original in pre-release

so it was "uncut" at that time. When it came out nationally, there were scenes that had been cut and I was ticked...there are stills of some of the cut scenes in "The Star Wars Story Book" from about that time...I don't know that I've seen any "updated" versions.

[Orrex]

31. Did you see the Biggs-n-Luke scene on Tattooine?

I had a friend who who swore for years that he'd seen it, though he had only seen the standard theatrical release of the film.

[pokerfan]

32. It's on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/v/aziOgYTGNmU&hl

[Orrex]

33. I know, but YouTube didn't exist in 1978

This friend swore by it for the 15 or so years that I knew him, long before the Internets might have provided him a glimpse.

And his story wasn't that he'd seen the scene; he claimed to have seen it as part of the theatrical release.