I fucking tolerate George Lucas.

[Kid_A]

I've been a Star Wars fan for as long as I've been alive, and I enthusiastically went to Best Buy at 12:01 on Sept 21 to get the DVDs, even though I knew he messed with the movies even more since 1997. But I'm somewhat annoyed at some of the changes he made to the movies. Han shooting first still sucks (though not as badly), CGI Jabba still sucks (though not nearly as badly), the CGI alien band in Jabba's palace still sucks (just as badly as always), Boba Fett's new voice wussifies his character, and adding Gungans to the end of JEDI really, really sucks, even if they're really small and only on screen for a second.

I think the tweaks he made for the DVDs really do improve on the 1997 versions. The lightsabers in STAR WARS look a lot better (no more shots of just a white pole), Luke's scream in EMPIRE is gone (proof that Lucas listens to fans), the Vader/Emperor scene in EMPIRE is actually quite good, and much improved upon the old version. Even changing the Anakin ghost in JEDI to Hayden Christensen makes sense to me.

While I would like to see the untouched originals on DVD, just for the sake of posterity, these new versions are still the same movies I've loved for my whole life. If your wife got a little bit of plastic surgery, would you still love her? Of course you would. She would still be the same person inside, and that's what counts.

If liking these new versions of the Star Wars trilogy makes me a huge dork and a traitor to legions of film lovers, then go ahead and label me a traitorous dork.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. Traitorous dork

:evilgrin:

Actually, I hate Star Wars in any version.

[ET Awful]

2. Well said . . .

truth be told, I'm fairly indifferent to the changes. I'm not a huge fan of the new films really. I just think that Lucas should do whatever he thinks is right, after all, they are his babies :)

I agree completely, they're still the same movie, and they still have the same story.

[Darkseid69]

3. Really?

They changed the Anakin ghost in JEDI to Hayden Christensen?

No Joke?

[Kid_A]

4. Yep. And it doesn't change the scene at all.

It's still the same cheesy Ewok love-fest that we've loved for 21 years. It's just a bit more polished that it used to be, but still the same scene.

[Love Bug]

5. I bought the DVDs too

I agree that Lucas has a right to do whatever he wants to his movies. I must say, they did an excellent job of restoring the color and cleaning them up--they look like they were filmed recently, not 20+ years ago.

After watching the three movies it finally dawned on me what I think is the fundamental problem with Eps I and II (other than details like bad writing): Eps I and II are too long. Eps IV-VI each clock in at around 2 hours, yet Eps I and II are what, 3 hours each? If Lucas edited Eps I and II down to 2 hrs each (goodbye pod race!) they'd be much improved, IMO.

[Crunchy Frog]

6. I'm really glad that I have the originals

on video in the widescreen version. I hope that they will come out on DVD someday.