re: Star Wars
 

and what about the long lost Luke Leia Kiss from the original original version of Star Wars (not the one from Empire)... That got lost once the Return of the Jedi reveal of them being siblings.... began to surface... just saying....

edit: I guess I remembered from my youth as being much more than it was...

note Luke 1 in this montage..

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That was my personal theory at the time. It was just baffling why they wouldn't come out on DVD to me. I'd been following the development of the format for sometime and planned to buy a player when the SEs were released. When they were not, I bought the LD set. I had an 8 yr old LD player at that point. They were my second Internet purchase and my final LD purchase.

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The problem is, even if GL released the OOT in the perfect way, people would still bitch and moan about him and the SE and PT. He knows that, so whats the point for him to do it? Money? People would bitch and moan about that. Theres a no win situation for him.

Yes, I would like to have them, but you know what? Who cares. The release that he wants to put out, I can still sit down and enjoy watching them with my kids, and it builds there love for SW.

Im not saying fuck him, or hes right. In the end it dont fucking matter. The fans are more messed up.

What makes me sick the most is these fuckers over 40 that cry like little girls about the CW. Dont watch it. It is helping a new generation carry SW even farther. Do I like CW? Not, really, but my kids do, and I watch with them and play with them. And thats building a fanbase that they can carry into their kids, just like we did.

People bitched and moaned when TESB came out, people bitched when ROTJ came out. But, now people act like that never happened

Just have fun. They're movies, not life and death. Much more serious things out there to get bent out of shape about.

Im a diehard fan, hell my kids and pets are named after characters.

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Wait, what? I'm confused by this statement... what does hating or supporting CW have to do with Star Wars? Or does CW stand for something other the TV network?

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Do they still have that ugly green and white color scheme that they began with back in 2006 or whenever it was?

I was going to watch a couple of new fall shows on it and I hope that's been changed at least a little.

;)

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He's referring to the Clone Wars CG cartoon that's currently airing on TV.

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Nobody around here is claiming Lucas raped their childhood. Just treat the original versions with respect and give them a decent releade

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Lucas began to dispose of anybody around him who challenged his ideas between Empire and Jedi. It's no coincidence that the prequels are flat, boring, dull, uninteresting, and devoid of any of the charm that the originals evoke. That's because he had complete control. The script was a first draft with little to no critical input.

Is Lucas a terrible filmmaker? Not necessarily. He's gone on record many times stating he doesn't care for non-technical aspects of filmmaking. He had good ideas but people around him are who made the OT great. Lucas undeservedly gets all the credit and as his empire has grown so has his ego. The constant revisions to the movies are just sad. You lose the appreciation for the effects done 30 years ago as he continually adds out of place CGI. It's insulting to anybody who I imagine worked very hard on the OT only to see their contributions erased or otherwise disparaged by Lucas.

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Exactly:up:

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Yep, I feel stupid... I knew it wasn't the TV network! :)

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Including Gary Kurtz. He once mentioned that George made heavy revisions to ROTJ's mapped out storyline. According to him, Jedi was always intended to have a much more bittersweet ending -- with our heroes taking separate paths (except for Han, who was still going to be killed at that point). Also, no Death Star II... or Ewoks. There is a good interview on IGN where he touches upon it briefly.

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I love that the people still defending this nonsense have usernames culled directly from the mythos. We're all fans of Star Wars - it's exactly why we are passionate about this topic. Some of us, over the last 14 years, have realized what's been going on and we see through the BS comin out of the camp. There's no reason at all, except sheer arrogance, to refuse to admit the mistake of not releasing what was originally released in 1977, 1980, and 1983. It's stupid not to. It's stupid to worry about it. I've spoken with my wallet. I'm a diehard fan too. Maybe even moreso since I refuse to blindly accept that I'll never get what I was a fan of.

In high school before the SEs were thought of, before the prequels were announced, we recited the movies line-for-line. We all grew up with it. It was all ingrained in our collective conscious. I don't appreciate being told that my devotion to this "hokey religion" was based on an incomplete work and that I shouldn't have seen it in an "unfinished" state. I'm being told that my love was wasted. That my opinion and my memories count for nothing. I don't get the choice that literally every other movie release provides.

I would happily buy the entire saga for the bonus discs if I had the unmolested OT as an option. As it is, I have no interest because GL has no interest in respecting the people that built his empire so he could become the megalomaniac revisionist he had become.

I couldn't feel right claiming I love the movies so much and have a screenname from that universe all while accepting this drivel. That's a weird definition of "hardcore fanboy".

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I'm not claiming he raped my childhood or that I'm owed anything either. I'm just saying that he knows I'm here. He knows there are people that only want what he won't admit he was wrong in keeping hidden. If he doesn't care about me, I don't care about him. Yes, I'm the one that loses in that. I don't care. I've grown used to not having Star Wars in my life... I say as I lie here in bed wearing a SW t-shirt...

re: Star Wars
 

There were other reasons why as well, and not always the way Kurtz likes to tell it. But I won't bother, because I've had these discussion too many times. Gary Kurtz is given tons of credit by Star Wars nerds angry at Lucas, and the truth is he doesn't deserve much of it. He created, wrote, and directed nothing in Star Wars other than the odd second unit scenes. The best thing Kurtz ever did was challenge Lucas. But I'm not sure that deserves being given credit for the things he's been given credit for. Producers aren't responsible for great films. Directors, writers, and actors are.

Nope! It's because he made them for the wrong reasons......money, and because they were made two decades after the originals. Nothing any filmmaker could have done with the prequels would have ever lived up to the original trilogy. You can't capture lightning in a bottle the way you once did. We all grew up. Look at Indy. Lucas had little to do with that film, other than story credits, and it still pales in comparison. I can go on and on with other examples, but you get my point. Besides, the prequels weren't planned out well. They were essentially made up on the fly, which is never a good thing.

Would it have been better if Lucas hired a great screenwriter? Of course, and he tried to get Kasdan. But to no avail. They still weren't going to live up to the originals, no matter what. They were a part of our childhood, and you can't top that.

Lucas' priorities changed after Empire. His wife abandoned him and their child, and he was left to raise a baby. So he essentially lost interest in filmmaking and went on a long hiatus. Had that not happened, maybe Lucas continues to make great films. Who knows. But kids and a family change you. You can't go almost 2 decades without making a film, without losing your edge. We've seen the same thing happen to many once great directors.

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I remember after seeing all the Lord of the Rings movies it was a wonderful reminder that a great trilogy of fantasy movies could be conceived this century. The Star Wars prequels didn't have to be as good as the originals, they just should haven't been good and they really could have been.

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Truer words, man. Truer words. Perfect post.

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Says you, I for one am happy to have them on bd even if its just the special editions of these great films.
I dont consider that losing out

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Yep lol

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I can respect the spirit of this feeling, but I have to say that I immediately thought of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I can't even guess how many times I've watched that over the years. It was the only movie I had on VHS at both my mom's house and my dad's. I could probably talk along with the movie even if you muted the actors. Yet, I actually prefer the Extended Edition that hit DVD. Almost all of the additions focus on Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham, and more Alan Rickman is a good thing in my world. More importantly, the additional material solidifies his character's arc and puts it on equal footing with Robin's.

I would argue that it being the same character is sufficient. Otherwise, why not film Jake Lloyd replacing Hayden Christensen entirely now that he's around the right age? Then you could have Lloyd be the only on-screen actor to play that character from start to finish.

Also, we get into an interesting situation with the Spirit of Anakin. I always assumed he appeared un-scarred and with hair as a manifestation of how he should have been, had he not fallen prey to Palpatine's manipulations. On that basis, I accepted that he looked different than the pasty white, scarred Anakin that died in Luke's arms.

The argument for Hayden-as-Ghost is that that's how Anakin looked when last he was a Jedi. Which is, I suppose, not an inherently flawed idea given that we've already accepted the previous implication of Cleaned Up Anakin's Ghost. I don't know. I've always hated that change, but I confess the farther down this rabbit hole I go, the more muddled it becomes.

Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan was always my favorite element of Star Wars. Do not tamper with that.

It's become a meme among the anti-Lucas crowd. A quick search finds eight different posts in this thread alone that include "raped childhood" (easily the most unnerving search request I have ever made, by the way) though admittedly it appears at first glance several of those are from posters who insist they're not a "Lucas raped my childhood" person. Still, the fact they even felt the need to make the distinction says something about the prevalence of the phrase.

The ghosts of David Selznick and Sam Spiegel would like a word with you. Also, you've overlooked the value of editors in creating great films. They're the ones who have to synthesize the best footage, create transitions, etc. and ultimately determine the pace of a film. When to linger, when to move quickly, etc.; these are all important in ways that are too often overlooked.

As for Kurtz and his significance, I do agree that I think some fans have inflated ideas of him. Where I disagree is in the nature of that inflation. I think his contributions were significant. There are a lot of fans who seem to be of the mind that Kurtz was their champion and if Lucas had just kept him around, they'd have had the Star Wars they wanted. The unaltered OT, maybe never even any Special Editions, and the prequels would have been entirely satisfactory for them. Those fans have pinned their entire "It should have been like this..." notions on Kurtz and that's as unfair as it is unrealistic.

re: Star Wars
 

That's always been an amusement to me. Anytime I read someone defending Lucas I glance left at their username and then think, "Yep, figures." :)

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I don't know where or how the "George Lucas raped my childhood" thing originated*, but the first times I remember seeing it, it was usually used by the pro-anything-George-Lucas-does crowd to deflect criticism.

*Though it wouldn't surprise me if it first appeared in an AICN talkback thread.

re: Star Wars
 

The Google search results are interesting. One result is an archived thread from DVD Talk, "Origin of 'George Lucas Raped My Childhood'?", last active in 2004.

Then there's this:

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That's not true

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Search your feelings. You know it to be true!

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Guess I should have added, "That's Impossible"