The Obligatory Special Edition Hate Thread

[Ortega]

In an effort to keep the cover thread from derailing, bitch about the Special Editions here.

[RVR II]

They Suck!

Nuf said..

[Piobman]

I'm with you RVR.

... so who is going to be the first to open up a can of whoop-ass on the special editions?

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I think the guys summed up my feelings about the changes to episode IV pretty well during the rifftrax.

The thing about the whole Han shooting second fiasco is that it weakens the ending.  Originally he was a selfish shoot first kind of guy and the fact that he came back to help Luke out was a little bit of a surprise.  Now he wasn't that bad ass to begin with so it's no big deal that he came back... 

I never had a problem with the changes to V.  I actually thought some of the added CGI stuff was good.

Then there's VI....  Thank the maker for the fast forward button, there's still a good movie in there if you can cut out the fat, it was a bit overweight to begin with and then lots of useless calories were added making it morbidly obese...

[dalem]

The only change to IV that bugs me is the Solo shooting first bit, for the same reasons as everone's already stated.  It's an introduced blip, done badly at that, in an otherwise iconic character.  Might as well have included a scene where Kenobi sticks his head into the sewing room and tells his wife "I'm taking the kid to Alderaan, back in a few babe!" or the like.

The changes in V actually really piss me off.  I liked it when the laser tower exploding rang like a bell.  Metal does strange things when stress-heated/cooled - making ringing noises can be one of them.  The real screamer for me is that crap with Vader returning to the SSD.  In the original it's a simple backtracking shot with Vader striding remorselessly forward stating an obviously pissed off "Bring my shuttle" while the corridor behind him fills with stormtroopers.  Next time we see him he's on the ship.  Duh.  We obviously know what happened - it's a movie, not a fecking documentary on orbital insertions.  Simple menace, "simple" scene, perfect scoring, perfect pacing, we know what happened.  The additions are dreck and ruin all of the above.  Can you tell I hate this?

VI?  The only change they could have made that would make me care would be to erase the whole ugly mess.  What a cheap dingleberry of a movie.

-dale

[bratpop]

there WERE 2 significant and somewhat lamentable things removed from the trilogy: Lapti Nek and Yub Nub.

I was actually just talking about the first movie.

Han never shot "first" he shot "only," and Lucas said he didn't want Han to look like a cold-blooded killer. You certainly can't say that, if you thought about it, you imagined Greedo was just going to shoot Han in the face in the middle of the cantina and drag his carcass back to Jabba, so the threat of killing Han for no reason was a little weak to warrant Han's "self defense." Maybe fans liked the fact that Han would just blow somebody away, but Lucas never intended that. He tried to fix a scene that was ultimately unfixable. I mean, if you erase Greedo's blast and show it to the nerds, they just sort of go, "Huh. Yeah, okay. That's better. NOW what can I complain about?" It didn't change his character, it made his character a little more clear. Ultimately, there should have been an old fashioned gunfight in the bar, but hindsight is 20/20. How is he less of a badass just because Greedo gets a shot off instead of getting killed like a chump? If you want to say it LOOKS stupid, fine. It looks a lot stupider when you watch it on repeat in slow motion while flagellating yourself. But saying it changes his character or ruins the trilogy is going a bit overboard.

You just know if Lucas fixed it and released another version, people would complain that now they HAVE to buy another version.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Han never shot "first" he shot "only," and Lucas said he didn't want Han to look like a cold-blooded killer. You certainly can't say that, if you thought about it, you imagined Greedo was just going to shoot Han in the face in the middle of the cantina and drag his carcass back to Jabba, so the threat of killing Han for no reason was a little weak to warrant Han's "self defense." Maybe fans liked the fact that Han would just blow somebody away, but Lucas never intended that. He tried to fix a scene that was ultimately unfixable.

Why couldn't you think that Greedo was going to kill Han in order to collect the bounty?  "Bring me his head" is a common enough movie theme...  It would be more implausible to think that he was going to walk Han out of the bar all the way back to Jabba, he would be risking Han getting away and losing the bounty.  So self defence is certainly a plausible reason for Han to shoot the guy that had a gun pointing at his head.

The scene worked fine the way it was, there was no need to "fix" it. 

Having said that, it never really bothered me all that much, it was just another of the unnecessary "fixes" like the little CGI animals and street scenes, the reaction in the rifftrax was perfect, it has been blown up to be the greatest abomination ever in movies...  I happen to think colorizing old movies is an abomination, but that's another topic.

You just know if Lucas fixed it and released another version, people would complain that now they HAVE to buy another version.

The only reason I'll ever buy another version is if it comes with the theatrical version on the disk (a good copy, not the low res crap they put in as an extra on some current releases).  Or if Rifftrax does a track for another "fixed" version, it would go in my "only for rifftrax" stack of disks.

[Pak-Man]

Am I the only Star Wars fan (Die hard, EU-Book Reading, Action Figure Collecting) who saw Greedo shoot, said, "Huh." and went back to enjoying the thrill of finally seeing SW on the big screen? :^)

[bratpop]

You know, 1997 was a time when there was a lot of talk about violence in movies. And Han Solo shoots a guy underneath the table. Probably in his Rodian junk. We're lucky Han didn't end up killing Greedo with a walkie-talkie.

[Nunyerbiz]

I don't hate the special editions really... just found them superfluous. Maybe I'm just not enough of a Star Wars nerd, but I thought it was pretty apparent that just about every "restored" scene was originally left on the cutting room floor for a reason. The added CGI stuff had it's moments, but it stuck out like a sore thumb compared to the remaining practical effects done back in the day. I can understand Lucas wanting a sandbox for his tech gizmos prior to making the prequels... but geez, couldn't he have just made Willow 2?

[RoninFox]

I went and saw all the special editions in the theater and though I didn't like all the changes, it didn't make me angry or anything, until I realized he was trying to completely replace the old versions.  Have the special editions as an experiment or a bonus is fine, but they should never been used to shove the original versions out of the way.

[dalem]

I went and saw all the special editions in the theater and though I didn't like all the changes, it didn't make me angry or anything, until I realized he was trying to completely replace the old versions.  Have the special editions as an experiment or a bonus is fine, but they should never been used to shove the original versions out of the way.

I kinda mostly sorta agree with all that almost 100%, in a way.

-dale

[ScottotD]

Am I the only Star Wars fan (Die hard, EU-Book Reading, Action Figure Collecting) who saw Greedo shoot, said, "Huh." and went back to enjoying the thrill of finally seeing SW on the big screen? :^)

No, I reacted pretty much the same way.

[Invisible NanoGhost]

Am I the only Star Wars fan (Die hard, EU-Book Reading, Action Figure Collecting) who saw Greedo shoot, said, "Huh." and went back to enjoying the thrill of finally seeing SW on the big screen? :^)

If that had been the only noticeable change, that might have been my reaction.  But then there's the scene with Jabba, where they repeat almost every line in the scene with Greedo, and the stupid thing with Hans apparently walking over Jabba's tail.  And the city which goes from being "a little sparse" to being way too busy (IMO).

[bratpop]

Am I the only one who thinks the worst thing about the special edition is that they never fixed the color of Luke's saber in ANH? It was still basically white, and then on the DVD it became suddenly green. A ten-year-old could have fixed that.