The Empire's New Clothes
by Prue
This is another one that I wrote a few years ago--right around the new trilogy, when feelings were already running high about the changes to the Star Wars "canon," so to speak. Then, George Lucas announced that his newer, modified versions of the original Star Wars trilogy would be the only ones available, and great arguments erupted throughout nerd-dom. Oh, and because I don't mention it in the article, just to be clear--Greedo shooting first is total bullshit.
I miss the “Yub Yub” song. I realize that some people would say that the Yub Yub song at the end of Return of the Jedi symbolizes everything that has gone wrong with the Star Wars franchise. I say that if you had to imagine exactly what kind of celebratory music would be created by a primitive civilization of tribal teddy bears, the Yub Yub song would be it. Now, if you are not familiar with this song, then chances are that you don’t know who Admiral Ackbar is or why Grand Moff Tarkin seems to outrank Darth Vadar on the original Death Star. (Actually, I’m not sure myself why that is—you’d think the guy with the ability to supernaturally strangle people would jump right to the head of the Galactic Empire hierarchy, but maybe Tarkin plays golf with the Emperor or knew him back when he was just a Senator from the sticks. But I digress.) If you don’t know or don’t care about intergalactic politics in a galaxy far, far away, then chances are that you are unmoved by the sacrilege that is now being perpetrated on the original Star Wars trilogy. However, if you don’t think that using the word “sacrilege” to describe changes to some of the great movies of our time is too over-the-top, then you are a fan. And you understand why the fans are furious.
Well, maybe not all of the fans. The universe of sci-fi fandom does tend to break down into divisions between purists and loyalists. (Or between strict Star Wars constructionists and those who believe in a “living” trilogy.) So when George Lucas declared that he would not release the original movie version of the first Star Wars trilogy on DVD, but only the Special Editions, there were some fans who defended the move. The Special Edition versions (shown in theatrical re-release in 1997) included various changes to the original releases, such as an added scene between Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt in A New Hope and a new music sequence in Jabba’s throne room in Jedi. In addition, smaller alterations are made throughout the movies, adding various CGI creatures or background items and smoothing out visual or audio effects. With the recent release of the Star Wars trilogy on DVD, Lucas has incorporated more changes, such as replacing the Emperor from the old trilogy with Ian McDiarmid (Chancellor Palpatine of the new trilogy), replacing Boba Fett’s voice with that of Temura Morrison (who played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones), and, most notoriously, replacing the “old” Anakin Skywalker from Luke’s vision at the end of Jedi with Hayden Christensen.
One could argue, as many Lucas loyalists have, that the improvements are all made with the intention of making the films better. And had the Special Edition tinkering stopped with improving technical weaknesses, most fans would not object to it. The problem, however, lies in the various changes that alter, even if subtly, the world that Lucas created in the first trilogy—the world that is the basis for so much of his following. And by showing what some fans perceive as a lack of respect for his earlier creation (and of their love for it), Lucas has managed to alienate quite a few of the Star Wars purists.
“George Lucas raped my childhood.” Over at the Ain’t It Cool News website, these words come up so often in reference to the changes that they have started to become stale and cliché. The frustration with what has happened to the Star Wars franchise is tangible, with the purists struggling to define why it was wrong for Lucas to alter the film. Yet, as loyalists smugly point out, the films belong to Lucas, and US copyright law permits him to do as he wishes. It is this seemingly irrefutable ownership argument that seems to cause the most frustration of all.
The fans are frustrated because they, with some justification, feel that these movies belong to them too. After all, they are the ones who helped to lift the Star Wars trilogy beyond mere movies to their current monolithic cult status. They’ve bought the merchandise, bought the movies in all their various formats, dressed up like the characters, stood in line for days to see the new trilogy, forgiven (or tried to forgive) Lucas for Jar-Jar Binks and the fact that the most evil man in the universe started off as a whiny Backstreet Boy clone, created the fan movies, and spent years trying to explain and explore the minutiae of the Star Wars universe. It may have been Lucas who created the characters, but once he unveiled them to the world, Star Wars became part of our collective cultural experience. Thus, you can’t help but sympathize when one fan writes, “I don't have a problem with his ‘improving’ the films to his artistic preference. He has that right. But his insensitivity toward the fans and the crew who made those movies happen with the special effects of that time is appalling.”
The debate over who “owns” Star Wars is irrelevant to the true issue, though it does illustrate the philosophical complexity of intellectual property. In truth, the conflict is a clash between conservativism and liberalism. Lucas’ galactic revisionism is all made with the best of good intentions. He wants to improve the technical quality of the earlier films, add plot points, plug story holes, and generally “improve” upon the original movies. Nor is he unaware of the contrast between his earlier independent career and his current role as a wealthy and powerful corporate filmmaker. During the Empire of Dreams documentary in the new DVD set, Lucas remarks, “So there's a certain irony there: I have become the very thing that I was trying to avoid — which is basically what part of Star Wars is about.”
And yet, all of these good intentions do not obscure the fact that by fiddling with the original movies (and not allowing their release in their unchanged state), Lucas has shown himself to be remarkably obtuse about their value to the fans and their place in popular culture. Whether the non-technical changes objectively improve the quality of the films is irrelevant. (Though a strong argument can be made that they don’t. At times—such as the addition of the scene between Han Solo and Jabba in A New Hope—it seems that the scene was included because the technology existed to make it possible and not because it was particularly enlightening or entertaining.) You could claim that all sorts of changes could be made to “improve” certain films. How about putting in a little KKK hood on Scarlett’s second husband in Gone with the Wind? And maybe we could add some visual interest to Casablanca by throwing in a dance number during the “La Marseillaise” scene. And perhaps we could go back to Titanic and replace the dialogue with something that passes for intelligent, believable conversation.
Of course, no one would suggest, in all seriousness that we change any classic movie. (Titanic, on the other hand, is an entirely different thing.) Such artistic revisionism obscures what made the film great in the first place. And even a film’s weaknesses can contribute to its popularity or strength as a movie. Art does not take place in a vacuum—its power and resonance often come from context. For example, part of what made Star Wars special was the change it represented from other popular movies of the time. Weary of cynicism and antiheroes, the public took the optimism and imagination of Star Wars to heart and American movies changed as a result. Making these changes devalues the movies and the shared cultural experience of them. Star Wars did not make it to number 14 on the AFI’s list of the 100 best American movies based on its special effects, but because of its story, its characters, and what it meant to film history. And no one said, “Hey, I’d rank it at number eight, if only there was an unnecessary confrontation between Han Solo and Jabba and more background use of Banthas and Jawas.”
The fact is that the Star Wars world was always full of holes. Lucas apparently never felt the need to be Tolkienesque in planning the history and metaphysics of his fantasy universe. The concept of the Force—the religious compilation album and cool parlor trick that is the basis of the Star Wars universe—already seemed like a dated New Age-lite philosophy before we learned (in Episode 1) that its mystical powers revolved around teeny-tiny Jedi-dwelling organisms. The Silmarillion this is not. But for many fans, the plot holes and contradictions are part of the charm, and the clumsy attempts to address them just seem to rob the movies of their magic. Lucas seems unable to resist the artistic impulse to correct his masterpieces to the point of destroying them. The poet Paul Valéry once remarked, “A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death.” If only Lucas could have wearied of Star Wars and allowed the works to remain as first delivered to its fans—especially the part with the Yub Yub song.