It was kind of inevitable that it would happen. The Blu-Ray release for the Star Wars Saga is imminent. Due on shelves in a couple of weeks time, but with only a few sites and reviewers getting their hands on pre-release copies, word has already started to come out that George Lucas has been tinkering again.
The guy can’t seem to lave things alone. In 1997, he first showed signs that he was unhappy with the films when he went back in and digitally corrected some of the dodgy puppetry and other elements that didn’t work the first time round.
Fair enough, things in Return of the Jedi such as Jabba’s band and the Sarlaac were much improved by CGI.
Then however things got a little worse. In 2004 when the original trilogy was released on DVD he made some unforgivable changes, resulting in various unnecessary CGI additions to things that didn’t need them. The most egregious being the replacement of Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back.
Now with the Blu-Ray release he has made some more changes which are absolutely ridiculous. The first of these and most notable is that during the climax of Return of the Jedi. Apparently Lucas has added the much derided Darth Vader “NOOOO!” from the end of Revenge of the Sith to when Luke is being electrocuted by the Chancellor. It is frankly stupid and you can watch this below.
Another very stupid change is the cry used by Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope to scare off the Sand People. That now sounds like someone having their spleen ripped out not scaring away some threatening poachers. Again watch below for yourself.
In addition to that, the puppet Yoda in The Phantom Menace has been replaced by a CGI one. This also looks flat out silly and lacks the physicality the puppet had. I will hunt Lucas down and cut off his hands if he has attempted this with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
For the love of God, why can’t the man just give us the films the way they originally were for once? I have no interest in lining Lucas’ pockets any further if he can’t accept the fact he did a decent job the first time round. And it’s for that reason that I have no interest in purchasing the Blu-Ray release, I’m perfectly happy with my DVD copies.
Star Wars The Complete Saga is available on Blu-Ray on September 12th.
UPDATE: Something I looked over, the Vader clip is not the official Blu-Ray clip but to be honest I can’t imagine it being much different in the final finished product. And it’s still stupid.
Source: Badass Digest
