Original Star Wars NEVER To Appear On DVD
There’s a story that has been posted at Ain’t it Cool News this morning (also reported on The Force.net). Star Wars creator George Lucas appeared last night at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood in honor of the opening night of a week-long tribute to ILM and Skywalker Sound by the American Cinematheque. According to many that were there, Lucas reportedly confirmed that the original theatrical versions of the Star Wars movies (as we all remember them from 1977, 1980 and 1983), will never appear on DVD. They’re lost to time, replaced by his new and still-in-development ultimate, final “super special editions”. The outraged reaction from fans is, of course, predictable… and entirely justified.
This plan isn’t particularly new – Lucas has vaguely (and not so vaguely) hinted several times in recent years that this was his intent. But if that turns out to be his final decision, the result would be that the original experience that captured the imaginations of an entire generation of moviegoers would be lost forever. How can that make any Star Wars fan anything but sad… and absolutely, downright, steaming, pissed-off angry. Given the almost complete lack of charm the new prequels have compared to even the first edit of the rough-hewn, original film, the fact that Lucas would fail to preserve the original experience of Star Wars shows how utterly and completely he’s lost sight of the point over the years.
Filmmakers have a responsibility to their audience and to cinema history. Lucas owes it to every single Star Wars fan that ever paid $5 for an action figure or $8 for a theater ticket to preserve the original experience. I don’t care if he doesn’t like them. We love them. I don’t care if he owns them. In a equally real and important way, we own them too. They’re part of our childhood! Steven Spielberg understood the importance of saving the original version of E.T., including it on DVD recently along with his “better” 2002 version. Lucas needs to follow his lead.
Hey… don’t get me wrong. I’m dying to see the new CGI-finished versions too. It’s his right to make them the way he always wanted to, and I’m all for it. But he still needs to preserve the original versions. He owes it to the fans, he owes it to everyone who ever worked on the films, he owes it to film historians and he owes it to generations of film lovers as yet unborn.
You might have built the Empire, George… but your fans paid for it. While you’re making us wait for YEARS for these fabled super-boffo special editions of the original films on DVD, WHY IN THE HELL don’t you release a set of movie-only DVDs of the original theatrical versions of the films?!! Every Star Wars fan on Earth would gladly shell out their hard-earned cash for the original versions now. And then, in 3 years or 5 years, they’d all be happy to buy the super-deluxe versions too!
Maybe if we all use the Force…
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