WHY GEORGE LUCAS PISSES ME OFF! As far back as I can remember I have been a Star Wars Fan. I wasn't old enough to have seen the original Star Wars in the theater but I always got lots of Star Wars toys for Christmas and Birthdays. Especially when The Empire Strikes back came out, I had most of the Star Wars toys, including the HUGE AT-AT. I must have seen The Empire Strikes Back in the theater because as a kid I knew a lot of things about the movie but I don't specifically remember seeing it. After all I was about 5 years old at the time. Return of the Jedi is the first Star Wars film I actually remember seeing in the movie theater. I was about 9 years old and my grandmother took me to see the movie. I still remember the way she screamed when she saw Jabba the Hutt. From then like most other little boys my age I wanted to be a Jedi. The years past and I collected everything Star Wars I could get my hands on. Then while I was in college Timothy Zahn wrote a book trilogy that took place after Return of the Jedi. After all these years Star Wars fans had something to be excited about again. At first George Lucas kept tight control over his Star Wars Universe. Timothy Zahn's novels captured the flavor and essence of the first three movies. It was like being reunited with old friends. But like all good things the glory days came to an end. With the remarkable success of the Zahn Trilogy more and more authors sought to publish Star Wars novels. Like anything else when you flood the market with product the quality drops. As a dutiful Star Wars fan I read as many books as I could. Even when they weren't very good I bought and read them out of a sense of duty. But slowly you found yourself separating the movie Star Wars Universe from the book Star Wars Universe. After buying and reading 20+ Star Wars novels I could not keep up with the wave of books being produced. Not to mention that the more books that came out the worse the stories got. It was relatively simple to discount the events that transpired in the novels because they all took place after Return of the Jedi. So until Lucas decided to make Episodes 7, 8, and 9 (not likely to EVER happen ) the books were not the "official history" of Star Wars, they were more akin to legends or folk tales. Little did I know that George Lucas was about to throw a thermal detonator into the Universe he created. I was in Law School by time the 20th Anniversary of Star Wars rolled around. By now Kenner/Hasbro had reproduced the Star Wars line of action figures. For me this was a great opportunity for me to recapture my childhood and re-build the army and had as a child and get the stuff I couldn't afford as a child. Also there were rumors floating around of George Lucas making Episodes 1, 2 and 3 the prequels to Star Wars. Once again there was a lot to be excited about as a Star Wars Fan. But before all the Episode 1 hype began George Lucas thought it would be neat to re-release all three Star Wars films to the theaters for the 20th Anniversary. Okay, so far that is a great idea! In addition George Lucas decided to use present day technology to "fix" some of the scenes in the trilogy that he wishes he could have done better in 1977-1983. Again, in THEORY this sounded like a great idea. I waited with bailed breath to see these films once again in the theater. For people like me who were too young to see the original Star Wars in the theater this was a golden opportunity. Only little did I know what George would do to these films. All in all the Star Wars Special Edition Trilogy is great EXCEPT for a few little points that drive me crazy! These small annoying points would foreshadow the ridiculous and absurd elements of Episode 1. There is one and only one thing that I blame for these scenes. GEORGE LUCAS. Now that George Lucas was a virtual GOD in movie making no one had the ability, the guts or the courage to tell George Lucas how stupid he was being. Back in the good old days of the original Star Wars trilogy George Lucas was the sole word on what happened in the movie. Lots of people had input and the end product was great. In the Special Edition Episode 1, I am convinced that George Lucas' ideas went unquestioned, unchecked and therefore flawed by his own narrow sightedness. The is no excuse for George Lucas to destroy a large chunk of the Star Wars Universe just because he wanted to add something his kids thought would be cool. George Lucas may have given us all the Star Wars Universe but after he released the movies it became a part of all of and our culture. By ruining it he is ruining us. I know you cant please 100% of the people all the time but most Star Wars fans agree that my beefs are legit. See if you agree. STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE (SPECIAL EDITION) HAN AND GREEDO- In the original Star Wars Han Solo is confronted by the Bounty Hunter Greedo. Being held prisoner at gun point Han slowly reaches for his blaster and blows Greedo away. Evil is punished end of story…but this wasn't good enough for George. He decided that Han was supposed to be a "good guy" and he shouldn't, as Jabba said "Crispa Greedo," without more provocation. So in the Special Edition Greedo now shoot at Han Solo not once, not twice but three time at point blank range AND MISSES! Now having been thoroughly provoked Han can shoot back. This sense not only looks stupid it was VERY unnecessary. We all knew that Han was a scoundrel and rouge, that's the way we like him. Sure maybe he softens up a bit after joining the rebellion but I don't know of any one who blamed Han for Greedo's death in the original film. (Except of course Imperials, The Hutts and Greedo's family.) THE MISSING JABBA THE HUTT SCENE- Most hard core Star Wars fans knew that in the original film George Lucas shot a scene with Han and Jabba the Hutt. At the time Jabba was a man, it was originally planned that the actor would be covered by animation of some sort to create Jabba the Hutt. The actor who played Jabba the Hutt had a distinct Scottish accent as well as dialogue such as "Han me boy!" Jabba actually looked like a thinner version of Fat Bastard from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. So when the Special Edition rolled around Lucas decided to put the Jabba scene back in the film. In theory a great idea, only now we all knew what Jabba looked like. So the team at the Skywalker Ranch made a CGI (Computer Generated Image) Jabba the Hutt. But in order to fit him in the scene they had to make him much smaller and weirder looking than he appeared in Return of the Jedi. There was something in the eyes and overall shape of Jabba that just didn't look right. Jabba looked like he was starving to death. In addition, George turned Jabba from the menacing vile gangster that he was into sniveling wimp who practically begs Han to pay him back. This weakness is accentuated by Han stepping on Jabba's tail with no reaction other than a pitiful look of pain. The only reason Han steps on Jabba's tail is because Han walks around Jabba in the original version and the only way to walk around the real Jabba would be to step on him. In my eyes this whole scene came off as very cheesy and patronizing. Why in the world would Jabba act like this? Why would Jabba ever say "Han me boy?" Can't you at least change the dialogue? Apparently not. To make matters worse we see Jabba the Hutt again in Episode 1 and he is back to his huge vile beautiful self again. What the heck happened? Did Jabba go on the slim fast diet between Episode 1 and Episode 4 and then bulk up again by Episode 6? It just doesn't make any sense. STAR WARS: EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (SPECIAL EDITION) I didn't have any major problems with this one. There were some very minor things changed. Over all a good job. STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI (SPECIAL EDITION) JEDI ROCKS- Okay, this is probably the least offense change in the trilogy but it is still a little bit annoying. First of all I love the original performance of Sy Snootles and the Max Rebo Band in the original film. Why it had to be replaced I don't know. I do know that George was not happy with the muppet like nature of some of the aliens and wanted it to be a big spectacular musical number. So now we have a CGI episode of the Muppet Show (not that there is anything wrong with muppets mind you.) All I have to say about this is if it ain't broke don't fix it. EWOK CELEBRATION- Again, why change the song? I liked the old one. The fireworks on all the Star Wars related planets was cool, however. STAR WARS EPISODE ONE: THE PHANTOM MENACE Okay my real rant and rave here is about Episode One. I remember very clearly being so excited for the release of this film. I mean after all these years a NEW Star Wars film? To make matter worse the trailer for this movie looked AWSOME! I mean people paid to see the trailer in the movie theater and didn't even stay to see the movie that the trailer was part of! One week prior to the release of the movie I waited 6 hours on line for a ticket on opening night midnight movie. Then on the day of the show I had to wait forever again just to get into the theater even though I had a ticket already! Then the movie started…overall I really liked it. I know many people were disappointed however. When you wait so long for a movie like this how can you not be somewhat disappointed. Now movie could live up to all that hype. There were a few things like the Anakin as Jesus bit that I just shook my head at right away, but the more I watched the movie the less I liked it. Here is why… JAR JAR BINKS- WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS ALL ABOUT! Come on! No one likes Jar Jar! The best part will be when he eventually dies (it has to happen eventually). It is not a good reason to torture millions of people just because your kids thought he was cute. ANAKIN AS JESUS- I had heard that the movie had very spiritual overtone but little did I know that they were going to say that Anakin Skywalker was a product of the immaculate conception! I distinctly remember the sound of a thousand hands hitting their foreheads in the audience going "DO'H." This part of the movie just never should have happened. Deleting several seconds of this film would have made it much better. Who cares who Anakin's father was…sometimes a little mystery is a good thing. R2D2 SAVES THE DAY- In this scene R2D2 repairs the shield on the Queens Starship and saves the day. Later the Queen holds a small ceremony to thank R2D2. What everyone has seemed to forget is that droids like R2D2 were seen as simple machine and NOT PEOPLE. Droids had no rights, in fact droids memory circuits were often wiped because they got too independent. As a friend of mine pointed out this is like have a ceremony to honor your toaster…"Thank you toaster for doing your job and evenly toasting my bread." ANAKIN IS THE MAKER- Remember all those times that C3P0 says "Thank the Maker," well guess what he was talking about Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader. Now this is just weird. Maybe there will be some great reason for this but as for now I am just confused. MEMORY LAPSES- There are several things in Episode One that don't make much sense in context with the other films. For example, why doesn't Obi Wan recognize R2- D2? Sure there are lots of droids around but how many are as spunky and unique as R2? Why does Ben tell Luke that "When I met your father he was already a great pilot"? Sure Anakin was a pilot sort of, if you count pod racers… Also why did Obi-wan tell Luke that Yoda trained him when it was obvious in Episode one that Qui-Jon trained him? I just don't get it. To make matters worse if Anakin lived on Tatooine why was it so hard to find the missing droids in Star Wars? Darth Vader should be like "Hey, I know this place like the back of my hand…" This leads to another Star Wars problem if you read the novels, there are only like 7 planets in the Star Wars Universe (Tatooine, Hoth, Dagobah, Kessel, Dantooine, Alderan, Yavin and maybe some other home worlds). The reason Anakin is from Tatooine is because they couldn't make up any new planets. Now please explain to me after all of this why you would hide you son Luke from his father on the very planet he grew up on? With his father brother Owen no less! AGE GAP BETWEEN ANAKIN AND PADME- Is it just me or is it wrong to see a 10 year old hitting on a 16 year old….YUCK! ANAKIN VS. DROID CONTROL SHIP- Why oh why did this scene have to happen? Anakin "accidentally" blows up the reactor core, eh? Wouldn't it have been more believable if the other pilots see Anakin crash and get the idea to follow him into the hangar. Then they can all blow it up from the inside. Even if you want to have Anakain be the hero by blowing the place up one of the Naboo pilots can radio Anakin and tell him to blow it up from inside. How querky and awkward was the original accidentally version? This led to the "NOT IN MY MOVIE GAME." This is where a scene is so bad that your brain forgets it. If someone tries to remind you of it reply "that wasn't in MY movie." OBI-WAN KILLS DARTH MAUL- This is perhaps the stupidest part of the film. Why would Darth Maul watch Obi-wan jump over him and stare at him while he is being cleaved in two? DEFEND YOURSELF DAMMIT! I expected to see Obi-wan turn on Qui-Jon's lightsaber when he started to grab it with the force. Once it was turned on Obi- wan could have use the force to pull it through Darth Maul's Back taking him completely by surprise! But instead Obi wan does the huge leap and spin and slice all while Darth Maul looks on without raising as much as an eyebrow in defense…yeah right. The only way George can make this up to me is by bringing Darth Maul back in Episode 2 with his torso mounted on tank treads! I have to admit even after all this ranting and raving I still love Star Wars. In watching Episode 1 again in preparation for this rant I did enjoy the movie a lot. The world is probably better with Episode 1 than without it but it is disappointing and frustrating that these stupid scenes exist. I know I will be one of the first on line again with Episode 2 and Episode 3 all I can hope is that this all makes sense when all is said and done. May the Force be with You!