Lucas Redeemed!!

I just read an article on MSNBC this morning announcing that the original three Star Wars films are to be released on DVD in their original formats! That means no special edition hoo haa! Hooray!

Goodbye wormy looking baby Jabba, farewell Gredo shooting first, and welcome back original Jub-Jub ewok ending. I am thrilled beyond words. Up until now I’ve had to get by on DVD burns of the original laser disc editions that a friend of mine got off Ebay. The quality was passable, but it was disappointing to go without the original DVD cover art and special features. For a long time I held out and refused to buy the Star Wars Special Edition DVD box set when it was released in the fall of 2004. Finally this year, I received it as a gift, and resigned myself to the fact that the original films were never to be released in my lifetime. Others may have suspected that this was not true, but I had lost all hope. Lucas made it very clear that he held the final answer in the matter, and that he wasn’t about to budge

Some may complain that this is just another ploy on behalf of Lucasfilm to make more money, but I disagree. I think that finally things are being handled as they should have been all along. Whether or not the Special Editions should have ever been made is a separate issue. Now that the Special Editions do exist, it is only fair and just that both editions be availible to the public.

For me, the moments I’ll be most happy to see in crystal clear DVD format are the original songs of Jedi. The original tune that the band play’s in Jabba’s palace is way better than the loopy, pyschotically upbeat song that replaced it. The rousing Ewok song at the celebration in the end is also far better than the new age laser rock of the S.E. I’ll also be pleased to see Sebastian Shaw’s kindly spectral face next to Obi-Wan, as opposed to Hayden Christenson. I never understood why he changed that.