Look, I already explained that my issue was not to defend the changes made by Lucas in the special edition. Heck, I’ve got a “Han Shot First” t-shirt. But I also like the addition of spaceships taking off, the added Biggs scene, the windows in Cloud City and the cleaning up of some of the more obvious matte lines, things that I think help many scenes flow more smoothly.
But my point is the hatred I see in the way people use Lucas’ name. People say they love the movies, and yet their creator’s name is only uttered in contempt, in the context of the “destroyed” revisions. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d have thought from the discussion that Lucas’ only association with Star Wars had been the revisions. And taking a name, and rather than just having it refer to the person, using it as a word to associate with things you disapprove of, is of course things that Stalin and other dictators are known for. Someone has fallen out of favor? Call him a Trotskyist.
So Cory is far from the first to do it, and my issue is not just with him, but with the general attitude. But he did take it one step further. The prefix “de” means to remove something. Restored original versions of the movies have already been called “de-specialized,” “de-revised” or “de-changed.” But Cory didn’t use those, and decided to make it about the person, rather than just the changes he did. Restoring the originals is to “de-Lucas.” Remove Lucas. So the Special Editions were Lucas, and the originals, according to Cory, were not. This is not just revising a piece of fiction. It is altering what happened in real life.
I hope I’ve made my point clear. By all means, debate the merits of the Special Editions, or the fact that he didn’t preserve high quality masters of the originals. But it must be possible to do it without using the name Lucas with such vitriol all the time, particularly when you consider how much he has given us.
