So I'm a little late to Star Wars Day, which really takes place on May
25th, the anniversary of Star Wars' birth back in 1977.
Nearly every year I have the intention of bingeing every* movie in that
24-hour period. Pretty much every year, I fail. This year, I decided I
wasn't going to let it happen: there was a long weekend and May 25th
was right in the middle of it. Granted I didn't TOTALLY follow
through, I watched 1-3 on May 24th and 4-6 on May 25th.
It was great. I fell in love with Star Wars again. I had been avoiding
it for many reasons, not the least of which is I watched it as a
child more than most people watch in their lifetimes. I memorized the
script to all 3 movies (before there were more). I watched them over
and over again and a kid: every other day was my turn to choose a
movie to watch after school. Every time I chose Star Wars. That went
on for months.
Another thing I ran into was watching my 2011 BD copies of 4-6. I had
bought them probably mostly out of loyalty and wanting to see SW in
HD and widescreen (while I have the DVDs, most of my memories are from
the fullscreen VHS copies from 1995 and 1997). I also was curious
about the changes Lucas made yet again.
I'm mostly fine with most of the changes to the OT, but there was one
in the 2011 release that took me aback: Darth Vader yelling "Nooo!
NOOOOO!" right before/when he picked up the Emperor and threw him down
the shaft. I don't know if this was a troll job by Lucas just to stick
it to the assholes that criticized him for his changes or what, but it
was awful. I may have seen that before, but it was by far the worst
"addition" to the series. I quickly got my 2004 copy and watched it.
Still not a fan of Hayden Christensen at the end of 6 (or Naboo, for
that matter), but at least it didn't ruin the climactic scene of the
trilogy.
For all his faults, I deeply respect George Lucas for giving us those
films. I respect his judgment in most things. I can now say with
certainty that he was the best steward of the Star Wars saga and his
openness to allow other authors and creatives to add to the universe
was not only genius, but generous. He could have easily said no and
left Star Wars to only his vision, but he didn't. I don't even really
blame him for selling Star Wars to Disney because again, the "fans"
really came down about 3,720 times harder than they should have.
And last but not least, Episode II's commentary made me realize that
widescreen was better because the effects coordinator mentioned an
Easter egg in the corner of a chase scene that I tried many times to
find before finding out on the Internet that it was cropped out of the
4x3 version.
Here is my collection of Star Wars movies:
1995 VHS 4-6
1997 VHS 4-6 (SE)
2004 DVD 4-6 (SE+OE (1993))
2000 VHS 1
2002 DVD 2 (4x3)
2006 DVD 1-3 (widescreen)
2011 BD 4-6
I also have lots of books and plenty of video games based on Star
Wars, as well.
Before Disney turned Star Wars into a clearance aisle meme, Lucas
created a masterpiece of cinema and I'm so glad to have grown up with
it.
