Rick's Cafe Americain

I had heard this before, but now it is apparently official.  George Lucas, in his fountain of wisdom, has decided to not release the original Star Wars movies on DVD, but only the Special Editions—including such revisionist history as Greedo firing first and Jabba looking like a pussy.

Now, don’t get me started on George Lucas and what he has done to the Star Wars Trilogy, you can look forward to that opus when Episode III comes out and I write my review of the prequels and explain why they are such a travesty and why I consider Star Wars—one of the greatest movies of all time—an accident of history (I’m sure you can hardly wait).  But, for why this particular decision is so galling…

‘This takes a great scene and makes it into one of those, “oh come on, do you expect me to believe that crap” kind of scenes’

Not only that, but it totally destroys Han’s rogue image.  I loved that he shot first, and yet still ended up becoming a Good Guy.

Absolutely.  I was trying to restrain my verbosity, but that is an important reason as to why that scene is so wrong.  It converts Han Solo from someone you can’t ever get the drop on, to a tool who got lucky.  There is a reason why Han is a more popular character than Luke and that scene was a large part of it.

Signor, when you refer to “Jabba looking like a pussy”, do you mean that his new, diminutive size and less fearsome visage make him less fearsome, indeed wimpy, or do you mean that he looks like a vagina?

In either case, I agree.

I actually meant a third option, not that I necessarily disagree on the first two (though I am trying to not think about the image).

In the scene that was added, Jabba lets Han, literally and figuratively, walk all over him, which is not consistent with his character in Jedi when he is ruthless, nor the unseen impression we have of him in the original Star Wars and Empire.  This “re-writing” of the story is what bothers me.

I would have to agree with your comments though I am not the purist you are. Don’t have a feel yet for the qualitative difference between VHS and DVD.

For a detailed list of all the changes.  Go here.

http://www.theforce.net/swse/

Also, to sign a petition to have the original movies on DVD, follow this link.

http://www.originaltrilogy.com/petition.cfm