That's an especially good point, I think. It's one thing to keep fiddling, it's another to refuse to let people choose between the versions. That, actually, makes me think that it really isn't about money, but about some misguided perfectionism. He doesn't want anyone to see them without the latest tweaks.
I agree that he should release the original versions on DVD and Blu-ray. We deserve to see them the way we love them. I'm not particularly crazy about
Star Wars personally - maybe that's why I can say all of this stuff with some conviction. I don't hate them or wish them trashed or think people should just shut up and let George Lucas anally rape them like he did to that Stormtrooper on
South Park.
But like I was saying - I think he's found a loophole in introducing his "corrections." DVD and Blu-ray re-releases are being used to market the transformations so that everyone will know and see it. He can't keep putting them in movie theatres everytime he makes some slight alterations.
Maybe he could, but it's more risky. That would really disgust more people, I think. He'd be even crazier if even did that - he's already done it once. But with DVD and Blu-ray, he's skipping all of that and putting it in your home first. I think this is also smart because kids who have never seen the original versions will get the new versions and see those for the very first time and their minds won't be so judgemental because they will get used to the new stuff. Those will be their happy memories for life. He is conditioning the new generations already. Smart man. I recently read a book called
My Best Friend is a Wookie -- by a guy who grew up obsessed with
Star Wars -- and in the beginning, he's taking his nephew or something to see
Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the kid absolutely loves it and absolutely loves the
Star Wars prequels and prefers CGI Yoda over Puppet Yoda, etc.
I have been saying for some time now that our favorite movies - and even our favorite things in movies - are only just personal preferences, things we love all thanks to our personal psyches. It's all in our head. If you don't have the childhood love for the new versions of
Star Wars, it's probably never going to feel right unless you truly have an open mind. You might proclaim that something is artistically wrong - and I think Yoda has a good case with the "Nooooo!" thing - but I bet a lot is just that you can't wrap your mind around the changes because it doesn't feel right. It's foreign. It's alien. They're intruders in the night.
I said what George Lucas is doing is revolutionary and I meant it. This is an experiment -- but it one day might become more common than we'd ever suspect. Of course, George Lucas could totally be at fault for this, but who knows if it's really going to end up being a bad experiment? There are no bad experiments -- there's only data. And this is data that is only going to help us in the future. It is possible that right now George Lucas is paving the way for some incredible things that could happen with cinema. We just might not know it. But just because it hasn't happened yet - or may never will - doesn't mean we need to poo-poo everything and stop something in the middle of progress or before it even gets off the ground. This is a technological and spiritual jump for movies -- crazy? Maybe. But crazy gets results.