Star Wars was and probably always shall have an important place in my life. I saw the first movie a few times now and then with fascination but fully understood it at age seven when my uncle showed me the whole trilogy and also got me my very own set on VHS which were pirated but just as good.
The franchise and it's characters had a kind of familiarity in them like almost no other franchise that you have. From 1993 onwards Star Wars had a place in my heart and soul.
Then I first saw the special edition of Star Wars in 1997 when one of my relatives bought The Empire Strikes Back on VHS for me when visiting from the UK.
This was when I was living in my home city Karachi until the year 2000 when I moved out of Pakistan.
I told my relative I already have it but he explained this is the special edition. I didn't quite understand until I put it on and saw Lucasfilm's short presentation on the special edition and on into the movie with all the changes.
I was thrilled and I immediately wanted to see the other two movies in their special edition versions. Even before then, I recall hearing all the big talk from adults about Star Wars, that it has been improved.
Again I didn't know anything until I viewed my VHS copy of The Empire Strikes Back. Since I loved it and thought the updates were absolutely brilliant, I hoped to get rid of my original trilogy VHS set and have them replaced with these special editions.
At that time any preference of the original versions to the special editions was simply unthinkable. And seeing the 1997 special editions, I still think highly of them. The reason is they were mostly improvements to the empty original versions that really needed improvements such as the mouth of sarlaac in the pit of carkoon in Return of the Jedi.
But purchasing the latest DVD editions as well as reading the history of changes in the original Star Wars trilogy, I started to have second thoughts. While 1997 special editions were a leap forward for the Star Wars trilogy as well as met the standards of a next generation audience, George Lucas did go too far when he actually cut out sounds and dialogue from the original versions.
I totally agree with the improvements in the special effects, some of which the 1997 special editions failed to catch. For example the light sabers in the 1997 releases were still dull color whereas the DVD versions had them polished and glowing all up to the standard to appease the fans.
I simply cannot enjoy the movies unless the special editions to their fullest.
But seeing how at least half of the changes made by Lucasfilms on the original trilogy hurt them more than they improved. If it were up to me, I would have added improvements to the originals, including suitable deleted scenes, while leaving the original footage and dialogue alone.
I however did prefer the newer ending in Return of the Jedi. It's a well suited ending for a well loved and important saga which ended in restoring freedom to an entire galaxy.
Now with the latest news about the blue-ray releases, I may rent it to see if it's worth buying, though I doubt it, especially seeing some terrible changes made to the original triology.
I think if Lucas had just released the 1997 special editions on DVD with a few slight corrections, I doubt we'd have fans screaming today for the original unaltered versions.
Lucky for me I have a pirated DVD copy of the 1997 special edition of The Empire Strikes Back copied from a laserdisc in perfect print and wide-screen format with a laserdisc scene selection menu.
Even the cover art is copied from the laserdisc and the disc itself had the Empire Strikes Back logo neatly printed on it. It's even better than buying an officially released version with poor cover art.
But coming back to deleted scenes and the negative edits, I think Lucas has damaged the originals to the point that there will be no single version loved by all fans which is why I see fans including myself extracting their favorites scenes from the original cuts and the updated cuts and combining them to satisfy themselves.
With modern technology being available to more than just professional filmmakers such a dream is not far away.
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