As much as I love Star Wars, I wasn’t really interested in the forthcoming Blu-Ray collection. I already own all six movies on DVD and I don’t see any reason to give George Lucas any more of my money. But after reading about how Lucas is using this release to tinker yet again with the films, I’m even less interested. For the most part, I didn’t mind the changes that were introduced in the Special Editions back in the late Nineties, so I don’t consider myself a reactionary fanboy. However, at some point, Lucas lost all perspective.
In the latest version of Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader unleashes a cheesy, overwrought “Noooo!” before he kills the Emperor. Ick. Just…ick. ROTJ wasn’t a great movie, but that scene of Vader’s salvation of himself and his son is so effective in the original because he doesn’t utter a word. To add that terrible “Noooo!” is to turn that scene into the worst kind of B-movie schlock. I’m all for directors using technology to realize their true vision for a film, but changes like this insult the audience’s intelligence and cheapen the film’s impact. I simply can’t get behind that.
