He raped your childhood? Seriously?
The level of personal offense that a lot of fans take with George Lucas is shocking and pathetic. I’ll never understand it.
Let’s torpedo some common criticisms right out of the gate. With the possible exception of the Empire Strikes Back, all of the Star Wars movies are poorly acted. All of them have clunky dialogue. All of them are easily lent to the toy market. They’re all presented in a very basic narrative surrounded with nearly overwhelming visual effects. In other words, nearly every criticism regularly lobbed at the prequels is also applicable to the originals. And many of the qualities the originals were lauded for are also present in the prequels.
Star Wars is all about adventure, mysticism, immersive visual effects, the increasingly complex battle of good against evil, and so on. It’s true for all six films, for good or ill. I’d guess that many of the most vocal complainers saw the original three as children, when their tastes lacked discrimination. One set of films gets the benefit of rose-colored glasses and the other set doesn’t.
Mind you, I’m not saying that all six films are equally good, but the gap is much narrower than many fans are willing to consider. Star Wars never was great art. Just great entertainment.
The most valid criticism of the prequels I can think of off the top of my head is that moviemaking is an art of visual storytelling, and style must always takes a backseat to narrative. The number one goal of the visuals, the words, the transitions–anything at all, in other words–is to serve the story. Cramming in all but the kitchen sink is an obvious way of distracting the viewer by impeding their connection with the story. The prequels do tend to do this at times. I’m not sure if Lucas made them that way in order to show off or if he simply felt the films were better off that way. Either way, it doesn’t work. Perhaps the prequels would have turned out a little more evenly if they’d been made with the same technological and budgetary constraints as the original films.
Now, let’s shift the focus from the new to the old. It is a fair complaint that Lucas has attempted to make changes to the original three films that, while seemingly innocuous, have drastic consequences. A popular example is the scene in which Greedo confronts Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina. In the theatrical cut, Greedo has cornered Han and has made his intentions clear. In order to save his own life, Han draws his gun under the table and kills Greedo without warning. This establishes something very important about Han’s character. No matter how endearing he becomes later on in the story, there will always be a side of him that is outlaw, that is mercenary, that is dangerous. He’s not somebody to get too close to, and when someone does get close to him, it’s a big deal.
In the Special Edition, Lucas revises the scene. With a particularly awkward computer edit, Greedo now fires his gun first. Han anticipates and moves aside in the nick of time, then fires his own gun in retaliation. For one thing, Han is, for all intents and purposes, an ordinary man with exceptional skills but no exceptional powers. Jedi Knights may be able to dodge laser blasts, but Han isn’t one of them. For another, Han becomes diluted as a character. The danger associated with his character, which is a trait that originally made a strong early impression on the viewer, becomes diluted. Han becomes that much safer as a character, and that much less interesting. The movie is filled with people whom it’s safe to be around, and perhaps it needs the element of danger that Han brings in order to enliven things.
As you might guess, I’m not a big fan of post-release tinkering with films. It very rarely leads to improvement. I’m sure every filmmaker has things they would have done differently in every film they ever made, but at some point, it has to stop or they’ll keep tinkering until the original film doesn’t exist anymore. There is also a problem in that fans who’ve seen the original versions many times are going to be disengaged from the story every time a change appears. It messes with their connection to the events onscreen. Yeah, Han Solo’s character is presented in a very different light depending on whether he shoots preemptively or in reaction, but moreover, it just doesn’t look right.
The last thing I want to touch on, and perhaps the last of the major complaints Lucas is regularly assaulted with by his fans, is his alleged gouging of the home video market. I don’t have much to say about that, except that I have very little sympathy for people who repeatedly bought the series through every iteration. For those who rushed out to buy the 2004 special editions with the belief that they would be the only time Star Wars appeared on DVD, I’m betting most of you already had plenty of chances to learn your lesson. Nobody put a gun to your heads and forced you to open your wallets. Caveat emptor: temper your instinct of buying every piece of crap with the Star Wars logo on it and you’ll find you’ll have much less to complain about.