One man’s Greedo Shot First is another fan’s Han Shot First.
Ok, make that every fan’s Han Shot First.
By now, we’re all aware that Lucas has made even more changes to his original STAR WARS trilogy. You might even say there were millions of voices suddenly crying out in terror.
It’s kind of pointless for me to complain here about the not-so-special editions of the films we knew and loved getting the dark-side treatment for Blu-ray.
I will, however, say that his choices are disconcerting given his pioneering spirit to cinema as a whole.
When the Blu-ray was announced, I had a bad feeling about this. I speculated there would be changes, but never so many. What he’s done to neglect his original trilogy has gone against the very principles of film preservation. One can only beg for a new hope, and that means you, Criterion Collection.
But, Star Wars isn’t the first movie to undergo alterations for it’s home video release. Here are a few other beloved movies that would make an Ewok blink twice…
THE SHINING
Just three days after the release of the movie to theaters, the director ordered projectionists to cut out a two minute ending and send the footage back to Warner Bros. The scene was a nice explanation (sort of) of the creepy photo ending. The full running time before this cut was 146 minutes. Then, outside the US, Kubrick cut nearly 31 minutes of footage out, and claimed he preferred this version as the “official” one. Both the commonly seen 144 minute version and the 113 minute version exist on VHS. DVD and Blu-ray run 144.
AMERICAN GRAFFITI
This one’s kind of tricky to explain. Four minutes were restored for a 1978 re-release, but the 1973 version without those scenes was never issued on home video.
Lucas altered the classic opening shot during the main title sequence in recent years, with the help of ILM. The new shot is on the Blu-ray release from this past May as well.
FANTASIA
Now, here’s a home video cut that is justified.
Four ugly short scenes of Black stereotyped characters during the Pastoral sequence of the film were removed. If you’ve ever seen the original via bootleg or preserved on celluloid, you’ll agree it’s one of the ugliest moments of Disney’s past. It will never, according to the company today, make its way intact to home video editions. Previous theatrical cuts edited out the scenes completely, causing music to seemingly skip. For restorations, close ups on other information in the frame fill the screen.
SIXTEEN CANDLES
In theaters and on cable, John Hughes’ essential teen comedy was packed with obscure and hit New Wave music. Not only did most of that music not survive the paltry soundtrack release, but it didn’t survive initial VHS or DVD editions either.
Much of the music had to be replaced due to legal licensing reasons, but eventually the entire soundtrack was restored to its theatrical version for a deluxe re-release on DVD.
WAYNE’S WORLD
No Stairway? DENIED!
What was a hysterical in-joke to anyone that’s ever worked in a guitar shop falls flat on every home video version of the movie. In theatres, Wayne clearly plays the opening riff of Stairway to Heaven, only to be shown it’s prohibited in the store. It was prohibited from being in the movie at all, as rights were not properly secured to the Zeppelin tune.
On VHS, DVD and recently released Blu-ray, the notes are replaced with something so far and away not Stairway, that in itself becomes hysterical.
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