Monday, July 14, 2008

Have I mentioned how I hate the Star Wars reissues?

It's like Big Brother in the novel 1984 rewriting history to make it fit in with current events.

All us real Star Wars fanatics know all about the end of Return of the Jedi, when they replaced the actor Sebastian Shaw as the spirit of Anakin Skywalker with Hayden Christiansen.

Here's the original, the one that we fan relish:


Here's the rerelease with Christiansen:


It irritates Star Wars fans, especially as I have written before why I think the spirit would be the old guy and not the bad young one.

This next one is one I have meant to capture for a while but with the help of YouTube, I actually can.

Right in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back, when Darth Vader contacts the Emperor during the famous asteroid field chase, Lucas felt the need to switch this one too.

Here are the two versions:






Why remove Luke's first name? Why bother with redoing it with the actor. You have to admit that the voice is better in the original. Now, admittedly, only someone like me, who has seen these movies dozens of times, can possibly spot this.

It just bugs me. Why does Lucas mess with a movie that many fans consider his best ever, if not one of the best movies ever? And in such slight ways.

2 comments:

Rick L. Phillips said...

When did all this happen? Couldn't a young Darth Vader have aged to look like Sebastian Shaw as he got older?

Matt Butcher said...

That's my main point--why is he the young Anakin, when he was a bad guy, pretty much. He should be the Sebastian Shaw actor because now he is redeemed. It is a cosmetic difference that does not make sense to me. I am sure somebody can argue why it should be the young Anakin.