Its May of 1980, thousands of Star Wars fans are flocking to see The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas’ highly anticipated sequel to the cultural phenomenon Star Wars, on its opening weekend. The lights dim, the already familiar and famous blue text: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” fades in and disappears, then with the help of John Williams’ bombastic fanfare, the Star Wars logo flashes up on screen and thus the signaling beginning of the opening crawl and the film to thunderous applause. But this time something is different. The first line of the crawl reads, “Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.” Except this is only the second film to come out in the saga and cannot possibly be episode five. George Lucas later confirms that there are indeed other stories he would like to tell that takes place before the current trilogy. When Star Wars was rereleased for the third time in 1981, it follows suite and “Episode IV: A New Hope” is added to the crawl’s beginning. This is the first onscreen change in a long and exhausted list of changes that George Lucas will make to the Original Trilogy and the saga as a whole. Lucas tinkering made to the films from 1983 to 1996 had miniscule changes and could only be caught by the most astute fan. It was not until Lucas decided to celebrate A New Hope’s twentieth anniversary by releasing Special Editions of the Original Trilogy in early 1997 that fans turned on Star Wars’ creator. He chose to give the Original Trilogy a makeover because in his view (especially with ANH) he thought that he was not able to fully flesh out his vision for his films due to budgetary constraints, not enough time, pressure from 20th Century Fox, and the fact that current technology was not advanced enough. In 1993 he comments, “The original Star Wars was a joke, technically. We did a lot of work, but there is nothing that I would like to do more than go back and redo all the special effects, have a little more time” (Jones). The backlash was so great from what seemed at the time an overwhelming majority that a rift was created between George Lucas and the fans and whatever Lucas would create from 1997 until he sold Lucasfilm in 2012 would forever be deemed as inferior to the theatrical versions of the Original Trilogy. The fans who turned on Lucas would argue that those films were perfect the way they were, he has no right going back and changing these films that were an important part of their childhood, and these movies now belong to the fans for them to interpret them however they want. The fans who support Lucas argue that an artist of a work still has creative authority to make changes as they see fit and Lucas always felt that A New Hope was not finished in his eyes when it was first released. The film’s stories are the same, they are still loved by millions of people, and the franchise is enjoying a rebirth like no other, so why does the changes matter so much to Star Wars fans, were they warranted, and was George Lucas in the right to go back and change his movies? At the end of the day the Special Editions are the superior editions and it matters so much to Star Wars fans because one half is trying to keep intact their nostalgic memories of their childhood and the other wants to view them in the best quality possible and have a canonical consistency between all of the various media platforms that Star Wars is in. The fans should be grateful to have had a creative genius behind their favorite franchise who still cared enough to improve his movies for everyone and in the grand scheme of things the stories themselves did not change. Unlike other movies that received a director’s cut and now there will forever be a grey area about what counts in the story or not. The only real winner is George Lucas who laughed his way to the bank with a cool $4 Billion from The Walt Disney Company and got to wash his hands of the fandom.

No matter how much the older fans hate even the mention of Jar Jar Binks, Anakin Skywalker’s comments on sand, the woody acting and dialogue, that Yoda has a lightsaber and the over-reliance on CGI during the Prequel Trilogy, none has drawn the most hate from the most fans than the Special Editions. As Matt Patches comments in his article for Esquire Magazine, “The Special Edition changes were pointless. Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen are personality black holes. Jar Jar Binks is the worst (the actual worst)” (Patches). For a lot of fans checked out after Episode I: The Phantom Menace did not meet their astronomical expectations and believed what George did to the Original Trilogy was unforgivable. There is a long and storied history about all of the changes made to the saga. Lucas frequently pushed the limits of the movie experience and the majority of the changes involved improving the picture and audio quality because the original negatives started fading away. Most fans agree with the decision to improve the picture quality but it is when Lucas tinkered with what happened on screen is where they mark the line. 

Some are as unnoticeable as the replacing of matte paintings with digital ones, cleaning up the are underneath the land-speeder, removing the black compositing lines around the snow speeders, and allowing the Ewoks to blink. Others are more noticeable such and are applauded by fans such as the addition of more Stormtroopers on the Death Star, an upgraded space battle scene in Ep. IV with CG X-Wings, a shockwave around both Death Star explosions, a couple of CG dewbacks, and a busier Mos Eisley with CG creatures roaming around. Then there are the changes that make every entertainment website’s “Top Ten Inexcusable Special Edition Changes” and fans will gripe about until the end of their days. The addition of a brand new scene in A New Hope where Jabba the Hutt confronts Han Solo in front of the Millennium Falcon before he takes off with Luke and Ben for Alderaan. This scene was originally shot in 1977, but Jabba the Hutt was a human and not a giant space slug puppeteered by little people, so in the 1997 version a terribly rendered CG Jabba replaced the original actor in the deleted scene. Also, Han weirdly wobbles over Jabba’s tail when he walks behind him and Boba Fett is there for no reason. Thus miraculously most fans agree that this added scene had no place in the movie. Another change that fans on both sides of the debate agree that is inferior to the original is the different song that the Max Reebo Band plays in Jabba’s Palace. Originally, a puppet Sy Snoodles sings “Lapti Nek” but is then changed to a CG Sy Snoodles with backing vocals from a new 1997 band member Joh Yowsa that sings “Jedi Rocks.” The added benefit of the new scene is an extended part where Oola, one of Jabba’s dancers, is shown landing in the rancor pit. But this extension does not outweigh the bad CG band members, the saliva that Joh Yowsa slings at the camera, and the fact that “Lapti Nek” is a better song than “Jedi Rocks.” A different musical change in Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is the end celebration scenes. In the original, the camera pans up from Vader’s funeral pyre and fireworks fill the sky as the upbeat Ewok folk song, “Yub Nub,” starts and plays the film out. In the Special Edition, after the pan up and the fireworks start, the scene shifts to show a celebration on Cloud City, then to Tatooine, (a cut of Naboo was added in 2004), and finally to Coruscant. The benefit of this version is that it brings and wraps up the saga nicely and shows how different parts of the galaxy that are shown in other movies make an appearance have been freed as well. It had an added effect in 1997 when Coruscant was shown because the prequels did not debut until 1999 and Coruscant had never been seen before. Unfortunately, with the extended scene, “Yub Nub” had to be cut and instead an original piece by John Williams plays. Although anything Williams scores is great, it just does not touch as many people as “Yub Nub” did. (Kirby)

One of the changes that does not happen during the Special Edition but instead in 2004 but has to be addressed is during the final moments of the celebration on Endor. As Luke Skywalker looks out from the party, his mentors Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda appear to him as force ghosts one last time and for the first time his father Anakin, Darth Vader, appears as well. In 1983, Sebastian Shaw played the Anakin force ghost since he played the unmasked Vader during the last seconds of his life. But in 2004 to coincide with the prequels, Sebastian Shaw is replaced with Hayden Christiansen who played Anakin in Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. This caused an uproar that had not been seen since 1997. Typically those who opposed the Special Editions opposed this change also, claiming that Kenobi and Yoda appear as they died and Anakin should too. Not twenty-five years younger. Other fans embraced the change stating that it further legitimized the Prequel Trilogy (some fans hate the prequels so much that they refuse to acknowledge they exist) and has an in-universe explanation as well. That Anakin is appearing as the last time that he was a Jedi (since appearing as a force ghost is a Jedi skill) just like Obi-Wan and Yoda did and Luke is seeing Obi-Wan and Yoda as he knew them, as old men, and he is seeing his father as he imagined him when he was younger. 

This last change is the crux that all Special Edition haters use to justify their displeasure in all of the previous changes and has even gone on to spawn its own t-shirt line and has its own Wikipedia page: Who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo? The result is the same. The rallying cries on chatrooms and at conventions are different. Greedo’s charred remains are still left on the table of a Mos Eisley cantina bar and Han walks away unscathed to go off and take Luke and Ben Kenobi to Alderaan. But when that scene was rereleased in theaters in January of 1997 and it showed Greedo shoot first during their encounter instead of how Han did back in 1977, for most fans it changed everything. Han was no longer the cold blooded, shoot first, ask questions later, smuggler. He was now a guy who luckily escaped from the galaxy’s worst bounty hunter and only shot in self-defense. To most fans this was the most egregious change that George had ever made. They are right in a sense that Han’s transformation throughout the saga has lessened from a smuggler who murders a holstered bounty hunter to a man with just a quickdraw and fast reflexes. The fandom defers on whether the original scene was better than the new. The Han Shot First camp argues that it was how George had written it in the script and it was how they remembered it so it’s the one they believe. The other side argues that when reflecting on his character, its more believable that he would become a rebel if he was just a crack shot rather than a murderer. George did react to their displeasure and changed in 2004 and 2011 to Han and Greedo shooting almost simultaneously rather than Greedo clearly firing first in 1997.

The anti-special edition fan’s main argument against Lucas and his changes was that once the films were released, they belonged to the public since they went out and bought the movie tickets, the merchandise, the action figures, and the five-different home-video forms Star Wars has been made sold in. They want the versions that they grew up on and became cherished memories of their childhood to be the ones that count in the saga’s overall canon. Some feel so strongly about them that a rallying cry as frequently used as “Han Shot First” became popular around the fandom was “George Lucas raped my childhood.” Expanding upon the phrase, the band Hot Waffles wrote the song, “George Lucas Raped Our Childhood,” to complain about the Special Editions and the Prequel Trilogy with lyrics such as, “they put in all that CGI/ And I just wanted to die/ When I saw Greedo shoot first/ That’s why we sing/ George Lucas Raped Our Childhood” (Hot Waffles). The revolt against Lucas became so prominent in the fandom that a filmmaker decided to create an entire documentary about it called, The People vs. George Lucas. One fan remarks in the infamous documentary, “I don’t know what I would do if I met George Lucas in the street. I would either shake his hand or hit him in the stomach” (Philippe). Numerous fans attempt to re-create their own de-specialized editions and spread them on the internet. One of the most popular and highly produced version is Team Negative One’s, The Silver Screen Edition. Peter Gutierrez of Screen Education writes, “Defiantly unauthorized, as well as completely illegal to download, the Silver Screen Edition of Star Wars is nonetheless a film that countless fans of the series would say is not only morally justifiable, but morally necessary” (Gutierrez). To try and woo older fans back to the franchise during the marketing tour for Episode VII: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams, the film’s director and an OT enthusiast and PT denouncer, and the producers spent a lot of time stressing the fact of using practical effects instead of CG and that the picture was shot on film instead of digital. Thus, slapping George Lucas and the visual effects team for the prequels in the face forgetting that they in their own right were pioneers for special effects including having cinema history’s first motion-capture character in Jar Jar Binks and film history’s first ever film shot on a digital camera, Episode II: Attack of the Clones. 

As for the fans who side with Lucas, one of their pro-Lucas arguments is that since they are his films he should do whatever he wants to them. He is an artist, and the films are his artwork, so if he feels that they can be improved upon then it his right to do so. Some go to the famous Leonardo da Vinci quote, “Art is never finished, only abandoned” (Landi), to help bolster their argument. The argument that makes these fans as passionate as the anti-Special Edition fans is that they believe that the most current iteration of the films is the superior one. Most will agree that they miss “Yub Nub,” the added Jabba scene is not their favorite, and there would have been less heartache if Han always shot first. They can look over some of the new edition’s short comings and admit that the improvements they make more than outweigh the cons. As far as canonically, they appreciate that the whole saga comes full circle at the end of Jedi, with some prequel elements showing up in the classic trilogy. 

Star Wars is not the first or only movie franchise to have the director or somebody from the studio to go back and make changes to movies. Most of them tend to add or extend scenes that were cut from the theatrical editions. A lot of these alternate editions are ordered from the studio that distributes the film. Sometimes they are well-received because they add even more content to an already loved movie. For example, with Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, each movie has been released with an extended addition that add around thirty minutes of footage for each movie. These make sense because the films have book counterparts and obviously, a film cannot have as much content as a book. The extended editions for these films are regarded as even better versions of their theatrical releases. Similarly, with 2016’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, its extended edition is regarded as a much more quality film than the one released in theaters. The theatrical version of BvS has been panned by both critics and fans alike. But most have the same opinion that the three-hour version actually makes it a watchable movie. Phil Owens wrote for The Wrap, “I watched it. And, lo and behold, somehow “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice has become something that approaches a functional movie. In the process, it only makes the original cut even more inexplicable and terrible” (Owens). Not every director’s cut is created equal and sometimes they receive criticism for a studio trying to double-dip and cash in on making fans feel compelled to buy a movie twice for the addition of a director’s commentary and four extra minutes of footage. With this the water becomes muddled during fanboy debates on which sequence of events in a film is the definitive version. 

The epitome of this conundrum is the five different forms of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. What happened to Blade Runner should warrant the outrage that has been thrown at Lucas but gets hardly any of it. When it was released in 1982, Ridley Scott made it known that the version that was released then was not the one that he had in mind but was the studio’s. There were two different editions from the start with a domestic cut and international cut. Then Ridley’s original cut of the film before it was changed before its released was shown at several film festivals without his permission. In 1991 it was rereleased in theaters as Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut which was Scott’s pre-original release version. Then one year after the Director’s Cut was released, the “10th Anniversary Edition” was released as the international cut because that version was previously unavailable in the U.S. Finally, Blade Runner: The Final Cut was released in 2007 and is the only cut with Scott’s complete artistic control. Similar to Star Wars, the majority of the changes had to do with updating the picture and sound quality with replacing some rougher effects digitally, swapping matte paintings with digital ones, and added CG elements. Conversely to the Special Editions, plot points were added and removed in each of the different versions. The theatrical cut featured voice-over by Harrison Ford to open the movie but then was replaced in later releases. The studio wanted a more happier tone in the original version, so the violence was toned down for the domestic release but was then added back in later editions (Brooker). The most questioning change of them all is the fact that the entire ending of the film was changed in the Director’s and Final Cuts. A scene was later added at the very end which made the entire existence of Harrison Ford’s character come into question. The scene hinted at the fact that he was a replicant (android) rather than a human. Star Wars fans have spent the last twenty years complaining that the timing of the shots fired between Ford’s character, Han Solo, and Greedo had completely changed his character while Ford’s character in Blade Runner lost his humanity in a later release. This is the sort of mishandling that Star Wars could have received but instead was given superior movies with the whole story still intact.

Perhaps the most amazing part about the ballad of George Lucas and the fans who turned against his is that nothing like that can ever happen again. What makes Star Wars so different other franchises, besides it incredible on filmmaking itself and how it has leaked into the public’s psyche through cultural osmosis, is that rarely does one man’s vision turn into a global phenomenon. Star Wars is not adapted from a book, graphic novel, or television series. The story was meant to be told primarily on the silver screen and Lucas did this without selling out to the corporate studios. Star Wars is different from the other films that have different versions because he personally financed every single one of his six Star Wars movies and had the foresight acquire the rights to his sequels before ANH was even released. It is unfortunate that the man who built his own filmmaking empire with Lucasfilm Ltd, the creation of the leading special effects studio in the business in Industrial Light and Magic, developed the gold standard in audio quality that changed the audio experience in theaters in THX, and started up the animation company, Pixar, which has gained critical acclaim for their movies, has had to endure the abuse from the fans whom he makes these films for, for everything he has done creatively since 1983. No other film franchise has had the kind of dedicated creator that Star Wars had and unfortunately those fans were the reason as to why he did don’t revisit the saga one last time for a sequel trilogy. The fans got their way with huge reduction in screen time that Jar Jar received after Episode I. Even though he had an entire fulfilling storyline in place for him. They got their way again when they bullied him into no longer “messing” with their childhood. As God loved his children who have sinned against him, he still extended a way for salvation, George Lucas cared about his creation and his fans so much that he was willing to part ways with it for it to be received by a new generation of fans. Star Wars fans bit the hand that fed them, and now they are stuck with Disney’s Star Wars: Greatest Hits. Once again proving that no one hates Star Wars like Star Wars fans. 
