10 Facts Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Star Wars

1. The Special Editions Are Just Dumb Changes

The Misconception: There are Star Wars fans out there who quite like the prequels or don't think The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie in the series, but one thing every member of the fan community can agree on is that the Special Editions, as well as the subsequent re-edits of the Original Trilogy for DVD and Blu-Ray, are works of Sith-level evil. Making Greedo shoot at Han before his fiery death, adding in a superfluous scene with Jabba into A New Hope and replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen in Return Of The Jedi, they're full of unwanted changes to the films that George Lucas alleges bring the film's closer to his vision, but really make them a painful watch. Roll on the release of the untampered versions.

The Truth: Put the pitchforks and gaffi sticks away. We're not here to defend the CGI additions or major alterations made in the Special Editions. But we are going to point out one of their most overlooked properties. The Special Editions didn't just tamper with the films, but also touched them up. Although the original special effects were pretty cutting edge, time had meant cracks had begun to show; matte paintings, while gorgeous, didn't stand up to close scrutiny and the rudimentary blue screen effects had led to some odd lapses in depth.

Add on top of this the usual grain that old film accrues and you have a tatty looking print. They're not glaring errors, but they stop the film's looking as good as they should. The Special Editions corrected all of these issues just like the restorations of other classic movies. The problem is they didn't stop there.

What other misconception do people have about Star Wars? Let us know in the comments below.