10 Things Star Wars Fans Don't Want To Accept About The Movies
Were the changes made to the Original Trilogy REALLY all that bad?
While there's no denying that the Star Wars franchise hasn't always fired on full cylinders, the prequels, original trilogy, and sequels all have sizeable fanbases who would have you believe that these stories set in a Galaxy Far, Far Away can simply do no wrong. However, now that franchise has stalled, it feels like a good chance to finally accept some hard truths about this iconic series of movies.
There have now been eleven big screen stories told between 1977 and 2019, with nine of those specifically following what's been dubbed "The Skywalker Saga." George Lucas helmed most of them, but for the newer instalments, prominent filmmakers from today were enlisted to bring their own unique styles to the stories of characters like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.
Despite a lot of great moments - can The Empire Strikes Back really be faulted? Perhaps - there are still some issues which need to be addressed, regardless of which side of the fence you fall on as a hardcore or even casual fan.
This isn't about bashing Star Wars for the sake of it; plenty of angry fanboys do that on Twitter on a daily basis. Instead, it's about taking an in-depth look at where things have gone wrong for this franchise...
10. George Lucas Was Right To Make Changes To The Original Trilogy
The Star Wars movies were re-released for the first time in 1997, with the "Special Edition" remasters. Much to the horror of some, George Lucas did everything from create a CGI Jabba the Hutt to making the action scenes more elaborate. The changes continued coming with the DVD and Blu-ray releases of the original trilogy, with actors being swapped out and, uh, blinking Ewoks.
Some alterations were mundane, and others were major, but each of them saw Lucas receive an outpouring of negativity. However, he was well within his right to do whatever he wanted to Star Wars whether the fans liked it or not: the films are his, and he is their creator.
Yes, it kind of sucks that the classic, theatrical versions of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi are now impossible to find, but many of the changes Lucas comes under fire for actually improved those movies. That trilogy was full of poorly realised special effects by today's standards, and improving those alone was the right move.
It's also hard to fault Lucas for changing the voices of certain characters (Temuera Morrison voices Boba Fett, for example) when it does something that's massively important to many fans: it ensures these movies all line up in terms of continuity.