13 Things You Learn Rewatching Star Wars: A New Hope
8. The Re-Release Additions Are Unnecessary
In 1997, to coincide with the Star Wars franchises 20th anniversary, George Lucas went back to the original negatives of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return Of The Jedi and digitally preserved them. Then, taking advantage of new advances in technology, the director "enhanced" the films, adding CGI to existing scenes and putting completely new ones in, too. The overall effect is one of pointlessness and degradation, and fans have since been generally outraged at the additions, which veer somewhere between unnecessary and sacrilegious. The most controversial of all of these occurs here in A New Hope; yes, the one concerning Han Solo and Greedo. There had long been a debate over Who Shot First, with the general consensus that Han did - t-shirts exist which read Han Shot First - adding to his badass, devil-may-care persona. Lucas resolutely denies all this, sticking with his revisionist take that Greedo provoked him, killing a bit of Solos character in the process. A baffling move all round. Elsewhere, theres Hans scene with Jabba the Hutt (shot for the original sans slug) which again takes away some saga mystique, this time from Jabba, who looks nowhere near as huge or grotesque as the original incarnation of the character in Return of the Jedi, and whose menace is lessened by the fact that he is basically friendly to Han. Add to that the likes of useless extra CG aliens in the Cantina - who stand out horribly from the costumed ones of the original - or random extra creatures dotted around Mos Eisley, and you get a set of enhancements that are anything but.
