These Director's Cuts Suck!

Oh George Lucas, how you do so love to mess with your own projects to the point of infuriation.

Taking the mantra of "Don't Fix What Ain't Broke" and attempting to fix the expression itself, Lucas brings his homemade, overbaked "I've fixed it until it broke" mentality to the beloved Star Wars franchise again and again, with ever louder pleas from the fanbase for him to just stop. Please. Just. Stop.

These "enhanced" editions of the original Trilogy sought to trade on the very things that Star Wars became famous for, namely the incredible visual effects and the pungently memorable characters. However, instead of tweaking lighting effects, or adding in subtle changes here and there, Lucas decided to showcase the newest tech front and center at the detriment of his own movie.

I think we can all agree that scenes like the Dance to Rancor scene and the Mos Eisley establishing shots are ruined by the over-abundance of new, plastic-looking CGI creatures that have been added in. Mos Eisley, lest we not forget is a "hive of scum and villainy" and its desolated and dour appearance in the original reflects that mentality. However, in the enhanced versions, we get a scene that looks right out of Fraggle Rock, complete with slapstick moments and creatures that literally exist to give the overworked Wookipedia scribes even more entries to fill out.

The dance scene is the true pits, by comparison, however, as here not only does the singer duo get right up uncomfortably close to the camera, we can even see what one of them had for dinner the other night as we stare down his gullet making for a moment where George Lucas really, really wants to show off the advancements in CGI at the time.

Yet we all know where this is headed, the infamous "Han Shoots First" alteration, in which Greedo is now edited to shoot Han first, thus giving him the impetus to shoot back in retaliation. The thinking behind this was that it places Han in a more heroic light, however, that's entirely against the rogue smuggler character he's actually portraying.

The shot, in every sense, was better with Han blasting first and asking questions never as that is both a believable moment and an establishing worry in the minds of the audience as to whether this man should be trusted at all. It's subtle despite its loud and violent delivery. In the Enhanced version, it's actually dumb luck that Han survives at all and thus weakens his immediate impact.

The fanbase has been incredibly vocal over their dislike for the Enhanced Editions, however maybe this is actually a moment of long-term marketing genius, as maybe his repeated fudging of his own projects was an attempt to keep both the Star Wars name in the mouth and minds of many, but also to get fans to champion the theatrical releases as true masterclass moments of cinema which, when combined with their scarcity, turns the originals into some kind of holy grail that elevates them even further within the community.

It's like that time that Coco Pops changed their name to Choco Crispies here in the UK, then provided a phone line to call to see if fans wanted them to change the name back. Of course, we did, and of course, we fell for the marketing trap that was so obvious in hindsight. When applied to Star Wars it's like:

"hey do you want to watch this enhanced version of A New Hope with yet more members of the Max Rebo band added in?"

"NO WAY! I'm not going to watch that trash! I'm going to pay over the odds for rare copies of the originals or at the very least sign my life away when Disney eventually adds it to their streaming service! THAT'LL SHOW YOU!"