[Chefelf]

*Keep in mind that these are merely rumored changes. They have been taken from theforce.net.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

1. Jabba the Hutt is now a combination of the puppet and CG.


2. The Rancor is CG and looks disgusting as ever.


3. Yoda is CG. Yoda disappears leaving his clothes behind like Obi-Wan now.


4. The ewoks are now mostly CG and there are a lot more of them.


5. The plan is to insert the love theme Across the Stars when Luke is talking with Leia about their mother.


6. Temuera Morrison's like before is now the voice for Boba Fett and all the stormtroopers.


7. In the battle of Endor there are thousands of Ewoks and they are more vicious than there midgets-in-suits counterparts. More bite the dust now.


8. White boxes around ships removed.


9. The black blotches around Palpatine's face are gone.


10. Some of the lightsaber effects have been redone. The shadows that the lightsabers made on the floor are gone.


11. During Anakin's death scene it starts with a sad rendition of the Imperial March and slowly evolves into Anakin's Theme.


12. Sebastion Shaw who played Anakin when he was unmasked has been replaced with Hayden Christenson in make-up to make him look older. Anakin has much more dialogue. He apologizes for the destruction he caused, he thanks his son for turning him back to the light, he tells his son to rebuild the Jedi and he says he loves him and his sister. Just before he dies he says, "It is finished...".


13. We see more planets celebrating at the end of the movie. We see an aged Jar Jar, who is now the leader of the Gungans, on Naboo celebrating with the people of Naboo and the Gungans. We see an old Watto, who is now unable to fly, sitting in a hover chair cheering on Tatooine. During these scenes Across the Stars plays transitioning to the victory celebration music at the Ewok tree village.


14. Anakin's spirit is now played by Hayden Christenson with make-up to make him look his age. He looks on proudly at his son Luke with the spirit of Padme by his side.

Lucas has denied that these rumors are true and in reading them you can pretty much see why. Most of them are dreadful beyond imagination but after seeing Special Edition, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones anything is possible.

[civilian_number_two]

Lucas has denied that he will be re-revisiting the Original Trilogy before the DVD releases, but I'm sure he'll recant later and then say that his hesitation was just "to throw off the press." Anyway, for the meantime, here's my bitching.


1-3: these are absolutely stupid ideas. I'm sure they're true. Lucas seems to desire that the films were all made in the same minute with identical technologies. Okay, and I'm sure I've made this joke elsewhere, but next he'll be going back with CG to fix Luke's hairstyle so it isn't so "Peter Frampton." That or he'll buy the rights to KING KONG and CG the monster.
4,7: Having more Ewoks, and hving more die, is some kind of an improvement, but this is not the point of going back to revisit the films. Kirshner had no trouble depicting a Rebel ddefeat in EMPIRE; Lucas shuld have been able to show a lot of Ewoks dying in JEDI. He just softened, and any changes he makes now will be an effort to please his critics.
6: I don't even know what this means, but I don't want to know.
8-10: These are "legitimate" fixups, but I think when a film is made, it's made and stands as history of film at its time. The notion of a filmmaker going back to finish an old job is one thing. We haev TOUCH OF EVIL and then we have the rerelease, revisited and re-edoted according to Welles's notes and without benefit of new technology or reshoots. So too LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and now ALIEN (Bad idea, there). What Lucas is doing is like what Spielberg did with ET (really bad idea, there), except that at least Spielberg released the original film along woth the rerelease.
5,11: These are really bad ideas. Is John Williams dead or something? Or does he not care that Lucas is trying to ruin his music?
12: And I hear in EMPIRE, when Luke is delirious he'll moan "Ben, Ben, lama sabacthani?"
13: This has to be madde up. Watto?
14: Padme = crap.

A change I would make: I would not have Boba Fett fall into the burping ground-hole. I would show him at the end, in Coruscant, giving IG-88 a big high-five. Then I'd have him dance around in a long hangar filled with various spaceships of all shapes and sizes, numbered Slave 1-30.

Mike.

[Kornbread]

I like having Hayden Christianson at the end of RotJ doing the death scene just for continuity reasons.

I hate the idea that they would add CGI to Yoda or Jabba since the puppetry and design of the models blew away any CGI they could have done. WHo the hell knows anymore. Franchise is one more crap film away from being totally runied. Original trilogy included.

[Chefelf]

Yeah how does Padme factor into the ending? Was she a Jedi? I don't believe she was.

We should just include Qui-Gonn, Darth Maul and Mace Windu and that way Luke can look and smile at first at the people he knows and then his smile will fade after a few minutes as he realizes that this must be a Jedi apparition party that he wasn't invited to.

[Vwing]

Well seeing as return of the Jedi is my favorite of the trilogy (I won't dispute it's merits over the other two at this point in time), most of these changes really piss me off. I personally think the Ewok thing is ridiculous, the point was that there WEREN'T thousands of them and that this small group was able to basically do a great deed and save the galaxy. Killing more Ewoks is just an attempt to please Ewok-haters (I still to this day don't understand how there could possibly BE Ewok-haters but again I on't argue that now), and is ridiculous. Having Hayden, I don't know if I like it or not, but "It is finished" is the worst bit of dialogue I've ever heard. The CG touches are ridiculous (why can't he just leave things alone?!!) and the music changes are even more ridiculous, if I hear ONE bit of prequel music in these movies, I'll kill him. And Padme is not a Jedi why the hell is her spirit there, who gives a crap about Watto or Jar-Jar anyway, he changed it enough last time just leave the goddam thing alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Despondent]

Why not step up the inanity and have Lucas as Vader unmasked? Bastard.

"We should just include Qui-Gonn, Darth Maul and Mace Windu..."

that's cool with me. And they could also paste in the finale from who framed roger rabbit. And don't forget to add Shmi, gold two, chief jawa, and Lumpy. just prior to the music's final segue into the star wars theme, (which I believe was renamed "the force" theme in 1980) Death Star II fragments hurtle into the atmosphere of the forest moon, destroying one and all.

I suppose C3PO could say "truly that was the sun of man"

[Ninja Duck]

The musical transition from the Imperial March to "Anakin's Theme" could actually be good if they get everything right. Or not. I don't really know how "Anakin's Theme" goes.

[Despondent]

I'm sorry, of course I meant to parallel the quote as, "...sun of God".

however, tying the maker to the sw abominations is sacrilege.

[Supes]

Well after reading all the possible additions for the 3 original films and working on the premise that George really can't leave well enough alone, I'm going to do two things:

1. Assume that most of what has been written has a fairly good chance of actually happening and thus be further dismayed at what the world is becoming.

2. Take my videos of the original and have them transferred to DVD, steal a box set when it's released with all these changes (I sure as hell wont pay for it if even half of these things happen) and then replace those round wastes of space with my shiny golden Kodak DVDs that will proudly display in my hand written scrawl - Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope UNEDITED, etc, etc...

[barend]

i am honestly speachless...

cut and paste?
-yeah, put the dance scene form matrix 2 into the end of return of the jedi.
-speaking of matrix, how about a CGI obi-wan pausing in the air as he fights a bunch of strom troopers etc.
-instead of medals at the end of ANH, they could recieve glowing blue CGI balls.
-make anikans last word "shibby" or "dude! where's my shuttle?"
-it could be said that GLs bad writing and inconstency is "on purpose" and "part of the style"


i'd love to come up with more but i have to go throw up, someone is rewriting my childhood!!!

[Chefelf]

All I want is a nice, high quality DVD set of the original trilogy in widescreen format. Is that so much to ask?

I'll take some nice making-of documentaries from the era (1975-1985) as well as whatever little extra goodies they can throw at me but I just want the movies dammit!

Is that so much to ask?

[srmoore]

to lucas? that is too much to ask.

But then again. he is an ass.

[civilian_number_two]

All I want is a nice, high quality DVD set of the original trilogy in widescreen format. Is that so much to ask?

What you want to do is take the THX laserdiscs you had the foresight to buy in 1994, when you realized that this would be the last chance to see the trilogy without any sort of tampering. You want to take your G4 with iDVD (I am not so flush that I will drop $1500 on DVD tudio Pro) and transfer the laserdisc movies to DVD.

All that other "making of" stuff you'd need to transfer from video, if you had it. Lucas is never going to do this for you, so you have to do it for yourself.

Mike (anyone know where I can get some good "making of" stuff)?

[Supes]

What you want to do is take the THX laserdiscs you had the foresight to buy in 1994, when you realized that this would be the last chance to see the trilogy without any sort of tampering.

I wish I had bought the laserdiscs now. I remember seeing them and thinking, I wont ever actaully own a laserdisc player so I'll just wait until I get a DVD (as surely that will be the next big thing) player and buy them again when released in that format.

<repeatedly slaps forehead>

[barend]

so i can afford it, i skip every second wave of technology.
when laser disc came out i thought, "ah, they'll make em smaller, then i'll jump on board."

i was right, just like i was about the millenium bug (which should have been called the century bug) - but i'll save that for another day.

any way! i really loved the SW making of. widescreen movie, making of deleted scenes, cast comentary, cast interviews, special effects crew interviews etc.
old school fans deserve a little something. someone forward this to that idiot Lucas !