use the force wrote: you guys are acting like uber nerds complaining about small details that do not interfere with the plot." wa wa wa george lucas raped my childhood" grow up and stop whining like little bitches. You have no right to flame us with that sort of language; it will never win you friends on any forum. We are NOT 'little bitches' or 'uber nerds' (nice insults, BTW); we are merely long-time SW fans (well, most of us, as I can gather) who have grown up loving the original trilogy, in its original state, and hate the thought of it being lost, forever.
I, personally, became a SW fan in 1997; I saw the Special Edition Trilogy on the big screen with my parents and was enthralled with it. For that reason, I can't hate it as much as others on this forum do. But I do think that Lucas' descision to never release the ORIGINAL 70's and 80's theatrical versions of the films onto DVD is WRONG, plain and simple.
Why? Because the original Trilogy (not the Special Editions of either 1997 or 2004) were the ones that won the awards. They were the ones that first made film history. They were the ones that engraved the Star Wars name into pop culture forever.
And you know what? They're still good, even if the starships are models on wires, instead of being created out of the latest CGI razzle-dazzle (which will, I assure you, look like nothing so much as a CARTOON in a few short years).
I love movies from the 70's and 80's. To me, they have a certain magical quality that is hard to define. Perhaps it is in their very REALITY-- no CGI effects. The original Star Wars is one of those things.
Think of it like this: What if the Original Star Trek was released on DVD, finally, after decades of just being on laserdisc and VHS... You bought it and opened it up and popped it into your DVD player, ready to relive the happy memories and moments in your youth when you first watched it...
And to your horror, you found that the Enterprise was gone. In its place was a flashy CGI-ed starship that neither looked nor moved like the original-- it could do barrel-rolls, and shot rainbow-colored lasers! Dialogue had been dubbed over or removed entirely, to help fit the show's continuity in with its prequel,
Enterprise,, the original Gorn, once a man in a rubber suit, had been replaced with a CGI lizard-man, and a Worf lookalike had been digitally inserted into all of the scenes with the Klingons, so that there would be 'continuity' between the Original Series and the Next Generation...
And this was the ONLY version of Star Trek that you would ever get on DVD, EVER. New fans wouldn't be able to see the ground-breaking series as it was originally aired, unless they stayed up all night, hunting for re-runs, and old fans wouldn't be able to sit down comfortably and enjoy the original series that they had loved so much. No, it would be gone, changed into something else.
Think of future generations never being able to see "Citizen Kane" or "The Godfather" or "Alien" or any other famous, well-loved film that you care to name, in their original, award-winning, well-loved forms. Think of someone taking their computer technology-- the latest, mind, but in a few years it'll look cartoonish and obsolete-- and taking these films and altering them, and then releasing them on the latest home-video format with the basic message of, "Be happy, folks, 'cause THIS is all you're ever gonna get!" Think of "Alien" with a CGI starship, a new and improved CGI alien, and a new and improved CGI death scene for John Hurt. Think of "The Godfather 2" with young Marlon Brando superimposed over Robert De Niro, or conversely, "The Godfather" with older Robert De Niro superimposed over Marlon Brando. All for the sake of continuity. And also no alternative.
Of course, these examples are absurd, in that the directors of these films would not do this, and their fan base would be mighty unpleased if they went insane and somehow did. Not to mention the film critics, who enjoyed the original releases of these works AT THE TIME THAT THEY WERE RELEASED...
This is a purely hypothetical situation, but it is what we are facing with Star Wars. A classic series of films that made motion picture history may someday be lost forever. VHS tapes will wear out and degrade, laserdisc players will eventually break down. The old rolls of film may well degrade so much that they will be unplayable and perhaps unrestorable. Films that made history-- not just in the box office, but in individual lives and in people's minds and hearts-- will be gone.
Do you understand the importance of this?
Which confirms my point, that people who type up something like that...is a uber nerd/ whiny bitch.