George Lucas’ ironic 1988 aversion to altering classic movies: “Something must be done”
George Lucas may have come to regret his older comments about artistic integrity.
Among the most fascinating figures in the history of Hollywood, as he is seemingly filled with contradictions, Lucas essentially left Hollywood because of his frustrations with the corporate side of the industry, but he created his own empire with Lucasfilm, which turned the Star Wars franchise into a globally powerful entity.
He has discussed making more ‘personal’ films in the vein of his 1973 classic American Graffiti for years, but has remained relatively quiet since the sale of Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Company in 2012. While he is currently working on opening his own art museum, it doesn’t seem likely that he will be involved in any other films as a writer or director.
Lucas was placed in an interesting position after the success of the original Star Wars trilogy and the Indiana Jones films, where he had a significant degree of influence on the direction of Hollywood in the 1980s. Lucas ended up testifying before Congress in the United States to argue against colourising older films, which had become a practice that was more common due to the rising home video market.
“The practical issue is colourisation, but the thing that brought me out is larger than that,” Lucas said, “I don’t think that people can really care that deeply about colourisation, but if they think that all art is in danger of being destroyed, then maybe they’ll see that something must be done.”
Given that Lucas has always known his audience, he made his point by connecting it to the galaxy far, far away, adding, “What I don’t want to see is Star Wars with a rock score and a nude Princess Leia”.
The irony of this statement is that it would be less than a decade later that he would re-release the original Star Wars trilogy in theatres as Special Editions, which included significant and controversial changes to the 1997 versions. For instance, there is an altered sequence where Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, when confronted by the bounty hunter Greedo in the Mos Eisley Cantina, does not shoot first, and also the addition of a new dance number in Jabba the Hutt’s palace on Tatooine.
There were further changes in 2004 when the original trilogy debuted on DVD for the first time, where in Return of the Jedi, Lucas replaced the likeness of the original Anakin Skywalker actor, Sebastian Shaw, with Hayden Christensen in the final scene in which he appears as a force ghost. There were also dialogue additions for James Earl Jones as Darth Vader when he attacks Emperor Palpatine, played by Ian McDiarmid, in the 2011 Blu-Ray release.
Lucas might have argued that this is a different situation because he was responsible for these films and had the right to change them, while the directors of classic Hollywood films had no say in their work being colourised. The issue, however, is that the original, unaltered versions of the Star Wars films have never been released, and Lucas has done his best to bury them. Much of the anticipation for the upcoming 50th anniversary re-release of Star Wars next year is the hope that Disney will use the initial theatrical cuts, with none of Lucas’ alterations included.
