"“To me, it [the original Star Wars trilogy] doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it.” - George Lucas, 2004
It is insane how much George Lucas has edited the original Star Wars trilogy. I think no movies have had more edits over time than Star Wars.
Another part of the story a lot of people don't know is apparently Lucas's cut of the original Star Wars was horrible, so his wife came in and redid everything and that's the version that went to theaters. And she was the editor on the remaining two of the original trilogy as well.
I think it's pretty clear to everyone now that when Lucas is flying solo his final output is... not great. He obviously imagined a universe a lot of people find compelling, but wasn't always the best person to realize the vision of that universe.
On a similar vein, Gene Roddenberry was pretty similar with Star Trek. He had a pretty big universe imagined, got the scaffolding in for it, but all the best works under the name of Star Trek were made by other people. Anything Gene Roddenberry was directly involved in as a script writer (see: many episodes of the original and first two seasons of The Next Generation) are generally the weakest and worst parts of Star Trek.
Yeah, also I think part of that was Gene wanted to portray a more optimistic vision of the future as a principled thing, which I get, but that also made Classic and TNG feel a bit superficial and low stakes a lot of the time. DS9 is personally my favorite series, mostly because of the age I was when it came out, but also because I liked that they shifted it to be a bit less idealistic.
I watched it when it was originally on in the 90's. As the show got more serialized it was like a cliff hanger or huge event every few weeks. Then we got a great 10 episode arc to end the series.
Yeah it's aged phenomenally well, and makes more modern Star Treks so frustratingly awful. The Visitor is arguably one of the best episodes of any Star Trek ever, Past Tense was basically prophetic. And so many of the episodes are extremely insightful on human nature - For the Uniform where good can so easily become evil - In the Pale Moonlight being of a similar nature, and so many more.
One of the things I'm most looking forward to is watching the series with my kids when they're old enough.
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Unrelated but the TNG episode Tapestry also deserves a mention. [1] Wtf happened to media. Writers used to actually understand people, now everything is so trite.
I still think TNG was the best, but DS9 was good too. In hindsight though, it seems like it was good to have someone like Roddenberry doggedly insisting upon his positive vision for the future. The modern Star Trek series, where there's nobody pushing for the utopian vision any more, are kind of depressing and not really in line with the idea that humanity will eventually be able to improve itself and leave behind the pettiness that holds us back today.
Yeah, I think that's fair. IMO DS9 got the balance right because it's a bit more gritty than TNG, accepts more complexity and ambiguity, but still holds up those ideals as something worth striving for even against severe difficulties.
I'm sad to say the newest Trek shows have just missed me.
Yeah same, there was the one that was both "in the past" (taking place before TNG I believe) but thanks to mushroom magic they had instant teleportation and then timey-wimey stuff so it was also a hypermodern show. The melodrama was just grating on me after a while.
Then there was Picard which actually showed some promise but I couldn't find myself caring about the new characters they tried to introduce on top of the layers of nostalgia. I heard it got a soft reboot or new writers for season 3 but I have no idea, I haven't heard anything about it.
Voyager was still good but that was the last show I actually watched on the regular.
And yet that's what I like about original trek and dislike about many other newer Sci-Fi. Writers trying to one up each other with univers-shattering dangers gets old pretty quick.
thewizzardofnl · · focus · HN ↗
It is insane how much George Lucas has edited the original Star Wars trilogy. I think no movies have had more edits over time than Star Wars.
jasonwatkinspdx · · focus · HN ↗
I think it's pretty clear to everyone now that when Lucas is flying solo his final output is... not great. He obviously imagined a universe a lot of people find compelling, but wasn't always the best person to realize the vision of that universe.
chungy · · focus · HN ↗
jasonwatkinspdx · · focus · HN ↗
actionfromafar · · focus · HN ↗
lizknope · · focus · HN ↗
lbeckman314 · · focus · HN ↗
- Commander Worf, Take Me Out to the Holosuite (7x4)
somenameforme · · focus · HN ↗
One of the things I'm most looking forward to is watching the series with my kids when they're old enough.
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Unrelated but the TNG episode Tapestry also deserves a mention. [1] Wtf happened to media. Writers used to actually understand people, now everything is so trite.
[1] - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGvUDvZ7KyU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGvUDvZ7KyU
bigstrat2003 · · focus · HN ↗
jasonwatkinspdx · · focus · HN ↗
I'm sad to say the newest Trek shows have just missed me.
Cthulhu_ · · focus · HN ↗
Then there was Picard which actually showed some promise but I couldn't find myself caring about the new characters they tried to introduce on top of the layers of nostalgia. I heard it got a soft reboot or new writers for season 3 but I have no idea, I haven't heard anything about it.
Voyager was still good but that was the last show I actually watched on the regular.
account42 · · focus · HN ↗