"“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.
Roddenberry specifically wasn't needed, Rick Berman was able to learn from his vision and maintain it. After Roddenberry died, Berman was able to maintain TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise all with the Star Trek ideals that Roddenberry always fought to maintain when he was alive. Even as Deep Space Nine and Enterprise had to seemingly throw the ideals out the window temporarily, with the Dominion and Xindi arcs, just to better demonstrate why they were so badly needed in the first place.
Unfortunately, we don't have a Rick Berman, or anyone else that maintains the same ideals, at the helm anymore.
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 ↗
karel-3d · · focus · HN ↗
chungy · · focus · HN ↗
Unfortunately, we don't have a Rick Berman, or anyone else that maintains the same ideals, at the helm anymore.
account42 · · focus · HN ↗