We understood the decision to replace the puppet Yoda in the theatrical version of The Phantom Menace. It only makes sense continuity wise, but word has come in from all over the internet that changes have already been spotted in early releases of the newly Blu-Ray’d original saga. Fanboys, set your phasers to kill.
Now before we get into the infuriating stuff, we’ll start with the good news. There have only been three changes discovered so far, and one of them actually makes sense. All of these started off as simple youtube rumors, so we refrained from posting them, but the good people at TheForce.net have provided us confirmation from LucasFilm that the updates have been made. A spokesperson was quoted to say-
“Yes, the updates are confirmed. We hope fans will wait to see for themselves how they fit into the Saga before making any judgments.
Everyone remembers the Ewoks. Without their fuzzy and cute helping hands, the rebel cause would have failed. They also had eternal and non-blinking gazes. While it was not necessary to add CGI blinking eyelids to the race of fuzzy-wuzzy warriors, the change is definitely the least upsetting since you can at least see where Lucas was coming from.
Okay, now let’s move on to the slightly more pointless and upsetting. Remember in A New Hope when Obi-Wan impersonated the call of a Krayt Dragon? Well, that too has been changed.
Please note that this video of the updated Krayt Dragon call was dubbed from an MP3 recording of the actual clip and then added to the original. This next video however, was ripped directly from the Blu-Ray. Remember the LOL-worthy elongated “no” that spewed from Darth Vader’s mouth at the end of Revenge of the Sith? Well it’s been added to the climax of the entire saga.
We had originally included a diatribe about altering a masterpiece and how such tweaks are detrimental to the original source material, but we decided to delete it. Instead, we’ll just quote George Lucas’s 1988 speech to Congress.
People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as “when life begins” or “when it should be appropriately terminated,” but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.
These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with “fresher faces,” or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor’s lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new “original” negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.
In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.
Thanks to youtube user WideAsleepFilms for the clips and SaveStarWars.com (via Slashfilm) for the speech text.
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