Even some of my good friends are saying that he stole their childhoods by making Greedo shoot first, adding the Nooooo Darth Vader scene when he throws the Emperor down the shaft. What people don't realize or admit is that they would not have had these memories in the first place if George Lucas had not put his money into a space opera movie that nobody thought would succeed with relatively unknown actors. I turned forty this year and the first movie I can remember seeing was the original Star Wars A New Hope movie in 1977. I was six years old and will never forget the opening scene with the Star Destroyer coming into view chasing the Corellian Corvette. I will never forget the first scene of Darth Vader coming through the smoke after the boarding party. These are memories that nobody will be able to take from me no matter how many re-makes there are, or added footage is added. These scenes are embedded in my mind. What kid that has seen the movies has not reached towards something and tried to move it with the force. Heck I still do that. Unfortunately it has not worked yet.
People keep talking about Lucas bleeding money out of them. These are the same people that have these same memories that I do. But you know what? People have a choice. Last I checked Lucas was not holding a gun to my head making me buy all of his products. In fact I don't own any of the movies on DVD. I made a decision not to buy them. I know people are fans, short for fanatics and do crazy things and have to own every piece of starwars celluloid that comes out. But somewhere people have to have personal responsibility. In the end these are George Lucas' movies. He can do what he wants with them. It is up to you the consumer to decide whether to buy them. As for me, I will be one of the people buying the movies. I am actually looking forward to them. If another version comes out, I will not be buying them. I don't NEED them.
Do I think Lucas is perfect? No far from it, I think he has done some pretty bad things with his movies. such as shutting down a screening of the movies that a group had arranged. So he is far from a saint, but they are his movies. I liken this reaction the George R.R. Martin completing the Song of Ice and Fire books. People were threatening him if he did not come out with the next book. As I said before fans do strange things. But let’s not forget that it was these people that made us love these things in the first place. So as you see, the title of my post was kind of tongue and cheek.
May the force be with you.
