Tell any Star Wars fans that Greedo shot first and you’ll be in for an argument that would make a wookie ripping your arms off seem tame by comparison. When George Lucas rereleased the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997 as special editions, he started a trend of “fixing” his films that has plagued fans to this day.
Now, with the impending release of ‘Star Wars: The Complete Saga’ on Blu-ray coming this September 16, Lucasfilm has made even more changes to the classic sci-fi trilogy. And this time around, not even the prequel trilogy is safe. Over the last week, various clips of the changes have hit the internet. The most noticeable and controversial updates are the changing of Yoda in ‘The Phantom Menace’ from a Jim Henson puppet into a CGI creature and the added “Nooooooooo!” to the finale of ‘Return of the Jedi’. Collected below are the changes that we know about… so far.
A side-by-side comparison of the original puppet Yoda next to the updated CGI version in ‘Phantom Menace’ Blu-ray:
Darth Vader is now a little more vocal before tossing the Emperor down the shaft in ‘Return of the Jedi’:
A dug can now be seen wandering through Jabba’s palace:
The ewoks now have blinking CGI eyes:
…and Ben Kenobi’s Krayt Dragon call in ‘A New Hope’ now sounds like a remixed version of Goofy’s scream:
You don’t believe me? Listen to this…
What do you think about Lucas’ tinkering with the films? Is he, as some claim, making the films into what he would have done originally if he’d had the technology? Or is he messing with classic films that don’t need to the updates? Fans are going to be split on this one but I fall firmly in the camp of “Stop messing with my childhood, Lucas!”
