TOP FIVE WORST STAR WARS: SPECIAL EDITION CHANGES
It’s Friday! Time to countdown in the world of nerd with the Friday Five! This week, we continue to ride the hype train to The Force Awakens with the top five worst Star Wars: Special Edition changes!
In the distant year 1997, geeks and nerds everywhere were bursting with anticipation as the Star Wars trilogy returned to the big screen with new and enhanced special effects and added scenes! Just check out this trailer, I think it’s the first time I ever cried over a movie preview. (It wouldn’t be the last, thanks Star Wars)
Unfortunately, some of the changes weren’t that great. Some of the changes were downright horrible. These five here? These are the worst of the worst.
5) Boba Fett is everywhere!
Sometimes in anime, fan service is seeing the underwear of a 12,000 year old demon in the form of a 12 year old girl. In the Star Wars Special Editions, fan service is beefing up the Boba Fett cameos. The beloved bad ass bounty hunter suddenly is now in Mos Eisley with Jabba the Hutt, oh and HE LOOKS RIGHT AT THE SCREEN as he walks away in an immersion ruining moment. Then in Return of the Jedi, he is suddenly shown a lot more in Jabbas Palace, including macking on some of Jabbas dancers. Wat. I’m not sure what I imagined Boba doing in his off time after seeing his scene stealing appearance in Empire Strikes Back, but it wasn’t trying to hit on dancing girls or breaking the 4th wall in one of the lamest Easter eggs ever.
4) Han meets Jabba in Mos Eisley
The deleted scene of Han Solo running into Jabba the Hutt in Mos Eisley was a cool little bit of trivia. Jabba was just a fat human in a furry jacket. The scene was cut because he basically has the exact same conversation with Greedo in the Cantina 10 minutes earlier. Flash forward to 1997, and they put what may be the worst CG since The Rock in The Scorpion King over the actor to show a slightly slimmer alien Jabba. Then Han Solo walks over his tail in another display of FLAT OUT HORRIBLE sfx. Add in the fact that the scene is still just a rehash of what Greedo just said, and the aforementioned Boba Fett cameo and we have a shit sandwich that should have been a dvd extra.
3) Greedo shoots first?
And here we have the scene that has become a rallying cry for a generation of nerds, angered about changes in the movies. Originally, Greedo corners Han Solo in the cantina and tries to collect the bounty on his head from Jabba the Hutt. Han, being a complete and total bad ass, shoots him and walks away leaving his corpse at the table. Even when I was four years old, I understood why he had to do it, and it’s an act that sets him apart from Luke. Han isn’t a nice or good person at this point in the movie. Remember he was going to take his reward and bounce on the Rebels before the Battle of Yavin? So George Lucas decided that he shouldn’t kill someone in cold blood and made it so Greedo shoots first. It’s a really, really, REALLY dumb change, and the effects used to achieve it are pretty terrible. Eventually this is retconned in future releases to be them shooting at the same time, but it totally takes away from the awesomeness of the scene. If this is so terrible, how can it not be number one? Well, I can at least understand where Lucas was coming from, not wanting Han to shoot first in what is essentially a kid’s movie. I 100% disagree with it, but at least it makes sense.
2) Ghost Anakin is Anakin from the prequels
Ok, so this wasn’t a change until the later DVD release, but UGH is it horrible! Here we go. So at the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke looks off from the party of the century on Endor to see Yoda, Obi Wan and Anakin in Force ghost form being happy as part of the light side of the Force. It was the same actor who played unmasked Darth Vader as Anakin here, so it all makes sense. As a kid, I had no problem understanding what was happening. So George goes and removes him and adds in ANAKIN FROM THE PREQUELS INSTEAD. WAT. Just so we all understand, Anakin is now his 20 year old self, but Obi Wan and Yoda are still old. So, Obi Wan gives up the second half of his life to be a hermit on Tattooine and watch Luke, then get killed on the first Death Star and he’s stuck being old as a ghost. Yoda lives alone on Dagobah in seclusion and is also stuck being old. Anakin turns evil, murders a zillion Jedi (INCLUDING YOUNGLINGS!) and rules over the galaxy with an iron fist for twenty years only to repent 5 seconds before he dies and he gets to be 20 years old forever. Uh, thanks Force. I bet Obi Wan and Yoda feel like total suckers when they aren’t clutching their life alert necklaces.
1) Jedi Rocks
In the halls of Jabbas Palace we have the Max Rebo Band performing and in between scenes they played a quick song. You probably barely remember it. That’s fine, that’s all it was supposed to be. A few seconds of a wacky alien song. Too bad, so sad for us that George Lucas decided he didn’t like the looks of the puppet in the scene and replaced it with the absolute abomination that is “Jedi Rocks”. Suddenly in the new footage, Jabba decides he wants more music and a shitty CG alien comes out and sings this god awful song. There’s a band with a weequay playing giant drums that are never seen in the background of the scenes again even though they should take up a good part of the room. There’s shitty dancing girls singing along. The whole movie literally stops dead so this can happen. It’s so bad. It’s actually embarrassing to watch. Nothing can be worse than feeling shame while watching something you love. Unlike ANYTHING else in the trilogy, this is a sequence I want to leave the room when it plays or fast forward. I don’t want anyone to see me watching it and assume this is the level of awesome to expect from Star Wars. I’d rather watch Greedo shoot first one hundred times in a row than ever see this again. I’d rather Episodes 7 – 9 be entirely about Boss Nass and Jar Jar talking over dinner than watch this. For that, it is without a doubt, THE WORST CHANGE TO THE STAR WARS: SPECIAL EDITIONS.
https://youtu.be/2jzZOgLH4KU
That wraps us up for another countdown! As always, feedback is welcome! Leave a comment below, hit us up through social media, or email us sowizardpodcast@yahoo.com!
Join us next week as we countdown again in the world of nerd on the Friday Five!
