Worst Changes to the Star Wars Saga
How sad is it that it's come to the point where we are actually talking about pointless, unnecessary, heartbreaking changes made to the Star Wars movies? Here's a list of the worst things changed.The oldest and arguably the most controversial change ever made to the originals. Han shot first in the original scene but apparently George thought it would "look bad" if Han shot first because he's meant to be a hero. That's the point though! Han isn't necessarily a hero! He's a scoundrel and in this type of a situation he would have totally shot first!
The original scene was fine. You DON'T mess with Han Solo. Now, Greedo fires at Han so he can fire back in self-defense. Each rerelease of this movie also manages to add something to make the scene even worse.
This was was one of the most memorable moments in movie history arguably until George Lucas thought it should be changed. This scene was once again PERFECT the way it was! The way Vader was dead silent as he hoisted the Emperor up and through him into the chasm was epic! This whole scene was absolutely ruined by Lucas tampering with it and it is the reason I can't force myself to buy the Blu-Rays.
Apparently, the silence of the original scene wasn't enough for us to know that Vader doesn't like what he is seeing.
This would be much higher if it was kept in the movie, but thankfully George came to his senses in the next Special Edition. Seriously, why was this ever even put in?! It's not even Mark Hammil screaming! It's literally the Emperor's scream as he falls to his death in Episode VI! So not only was this once again ruining the moment, but it was an absolutely reused sound! Thank goodness this was taken out!
Cringe worthy. Just plain cringe worthy.
Why on earth would George go back and add a bunch of CGI crap? I have no idea. What he added was honestly really pointless and I question why he thought it HAD to be in the movies in the first place. The only two I'm perfectly fine with were the Dewbacks with Sandtroopers and the Landspeeder. All the rest like creatures roaming in front of the screen, bigger creatures knocking droids Jawas off of them, Jabba's singing things, and especially a Dug roaming around in Jabba's palace were pointless.
The CGI is very distracting, and doesn't blend well with the live-action at all. There's also 2 seconds of nothing but CGI covering the whole screen in A New Hope at one point.
I hate the gungans. Putting one along with an annoying voice clip at the end of Return of the Jedi was not cool at all.
Brief 40 second musical number with a somewhat catchy tune and puppetry that doesn't make me want to hurl turns into a minute long musical with crappy CGI and some of the worst choreography ever. The CGI alone makes me want to throw up.
As much as I like the tune, the scene that goes with it is just... why?
This scene has probably had the most changes to it. The first one I ever heard was the one that sounded like a siren and at the time, I thought it was fine. However, after hearing the original, I liked it much more. Don't even get me started on the Blu-Ray version.
The original was fine. Who cares if it sounded too similar to a dewbeck. But nope! It was changed to a high-pitch wail on the 2004 DVD and then to the most annoying sound you could ever hear in the 2011 Blu-Ray release.
This may have been the most pointless change of all. Seriously, how did George Lucas expect R2 to even fit behind all the rocks he added? To top that off, in the next shot after R2 comes out of his hiding spot, the CGI rocks are gone! This scene was perfectly fine the way it was.
Extremely pointless and how did R2 get out of there?
How exactly did R2 get behind those rocks again?
This is a scene I can live with, but still worth discussing. The reasons it's dumb is #1 Han uses some of the exact same dialogue in this scene that he uses with Greedo in a scene prior, #2 we all loved the mystery/anticipation of finding out who Jabba was in Episode VI and by seeing him in Episode IV already ruins it, and #3 Jabba in CGI makes no sense to me when he's a live-action puppet two movies later. This scene wasn't originally in the movie and I prefer it stay that way.
There are many examples of where this has happened such as when Luke helps R2-D2 up on Dagobah, Yoda first speaking to Luke (which was completely taken out on the Blu-Ray), Vader as he leaves Bespin, and C-3PO as the Millennium Falcon goes through the asteroid field. Some of these I had no problems with but some I did. Again, I ask myself, why was this necessary?
Perfectly fine dialogue gets butchered. The best example of this is the scene where R2 gets spat out in the swamp in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke originally said, "You're lucky you don't taste good! But in the Special Editions, he says, "You were lucky to get out of there! " Not fun at all.
I actuallyyy like this change. The only downside I see is the original actor being kicked out of the film, save for Darth Vader's unmasking scene. But if a young child were to watch the films in chronological order, not knowing ANYTHING about the series, they'd see Anakin as the chosen hero, and watch him unexpectedly turn to the dark side. Then in Episode 6 Anakin comes back and they see their original hero at peace again! Just my thoughts on it!
When trying to fix the coloring of the lightsabers in certain scenes, it looked absolutely awful in others. The best example of this is in Episode IV when Luke is training on board the Millennium Falcon or when Luke and Vader clash in Episode VI. However, it was finally all fixed on the Blu-Rays.
I'll never understand how they messed up the colors so bad on the DVD. Luckily they fixed the most noticeable instances of discoloring on the Blu-Ray, and later fixed all of the coloring issues on Disney+.
His original voice sounded so awesome! But let's replace it with a monotone expressionless voice on the DVD for consistency reasons.
The sarlacc was fine the way it was!
This guy is not the Han Solo we went. Why not use Harrison Ford with CGI?
This wasn't absolutely terrible, but still worth noting. I know it was kind of necessary to have the Ewoks blink, but at the same time, it looks really awkward. I would've been fine if George just left it the way it was, but this is at least something I think we can all roll with for once.
Luke is one reason why the Last Jedi bombed.