Star Wars - Special Edition

Reviewed by: Joe Blenkle

Rating:

Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness

Studio: 20th Century Fox/LucasFilm, Ltd.

Producer: Gary Kurtz

Director: George Lucas

Screenplay: George Lucas

MPAA Rating: PG

Original Release Date: May 25, 1977

Special 20th Anniversary Edition: January 31, 1997

Running Time: 125 Minutes

Editor's Note: This was the original "Star Wars Special Edition." Lucas updated his films for a second time in the first DVD release in 2004.

	Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford in the original Star Wars film.

    Twenty years ago when the movie Star Wars was originally released it was on the cutting edge of technology for its special effects.
    Two decades have passed, and the movie has fallen behind the times...or has it?
    Star Wars creator George Lucas has decided to do something virtually unheard of in the motion picture industry - taking an existing film, redoing its special effects, and adding scenes to it to make the Star Wars Special Edition.
    Films have had scenes added to them before and been re-released on videotape as "Director's Cuts," but never to the degree that Star Wars has - and it's destined for release in the theaters Jan. 31, followed by updated versions of The Empire Strikes Back in February and Return of the Jedi in March.
     Is the Star Wars trilogy worthy of such an update and re-release into the theaters?
    Fans will certainly think so, but after seeing a preview of Star Wars Special Edition last week I certainly wasn't over-awed by what they had done to the movie.
    That's not to say that notable improvements haven't been made to the film. It's just hard to improve on a science-fiction classic, and indeed, many hardcore fans may believe they have ruined the original by tampering with it.
    Star Wars Special Edition is supposed to sport a newly mastered digital soundtrack, but my ears failed to detect much of an improvement save for a few spots.
    A lot of creature effects have been added, especially as Luke (Mark Hammill), Obi Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness), R2-D2 and C-3PO enter the Mos Eisley Spaceport. If you want a bit of shock either before or after seeing Special Edition, go rent the original version and view that scene on video - there is nothing there!
     But in Special Edition, the spaceport is crawling with an assortment of beasts, including some large rat-looking creatures as they approach and many larger ones being ridden by various aliens in the spaceport.
    You may also detect Storm Troopers riding these beasts in earlier parts of the film. Those didn't exist in the original either.
    Virtually all the explosions in the film look to have been re-done, along with a lot of the spaceship scenes. It's tough after 20 years to remember everything, but you can pick out a lot of little things if you view the original video after seeing the film.
    One of the most notable "added" scenes is just before the Millennium Falcon leaves Mos Eisley. Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is having a discussion in front of the Falcon with Jabba the Hut. This scene was apparently shot for the original film with an actor playing the part of Jabba, but it was decided to leave it out as the actor didn't look much like Jabba.
    Jabba has been digitally added to this scene via computer to resemble his later "real" look of a giant slug and part of this scene got one of the biggest laughs of the movie.
    Star Wars Special Edition is viewable as a novelty and for nostalgias sake, but I can't see fans going back time after time like they did with the original release. It was nice to see Luke, Han. Obi Wan and Princess Leia on the big screen again and the crowd did all the obligatory cheers in the right places, but it seems like a lot of money was spent to fix something that wasn't broken.

    And gawd!!! Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher and the rest of the cast all look sooo young... I guess 20 years really have gone by. Return to The Movie Corner