As I stated in my last
post, George Lucas has lost a great deal of love. At the same time, however, he's also challenged us in certain
ways. Many subscribe to the auteur
theory - perhaps a bit too much. There
are critics who often specifically associate a movie to its director, for
example, "Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver" instead of just "Taxi
Driver." There are some who
believe that a director should get final say on "their"
movie. The term "Director's
Cut" is a label often added to movies on home video and in re-release with
the implication that this version is superior to what was originally released
theatrically. George Lucas is credited
as having wrote and directed the first Star Wars movie from 1977, and is
therefore credited with having created the franchise, a franchise he controlled
for decades until he recently sold it to Disney.
With the Special Editions,
Lucas has challenged us on whether or not it's okay for the "creator"
to constantly alter what they created in order to bring it closer to what they
claim they originally intended. With
the prequels, Lucas has challenged us on the notion of just how much control
the director should be allowed to have on "their" movies. After the prequels, there were those who
claimed that Lucas worked better in the '70s specifically because he didn't have
final say on everything.
In 1988, George Lucas had
this to say about the colourization of black and white movies (quote taken from
SaveStarWars.com):
"My name
is George Lucas. I am a writer,
director, and producer of motion pictures and Chairman of the Board of
Lucasfilm Ltd., a multifaceted entertainment corporation.
I am not here
today as a writer-director, or as a producer, or as the chairman of a
corporation. I've come as a citizen of
what I believe to be a great society that is in need of a moral anchor to help
define and protect its intellectual and cultural heritage. It is not being protected.
The
destruction of our film heritage, which is the focus of concern today, is only
the tip of the iceberg. American law
does not protect our painters, sculptors, recording artists, authors, or
filmmakers from having their lifework distorted, and their reputation
ruined. If something is not done now to
clearly state the moral rights of artists, current and future technologies will
alter, mutilate, and destroy for future generations the subtle human truths and
highest human feeling that talented individuals within our society have
created.
A copyright is
held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American
public; they are part of our cultural history.
People who
alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an
exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue
to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric
society. The preservation of our
cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as 'when
life begins' or 'when it should be appropriately terminated,' but it is
important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our
humanness. Art is a distinctly human
endeavor. We must have respect for it
if we are to have any respect for the human race.
These current
defacements are just the beginning.
Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white
movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material
to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors
with 'fresher faces,' or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's
lips to match. It will soon be possible
to create a new 'original' negative with whatever changes or alterations the
copyright holder of the moment desires.
The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in
preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many
archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have
been better preserved.
In the future
it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be 'replaced'
by new altered negatives. This would be
a great loss to our society. Our
cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.
There is
nothing to stop American films, records, books, and paintings from being sold
to a foreign entity or egotistical gangsters and having them change our
cultural heritage to suit their personal taste.
I accuse the
companies and groups, who say that American law is sufficient, of misleading
the Congress and the People for their own economic self-interest. I accuse the corporations, who oppose the
moral rights of the artist, of being dishonest and insensitive to American
cultural heritage and of being interested only in their quarterly bottom line,
and not in the long-term interest of the Nation.
The public's
interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a
copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of
time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work.
There are
those who say American law is sufficient.
That's an outrage! It's not
sufficient! If it were sufficient, why
would I be here? Why would John Houston
have been so studiously ignored when he protested the colorization of 'The
Maltese Falcon?' Why are films cut up
and butchered?
Attention
should be paid to this question of our soul, and not simply to accounting
procedures. Attention should be paid to
the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this
generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself.
I hope you have the
courage to lead America in acknowledging the importance of American art to the
human race, and accord the proper protection for the creators of that art--as
it is accorded them in much of the rest of the world communities."
Considering what Lucas has
done with Star Wars since then, the above statement is very ironic. So is Lucas testing us? Trying to see how many of us are true
cinephiles? When forcing the Special
Editions on us, making them the only legal and commercial way to watch the Star
Wars trilogy, would we collectively say "no" and refuse to buy these
new "butchered" versions? Or
would we tell ourselves it's not that important, and vote with our wallets that
what Lucas has done is okay?
Assuming the Special
Editions are inferior to the original versions, have people who bought the
Special Editions rationalized doing so by claiming that George Lucas isn't just
a "copyright holder," but the "creator," and is therefore
not only entitled, but right to alter "his" movies this way? As a side note, Harry Knowles of Ain't it
Cool News believed that Lucas was testing us, trying to find out how many of us
really cared. Of course, Knowles went
ahead and bought the new Special Edition Blu-ray set anyway. Also, of course, the Special Editions made a
lot of money, both in theatres and on home video, indicating that if Lucas was
indeed testing us, we have failed miserably.
Maybe Lucas really has
stopped caring. Or perhaps in his mind,
Lucas is only preserving what he believes to be the "true" versions
of Star Wars.
Can Lucas really be
regarded as the one true "creator" of Star Wars? Movies as big as Star Wars are actually
created by many people. How much input
did performers like Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, or Alec Guinness
have in making those movies? What about
Gary Kurtz? How would Return of the
Jedi, or the prequels, have turned out had Kurtz stayed on as producer? What about the cinematographer, not to
mention the people who worked on the special effects, whose work is being
overwritten with CGI? Do they not fit
in the role of "creator?"
And is Star Wars even
worth defending? These movies are
traditionally regarded as children's films, so does caring about their
preservation count as regressive and immature?
Apparently, at one point a fan asked Lucas why he wasn't willing to
commercially release the original editions.
In response, Lucas supposedly rolled his eyes and replied, "Grow
up. These are my movies." Is it out of line for fans to be outraged by
this? In the previous paragraph, I
brought up the question of who does Star Wars really belong to. George can say, "These are my
movies," but if that's his attitude, then why did he bother releasing them
in any form to the public at all, and why did he continue to do so? He obviously cares about the commercial
appeal of his work. He clearly wouldn't
enjoy the success he's had for over three-and-a-half decades without the fans,
so what's our stake in this?
Are movies in general even
worth all this? If what was done with
Star Wars was done with High Holy Works of Art like Citizen Kane or Lawrence of
Arabia, would it then be okay for us to collectively lose our shit? Why are there people who claim to cherish
this medium so much? Yes, some are
inspired to do great things by movies, but some are inspired to do terrible
things too, and for most people, movies are just ephemeral entertainment. If movies are so great, are most of us just
too small-minded and/or dimwitted to see that greatness? Or is that "greatness" just more
overblown hype, like when some forgettable summer blockbuster is marketed as
"the movie event of the year?"
Whether by accident or by design, these are some of the questions George
Lucas has raised.
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