Film Review Lens: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

                                                   
                                                 (Fig 1: Movie Poster (1980))

The original Star Wars trilogy is world renowned and even in the rare case of someone not seeing it, they would have at least heard of it or seen a parody of it. What Star Wars is most known for is its practical and special effects. George Lucas was trying to create a world which at the time wasn't fully possible with CGI, since it was still in its early stages. Partnered with John Dykstra (Special Effects Designer), Lucas was able to create the world of Star Wars. However, in 1997 began alterations to the original trilogy adding in more CGI which wasn't possible before, along with alterations to certain shots. 

(Fig 2: Movie Still, The Empire Strikes Back)

Over the years the changes Lucas made had sparked some controversy with the fans. However, John Dykstra was fine with Lucas making changes. "He should tweak it until his heart's content. You never finish a movie. It is always pried from your grasping hands. There is always something you can fix." (Dykstra, 2011) Films will always be criticised and judged, as Dylstra said "There is always something you can fix" and Lucas saw that there were changes that he believed would be beneficial to the film. Some of these changes consist of; recolouring scenes, edits to dialogue, extending scenes and in the later alterations, CGI creatures and characters added. Even though Dykstra seems to be fine with Lucas making changes, fans of the original trilogy still seem to be upset with the changes.

                                             (Fig 3: Movie Still 'A New Hope')     
 
The changes affected  portions of the films narrative and its characters, for example Han Solo. Star Wars has always been portrayed as a space western, and fans wanted to see Han as an outlaw with nothing to lose. However, with the changes slightly changed this, which is what led to upset fans.
"The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t.." (Lucas, 2012) Although, this changed upset some fans, Lucas only wanted to make what he visioned to be clear. He doesn't see Han as a cold blooded killer, which makes his reasoning for changing that specific scene more clear. However, this also doesn't mean fans have to stop seeing Han this way. Lucas may have created Star Wars, but the fans can imagine and visualise the characters in any way they want.

(Fig 4: movie stills)

Although many seem to not like the changes, there are some benefits to the choices Lucas made. "it’s easy to forget that some of the changes made to A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi aided, rather than maligned, the Star Wars saga." (Whitbrook, 2015) As mentioned earlier these changes were partly because at the time of production for these movies CGI wasn't where it is today and it limited what Lucas could do. As well as just Lucas's own personal preference like the earlier example of the "who shot first" scene. In 'The Empire Strikes Back' Vader contacts his master via a hologram, which doesn't look good and slightly confusing since Ian McDiarmid had not yet been cast as Emperor Palpatine. The changes then went back and got McDiarmid to re-shoot the scene making the emperor look more like the one we see in 'Return of the Jedi'. Another beneficial change was the edits to cities and environments. The whole saga is a bit restricted either with battle scenes that mainly only stick with main characters or cities like cloud city where the inhabitants are not even seen much. In the changes there's the evacuation scene in cloud city where you see crowds scrambling around. Also, the celebratory scenes on Tatooine, Cloud City, and Coruscant at the end of 'Return of the Jedi', give a bit more depth to the locations that we as the audience have travelled to.


Bibliography:

Block, A. (2012). 5 Questions With George Lucas: Controversial 'Star Wars' Changes, SOPA and 'Indiana Jones 5'. [online] The Hollywood Reporter. Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/george-lucas-star-wars-interview-288523 [Accessed 23 Sep. 2018].

Pinchefsky, C. (2012). FX guru John Dykstra: George Lucas is RIGHT to mess with Star Wars. [online] Syfy. Available at: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/fx_guru_john_dykstra_geor [Accessed 23 Sep. 2018].

Whitbrook, J. (2015). [online] Io9.gizmodo.com. Available at: https://io9.gizmodo.com/6-ways-the-star-wars-special-editions-actually-improved-1733368444 [Accessed 23 Sep. 2018].

Illustrations:

Fig 1: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/

Fig 2: http://collider.com/star-wars-original-trilogy-changes-video/

Fig 3: https://popculturalstudies.wordpress.com/2017/11/28/han-shot-first-is-important-not-for-the-reason-you-think/

Fig 4: https://io9.gizmodo.com/6-ways-the-star-wars-special-editions-actually-improved-1733368444