Talkback: Is Darth Vader Screaming 'Noooo' Really Such An Insult to Star Wars?
On Tuesday, Star Wars fans became outraged upon learning that George Lucas had apparently digitally inserted a Darth Vader scream in the Blu-ray version of Return of the Jedi, available as part of the remastered HD trilogy out in September. It's a possible change which raises the question: Is a two-second "Noooo" really worth getting that worked up over?
[The above video combines audio received by io9.com with the original Star Wars video.]
[UPDATE: Lucasfilm has confirmed the changes.]
Admittedly, I don't have much invested in the Star Wars franchise (especially post-Jar Jar Binks) which is why I want to understand how a single scream is such a hurtful edit for fans. Especially since that scream takes up two seconds out of 600+ minutes of trilogy running time. I realize that George Lucas has been making subtle changes to his classic trilogy for the past two decades, including apparent additional alterations this go-around with more realistic Ewok eyes and a different Obi-Wan "Krayyt Dragon" call. But a scream? Is this just the fan breaking point?
George Lucas did not direct Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi and some may say that it is not his territory to re-edit the work of Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand. Still, though, Lucas created the intergalactic franchise; if he doesn't have the rights to add a sound effect, who does? Would you have preferred that the producer/director post an online poll asking fans for permission since Star Wars is such a beloved entity?
If this turns out to be official, it's not like Lucas plugged in that controversial "Noooo" and all prior Return of the Jedi editions self-destructed inside millions of homes instantaneously. Those old Return of the Jedi copies are still floating around in a galaxy not so far away.
· Darth Vader will lose a little more of his dignity in Star Wars original trilogy Blu-rays. Listen for yourself! [io9]
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It's not really worth getting worked up over but there are two main reasons why people are: it incorporates one of the most tone deaf and widely mocked moments of the prequels into the original trilogy (one that helped spawn a meme) and Lucas still refuses to put out a non-altered version of the films. I could care less if he continues to tinker with his films, I just want the original versions in the best quality available. I would even by the new versions if they came bundled with the old, but they aren't so I won't.
Yeah, it is a big deal. I became a fan of the movies I saw originally. I don't need all this additional tweaking. You know what, George Lucas? If you weren't happy with them in the first place, you should have made those changes then.
Re: "Admittedly, I don’t have much invested in the Star Wars franchise (especially post-Jar Jar Binks) which is why I want to understand how a single scream is such a hurtful edit for fans."
Strange sentence. You seem to be want to be both aloof from the franchise, AND -- with the "especially post-Jar Jar" bit -- IN ESSENCE the same as the truest fan.
Lucas communicates with his re-edits that he has no interest or respect for your own recalled experience of a film. It's a two-second insertion, but we all know that if he felt a ten-minute howl was what he now wanted, in it it would probably go. Personally, I think it feels wrong when he's tinkering with a film someone else directed. Not organic. While watching it I'll probably feel George Lucas entering the film and tinkering things up, with the whole created universe stopping for a bit, asking itself, "Can he really be getting away with this?" With his own (directed) stuff, I probably wouldn't much mind any change he made -- the George who'd do that permeates all the way through the original film anyway. The old George fussing things up is the same George who once so wickedly messed around. It's all good.
It's not so much an insult as it is a head scratcher. Usually, alterations like this are available as an alternate scene on video. Everyone watches them, shrugs, thinks, "Interesting, but good thing they didn't use that." Except Lucas is using it.
HAN SHOT FIRST.
It's not so much that it's a huge tragedy as much as it's just plain stupid. It truly is Lucas underestimating the intelligence of an audience, and making his movie for babies.
That technology didn't really exist. Soooooooo, yeah.
Ah...yes, it's a big deal. I can remember the audience going crazy at this exact moment whenVader saved Luke. I'm pretty sure it would not get the same reaction now. This is just another slap in the face from Lucas who clearly has nothing but contempt for the legions of fans who have made the movies what they are. And, sorry, but if you don't have much invested in Star Wars, and can't understand what the the big deal is, then why are you the one writing this post?
Wow...you write for a movie site, and you are telling us that a "2 second change" shouldn't be that big of a deal? Any filmmaker or film reviewer worth his or her salt know that a lot can happen in two seconds, especially when those two seconds occur at the single most significant moment in a six-film series. This scene was perfect as it was--the music swelling to a "Force Theme"" crescendo, the silent glances from Vader to Luke to the Emperor--no changes were necessary. And the fact that Lucas' change echoes the single most derided moment in the prequels only furthers the damage. I, for one, like to pretend the prequels never happened. If I were to purchase this version now, every time I watch this scene I'd be reminded of them and how much they drifted from what made "Star Wars" great. Sure, it's only two seconds. Sure, it's only an audio alteration. But it is significant. Don't believe me? Imagine a member of the crowd sitting in the balcony as Atticus Finch leaves the courthouse yelling, "You did your best, Atticus!" Or if Kubrick had gone ahead and used the opening narration for "2001." Sometimes silence is the most powerful dialogue of all, but of course Lucas would never understand that.
What I think will be great is the point at which all the alterations actually accrue into a total transformation of the films into completely different films.
Eventually, ALL of the actors-- puppet, flesh, and digital, will be replaced, the plots restructured, the editing changed, the music "updated…"
It'll be like looking at Thriller-era Michael jackson and comparing his proud, organic face to end-of-life tranny-ghoul Michael Jackson 2.0.
And obviously, Michael was right to do that-- after all, it was his face! And each time he changed his nose-- it just got better and better! Right?
These Films were hack-work from the start-- designed by an egotistical businessman with a copy of Joe Campbell's book followed like an uninspired formula.
(And just like Michael's sick obsessive surface alterations, he keeps making changes to the outside because something inside is rotten in a way that can never be satisfactorily denied.)
The talents of Larry Kasdan, Irvin Kershner, and others painted the turd enough for people to not see it all these years. And I am not surprised that the bones will eventually show.
The Star Wars prequels are definitive proof that you can actually retroactively destroy the meaning and significance of a film or cultural event with shrewd, merciless greed.
For those who felt so spiritually connected to these films, I am so sorry.
...
Just wait until the re-boot.
The prequels to me are very watchable. I like experiencing them for the same reason I like experiencing Oliver Stone and Michael Bay films; because they're enfused with the exhilirating life message that comes from knowing some egos cannot, cannot, cannot be tamed, regardless of what universe or two or three is pit against them. Being astonishingly tone-deaf actually becomes near a rapturous marvel when sensitivity, respectful attendance and responsiveness, more and more comes across as just being broken to please.
Personally, I would resist tinkering with ANYTHING that came out of the '70s, but FOR the consideration of even gross alterations of a lot of what came afterwards -- much of this, inevitably out of the time it came or even blossomed out off, was at best a what-could-have-been.
Don't like the altered versions of the films? Don't watch them.
It really is that simple.
The proprietary delusions fans have cultivated for these films is beyond ridiculous at this point. Lucas can change anything he chooses in the Star Wars films, but he can't change your memories of them.
Nobody is raping your childhood.
" ... which is why I want to understand how a single scream is such a hurtful edit for fans. Especially since that scream takes up two seconds out of 600+ minutes of trilogy running time."
It's hard to take this "logic" seriously. It's one of the most pivotal moments in the whole Star Wars trilogy, or actually of both trilogies.
Just imagine if someone took your all-time favorite movie and changed the key scene in the movie, on which everything was hanging, the point for the very existence of the plot. Now, expand that scope to a dual trilogy.
That scene is Anakin's redemption. It was not only fine as is, but just perfect. We already could see "the conflict" (as his son Luke called it) in his "dark eyes," as he looked from his son to the Emperor, the Emperor to his son, and then he acted to save his son. There was still good in him, despite Darth Vader's denial.
So, it's not just that's simply a few seconds in a set of movies that now comes to 6. It's a matter of which seconds those were.
If he added a scream to one of many stormtroopers being shot, no big deal. If he makes the explosions bigger, using CGI, no big deal.
But such changes as Greedo shooting first affects the whole story because it sets up Han as a different character. He's not the edgy, shoot-first, ask-questions-later character who also experiences his own sort of redemption.
Back to Anakin/Darth Vader. As at least one other person mentioned, the "Noooooo" is used to mirror one of the most silly, unintentionlly funny moments in the prequels.
If this new scene is true, it's as if Lucas is mocking fans.
Got to agree with Dimo. If you're not a Star Wars fan, are you really the right person to be writing this article? I'm probably not going to offering my insight on next season's casting choices for Glee, for instance. I'm sure you're a fine writer, but it seems an odd choice. No offense...
A few theories on the digital insert:
1) It was either on South Park or Family Guy where it was revealed that the real Michael Jackson had been kidnapped in the 90's, and replaced with the alien-like creature that assumed his identity going forward. This is the most logical explanation I can come up with for what has happened to George Lucas.
2) Retribution for years of getting flayed at the hands of Red Letter Media. RLM did a whole documentary on the awfulness of the "NOOOOOO", and then followed it with the hysterical prequel reviews, and I think Georgie Boy is getting his revenge.
3) An entourage of yes-men who are petrified to challenge Lucas on absolutely anything, a complete lack of self-awareness, and the unwavering belief that any and all backlash to anything prequel-related is just from an extreme minority of bitter fanboys.
My wishlist for additional digital inserts:
- Alter everyone's haircuts so it doesn't look like it was shot in the 70's and 80's.
- Replace Wookies with Jar-Jar's.
- The Sarlaac will be voiced by Chris Tucker.
- Bathroom humor needs to be upped AT least 200%. There is a real dearth of people stepping in excrement or passing gas in the original trilogy.
- Not only does Greedo shoot first, he also makes some racist comments beforehand, to show he really deserved to die. He also shoots a puppy.
Really? You feel they are infused with narcissistic life essence? Infused with the Daimonic? The Star Wars prequels!?
Now, I can watch Oliver Stone's U-Turn with its baroque excesses, and feel the fairly radiant Daimonic urge inside it. Bay's The Rock… maybe.
But the prequels? Shot/reverse-shot dead-eyed conversation scenes followed by contrived video-game kinesis, and even that overloaded until it looks like computerized machine language meant to be decoded by a computerized viewer and not a human consciousness-- all tied together with superficial new age pablum?
They make me fall asleep. Their artificiality is like that of a mannequin, or the antiseptic design of an Apple store. I can't locate anything human in them at all, even when trying to appreciate them as a tragic Asperger Syndromic recreation of life forged by a reclusive misanthrope.
Your ability to project your own intense egoistic urges may save these films from being dead time for you. And that is probably not a maladaptation in our increasingly ALL-SURFACE artificial-spectacle-without-insight culture.
And the sad fact is that this kind of participatory narcissism is what is necessary to make contemporary film-product seem infused with any humanity at all. (Films as sources of something to "identify with" rather than something to reveal truth and heal alienation.)
I mean, I suppose I can see the greed and intense, pathetic desire to impress etched into every frame. Is that really what it has come to? That we are to appreciate bad art for its LACK of truth, and rather for its obviousness as the explication of a diseased ego?
Surely, you can't value your own egoism that much-- that you'd rather quiet any yearning for the universal, and make the promotion of the self the only absolute.
P.S.
Are you a Bret Easton Ellis character?
"Not only does Greedo shoot first, he also makes some racist comments beforehand, to show he really deserved to die. He also shoots a puppy." That is fantastic. Maybe he could be in the middle of taking a digitally inserted Betty White in for a bounty. He could spit in her face and pull hard on her choke-chain right before he goes to sit down with Han.
And yes, clearly, Luke needs an emo, flat-iorned hair rejuvenation. If they really understood art, they'd figure out a way to make each character's hair-style selectable in the Blu-ray menu. Update-able online with the latest trends, like skins for a video-game.
It's painful for me personally because I've been planning on buying the original trilogy to watch with my girlfriend who's never seen them, though she's seen the later three. I've been working hard for months to convince her that they're worth her time, and there's more there than just silliness and "laser fighting," and that they're so much different and better and deeper than the later three. But now, one of the most touching and effective moments of the trilogy is turned into complete cheese with just that two second yell. She might never believe anything I say again.
This is akin to replacing "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." with "Well, Jake, life gives you lemons. Life ain't fair is what I'm saying, Jake." (Jake turns to camera:) "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
The ability to have James Earl Jones cry "Nooooooooo!" didn't exist in 1983? And I'm referring to the changes that are truly insulting. See: Adding Hayden Christensen to the end of ROTJ.
Yeah, the HC change is the wrong argument to make, so I'll stop you before you point it out. Just stop screwing with the movies we enjoyed the first time around, George Lucas!
He makes people into his toys; I can really like what obtuse he, Stone, Cameron and Bay can make of their toys. A huge part of me is for accute sensitivity and fineness, but in my experience these most ostensibly tone-deaf, least sensitive directors actually tend to be the ones that can recognize, and find notably worth their exploring, the most important human truths. The others may well see it, but in recognition of the anxiety they might awaken in touching upon them, settle for the most finely observant of still way less important human/psychological truths.
To be sensitive, IS too often to be cowed. It's true, and demands to be loudly recognized. But, though remarkable, it is still a sad thing that you actually probably should look for wisdom, and not just solid action, out of the Michael Bays and Oliver Stones.
It really is THE key moment, since Lucas launched the prequels-- shifting the entire focus of the "saga" from a hero's journey for Luke to the Redemption of Darth Vader-- from this one beat.
I sure am glad he clarified that Vader's actions were really defiant, you know, as he destroyed himself and his evil overlord, bringing down an entire empire and saving his son.
I mean, if he hadn't have said "Nooooooo!!!" I would never have guessed that he was having a decisive moment of conscience.
Enough of my sarlaacasm.
It really is sad. Over the years, the lack of dialogue in this scene and the way the dramatic structure of the scene really made you feel as if you could SEE the internal conflict through that rigid plastic face was always an example I used to explain to friends why "great performances" really consist of well-written scenes. Because the Star Wars films, love 'em or hate 'em, are widely seen, and easy references.
If the scene is structured correctly, then the actor only has to ACT, not indicate, or comment on the content of the scene. They just have to BE in the scene without doing anything untrue.
Lucas's lack of taste is becoming some kind of cosmic joke. I am almost certain that my prediction in the last Star Wars thread here is going to come true:
In Blu-ray Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo now says "I love you, too, my darling, and I really do mean that." in response to Leia before he is lowered into carbonite.
Huh?
He owns the movies, so it's his right to make as many changes as he wants, but for f’s sake, just release the original versions. I was suprised he didn't bundle the movies so you had to buy all 6 movies.
Just found this clip on youtube with even MORE changes to the Jedi ending. http://youtu.be/TzEMrXKnWn8
Just imagine if the ending to Gone With the Wind was changed. Maybe someone with the rights to the movie thought that big kissoff line was too mean.
So instead of, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn," we get an actor doing a voiceover: "Frankly my dear, I don't give rat's pitooty."
Oh, uh, well, it's only ONE LINE. One line among hundreds, thousands of lines. What's the big deal?
(Forehead slap!)
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