How to Introduce Children to Star Wars

[Heradel]

Contrast this with Ridley Scott's recent Final Cut of Blade Runner, sold as a 5-disc set, with every single previous version. In the introduction to one of them (Original theatrical release?), he says something along the lines of "This isn't my favourite. It didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to. But if you like it, then great. Hope you enjoy watching it." And I thought, yes. This is exactly the attitude to take.

Final Cut was the best one though. Especially on a nice big movie screen, though the graininess of the low-light images was a bit of a start considering what we expect from cameras these days.

Lucas can do whatever he wants to the movies as an artist, but I agree that the prior art must be preserved and kept intact. Thinking in material terms, there's the baldachin in St. Peter's, which is a great work of art, but tarnished by the fact that the bronze was melted down from the ceiling of the Pantheon. So long as the original is preserved, derivatives are desirable.

[wintermute]

Final Cut was the best one though.

Each to their own. I remain a big fan of the original (though not the ending), but I think I could piece together my idea version from that and the workprint cut.

[Russell Nash]

He fucked up The Classic.  He did it twice.  Once by making content changes to the originals...

Actually, I disagree with this. Lucas owns Star Wars, in every way that is relevant. If he wants to release a new version in which every single character is a Gungan, or Han Solo wears a gingham dress, then fine. It's his art, and he can do what he wants with it.

I never said he wasn't allowed to do it.  I said he fucked it up.  My neighbor can put fins and air dams on his Mercedes coupe and paint it pink for all I care, but he will have fucked it up.

[Corydon]

Star Wars-- the original, real Star Wars, the one that was released in the 1970s-- is probably fine for any kid who's old enough to watch and understand movies.  I saw it when it was first released, at age 4 or thereabouts.  There were some parts I found scary (the Sand People sequence was pretty intense), but it was fine.  Empire is darker, of course, and the plot is a little more complex, so I think a little kid might have a hard time understanding it; I'd think a six year old (?) could handle it, but if a parent is there with him to explain stuff, I don't think younger kids would be scarred by it.  Return of the Jedi is just silly fun; I imagine it would be fine for little kids.

I can't really speak to the other trilogy.  As a child, Star Wars was at the center of my imagination.  I lived and breathed it and couldn't wait until the new movies were released (I remember that they were originally slated for 1991; an eternity!)  Then I saw the Phantom Menace... and it was so, so awful. 

Worse, it was awful in such a way (juvenile, stupid) that it almost ruined the original movies for me: it made me wonder whether I liked them because they were any good, or because I saw them at an impressionable age.  Watching them again, I can say that the movies are okay, but they really are kids' movies; I can enjoy them now, but that enjoyment is inseparable from nostalgia.  I don't think I'd like them if I saw them for the first time today.  And I won't watch episodes 2 or 3, because I'm pretty sure they'd kill my love of Star Wars forever.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

A little perspective:

My father-in-law was a huge Star Trek fan, and loved 2001, so when Star Wars came out, he hurried out to see it.  He told me he was very excited by the loud opening sequence, but when the dialogue started, he put the bad writing and lack of real characters together with the scrolling titles at the beginning, and realized it wasn't going to be smart like Star Trek (his words) or artistic and beautiful like 2001.

He sat there getting madder and madder that he had paid for this crappy serial ripoff, until the jawas jumped out and shot the rolling garbage can.  He said he watched the blue lightning and heard the computer screech, and when R2 hit the dirt with that hollow thunk, he laughed his ass off... and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the film.  Films, even.

He didn't even mind Jar-Jar.

So, the moral is: YMMV.  As usual. 

[birdless]

So, the moral is: YMMV.  As usual. 

Well put. For me, Star Wars is such an icon of my childhood that it's become almost more about brand loyalty than about a quality product. It took me a while to admit to myself that the first movie wasn't good. I tried to blame it on bad casting. Then the second one came out. It just didn't meet my expectations. But I still couldn't give up my love for the "brand." My hopes for Episode III were tempered, so that may have had some impact on the fact that I enjoyed it as much as I did. And probably as much for the sake of brand loyalty that I let that one redeem the first two for me. Jar Jar was inexcusable, though.