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1988 George Lucas Crusades Against 2011 George Lucas


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?Since the George Lucas-hater-haters came out en masse yesterday, I thought I’d address a few things. 1) Not buying the new, Specialer Edition Blu-rays does nothing to help our cause. We may not want them — but we don’t actually want to stop anybody from buying them if they want them. Plenty of people may be upset about these changes, but plenty of people are not. We don’t want to deny them their option. We just want our option.

2) The Star Wars Blu-rays are going to sell a jillion copies no matter what. So not buying them to send a message to Lucas is not feasible in this case. Honestly, talking about our wishes is the only effective way to get our message out there, and it’s not particularly effective. We know that, but that’s all we got.

3) To anyone who brings up the the 2004 non-anamorphic widescreen non-Special Edition Star Wars DVDs… don’t. Without anamorphic widescreen, which has long been the digital video standard, those DVDs present the non-Special Edition trilogy in a format no better then when they were last released on VHS… in the 1990s. Imagine if all versions of Star Wars had been given the same (non-)treatment — no Blu-rays, DVDs that look the same as the old videotapes. Would you be upset?

4) Last but certainly not least: Yesterday, I talked a bit about how I don’t think George Lucas owes the fans anything. Someone disagrees with me on that — and it’s George Lucas. Here’s a speech that Lucas gave before Congress in 1988 denouncing the practice of altering films, courtesy of SaveStarWars.com (this has been going around the internet a lot lately, but it’s somewhat relevant to the discussion). Anyways, the word are all Lucas’ — the bolds are mine.

“My name is George Lucas. I am a writer, director, and
producer of motion pictures and Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm Ltd., a
multi-faceted 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. Tommorrow, 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.”

 So. We have George Lucas on our side. Now, if only we can get George Lucas to listen.