because george envisioned it that way... all along

because george envisioned it that way... all along. © 1997 Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>
	Recently I had the opportunity to interview legendary film-maker George Lucas. We spoke about the recent release of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition. Here is a small excerpt from our conversation.
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JWZ	So, some of the changes you've made to the movie have been pretty controversial, haven't they?
GL	Well, I don't know about that...
JWZ	Let's take the Cantina scene, for example...
GL	You mean the segment where we show Greedo firing first, before Solo?
JWZ	No no, actually I meant the band...
GL	Ah...
JWZ	A lot of people were pretty surprised to find that the music played by that familiar alien horn section had been replaced by a new hit by perennial grunge favorites ``Soundgarden''...
GL	I suppose that might have come as a surprise, but you see, it wasn't so much a change as a restoration. Because that was the original intent all along, we just didn't have, at the time, back in 1976, the time or funding or even access to the technology to include something like that in the movie. Along with so many other great things! I mean we didn't even develop the THX sound system until 1982, when we were working on Jedi, the third film.
JWZ	But I thought that Soundgarden wasn't even a going concern at the time -- as I recall, their first album came out in 1988 or so! That's eleven years after Star Wars was released.
GL	Well yes, that's true, I didn't mean Soundgarden per se -- let me explain. You see, one of the things we tried to do with this restoration of the Star Wars trilogy was not merely to restore the prints to their original form, but to restore them to their original intent as well. For example, we always wanted there to be more creatures walking around, and with modern digital technology, we were finally able to put them in. And many other touches like that. What prevented us from doing this back then was largely budget and time constraints. And likewise, with the band -- I was never satisfied with what we eventually ended up printing in that scene. From the beginning, and anyone working on the production can tell you this, I always wanted there to be a popular rock-and-roll band in the Cantina, to appeal to the teenagers in the audience, and give the impression that this was the happening place to be in Mos Eisley.
JWZ	Ok...
GL	Now, we did many of the new effects digitally, with modern technology, because we have it available today. We wouldn't limit ourselves to using only mid-seventies technology in the new footage, that would be silly and wasteful, and the end result wouldn't look nearly as good! Imagine if we used claymation dinosaurs. Not to knock Ray Harryhausen or anything, but...
JWZ	So you're saying that, if you had had the budget and clout to attract a popular band to your movie back then...
GL	We would have, absolutely.
JWZ	Such as...?
GL	I don't know, Styx? REO Speedwagon?
JWZ	Rush?
GL	Rush! Yes, exactly. You see what I'm getting at.
JWZ	But if seen today, those bands would look awfully dated...
GL	Right right, just like if, if you could see the wires that the space ships were hanging from, or if you could sometimes tell that a light saber was really just a plastic tube. Those are the kinds of problems we were trying to fix, to do right this time around. If we had used one of those other bands, and I'm not saying they aren't all fabulous bands, mind you, we probably would have had a lot of cleanup work to do there, too.
JWZ	Like, perhaps, replacing them with songs by other bands?
GL	Well, possibly. Ok, in the case of REO Speedwagon, definitely. But perhaps we could also get the band, or the surviving members or what have you, to reform and record a new version. Digitally. Maybe with a techno beat, I don't know.
JWZ	I see. Well that clears up a lot of confusion, I'm sure our readers will see things more clearly now! My next question is about Princess Leia.
GL	Mmm hmmm?
JWZ	Specifically, her breasts. I'm reading here that in the new release of Return of the Jedi, the person wearing the slave-girl costume is no longer Carrie Fisher, but from the neck down is actually Pamela Anderson-Lee.
GL	Well I'm sure you realize that in the seventies, cosmetic surgery was still in its infancy...
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