I understand George Lucas’s perfectionist streak, if not his revisionism.  I’m not going to rehash the whole debate on whether or not Lucas has a right to change his own movies when they’ve existed in the public consciousness for so long.  What’s more interesting to me is the idea that fans have taken it upon themselves to nip and tuck and tweak their own ‘definitive’ versions of the movies too.  It begs the question: whose movies are they?

The article turned me on to a particular fan edit called Star Wars: Revisited by adywan.  I sought it out and watched it last night.  This guy has made an impressive list of fixes and improvements.  Most of them I liked, some of them I could do without, but it’s all in good fun.  Because ultimately, this isn’t ‘official’, right?  Maybe not.  If not this, then what?  The version I watched as a kid doesn’t exist anymore.  The 2004 DVD introduced a whole new set of issues, including some questionable color correction throughout all the movies.

Unlike most so-called fan edits, I happen to think this is an all-around better revisionist version of the original Star Wars than George Lucas’s special editions.  But what does that mean?  What are the implications of that?  If anyone can make their own personal ‘improvements’ upon somebody else’s work, whose version is the ‘real’ version?  Is there such a thing?  Does it matter?  Has Star Wars, the original film, become more of an idea than an actual movie?

Whatever the case, I’m looking forward to adywan’s Empire Strikes Back: Revisited:

In the pilot, what first looks like a terrorist act turns out to be a Cold War relic come back to haunt the present. We follow our main characters, a team of Homeland Security agents, as they discover the truth of what’s happened: a forgotten Soviet space mission has returned to Earth, and what it’s brought back will have implications for the entire world. It’s part political drama, part procedural drama, with a tinge of sci-fi. But beyond the initial catalyst, which is fiction, everything has its root in factual events.

Right now we are working on finishing our pilot episode as a proof-of-concept for the series.  Once we secure funding for the rest of the season, six more episodes will follow to finish out our 7-episode first season.  From there, we have four more seasons’ worth of story we’re waiting to tell.  Each new season of stories takes on a new perspective with new characters and situations that will ultimately contribute to a much larger narrative.

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