Sunday, November 29, 2015

It's all right, I can see a lot better

For me, Darth Vader crying was the last straw.

Nostalgia is a funny thing. People’s own memories are highly unreliable. Yet if someone else comes up to you and says that what you remember is wrong, you’ll be angry. Even if what you remember was never real in the first place.

At some point, I remember that I was determined not to care about Star Wars any more. But then they just had to go and bring in someone I respect, like J.J. Abrams, and they made those trailers, and… well, buckle in, because this ain’t gonna be like dusting crops.

Star Wars must be one of the most successful inter-generational franchises. Parents watch it, love it, and pass it onto their kids. By now this has probably happened through at least three generations. The cycle may never end.

So it was with my dad1. He had been saving Star Wars for his kids for the right moment, perhaps waiting to see if it would come back to theatres again, as it had done so many times before. In 1997, he saw just such an opportunity, and thus the ‘Special Editions’2 became the first ‘version’ of the movies that I ever saw. And of course, I loved them. I was 12.

Much has been said since then about Greedo, and his on-screen last moments of action/inaction, immediately prior to (and entirely ineffectual against) his death. Fan-analysts (or fanalysts3) have posited about what this might say about the characters, and how it contributes to our understanding of the story: Is Han a cold-blooded killer, or merely acting in self-defence?4 Some argue it changes the entire tone of the film. But honestly, even after seeing the 1997 versions so many times (and the original versions not at all), for the life of me I don’t think I could have told you who shot first, or even how many shots there were–until I started seeing it printed on t-shirts.

To a first-time viewer, it just didn’t seem important. Greedo was being threatening, and Han did what he needed to do. Who cares about the details?

When the VHS tapes of the 1997 versions came out, before each movie began, there was a short behind-the-scenes featurette where Lucas and his team talked about what they had changed and why. Of course, it was billed as a positive thing: We made these changes because we couldn’t really get it right the first time, and because we think you’ll enjoy the movies more this way. Having no frame of reference other than this, I was all for it. I loved the movies I had seen, so why shouldn’t I respect the choices of the people who made them?

I was a Lucas defender. I dismissed bickering about Greedo’s reflexes as being petty and irrelevant; as I still do, to an extent. Why is it so hard, I would ask, to just relax and enjoy something fun for what it is? Why choose to be so angry?

There’s something in this about how other people’s concerns can seem so trivial, until it happens to you. The year was 2004, and DVDs were a thing. Lucasfilm took their sweet time coming out with the trilogy everyone knew and loved, and so there was a lot of build-up, but I don’t remember anyone expecting more changes. No longer branded ‘Special’ in any way, these were simply The Films, in the only form whose existence Lucas would ever acknowledge–at least, until the next round of changes.

It was mostly minor things: For example, Jabba the Hutt in A New Hope, rendered with 1997-era technology, now stuck out like a sore thumb; a Nintendo 64-era video game awkwardly spliced into an otherwise impressive futurescape. So the entire scene was re-rendered, and not for the last time; they will surely have to keep redoing the CGI5 to make it ‘current’, as our expectations for what special effects look like continue to go ever higher. Meanwhile, the original 1970s practical effects, made in many cases with such techniques as setting real things on fire, stand the test of time; making for an uneven, at times immersion-breaking viewing experience.

But the most noticeable change was at the end of Return of the Jedi, where actor Sebastian Shaw’s final appearance was replaced with Hayden Christensen, who played the same character in the prequels, but was seen nowhere else in the original trilogy. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, a part of Star Wars died for me when I saw that. It was a painful reminder of the disappointment that was the prequels, which I mostly just try to forget ever happened. But for the most part, I soldiered on: it was just one thing, and I could try to pretend it wasn’t there.

One of my favourite moments in the entire series is the scene near the end of Jedi, where the Emperor is torturing Luke6, while Vader looks on, before finally making up his mind and throwing the Emperor to his death. Throughout the series, up until this point, Vader is an enigmatic puzzle; we never see his face, only an expressionless blank slate. What are we, the audience, to see in it? Only what we bring with us. Vader’s mask reflects our conceptions of him, and in this particular scene, it literally reflects the flashes of lightning being shot out of the Emperor’s hands. But we don’t have any on-screen cues as to what is going through Vader’s mind at that moment. What is he going to do? It’s just us, and the mask. I think the scene is a masterful way of bringing the whole three-movie-long mystery of Darth Vader to a single, climactic point, and then tying a neat little bow on top of it.

And so it was devastating to me, given this, to see what Lucas did to this scene in the 2011 Blu-ray version: he added vocals to Darth Vader’s part–uncomfortable-sounding grunts and a few gasps of ‘no!’ while the Emperor is doing his thing. It utterly ruins the dramatic suspense. It’s as though Lucas has no appreciation or understanding of the artistry present in his own movie.7

But why? What exactly was Lucas concerned about here? That the audience would not understand Vader’s feelings or motivations? These are proven well enough in the original version, when Vader makes his choice and kills the Emperor to save his son. I don’t see any ambiguity that needed fixing.

It’s shades of Han vs. Greedo all over again: Lucas seems to think that people are ultimately either good or bad, and they remain good or bad forever. Lucas wants you to believe that Han was always a good person and would only ever do good things; that Han was not someone who would shoot first, not ever. Likewise, the Vader in Lucas’s mind was always good, deep down inside8, and he wants to make sure that you know this during the torture scene.

But this isn’t how people are in real life. There aren’t ‘good people’ or ‘bad people’; only lots of ordinary people, every single one of whom will sometimes do good things and bad things.

Narratives derive their power from having characters that the audience can relate to. Individuals can disagree on the finer points of philosophy, but an audience recognises on a subconscious level when characters on the screen are behaving in believable ways, or not–even if they can’t necessarily articulate why.

This is a large reason why recent shows like Battlestar Galactica (2003) and Game of Thrones are so popular: They feature complex characters who do things that are both good and bad, and it’s difficult to easily fit any given character into either category. On a human level, we feel this more intensely, because we have all had the experience of doing bad things that we have later come to regret, as much as we want to think of ourselves as generally good.

The tragedy of Darth Vader is that he wasn’t a good person all along. The original movies were quite clear about this. He started out doing good things, switched to doing bad things, and then finally redeemed himself in the end–too late for himself, but not too late to make a difference for others. The turning point for him was the turning point for us, the audience: We couldn’t see on his face at what point he decided to save his son. The experience of that decision lived entirely in our minds, through the kind of magic that only movies can make.

And then Lucas, through malice or bumbling ineptitude, decided to take that away. So, that’s it; I’m out.

There’s a finer point to all this, for those who care (which many won’t).

These movies made history, in 1977, 1980, and 1983. They were loved by millions. They won awards. They were remarkable, for the time, in what they pulled off in terms of story, visuals, sound, and other areas; but they were remarkable not for those aspects individually, but because all of those things came together into the end result, a single artistic product.9

It’s one thing to sell an ‘improved’ version to those who want it. There is an argument to be made that modern audiences (read: children) might enjoy the movies better that way. I disagree with that argument, but it’s not entirely without merit.

But it’s another thing entirely to deny the existence of those original movies, and to try to remove what’s left of them from the world.

When Congress established the National Film Preservation Board in 1988, the first Star Wars (1977) was among the first batch of films selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry, so that future generations can learn from the historical examples of what our most beloved films were really like at the time. By law, the NFPB can only accept an original version of the film as it first appeared in theatres. To date, despite their requests, they have not received a copy of Star Wars that they are able to accept.

So, I thought I was done with all this, and then Disney had to go and acquire the franchise and start doing things that please me10. And now there’s The Force Awakens coming out, and I just had to revisit the original trilogy one more time before I go and see it.

How to do it? The Blu-rays (and later streaming versions) are obviously out. The DVDs feel like they exist in some weird halfway state now. I still have my VHS tapes from 1997, but even if I could find a way to watch them, they don’t feel any more real to me at this point than anything else.

Well, you’ve probably heard of this somewhere already, but in case not, here’s the answer: Harmy’s Despecialized Edition. There are a fair number of these ‘fan edits’, but this seems to be the most highly respected one. Here’s an article about it.

Petr Harmy took it upon himself, in collaboration with many other insanely, obsessively dedicated fans, to painstakingly stitch together a 720p HD version of the movies from multiple different sources, including the Blu-rays, 1980s-era Laserdiscs, and smuggled film reels (really!) that they made their own digital transfers of. The closest thing to an official web site are these three forum posts, one for each of the movies: Hope, Empire, Jedi.11 These links contain information about what they did and how they did it, but no downloads.

I have watched all three, and I was very impressed by the quality. Unless you are a serious videophile, it is probably much better than what you are imagining when I say it was ‘stitched together’. The seams are almost never evident. Once or twice there were some brief drops in resolution, only a few seconds long–and probably more that I didn’t even notice. I would compare the experience to watching a movie on Netflix, where you might have one or two small blips, but not enough to take you out of the movie entirely. The resolution was very good, and you could make out things like the roughness of the sand, and the lines on people’s faces–better than a DVD version, certainly.

For obvious reasons, these editions are not for sale, and are rather difficult to find. If you know where to look for this kind of thing, try searching for the word Harmy. If not, maybe you know someone who could help. If you don’t yet own any version of the movies, perhaps you should purchase one of the ‘bad’ versions as penance for watching this one. You must do what you feel is right, of course.

Check the linked forum threads, and compare version numbers to the current ones to make sure you’re getting Harmy’s latest versions.12 Hope and Empire are in MKV format, which works great in Plex (app available for Apple TV, game consoles, etc.) or VLC. Jedi is in an older AVCHD format, because Harmy hasn’t yet updated it with the latest improvements to his technique (he says it’s in progress). You can find other fans who have converted the AVCHD to MKV, but I don’t recommend it because they usually don’t explain what their methods are, and if done carelessly, it’s possible to lose quality in the conversion.

So, for Hope and Empire, get the original MKVs and just play them directly. For Jedi, look for the original AVCHD, if possible (it’s even harder to find, unfortunately). Once you have the AVCHD, browse the folders in this path: *.AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/00000.m2ts. This m2ts file is all you really need, so drag it out of that folder, rename it, and put it somewhere Plex can find it; or open it directly with VLC. Don’t let Plex see the whole AVCHD folder, because it will get confused.

What does Disney think about all of this, now that they are the new owners? I can only wonder. Since taking ownership, they have made no official statements about the original versions of the movies, as far as I’m aware. My guess is that Disney mostly cares about doing what is profitable, rather than about artistic integrity. A full restoration, if it is even possible, would take some time, and perhaps couldn’t be ready in time to serve as promotion for Awakens.

Arguments commonly made on this topic have to do with legal issues surrounding Twentieth Century Fox’s distribution rights, and whether or not sufficient film reels still exist in any usable state. I have no knowledge on either of those topics, so I will avoid speculation.

My general theory is that if there are problems that can be solved by spending money, then Disney will fix them, if they think they will be able to recoup the investment. This would be a rational way for a business to act. But for now, there’s very little that anyone outside of that company knows for sure.

So in 2015, I watched the original Star Wars trilogy (or the closest thing to it that exists today) for the very first time. I did my best to become lost in the movies again, to not pay attention to any differences from what I had seen before; to just relax and enjoy it.

To an extent, I suppose I succeeded. But when you’ve seen a movie so many times, sometimes you can’t help but notice when a line of dialog is off. The title I chose for this post is a line that I expect Han Solo to say, that, for whatever reason, wasn’t in the original.

There were a lot of things that I wouldn’t have noticed at all if I hadn’t seen Harmy’s comparison of the old and new. For example, Lucas apparently went to the trouble of replacing random X-Wing space shots with CGI models, and replacing the sound effects in those shots with new ones. What the point of that could possibly be, I cannot imagine. The original shots looked and sounded great, and the fact that they were able to make them so should be celebrated.

But the biggest change, for me, which I knew would be coming, was the final scene in Jedi. To a rough approximation, there have been three different versions of this scene:

  1. The original, showing the cast celebrating on Endor, with a song called ‘Ewok Celebration’ (sometimes referred to by fans as ‘Yub Nub’, based on how the lyrics sound)
  2. The 1997 version, using the same shots from Endor; with some extra, previously-cut Endor footage inserted; adding shots of celebrations in Bespin, Tatooine, and Coruscant; and a new song, written by John Williams, called ‘Victory Celebration’, which replaces ‘Ewok Celebration’
  3. The 2004 version, using the same music and footage from 1997, but also adding shots of celebrations in Naboo, complete with an obnoxious Gungan. Sebastian Shaw was replaced with Hayden Christensen.

The problem is that, for me, ‘Ewok Celebration’ (which I had seen/heard previously on the internet) sounded wrong. I was used to ‘Victory Celebration’, which I maintain is a great song. Say what you want about the rest of the changes, but John Williams knows what he’s dong. This is the only change I regret not having, and it was a major factor in keeping me on the other side of the debate for so many years.

But, as in life, one has to take the good with the bad. If Yub Nub is the price I have to pay in order to be rid of Lucas’s meddling, then so be it. I have made my peace with Yub Nub.

Still, it is hard not to feel something about what was such an emotional moment to my impressionable young mind. If you feel the same way, be comforted in knowing that some kind soul seems to have copied the 1997 version onto YouTube, free from any prequel yuckiness. Enjoy it while it lasts…

Throughout my viewing of the original trilogy, I tried to focus on forgetting that the prequels existed. So when Obi Wan said ‘I don’t seem to recall ever owning a droid’, it’s because there never was any such character as R4-D2. And when Obi Wan said ‘when I first met your father, he was already an excellent pilot’, it’s because they couldn’t possibly have met when Anakin was much too young to pilot anything, and not that pod racing or bumbling into an autopilot are somehow Obi Wan’s idea of ‘excellent piloting’. And when Leia says she remembered her mother, it’s because her mother was indeed alive to raise her as a child, at least for a little while, and this wasn’t some kind of false memory or whatever the popular fanwankery thinks these days.

After watching these movies with my girlfriend, she had some questions. Some of them had to do with the mechanics of force ghosts, and I explained as best I could, relying only on information given in the movies, but ultimately conceding that some details were a mystery, and perhaps the topic will be revisited in the future–isn’t it kind of nice to think that there are still some mysteries? But she also asked about how Darth Vader came to be in his suit, and if that was explained in the prequels. I thought for a moment, and then said that whatever explanation you can imagine for how it happened, would have to be a much better story than what was actually in the prequels. And I envied her then, because I remembered what it was like to see the main trilogy for the first time, and to imagine the things that might have happened in that backstory… long before I had seen the version of that tale as told by an idiot (full of sound and fury, signifying nothing).

The trailer for The Force Awakens has a line from Han: When asked about ‘those stories about what happened’, he replies ‘it’s true–all of it’. While that is a powerful sentiment, and I’m sure Han means well, I have to hope… that not all of it is.

As an experiment, this has been cross-posted to Medium.

  1. My mom’s contribution to the topic was only a long-carried exasperation at the notion that he thought it appropriate to bring her to such a movie on a date. ↩︎

  2. In a time when, I think it bears noting, the words ‘special’ and ‘edition’ weren’t quite so overused (to the point of meaninglessness) by studio marketing departments everywhere. ↩︎

  3. Fanalysts. Hey, I’m trademarking that. Aw yeah. I can’t wait to watch the licensing fees roll in from this one. ↩︎

  4. George Lucas, to this day, has the audacity to argue that Greedo ‘always’ shot first, that that’s what he had ‘always’ intended, that that’s what he ‘actually’ shot in 1977, and that the audience was merely ‘confused’ because it had been filmed poorly. This is easily disproven: We have the original script for the movie. It says Han shoots Greedo. It doesn’t say that Greedo shoots at all. So, it’s not in the movie, and it’s not in the script. That sure seems like enough to convict, in even a Tattooine court. But Lucas seems to have this dogged internal monologue, this refusal to admit that he was ever mistaken about anything, or that his ‘vision’ has ever changed. My guess is that it’s his own self-defence mechanism against the years of brutal (but deserved) criticism of the prequels and post-hoc original trilogy edits. Unfortunately for Lucas, he didn’t anticipate these volleys of criticism; he shot second. ↩︎

  5. Computer-Generated Images, a kind of movie special effects. Not generally available until around the 1990s. ↩︎

  6. I hope it’s clear from context that the depiction of torture itself isn’t what I enjoy, but rather the dramatic tension that results in the scene. Visually, what happens to Luke is fairly benign by modern standards. ↩︎

  7. This reveals another problem with the Special Editions: Although we think of George Lucas as the creator of the entire series, he was the director for only the first movie. The Empire Strikes Back was directed by Irvin Kershner (1923-2010), and Return of the Jedi was directed by Richard Marquand (1937-1987). It’s been reported that Lucas’s wishes were at times overruled by others during filming, perhaps most famously in Leia and Han’s famous ‘I love you’–’I know’ exchange in Empire (Lucas was insistent that Han’s reply should be ‘I love you too’). The point being that Lucas now has the power to go back and change directorial decisions in those movies, without the consent of the directors. Setting the merits of the changes aside, this hardly seems morally right. At the very least, there should be some asterisk or disclaimer to the effect that the sum total of the movies you can see them today were not actually directed by these well-respected film legends. If it were me, I think I would want my name taken out of the credits entirely. ↩︎

  8. In Jedi, Luke is Lucas’s advocate for this theory, insisting upon it multiple times in dialogue. But just because a character says it doesn’t mean it’s true. ↩︎

  9. I avoid using the more common term ‘work of art’ here due to its potential positive connotations, because it is not my intention to express judgement on the work’s value or merit. You can (and should) argue about the many flaws that the movies have, particularly in the areas plot and dialogue. But that does not make them any less art, no matter how flawed. My point is that they qualify as art, and they also qualify as popular, and that alone is sufficient to make them worthy of preservation. ↩︎

  10. I even bought one of those remote-controlled BB-8 toys, damn me ↩︎

  11. At time of writing, these links don’t work properly in Safari, or on iOS. Try using Chrome on Mac/Windows. ↩︎

  12. Unlike Lucas, Harmy’s changes are only to bring it closer to the originals, so newer = better. ↩︎