There is a reason why the original Star Wars won for best editing and the beginning is a major reason why.
"Fix" no. Fix would imply something was broken which, OK, something was broken but what was broken was ruining the rougishness of Han's character by having him shoot second. There was nothing "broken" about the original scene to "fix" in the SE. The SE was about Lucas adding in CGI nonsense and scenes he couldn't do int he 70s. Fine, whatever, if Lucas wanted a bunch of goofy, distracting, creatures fooling around in the foreground during scenes and have dumb scenes of aliens singing pop songs in the middle of his movies fine, whatever. But no technological limitation in the 70s prevented him from having Greedo "shoot first." It's a change to Han's character a change that didn't need to be made. Han is a rougish anti-hero he cares more about his personal safety above all-else (until his character arc is complete by the end of the movie.) There was no need to have Greedo shoot first, or to have them "shoot at the same time" and further Han's dodging of the moving at the speed of light LASER beam looks dumb. "Fixed it" by having them shoot at the same time? Bullshit!
They should be the Adywan editions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr2hOrvWT8g&feature=related Skip to 3:40 for the evidence.
But these days, if one were to watch the prequels first, than they would know there is civilization on Tatooine. So, in light of that it wouldn't really hurt the narrative too much to re-insert the scenes with Biggs and Luke's other friends. Besides, it just seems that they have an action figure of Biggs wearing the costume he had on in that scene despite it never being in the movie.
No, I don't jest. After the fan hatred of the 1997 SE change, I remember hearing that Lucas was planning to fix the scene for the 2004 DVD release so that they fired at the same time. Or so I thought. I wasn't sure, that's why I asked.
I remember a dialogue in TPM when Captain Panaka (Amidala's bodyguard) mentioned the candidates to replace Chancellor Valorum. One of them was "Bail Antilles" of Alderran and someone else from Malastaire. The name Bail Antilles isn't even consistent with Jimmy Smitts' Senator Organa character.
Yeah the Bail Antilles thing is a mistake. I have the TPM screenplay. Bail Organa appears in the senate impeachment scene. The character IS Bail ORGANA in that scene. However the Bail ANTILLES reference is also in the script. It's a really weird mistake. I think it's because in the early drafts of ANH the character's name was Bail Antilles. It was changed to Organa in a later draft and the surname Antilles was used for the Wedge character. You guys can hate on Jar Jar all you want the only thing in TPM that made me cringe was "Bail Antilles".
You're right, that's why I said I wouldn't be too surprised if I was wrong and the scenes got put back in. It's hard for me to imagine watching the series that way, but there it is. Maybe then people would remember Koo Stark for something other than being Prince Andrew's scandalous girlfriend. Yeah, but they have action figures of things that never even made it past the concept artwork, a bug-eyed Chewbacca and so on. There were plenty of tie-ins around in the late '70s that referred to that deleted stuff, though; I have encountered a number of people over the years who have sworn up and down that the Biggs at the Tosche Station scene was in the movie in '77. --Justin
Smits joked about how he would be inserted into A New Hope screaming right before the Death Star blows up his planet.
It's no big deal. I'm sure Bail's the equivalent of John on Alderaan. I love The Phantom Menace so this little mistake doesn't ruin the movie for me. Still the idea of two senators from Alderaan named Bail who were serving at the same time is a bit hard to swallow. One fan wank for this problem suggests that Organa is Bail Antille's wife's name. Bail's wife is the queen of Alderaan IIRC so it's entirely possible he could have taken her name when they married. Whatever the truth is I'm sure they'll fix the Antilles/Organa mess for the Blu-Ray.
Maybe I'm imagining things, but I thought I read somewhere "Bail" is a title, like "Duke" or "Count"?
It doesn't make sense. Senator Bail Organa = Senator Count/Duke Organa? Plus when Panaka made the announcement, he referred to the candidates using their proper names. EDIT: According to Wookiepedia, the representative from Malastaire was Ainlee Teem and the Naboo candidate was Bail Antilles, and I'm not sure if he's the same person as Bail Organa.
I think Bail was his first name. As far as titles go I'd think he would be a prince consort before anything else. Though I guess it's possible he could be a duke or a count. I know that in James Kahn's novelization of Jedi they said he was the Alderaan's viceroy. But then it also said that Owen Lars was Obi-Wan's brother so you can take the novel with a grain of salt.
According to that link I posted, the two Bails are two different persons, which would make more sense than saying the other one was the official character.
They're wrong. Senator Palpatine was the candidate from Naboo. When Padme asked Panaka who the other candidates were Panaka answered: "Bail Antilles of Alderaan and Ainlee Teem of Malastare."
But that's not "fixing" it. Say you have a lamp, you break the lamp, and you put it back together it looks more-or-less as it did before but still flawed. You try and "fix" it by breaking it again and putting it back together in a "better" way. It's still broke. The only way he could've "fixed" the Greedo scene in the SE is by putting it back the way it was. It's not "fixing it" by making it slightly less broken.
Now THAT brings back memories! The Bail Antilles/Organa thing is a REALLY old argument. Although I am as far from a Lucas apologist as you can imagine, I DO recall him saying back in the day that Bail was a very common name(like John, I guess)and Antilles was like Smith in the SW universe. Hence we have 3PO referring to his last master as Captain Antilles(whom I believe was also captain of the Tantive IV)and Wedge also sharing the same surname. I know it's kinda lame but it is one of THE LEAST egregious mistakes in the PT. There' like four BILLION things you can get upset over before that!