In which I reveal my secret shameful past as an utterly obsessed star wars fanatic geek.

if i were david prowse sebastian shaw, i'd be spending lots of time in primal scream therapy. I know already that he was deeply disgruntled when his own vocal work in the star wars trilogy was usurped and discarded in favor of the mellifluous tones of james earl jones. NOW he must contend with the indignity of having been sliced almost entirely from the return of the jedi's long awaited dvd-release! in this digital travesty, we no longer get to see the real, human face of the man who was darth vader, returning to look upon his son with his own eyes and own face. instead, we get the man who BECAME darth vader. the man who, while a contributor of genetic material to luke and leia, has absolutely no reference point for anyone still alive at this point in the film.

see, instead of daddy shaw, the third member of Jedi's glowy trinity is young anakin, hayden christensen. hayden christensen! who thought this was a good idea? to begin, there is no context for this last-minute substitution within the original trilogy; it makes absolutely no sense that luke smiles so benevolently at anakin at the end of the movie now. luke would have no idea who the fuck hayden christensen is! the man has only seen his father's old, bald, machine-infested head in the flesh; he has no idea that this strapping young buck is (or was) his father. if i had been in luke's position at that point, i would have turned straight to obi wan and said 'what the fuck? that is not the man i cremated! that's not my daddy!' it's a very sour note at the end of a film which is already universally accepted as the weakest of the trilogy.

second, (let's face it) episodes 1, 2 and probably 3 have generated sufficient suck power that plenty of new fans are going to come to these dvds after the prequel media hoopla has died down and will have no idea who the skinny white kid with the eyebrows is.

as it is, all i can do is roll my eyes and weep inwardly that lucas fucked that dvd up so badly. i had been looking forward to it for so long--i'm one of those people who knew the names of all the characters, all the characters and major story arcs in the subsequent books, who ditched school to camp out and be the first person in line to buy tickets for the re-release. i had the toys, i had the comics, i still have the return of the jedi lunchbox. my first car keys spent their short life in my posession attached to a new republic keychain. my zine was called the galactic empire. i've written a song about luke skywalker. i was a Fan. i suppose i feel like lucas owed me and the others of my ilk something for making us wait so long (exclude the bonus materials for now, we haven't gotten there yet and i'm just grousing about the movies themselves), and he really didn't deliver.

and so i, like so many others, am left with no choice but to hold my un-remastered, original version videos close to my heart and hope for a better tomorrow.