I have just returned from a casting where I got to eat chocolate. I don’t think I did anything else right, but apparently the way I ate chocolate and looked pleased about myself post doing so was ‘perfect’. I hastened not to inform them that this was not at all acting and merely how I react to eating free chocolate, but thought it was best left unsaid. Apparently there is a correct advert way of eating chocolate that requires you taking a bite that is neither too big, nor too small, and shows both the chocolate you are holding and it going into your mouth. Nobody eats chocolate like that. Its just not the correct way. I would be put off a chocolate advert that showed some dieting twat nibbling their way through a chunk of it as surely its not good chocolate if you don’t want to ram it into your gob all at once before smearing it over your lips shouting ‘I am the coco king’ and doing a small dance to signify to the hit of serotonin and sugar that your brain has taken in. No? Just me? Again? Sigh.
Anyway today’s blog is not about the correct nor incorrect way to eat chocolate for I don’t have an eternity to take you into all the intricate details of the way to munch away at the coating of a Kit Kat Chunky leaving yourself a wafer biscuit of joy for dessert and suddenly turning one bar into two. No. Today’s blog is about how once again I hate George Lucas. Last night they launched the Star Wars Blu Ray box set by turning the BT Tower into a lightsaber. It looked awesome and despite not being there and only seeing pictures, I got all a bit excited. It is innate in my bones to get excited about lightsabers and so a giant one essentially tickles my Jedi tummy and leaves me all hyper at the thoughts of the giant battle a giant Jedi and giant Sith could have with it. They had Stormtroopers, Bobba Fett, R2D2 and Darth Vader all there (not people dressed as them! The actual ones! Promise!) and it all looked like a fanboy’s wet dream of an occasion.
What marrs all of it is the fact that hearing about the Blu Ray editions, it appears that Lucas has tampered with some of my favourite films ever, once again. It wasn’t enough to add a shedload of extra unnecessary and out of place scenes into the Special Edition releases some years back, now the bigoted, bearded bellend has shoved a whole load of extra CGI into films that were stand alone in their effects at the time and didn’t need any pixelated additions. I have seen footage of Return of the Jedi blu ray where the Ewoks blink. Why? I know he has money leaking out of his trousers but what an unneeded addition! Sure its not the most annoying of the things he’s done but much like the CGI gophers in Indiana Jones it just feels like his fat sweaty hands have left an icky grease stain on otherwise perfect celluloid. We don’t need to see the Ewoks blink in the same way we don’t need to see them shit in the woods. LEAVE THE FILMS ALONG GEORGE!
I’m not sure of everything he’s tampered with but the one I’ve heard about that actually hurts to imagine is Darth’s added scream of ‘NO!’ as he grabs the Emperor off Luke in the final film and throws him to his death. Before it was a glorious silent moment of redemption. The Sith Lord finally rescinding his Dark Side status as he turns against his master to save his son. It was majestic, heartwarming and generally awesome. Now he’s got an overdramatic ‘NO!’ added to the mix to make it all seem more Hollywoodesque. It can only be one more edition before he doesn’t actually die at the end and him, Luke, Leia and Han all move into a farm together with a white picket fence and get a space dog (no offence Chewbacca). LEAVE THE FILMS ALONE GEORGE!
Added to this if by some ungodly reason I decided to buy the Blu Ray box set, I’d only want the original trilogy, and none of the more recent blight on cinema’s existence that are the prequels. However if I do that then I get no extras for my dosh. The only way you get any interesting extras is by buying the full 6 film set. I have to spend £30 extra on absolute tosh that makes me physically angry and almost turn to the Dark Side myself when watching it just to get the extras I deserve for ploughing more money into the already overfull cash flow of Lucasfilm. Lucas is using the force in the wrong way. He is forcing us to do things we don’t like despite being loyal fans for many moons.
Ages ago I did a bit of an interview for an indie film called ‘The People vs George Lucas’ and the producers on that told me a story about the screening of Indiana Jones 4 at the Cannes film festival. Lucas was there as was Spielburg and an entirely full cinema. At the end of two very disappointing hours a French film critic in the front row of the cinema stood up and turned to face everyone before shouting ‘You’ve just got to stop it George! You’ve got to stop hurting us!’ Never was a truer word said.
