George Lucas made a sublimely perfect pot of miso soup. The broth was subtle and profound, the onions and wakame were rich and delicate. For twenty-five years people raved about how great it was, introduced it to their friends, raised their kids to love it, until one day Lucas said "You know what I'm into now? Raisins."- and dumped in a handful.

So I read this the other day. If you don't care to click on it, it just breaks the news that in the new Star Wars DVD set, Lucas has pasted Hayden Christensen's head over Sebastian Shaw's at the end of Jedi. This new DVD release is the latest barrage in Lucas' war on the original incarnations of the films, and in every statement he releases to the press he reiterates that these new releases supercede any previous version of the films, and that as far as anyone should be concerned, the old versions don't exist anymore.

Now I don't think there was any child in the country who loved Star Wars more than I did 20 years ago, and it saddens me to think that when I have children, I won't be able to share with them the movies that were such a part of my childhood. Obviously I'm not the only person who feels this way. Every review you read of the new releases, while gushing about the transfer quality and picture clarity, is tempered with a statement wishing that the original versions of the films were being made available as well. "It's on VHS, if anybody wants it" Lucas accomodatingly suggests, as though the beseechments of his fans never find their way to his perverted Xanadu-like compound, never penetrate his thick-necked skull. He likes to be called a 'storyteller' rather than a director or filmmaker, but he's only got the one story, and he's not very good at telling it.

The Lucasfilm party line is that Lucas feels it's the artist's right to present his work how he wants. That sounds great until you think about it. For example, an artist rarely has the right to change elements in a work that has been delivered. That privilege belongs to the rights-holder, which in the case of films, is usually a studio. Terry Gilliam doesn't just announce he's releasing a director's cut of his latest film; he asks the studio to let him release one. In this case, obviously, the rights-holder is Lucas, but that's a consequence of a rather shrewd business arrangement he made in 1977, not an extension of his intrinsic rights as an artist. And what does that mean, "artist's right"? He makes it sound like he's the only artist who worked on the films. He wrote and directed the first one, but had 'story by' credit on Empire, and a co-writing credit on Jedi that was probably nothing more than a story credit. He exec-produced, but directed neither of those two films. I doubt he consulted Gary Kurtz, the producer of Star Wars, or Irvin Kershner or Richard Marquand, the directors of Empire and Jedi respectively, for their artist's input on his reimaginings of their work. Does Gale Anne Hurd have an artist's right to re-cut and re-release Terminator? She produced and co-wrote it. 'Artist's right' is a convenient concept that Lucas has probably started to believe himself, when the truth is that as sole copyright holder to the Star Wars trilogy, Lucas has the legal right to do whatever he wants and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

It's painful enough to see films that were great reformed into versions that by comparison seem fair-to-mediocre, but the real kick in the teeth is that the original versions are being disappeared, 1984-style, with an increasing dis-acknowledgment from Lucas that any other than the latest, Specialest edition ever existed. They are unfilms, and if Lucas could by some perversion of technology and copyright law reach into all our minds and "fix" our memories of the original films, he would. Future generations of filmgoers will, as Lucas proudly attests, know no other version of the films that what he has deigned to provide for them. And how presumptously he exploits the success that has been given to him; now that the groundbreaking special-effects work of John Dykstra in Star Wars has been replaced with generic CGI, does Lucas plan to surrender the Oscar those effects earned? How about the other awards the films have won, awards which were given to versions of the films that have now been retracted. How long can he keep this up? Can he just make another film entirely, call it "Titanic", and claim it won eleven Academy Awards? Hell, can I?

But there's another reason the 'Artist's right' argument rings hollow for me, and there's no really elegant way to put it: Just that I feel that once you release a work of art to the public, you lose a measure of control over it. When you put a work of art out into the world, ask people to take it into their hearts, and they accept, it's not just yours anymore. It's theirs too. They have a claim on it as well. It is an entity unto itself in the world, as well as a part of the people who watch and experience it. Lucas' actions and attitude are insult to the fans of those movies who made him who he is today. For 20 years we loved those movies. We spent our childhoods playing in that imaginary universe; we named our pets and children after the characters. Do we get no say? After all we've done for him? This is an ironic case where Lucas' high-flung notions of artistic integrity are serving the opposite ends of what might be expected- if the rights were held by a studio with an eye on the bottom line, the vocal desire of the fans for a release of the original version of the films would be respected.

I read an article in 'Preservation' magazine a few months ago, about how the owner of Grand Central Station in NYC wanted to modernize the building and basically add a skyscraper on top of it to profit from renting more office space. The city of New York stepped in and said "No". It basically decided that the cultural, historical, and aesthetic value of the station in its current form outweighted the owner's desire to profit. The upshot of the inevitable legal challenge was a precedent-setting decision that in cases where a building has significant historical, cultural, and emotional significance, the building's owners are not absolutely guaranteed the right to maximally profit from their property. In this case, the New York Historic Preservation Society (or whatever the organization was called) demonstrated a more compelling equation- the needs and wants of the many outweighting those of the one. Now if we have those organizations to preserve buildings and land for the benefit of future generations, why can't they do it with works of art also? Why can't UNESCO or some other national or global cultural organization make a decision that the public interest in viewing and studying these landmark films in their original presentations outweighs the desire of the rights-holder and collaborating artist to meddle with them? Then the UN or the State of California enforces it. If whoever owns the Mona Lisa announced he was going to paint over her eyebrows, I imagine someone would figure out some way of stopping it from happening. It might set a precedent. That would probably be a good thing.

Listen to me, George:
If you're going to have a kid, you can change your mind about what you want to name him as many times as you want before he's born, but you don't get to call him up when he's in high school and tell him you're renaming him 'Beowulf' because you've just had a daughter named Beth and you want all your children to have 'B' names, any more than you can tell him you've decided to have him circumcised after all. That train has sailed, George. You are throwing away what you have for what you won't ever get- destroying the beloved movies, their historical significance, their technical achievements, for a pipe-dream vision of a grand, cohesive epic that will never carry the same weight that you think it will. Filmmakers often lose objectivity in regards to their projects, but fortunately for them and their legacies, they are rarely in a position to disable the very safeguards that put their work out of reach of further tampering. Of course they all want to. But that's just not the way it works, and you're being a spoiled child for trying to make it work that way. You've said that the films did not turn out the way you wanted them to originally. Well the annals of film history are festooned with happy accidents such as yours, films which through chance, coincidence, fortune, and misfortune became better than their architects had planned them to be. Do you think your friend Spielburg is kicking himself for not getting the Jaws animatronic to work well enough to be featured throughout the film? I can guarantee you he is not. You are an idiot for not recognizing the films for what they are, and for clinging to the vision you originally had of them. Your legacy will be that as a young man you accidentally made three of the most beloved films in history, and spent the rest of your life undoing your mistake.

You have out-lived your usefulness, George.