Leia Loves You

George Lucas's 8 Most Irritating Changes To The 'Star Wars' Films

I was a senior in high school when George Lucas unleashed the Star Wars Special Edition on the world. My excitement to finally see the trilogy in its expanded form quickly evaporated when I saw Greedo shoot first. Since then, Lucas has continued to touch my childhood in its no-no spot every couple years or so. With the impending release of the Star Wars saga to Blu-Ray on September 12, get ready for a whole new round of pointless and irritating changes to what used to be the raddest sci-fi trilogy going.

One thing Lucas loves to do every time he edits Star Wars is to change dialogue in seemingly arbitrary ways. It’s not really clear why “Blast it, Wedge, where are you?” gets changed to “Blast it, Biggs, where are you?,” nor what difference having C-3PO say “and” before “do take care of yourself” makes, but apparently it’s a big deal to George.

Back in the day, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was known simply as “Star Wars.” Of course, back in the day, Star Wars was just a fun movie to watch and an excuse to use Whiffle bats as light sabres. Somewhere along the line George Lucas started seeing his work as some kind of socially relevant epic. Accordingly, he not only started giving the films incredibly pretentious names, he actually went back and changed the titles of previously released films.

This was the irritating change for nearly a decade. Somewhere along the line, Lucas decided that Han Solo was a noble knight instead of a charming rake. Accordingly, he couldn’t dare shoot first at a bounty hunter trying to claim him for a disgusting space worm. This change isn’t minor or insignificant. It completely alters the character of Han Solo. Why not have him tell Leia “I love you, too” while we’re at it?