George Lucas at last opened up on the controversial changes to the 1997 Star Wars Special Editions, revised versions of the original trilogy that were, themselves, revisited on two other occasions to date. As with most things concerning the legendary space operas, these releases tend to polarize the fandom quite a bit, with a vocal portion of the series’ following being quick to criticize some of the creative decisions that prompted various changes to the three films.
According to Lucas himself, however, some of those were always destined to happen because he was “embarrassed” with how bad certain shots were. That’s according to his interview with the Taschen magazine which just released a new book in Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005. As the 20th anniversary of A New Hope was approaching in 1993, Lucas felt obliged to revisit those worst scenes and bring the movie to a higher quality level in terms of technical achievement.
One example of that belief is the extended Mos Eisley intro seen in the ’97 movie, featuring a Stormtrooper on a dewback. All of this ties in to his philosophy about making movies and other creative pursuits, which comes down to a belief that art is rarely finished and usually just abandoned, especially when faced with often-insurmountable technological challenges.
