George Lucas likes to tinker. His past time seems to be re-watching Star Wars multiple times a day and reworking his movies to fulfill his original vision of what they’re supposed to be.

Now, most filmmakers don’t do this. When they make a movie, they cut it and release it. Then they go work on another project until they have to record some DVD commentary. For the most part, they leave their movie alone unless it’s some sort of director’s cut DVD.

George Lucas, however, stumbled upon one of the greatest film franchises ever in Star Wars. A world he can milk so much that he doesn’t really have to work on anything else. And I’m not counting Red Tails and Indiana Jones.

In an interview with Heat Vision, Lucas answered some questions on people getting angry when he changes things. This is what he said: ”Changes are not unusual – I mean, most movies when they release them they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it’s the end of the world. That whole issue between filmmakers and the studios with the studios being able to change things without even letting the director of the movie know … I’m very much involved in that [so that’s not happening here]. … My job is to try to make the best possible movie it can be — and the current version is the Blu-ray version. That’s the one that’s been made into 3D. But it’s just a conversion. We haven’t made any changes other than the 3D.”

Mr. Lucas, not many filmmakers change their films 10, 20 or 30 years down the road. And if or when they do they’re burned for it. Remember your buddy Steven Spielberg and changing E.T.? Yeah, Spielberg regrets that. Does Martin Scorsese spend years remastering and re-editing Raging Bull? Or Taxi Driver? Of course not.

Then, Lucas went in for the kill. Severing the veins of Star Wars fans that he’d already cut so many times.

“Well, it’s not a religious event. I hate to tell people that. It’s a movie, just a movie. The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.”

This, I can buy. I can buy it because the wider shot makes it look like Greedo shot first. And I can also buy it because it exposes Lucas as a filmmaker who doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s basically saying here that he shot the shot, or a variety of shots, and either thought this one looked the best or trusted his editors (which included himself, by the way). Of course, this also means Lucas doesn’t understand framing.

Whatever way you paint it, George Lucas has lost his mind. He’s either milking his franchise for every penny, and destroying it as he does. Or, he had no clue what he was doing when he made the first movies and we are absolutely lucky his original vision didn’t pan out during those first three movies. [Heat Vision via ComingSoon]

george lucas, greedo, han, star wars