3 Star Wars moments that George Lucas ruined

With the new Star Wars Blu Ray double trilogy pack just out, a lot of people are buying (or re-buying, or re-re-buying...) the Star Wars movies.

Sadly, in his infinite descent into lala-land, Lucas has seen fit to once again grace us with changes to the movies, to bring them more in line with his vision (or oxygen deprived fever dream as the case may be)

"Actually I'm not crazy about the yellow anymore. Can we do lime green?"

Some of these changes you will maybe not even notice.
A few even make sense, like swapping out the hologram transmission in The Empire Strikes Back with Ian McDiarmid, the actor who played the Emperor in Return of the Jedi and the new trilogy (The original hologram was actually a woman with the eyes of a chimp superimposed on top. That's not a joke that's what they actually used).

However most of them are just unnecessary and awkward (Han Solo meeting a super bad looking Jabba the Hut in the Tatooine spaceport) and some straight up break the whole feel of the original scenes.

I have picked out what I consider to be the 3 worst offenders:



3. Hayden Christensen shows up as the ghost of Anakin Skywalker alongside Obi-Wan and Yoda instead of the original "face" actor Sebastian Shaw:
In the original movies the actor used for the face of Darth Vader is also the guy that shows up as a ghost alongside Obi-Wan and Yoda at the end of Return of the Jedi.

This has been changed to instead be Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin in the new trilogy (or well the 2nd and 3rd movie rather).

You can clearly see Yoda and Obi-Wan thinking "Dude, who's butt did you kiss to look like that? I have to get up three times a night and use the space ghost toilet. Punk kid"

Obviously there is instant recognition of who that ghost is, when you use the same guy that played Anakin for two movies already, but why the hell does he receive post-death rejuvenation treatment when neither Obi-Wan or Yoda does?!
Is that the "welcome back to the light side" special gift? What the heck is wrong with a muffin basket?


2. The musical scene in Jabba's palace:
You know what Star Wars needs? A song and dance scene! Preferably a super over the top pop one set in an otherwise dark and atmospheric palace controlled by the most dangerous crime lord in the galaxy.
On second thought... That's a HORRIBLE idea!

Nevertheless this is exactly what we got in the new version of Return of the Jedi.
A terrible musical break-up while the movie is trying to set up the dark dank feel of Jabba's palace.

"We need to build a sense of tension and despair about this place. Get me a yellow alien with long wavy limbs and a mouth full of red lipstick. Oh, and make it sing. Also, I think I'm running out of weed again."

The old movie had a very brief musical scene that quickly progressed into the point of showing Jabba's dancer getting dropped through a trapdoor and getting eaten by a Rancor (serves her right for refusing to put out with a 1000 pound giant slug)


1. Greedo shooting first:
In the original A New Hope, Han Solo gets caught up with the bounty hunter Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina.
Seeing that Greedo is clearly going to take him in to Jabba the Hut and that he cannot talk his way out of the situation, he quietly slips out his blaster under the table and shoots Greedo, who is sitting right across from him.

This establishes Han Solo as a roguish type person, who might be likeable and charming, but who is also ready to look out for himself and have no qualms about killing a bounty hunter without warning in order to save himself.

In the new version Lucas apparently thought this made Solo out to look too much of a cold blooded killer (and god knows we can't have any hero characters that have any sort of edge to them).
So he took care of this problem by adding a shot from Greedo's gun that misses Solo, before Solo shoots back and kills Greedo. Thus making it an act of self defense instead of calculated murder.

Apparently this is the only distance from which Greedo would actually have had a chance to hit Han 

Let me repeat that. Greedo, a supposedly veteran bounty hunter with many years of experience *misses* a person *sitting down* at *the other side of a small table*.
Apparently those huge black eyes of Greedo must actually be his eyelids, cause the only way he could miss a shot like that is by having his eyes closed.

Not only does this completely change the character of Han Solo. It also makes it seem like he was actually in little real danger, as even if he had not shot Greedo, surely he could have just run off later, when Greedo was feeding his seeing eye dog or something.
This just makes Solo seem even more unlikeable, like if he gunned down a kid with Down's syndrome.

There are more bad bad changes, but these 3 are the ones that really get me the most.

So join me in my nerdrage and shake your fist angrily at nothing in particular and let's all hope that we will eventually get a Blu Ray release of the original movies WITHOUT these "improvements".