Musical Mixup
Along with my new television, I finally purchased and watched the DVD edition of the Star Wars IV – VI trilogy. I knew going in that a lot of people have decried the changed George Lucas made for this release, but I had no copy for myself otherwise.
The thing is, most of the edited parts didn’t bother me. I didn’t mind the extra dialog in a couple of places, and I didn’t mind the re-composition of the hologram/dead-Jedi effects (although I thought they were more compelling in the original). I found I could live with the ridiculous rings around large explosions (not only do they make no sense physically, but they just plain look bad).
What I object to were the changes in music, and only in Episode VI. I don’t know who composed the tunes they substituted, but you’d have to get me a confession from John Williams himself—face-to-face—for me to believe that he did. Especially in the celebration scene at the end, it outright clashes with the rest of the soundtrack. Who knows what those ewoks were singing about before, but it sure sounded good, and it was far better support for the joyous mood of the scene than its bland usurper.
It makes me think of the stage version of The Lion King, which I saw with my family earlier this year. I thought the actors did a good job, the costumes and set pieces were fantastic, and the adapted parts of the script were well-done. On the other hand, the new songs and music bits didn’t fit right. I don’t care how much critical acclaim you got from having the hyenas do hip-hop, pausing the intense, building music and lyrics to have your army break parade formation and ‘get down’ for a minute and a half absolutely destroyed the dramatic impact of the scene.
Please, just leave the music alone.
