I Watched a Three-And-a-Half Hour Defense of the Star Wars Special Editions

So You Don't Have To

The video essay I’m writing about today is—and I’m not kidding—over three hours and forty minutes. I watched the entire thing.¹ The diatribe is nicely presented, but also mostly incoherent. I can’t really recommend watching it, but in the interest of fairness, here it is for you to judge yourself:

This is a long, stupid video, so before I get started, I thought I’d instead point you to an even longer, but actually quite interesting video. This one is Jenny Nicholson discussing The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel:

If that sounds like a lot, I recommend skipping to Part XVII, where she takes down influencers who seem to not understand the value of a dollar when they’re given something for free. Or, if you’re interested in the future of Disney Parks, jump all the way to the final chapter, in which Jenny explains how the Galactic Star Cruiser stole most of its content from the initial designs for Galaxy’s Edge, making both attractions worse.

The following is going to get very negative, so if you’re not in the mood for that, you can skip to the end for some light-hearted video essays I think you’ll enjoy.

Against the Grain

At this point, the Star Wars Special Editions have been the official Star Wars for longer than the original films ever were—27 years vs a mere 14.² But you can still find innumerable video essays on YouTube debating the merits of every tiny change, even all these years later.

Enter Rick Worley, and his condescendingly titled video, “The Special Editions Are the Movies, Get Over It.”

Get Over It?

Worley’s argument seems to hinge on one central premise: Star Wars belongs to George Lucas, not the fans. Which is fair enough, at least in the literal sense. But that argument doesn’t require 220 minutes to elucidate.

Worley doesn’t really want to support Lucas as an artist, so much as attack those who criticize him. The bulk of the video essay’s runtime comes from nitpicking the nitpickers. For example, he takes issue with the term "original." There is no “original version” of Star Wars, he claims, by counting over half a dozen "versions" the film:

To get to that number, though, he has to count things like slightly different audio mixes and separate video transfers. This is bafflingly pedantic. Any reasonable person can see #5 on that list is different in kind, not just degree. Which brings me to my core criticism of his criticism of others’ criticism of the Special Editions.

Missing the Forest for the Trees

Worley responds to minor complaints that virtually no casual fans remember, or would even notice. I would contend that if you ask a normal filmgoer what changed in (and what was wrong with) the Star Wars Special Editions, you’d get these four responses, and virtually nothing else:

1. Han shot first (Episode IV)

2. The new Jabba scene (Episode IV)

3. The musical number in Jabba’s palace (Episode VI)

4. Hayden Christensen inserted into the finale (Episode VI)

Number One is a meme at this point, so I won’t even get into it. Worley insists Greedo shooting first was Lucas’s original intention, and we should respect that. But as with anything regarding Luca’s “original intention,” I’d take that with a grain of salt.

What do you think? Did Han shoot first?

Together Again, for the First Time

Worley argues that a lot of complaints about the Special Editions come down to matters of taste. And honestly, that’s true. Many of the fan restorations, such as the Despecialized Edition, retain Special Edition changes that merely corrected technical errors, like bad matte lines—

So fans that hate the SE don’t hate all of the changes, just certain ones. Okay, fair enough. What really interests me then is the fact that Worley doesn’t address the Jabba scene. At all.

It’s a bad scene. In fact, it’s a terrible scene. That’s not just my opinion; that’s George Lucas’s opinion. He cut the scene because it was poorly written and badly acted.³

The Greedo scene was then written in post and filmed during reshoots, specifically to cover exposition that was lost due to cutting Jabba. Heck, even some of the dialogue is the same in both scenes—

Greedo : Jabba's through with you. He has no time for smugglers who drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser.

Han Solo : Even I get boarded sometimes. Did you think I had a choice?

Jabba the Hutt : Han, I can't make exceptions. What if everyone who smuggled for me dropped their cargo at the first sign of an Imperial starship? It's not good for business.

Han Solo : Look, Jabba, even I get boarded sometimes. Did you think I had a choice?

Adding Jabba back in (regardless of whether he's portrayed by Declan Mulholland or a CGI monstrosity) is redundant. If the justification of the Special Editions was to finally realize Lucas' original vision, as Worley claims, Greedo should have been cut altogether.

Not only does it offer repetitive exposition, but it also makes no sense dramatically. Han shoots Jabba's henchman, then just has a casual chat with the crime lord himself afterwards? These two scenes were never meant to co-exist in the same movie.

The video essay addresses none of this. Worley simply says "Lucas wanted it that way, and therefore we must accept it." No, we don’t.

A Matter of Taste

The same goes for the musical number in Jabba's palace. Regardless of any complaints of killing the story momentum or not fitting the original film's aesthetic sense, the biggest problem is that the song sucks. It just does. And if it had been in the movie back in 1983, people would've complained about it more than the Ewoks.

Again, Worley doesn’t address how annoying the song is. Instead, he tries to compare the Special Editions to other director’s cuts or even updated editions of novels.

We accept things like The Stand: Complete and Uncut or the director's cut of Blade Runner, because the original release was not what the creator had created at the time. Things were removed not because of artistic merit (i.e. the Jabba scene), but because the studio/publisher interfered. The Star Wars Special Editions are fundamentally different—Lucas is the studio, at least in the case of Empire and Jedi.⁴ And none of A New Hope’s changes came as a result of correcting Fox’s actions. They’re simply effects Lucasfilm couldn’t complete on time. (Also the Jabba scene, which I’d like to remind you, sucks.)

The only valid comparison Worley makes is Tolkien re-writing The Hobbit to better fit into the continuity of The Lord of the Rings. That's where Hayden Christiansen literally comes in.

Many people dislike young Anakin's insertion mainly because they don't like the prequels. I sympathize, but by Hobbit reasoning, I'll accept his presence.

Personal Attacks

If you go back to Worley’s YouTube channel, you’ll find part one of this series is a defense of the Prequel Trilogy:

The pretentious tool actually created an IMDb page for his video essay.

At two hours and eighteen minutes, it’s not quite as long as the Special Edition video, but nearly half of it is devoted to attacking Red Letter Media, Chris Stuckmann, Patrick Willems,⁵ and others. I don’t know this because I bothered to watch it; I know because he was so proud of this section, excerpted and re-posted it as a separate video:

I sat through the interminable Special Editions video because I was genuinely curious how Worley would address the biggest and most fundamental complaints that basically everyone has. But he never does.

Instead, he mocks more successful YouTubers that he deems less intelligent and less informed than himself. Ultimately, Worley’s video essay is less about Star Wars and more about simple jealousy.

You might say I’m doing the same with Worley, and you’d be right. I was interested in a contrarian view of the Star Wars Special Editions, I’m personally annoyed that I watched a video about petty jealousy instead.

More Star Wars Videos!

So don’t waste your time like I did. Instead, watch these far superior essays below, about the early years of George Lucas and his ex-wife/editor, Marcia.