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Today in things that make us scream incoherently

DO NOT WANT: Darth Vader Now Screams No in Return of the Jedi

by Susana Polo | 11:46 am, August 31st

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Hey, remember when we mentioned that George Lucas was likely revisiting the Prequel Episodes for the Blu-ray release of Star Wars? And that we were probably getting a CGI Yoda in Episode I, but not much else, really?

Remember when that didn’t really seem so bad?

What follows is a list of the known changes to the original Star Wars trilogy for the Blu-ray release, which has begun to trickle out as reviewers receive their copies. They’ve been confirmed by a lot of different not-Lucasfilm sources, and have yet to be denied by Lucasfilm itself. Prepare your inner child.

  • Blinking Ewoks (possibly not as creepy as it sounds, but your milage may vary)
  • A new, ridiculous sounding noise for Obi-wan scaring off the Tuskan raiders.

How ridiculous?

But the real kicker is the changes made to the very climax of the entire series, arguably of all six movies: the moment that Darth Vader renounces the Dark Side, murders his diabolical master, and truly claims his fatherhood. Turns out George Lucas thought the moment could be improved by incorporating a Wiley E. Coyote scream from the Emperor and one of the most parodied moments in the prequel trilogy: Darth Vader’s painfully campy Big “No!”. Here’s what the new audio looks like when synched up over the old footage:

No really, our go-to appropriate memes with which to respond to this kind of thing are all rendered ineffectually ironic by the fact that the quintessential “DO NOT WANT” is, lest we forget, sourced to an early Chinese bootleg of Episode III with terrible english subtitles where Darth Vader’s “NO” is translated as “Do not want.”

So this is all we can offer you: how much more palatable do you find Han Shooting first now?

Update: Lucasfilm has confirmed the changes.

(via Topless Robot.)

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  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/X5K27SL6L237WZYMCYRIPI3DAU Jasmin

    It’s.. not… that… bad…
    Not the scream. That’s terrible.
    But the no… it’s… not… horrible…
    He could’ve done much worse…
    Heck, he already has.

  • http://twitter.com/danielmchick Daniel M. Chick

    MEESA JAR JAR BINKS.

    Much, much worse things have been forced upon the Star Wars community.

  • http://profiles.google.com/ashleysue Ashley Sue

    I’m just going to go crawl under a CGI rock and hide now until Lucas starts taking normal-person pills and gets rid of all this mess.  Seriously, he’s like an 8-year-old when parents tell him not to touch something; what does he do?  Touch it and screw it up!

  • Anonymous

    This is why we keep our old VHS in good condition. You don’t have to deal with these stupid changes if you can just pop in the original whenever you like.

  • Anonymous

    Stop. Please. Just stop. People already liked the Star Wars trilogy (yes…trilogy) before the tampering and the meddling. Those aren’t the movies that need changing. What needs changing (or rebooting entirely) are those weird badly written fan-fics that were released as ‘prequels’ by someone who was most definitely not Mr Lucas…right?

  • http://www.thediscriminatingfangirl.com/ TDF Pamela

    George obviously doesn’t want me to buy the Blu-ray set.  I get that he’s all powerful now and wants to “improve” on the original, but doesn’t he understand that people love the original?  It wasn’t like people came out of the theatre in 1983 saying, “You know, that scene where Vader kills the emperor would’ve been much better if Vader had shouted “NOOOOO” and the emperor had screeched on his way down.”

  • John Wao

    My inner child stopped caring about Star Wars when the DVDs were released.

    I don’t care what Lucas, who testified before Congress to speak against colorization by the way, does anymore to his movies.

  • John Wao

    My inner child stopped caring about Star Wars when the DVDs were released.

    I don’t care what Lucas, who testified before Congress to speak against colorization by the way, does anymore to his movies.

  • http://twitter.com/ChristianRanke Christian Ranke

    I don’t think the NO! was all that bad! And the emperor scream has always been there. Check the original before posting that theres a new Wiley E. Coyote scream! Seriously

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7G4SWUX2MCWWXLMYNN347JMIZY Frodo Baggins

    George Lucas is Darth Vader. The Emperor is Extraneous Edits. Luke is the Original Trilogy. We can only hope the former Jedi comes to his senses before he lets his new master destroy his child.

  • http://www.facebook.com/sarah.maple Sarah Maple

    At this rate, I think “vintage” Star Wars will soon become a sought after commodity. Take good care of those tapes.

  • http://misswordedthewriter.blogspot.com Lucy Woodhull

    Leave it alone, he should.  Step away from the dark side of the farce…er, force, George.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=813165390 Annika Raaen

    *headdesk*

    First of all…these movies are already melodramatic and over the top (in a good way!!). Adding the NO to the scene makes it goofy. Vader not saying a thing adds the gravitas needed for the scene. We, the audience, get to decide what it going on in Vader’s head. By making him say something at that particular point, even something as simple as NO, takes that away from us. Dumbs it down, if you will.

    The only way I will buy the Blu Ray is if they add the original movie to it without ANY of the changes made from ’97 onward.

    I just bought “Close Encounters” on Blu Ray, and they had all three versions of the movie on there…so…Lucas, you have no goddamn excuse. Give us what we love, and you’ll have your gazillions.

    In the immortal words of Princess Leia: If money is all that you love, then that’s what you’ll receive. [...] I wonder if he cares about anything…or anybody.

  • Anonymous

    IIRC one of the Star Wars DVD sets came with the original cut of Episode IV on a separate disk.  To be fair, it was more pleasant to watch than the VHS on account of being in widescreen.

    It would be nice if one could get a best-possible quality original-cut original-trilogy on BluRay.

  • Anonymous

    Do you ever get the feeling that the original movies were produced not by George Lucas but by helpful elves who got the address wrong, and were supposed to produce a space fantasy trilogy for the good-hearted cobbler living next door?

    Goddamn elves.

  • http://www.smallfish-bigpond.com/ Kerensky97

    That Krayt Dragon howl can’t be from the BluRay.  It sounds like a 14 year old internet nerd with a synthesizer put that on.

    It’s so bad it makes me think this is all fakes or interpretations of what was on the BluRay.  Lucas is an idiot but there had to have been other people that said, “Hey George, I know you think that was a good take but let’s give it one more try.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Michelle-Fitzgerald/100000045257462 Michelle Fitzgerald

    I’m by no means a Star Wars fan but I really, really feel bad for them. He just… keeps… meddling! 

  • http://twitter.com/DoctorOddfellow Doc Odd

    Seriously, am I the only person who likes the prequels for what they are? I don’t even mind the Special Edition as they’re mostly cosmetic and affect the story in little way.

    The No might actually work. Who knows? The Emperor has always screamed the whole way down, so I’m not even remotely bothered by it.

    What gets me is curiosity about what led to some of the other cosmetic changes like the Krayt scream or the rocks or even Jabba’s door. What am I supposed to be seeing here? What’s the change that I should be seeing? Why is one size door more necessary than the other? This is the questions we should be asking as George tweaks the films.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QZTQORZOGI4B6DQOTEJPF6RROE K@

    … spent time in china. Best part of this post was the discovery of the origin of ‘do not want’ in the title aka ‘bu yao’. In chinese it’s really difficult to just have a word that means no. You can’t say ‘bu’ b/c its meant to negate another word in this case ‘yao’ which is ‘to want’. More or less that made me giggle. p.s. trying really hard to ignore the changes.

  • Anonymous

    tinyurl.com/2df4ccp

  • http://www.domesticchaos.com Ashley

    No, I’m with you — I like the prequel movies as campy, sci-fi b-movies. They’ll never be classic like the original trilogy, and I think trying to replicate the feel was probably a mistake on Lucas’s part, but I liked seeing the pre-original storyline.

  • http://www.domesticchaos.com Ashley

    Every time he picks these movies up he makes more unnecessary changes. I think every single creative person ever understands the feeling when you look at something and go, “Oh god, I could have done this so much better,” but it starts to feel like looking a gift horse in the mouth when he says, “Oh wait, I have tons of money — I can make it better!” without acknowledging that people loved the movies exactly as they were.

  • http://profiles.google.com/soterios John Romero

    You know, it’s not like he’s retouching art, or anything.  Not painting a smile on the Mona Lisa, or a bikini on that chick standing on the shell.

  • http://www.thediscriminatingfangirl.com/ TDF Pamela

    IIRC one of the Star Wars DVD sets came with the original cut of Episode IV on a separate disk.

    Yep, one of the DVD releases did come with the original versions.  Luckily those were the ones I bought, and those are the only discs I actually watch.

  • http://www.facebook.com/SmokeyPSD Paul Down

    Actually, he is going over the original model work which everyone worked so hard on at the time. The colourization of black and white, of which there’s a quote of George Lucas himself saying is a bad idea is an apt parallel. Regardless of the other changes such as Greedo shooting first et al. He is changing a piece of important cinematic history that is important to many people and has been marked for preservation.

  • Anonymous

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Patrick-Wells/13805208 Patrick Wells

    That is EXACTLY what he is doing! Films are Art.

  • Anonymous

    I agree, but those people wouldn’t have been allowed in the room. Only butt kissers. But yeah to an earlier post, the scream from the Emporer has not changed.

    Anyway, now for the scary bit… I was in uproar about the NOOOOO and posted a few rants. But now after sitting down on my own, with the volume up to 11, I love it O_O not the first one though, that is way too high in tone. It needs to be more of a snappier line and whispered.Like Vader is thinking no… don’t kill my son! As he realises Palpatine lied to him about wanting to save Padme. I actually got a tear in my eye this time, but thay might have been due to the aweful recording quality of the first NO!