It’s no secret that George Lucas liked to tinker with the Star Wars films even after they had been released — he started making changes to the original movie less than a month after its premiere. This compulsion only worsened as digital effects improved, leading the director to release the infamous “Special Editions” of Star Wars: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in 1997. Lucas made sweeping changes across the original trilogy using computer-generated imagery to insert new characters, improve aging visual effects, and even re-edit existing scenes. Some of these changes were for the better, some were for the worse, and then there were the changes that made Star Wars fans scratch their heads while uttering a collective, “huh?”
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Like a mad doctor with unchecked power, Lucas continued operating on the Star Wars movies with each successive release. Some 1997 changes were themselves changed for the 2004 original trilogy DVD release and again when the trilogy hit Blu-ray in 2011. While we can’t go into an exhaustive list of alterations we can highlight the 10 wackiest modifications that George Lucas made to Star Wars.
Blinking Ewoks –Return of the Jedi (2011 Blu-Ray)
Since Star Wars: Return of the Jedi first hit theaters in 1983, fans have been divided over the Ewoks. Some fans saw the cuddly critters as a sign that the movies were quickly becoming two-hour toy commercials. Others saw a spunky group of low-tech rebels using guerrilla warfare to overcome a better-armed, more technologically advanced foe. However, one complaint absolutely no one made was that the Ewoks didn’t blink enough.
We have a hard time believing that a single fan had trouble immersing themselves in the world of Star Wars because some canibalistic teddy bears couldn’t close their eyelids. George Lucas apparently disagreed because when it came time to release Jedi on Blu-ray he insisted digital trickery be employed to make the Ewoks blink.
Greedo Shoots First –A New Hope (1997 Special Edition)
Greedo shooting Han Solo first — or at all really — was possibly the most contentious change Lucas ever made to Star Wars: A New Hope. George’s reasoning was something along the lines of realizing, in hindsight, that the man Princess Leia would someday marry shouldn’t be introduced as a cold-blooded killer. Ok, but why? Putting aside the fact that Han coming back during the film’s climax shows he’s not the man we’re introduced to at the beginning, Leia herself is a cold-blooded killer.
The very first scene with Leia features her “shooting first” and murdering a Stormtrooper. A Stormtrooper, we might add, who just audibly told his friends to set their blasters for stun. If anything, Leia using lethal force against a non-lethal threat is way darker than Han shooting a guy who has a not-set-to-stun blaster pointed right at him and basically just threatened to kill him.
Lucas would further alter the scene to make it seem like the two opponents shot simultaneously, but it doesn’t fix the awkward issue of how Greedo manages to miss his opponent at point-blank range in the first place.
Luke Screaming As He Falls –The Empire Strikes Back (1997 Special Edition)
In 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back stunned audiences with the revelation that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father. What happened next depends on what version of the film you’re most familiar with. If you had seen Empire before the Special Editions, then you know Luke would let himself fall to what he assumes will be his death rather than join his Sith Lord father. The fact that he ultimately survives is irrelevant, the point is that he was willing to sacrifice himself rather than risk turning to the dark side.
If the 1997 Special Edition was your introduction to Empire, then you instead saw a scene where a clumsy Luke accidentally falls off the tiny platform he was clinging to, screaming in terror as he plummets to his doom. The addition of the scream — a reused Palpatine scream from Return of the Jedi — completely eliminates the gravitas behind what was a powerful gesture and turns it into something meaningless.
Apparently, Lucas agreed because the scream was removed from later releases.
Darth Vader Yelling “Noooooo!” –Return of the Jedi (2011 Blu-ray)
Darth Vader’s redemption during the climax of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi comes when he sees The Emperor slow-cooking his son with Force lightning and decides to throw him down a bottomless pit. The silent way Vader looks from Palpatine to Luke and back before making his decision is a classic example of a movie showing rather than telling.
George, however, apparently thought Vader turning on his boss to save his child was a little too ambiguous. Lucas rectified this by thoughtfully adding an anguished “Noooo!” as Vader carries Palpatine to the bottomless pit just to make it crystal clear that the former Jedi disagreed with his master’s choice to barbecue his offspring.
Digital Jabba –A New Hope (1997 Special Edition)
Lucas originally filmed a scene for Star Wars: A New Hope featuring a human Jabba the Hutt. However, the director cut the scene in favor of introducing a much more intimidating non-human Jabba in Return of the Jedi. While most fans would say that was the right call, Lucas jumped at the chance to re-insert the scene into the 1997 re-release of A New Hope, replacing the human actor with a digital approximation of Jabba in his larger-than-life slug form.
The result is a redundant addition — it’s basically a repeat of the Greedo scene — that fits awkwardly with the rest of the film, slows down the pacing, and ruins Jabbas’ reveal in the third movie.
Removing Anakin’s Eyebrows – Return of the Jedi (2004 DVD)
Just as fans never complained about non-blinking Ewoks, we doubt anyone viewing Return of the Jedi has ever been offended when Luke removed Vader’s helmet to reveal that the elder Skywalker still had his eyebrows. Apparently, in a world of space wizards and explosions in space, showing a burn victim without their facial hair singed off is a no-no.
That’s the only reason we can think of for George Lucas spending the time and money to have Anakin actor Sebastian Shaw’s eyebrows digitally painted out for the DVD release of Jedi.
Han Solo Running Into A Hangar Full of Stormtroopers – A New Hope (1997 Special Edition)
One of the funniest scenes in Star Wars: A New Hope was the one where Han Solo chased a handful of Stormtroopers down a dead end, only to turn around and run back the way he came. It’s a great scene that shows how Han’s spur-of-the-moment ideas often blow up in his face. Along came the Special Edition of A New Hope, and now Han chases those four or five Stormtroopers into a whole hangar full of Imperials.
The original scene is pretty straightforward. Han running at the Stormtroopers while screaming confuses them into thinking a larger group of rebels is behind him. Once they hit the dead end, they realize that isn’t the case and start chasing him back. There was absolutely no need to turn the wall at the end of the Death Star corridor into a hangar full of troops. Not only does it serve no narrative purpose, but it’s actually overkill and ruins the joke.
Adding Moss to Kashyyyk Treehouse – Revenge of the Sith (2011 Blu-ray)
Here’s an example of prequel tampering lest you think Lucas only messes with the original three Star Wars films. For the Blu-ray release of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, a coat of moss was added to the previously clean exterior of a Wookie treehouse on Kashyyyk. It’s one of those details no one would ever notice unless it was explicitly pointed out, leading us to wonder just what Lucas was thinking with this change.
Jedi Rocks – Return of the Jedi (1997 Special Edition)
The Max Rebo Band was originally a three-piece band comprised of keyboardist Max Rebo, horn player Droopy McCool, and lead singer Sy Snootles. The trio played during a short scene in Return of the Jedi where Jabba attempts to seduce a Twi’lek dancing girl, named Oola, only to give up and feed her to the Rancor instead. According to George Lucas, the scene always disappointed him because he always envisioned a big musical number for Jabba’s palace.
When Lucas decided to revisit his original trilogy of films, one of the biggest changes he made was turning the Max Rebo Band into a 12-piece ensemble and finally adding the big musical sequence he had always wanted to Return of the Jedi. The problem is, the technology wasn’t quite there in 1997 to convincingly merge the existing film with the new footage, so the musical number, “Jedi Rocks,” catchy as it may be, sticks out like a sore thumb and completely ruins the flow of Jedi‘s first act.
Maclunky – A New Hope (2019 Disney+)
When Disney+ was launched in 2019, many Star Wars fans hoped they would finally be able to stream the unaltered versions of the original three films. Instead, they were greeted with one final message from George Lucas: Maclunky. It turned out that Lucas had personally worked on a 4K version of the original trilogy before selling the franchise to Disney, complete with even more changes, including another version of the Han and Greedo scene where the latter utters the infamous word.
The official explanation is that “Maclunky” is a Huttese phrase first used by Sebulba in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, which roughly translates to “I will end you.” For many fans, however, the word translates to an expletive that we can’t write here. To those fans, Maclunky is a metaphorical middle finger from George Lucas proclaiming loudly, “These are now the only versions of these films, whether you like it or not.”
