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A long time ago, in a university not so far away, I wrote a paper on the works of one Mr. George Lucas. That paper has since vanished into, well, wherever it is that college essays go to die. The essay graveyard or some such. In any case, I had discussed some of the particulars of this essay I had written some time ago with some folks at VP, and I thought, why not bring up a point or two on the blog. I'll note that at the time I wrote the paper, and come up with some of my original theories, the only versions of the story that existed were the original tales. (If you haven't watched the original trilogy by now, you may want to skip the post, as I will reveal a few spoilers.)
To anyone over a certain age, one of the great storytelling tragedies of our time is how one creator, Mr. Lucas, decided he just had to go back and fiddle with his movies. His movies had become classics; giants in the SF movie field. Loved by, it seemed, nearly everyone. When it was announced that he was re-releasing the movies into the theater, with some special effects enhancements, digital touch-ups, and perhaps tweaking back in a deleted scene or two, well, the audiences got excited and flocked to the theaters to get another taste of something that they loved.
And it left a bad taste in many mouths.
You've probably seen the T-shirt. Or read the clever meme photo, or seen a parody that amused you. But almost universally, when asked about the one thing Lucas did when he tweaked the original trilogy into the Special Edition, the thing he did that upset the most people was to change the fact that Han Solo shoots Greedo first. Oh, there's plenty of reasons why this is bad. The effects look clumsy. It doesn't scan cleanly in the scene. Han doesn't look like someone that had just missed death by pure luck. Simply put, the scene doesn't work. I think, however, there's a deeper reason that this particular scene bothers people, and it has to do with dual arcs.
In the original Star Wars, we're introduced to a character who is a small time character with what most people would call questionable morals. He's a smuggler. He's worried primarily about himself. He's a mercenary, in it for the money. And yes, he's a cold blooded killer. Oh sure, Greedo probably would have killed him without too much worry. But Han didn't wait to get shot. He took calm, cool, pre-emptive action and kills Greedo without even blinking about it. At best, as we know Han upon introduction in the movie he's a grey character, more dark grey than light. And yet, we see him change over the course of that first movie. His character arc is to go from someone on the edge of darkness, a known criminal with a price on his head, to coming to the rescue just in time. From darkness, into the light.
Why is that important? Because it is the small character arc of Han Solo, that enables the audience to buy into the larger character arc of Darth Vader. We watch Solo's interaction with the other characters, see how they influence him, and turn him around to being a hero, and in the back of our minds, it sets us up to believe it when by the end of the third movie Vader does the same. If Solo can change from a cold hearted criminal to a hero, why not Vader from Sith Lord back to a Jedi? And that's the crux of it. It's subtle, and for a very long time, I thought it completely intentional. Until the Special Edition came out.
Herein lies the danger of spending too much time fiddling with any particular story. How much time is too much? I can't say for sure. But the more you play and tweak and change, you need to be aware that you could be destroying some beautiful serendipity in your tale. It may be that you'll be too close to the story to even know it when that happens. About the only thing I could say, is this: once the work is out and part of the public sphere, be really damn sure you have to change something, before you do. Because whether you mean for them to or not, people will attach themselves to your story in ways you can't possibly anticipate. And what might seem like a minor tweak, might break the suspension of disbelief of your audience.
What do you think?
To anyone over a certain age, one of the great storytelling tragedies of our time is how one creator, Mr. Lucas, decided he just had to go back and fiddle with his movies. His movies had become classics; giants in the SF movie field. Loved by, it seemed, nearly everyone. When it was announced that he was re-releasing the movies into the theater, with some special effects enhancements, digital touch-ups, and perhaps tweaking back in a deleted scene or two, well, the audiences got excited and flocked to the theaters to get another taste of something that they loved.
And it left a bad taste in many mouths.
You've probably seen the T-shirt. Or read the clever meme photo, or seen a parody that amused you. But almost universally, when asked about the one thing Lucas did when he tweaked the original trilogy into the Special Edition, the thing he did that upset the most people was to change the fact that Han Solo shoots Greedo first. Oh, there's plenty of reasons why this is bad. The effects look clumsy. It doesn't scan cleanly in the scene. Han doesn't look like someone that had just missed death by pure luck. Simply put, the scene doesn't work. I think, however, there's a deeper reason that this particular scene bothers people, and it has to do with dual arcs.
In the original Star Wars, we're introduced to a character who is a small time character with what most people would call questionable morals. He's a smuggler. He's worried primarily about himself. He's a mercenary, in it for the money. And yes, he's a cold blooded killer. Oh sure, Greedo probably would have killed him without too much worry. But Han didn't wait to get shot. He took calm, cool, pre-emptive action and kills Greedo without even blinking about it. At best, as we know Han upon introduction in the movie he's a grey character, more dark grey than light. And yet, we see him change over the course of that first movie. His character arc is to go from someone on the edge of darkness, a known criminal with a price on his head, to coming to the rescue just in time. From darkness, into the light.
Why is that important? Because it is the small character arc of Han Solo, that enables the audience to buy into the larger character arc of Darth Vader. We watch Solo's interaction with the other characters, see how they influence him, and turn him around to being a hero, and in the back of our minds, it sets us up to believe it when by the end of the third movie Vader does the same. If Solo can change from a cold hearted criminal to a hero, why not Vader from Sith Lord back to a Jedi? And that's the crux of it. It's subtle, and for a very long time, I thought it completely intentional. Until the Special Edition came out.
Herein lies the danger of spending too much time fiddling with any particular story. How much time is too much? I can't say for sure. But the more you play and tweak and change, you need to be aware that you could be destroying some beautiful serendipity in your tale. It may be that you'll be too close to the story to even know it when that happens. About the only thing I could say, is this: once the work is out and part of the public sphere, be really damn sure you have to change something, before you do. Because whether you mean for them to or not, people will attach themselves to your story in ways you can't possibly anticipate. And what might seem like a minor tweak, might break the suspension of disbelief of your audience.
What do you think?
