Brannon, I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to sign it.
You already know this, but one of the things that really bothers me about fans is the fact that somewhere along the line they get the notion that because you entertained them, you owe them something. Like many of you, Star Wars absolutely made a difference in my life. I watched it for the first time when I was 5. I was on the edge of my seat throughout Empire Strikes back when I was 8, and one of my childhood friends and I saw the movie every other day when I was 11. I collected Star Wars figures, read the books, had the Darth Vader halloween costume. It helped make me the geek I am today.
Later on in life I read the expanded universe novels, bought the RPG, and otherwise enjoyed the various aspects of this multi-media monster. In 2001 I was brought on to WotC to work the Star Wars fan club, thus getting my first foot in the door there. At first I was happy to be there, and then a couple months into it I realized two very important things: 1) You will not be able to make every fan happy. 2) For some reason many fans have this sense that because a work changed their life, they should have a say in its future.
So, most movie producers will take their great inspired work, add some additional back stage stuff, out-takes, or deleted scenes, stick them on a disc, and then put it out there. Lucas sees himself as more of an artist and he has a universe he wants to bring to life. The more elements that he can include, the more complete it is for him. If, when he puts it out there, people like it, then that's great. If they don't, well, that's alright too. And I can totally respect him for that.
One of the reasons that I feel this way is that over the course of many years I've written things - stories, RPGs, web articles, etc. In some cases when I finish them and turn them in to the editor, I'm completely happy with them. In other cases maybe I hit a creative snag, maybe I didn't have the time, or maybe I didn't have the space, but for whatever reason I wasn't completely happy with it - definitely not ashamed of it, but not dancing up and down feeling like I nailed it. Lucas, despite having created a classic, feels the same way and I can't fault him for it.
Besides, has anyone actually gone back and watched the originals recently? Remember those oddly colored boxes surrounding the space ships? Remember the little dots leaving Yavin IV in much too rapid succession? Remember all the plain white walls in Cloud CIty? What about the fact that you can literally see the terrain through the borders of the canopy in the snowspeeders? Those were blemishes that don't need to be there. I like the most recent versions. Sure, I would change back the part where Greedo shoots first, and restore the Ewok song at the end of Jedi, and maybe I wouldn't have made Jabba look quite so much like a frog in New Hope, but otherwise I'm a happy camper. More importantly though, we now have the creative vision Lucas wanted, for better or for worse. If he's embarrassed by the originals and he owns them, its his decision to bury them. If fans don't like it, at least they still have their video tapes.
