Is this Star Wars or Spaceballs?

In theaters Friday: Ides of March, Real Steel

New on DVD/Blu-ray: Fast Five, Scream 4

In 2007, while in production on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with star Harrison Ford and director Steven Spielberg, producer and Star Wars creator George Lucas was photographed sporting a T-shirt that read “Han Shot First.” Nerds for the franchise were already well aware of this T-shirt and the Internet meme of the same title spawned by Lucas’ ham-fisted revision of his own film when he turned the roguish smuggler’s Western-worthy quickdraw entrance in the original Star Wars into a matter of character-killing sheer luck. It was one awful change among dozens that Lucas has inflicted on his own classic films since the late 1990s, much to the chagrin of millions everywhere—me included.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what Lucas was thinking wearing a shirt that basically made fun of himself. But now I think I may have a clue. There are two types of artists in the world. Those who complete a work and let it go, and those who cannot—no matter what. The latter continue to revise, second-guess themselves and their ideas and never cross the finish line. They never truly give their art to an audience. It is always theirs and no one else’s. Lucas wore that “Han Shot First” shirt to make a statement. Kiss it fanboys. Star Wars is mine.

It’s been more than two weeks since all six Star Wars films were released for the first time on Blu-ray in fancy deluxe editions with legendary cut sequences, behind-the-scenes documentaries, cast interviews and more. Basically, you get everything you’ve ever wanted from the Star Wars universe except for the original groundbreaking films. Lucas refuses to clean the negatives and dust those off for release, instead championing the “special” editions he tweaks every few years as his true vision for the movies.

Weeks before the Blu-ray release I ran across a YouTube video of the climax of the original trilogy. The emperor is frying Luke Skywalker with lightning from his fingertips while a cold-hearted Darth Vader stands guard silently. The audience is left to wonder of the agony and the turmoil boiling beneath that skeletal black mask and whatever is left of his heart locked in a gruesome mechanical cage when his only son cries out to him in agony, “Father, please!” We are asked to think, to engage with this fallen Jedi and his internal struggle.

It’s an astonishingly powerful moment, and I’ll always remember it from my childhood. But this YouTube video had a curiously jarring addition. At first I thought it was a hoax. Instead of Vader making a silent sacrifice to lift the Emperor up and toss him down an expansive electronic chasm as his overlord electrocutes his life-sustaining circuitry, Vader lets out a rather infantile “Nooooo!” Two of them in fact. It’s an awful alteration. And it is real. So awful, the only explanation is that Lucas is giving his billionaire finger to the fanboys who decried Vader’s similarly daffy “Nooooo!” from the final prequel, 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. He can’t possibly think this change is for the better, right? Has he lost his mind?

Now, the term Star Wars has a whole new meaning. The epic space saga conjures more headlines and attention for its fans versus creator narrative than anything else. Lucas unlocked the imaginations of an entire generation, but now there’s a documentary assault on his decision-making called The People vs. George Lucas. Lucas used to be Luke Skywalker. Now many fans see him as Darth Vader, a once-promising filmmaker who has gone unknowingly the Dark Side.

What’s so ironic is that Lucas keeps fiddling with the original three movies which were already excellent, but the supremely flawed prequels—and Howard the Duck, by the way—get pretty much left alone. If he’s itching to tinker with his movies, why not start with the prequels? How about a “special” edition of The Phantom Menace without Jar Jar Binks? How about an Attack of the Clones with a screenplay that doesn’t feel like dozens of unrelated scenes tossed into a hat and pulled out one by one?

Even if you’re not a fan of Star Wars, you can understand the frustrations. When is art finished? At a certain point, does the public “own” it more than the artist, and if so, shouldn’t we have the power to stop said artist when he tries to go back and change things for the worse?

“First thought, best thought.” Allen Ginsberg said that. Did Picasso repaint The Old Guitarist when Les Paul invented the electric six-string? I would feel bad for Picasso if he had. The Old Guitarist is beautiful, and the thought that its creator was unhappy with the result is not something I want to consider. The idea that Lucas was so dissatisfied with his original films is equally depressing. The saddest part is that these Blu-rays are not the end. There will be the upcoming 3D releases as well as some yet-to-be-announced hi-definition direct downloads a few years from now, and we’ll surely get a new round of changes then, too. Maybe at that point we’ll all be brave enough to shout, in unison, with a voice deep and resonant and foreboding, “Noooooo!” Just like Vader.