RANT: George Lucas is Satan

Why do I consider George Lucas to be Satan? (George Lucsifer?) If you read the Bible then you know that Satan, when he was known as Lucifer, was not just an angel, but the greatest and holiest of them all. He was essentially God's right hand man, until he was overwhelmed by pride and attempted to overthrow The Boss. For this sin he was thrown into Hell for all time. 20 years ago George Lucsifer was the shining light of Nerddom. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, hell I'd even throw Willow into the good pile. Lucsifer was like a gigantic mechanical teat, producing the geek equivalent of black tar heroin; we were hooked from the first hit and we didn't care because the high was sublime. But somewhere along the way Lucsifer was consumed by pride. Suddenly the shining light was shrowded in a dark miasma of hubris. First came the 're-release' of the original Star Wars trilogy into theaters. A moment I had been looking forward to my whole life, seeing Stat Wars on the big screen, was befouled when Greedo shot first and Jabba the Hutt looked like a Playstation game. But I came away from the desecration of my childhood battered but unbroken. My faith in Lucas was still strong. Then came May 19, 1999, and my spirit fled my body. Gone were the noble knights and rascaly Space Pirates. In were midichlorians and Gungans. You want character development, action and emotion? No you don't, you want wooden acting, cutesy aliens and politics, all stripped, scrubbed and sanitized for your protection. I went into each subsequent Star Wars movie with lowered expectations and still left the theater disappointed and sad. And the worst, most painful part of all? Every now and then the haze lifts just enough to give us all a glimpse of the Light. Pod Racing. Darth Maul. Epic space battles. Knights of the Old Republic. Timothy Zahn's novels. It's like standing outside an AA meeting with a bottle of Tequila. Now Lucsifer has reversed field and announced that the original trilogy would finally be making it's way to DVD the way it was meant to be: unrestored. But even now, there is a snake in the garden. It turns out that these discs, instead of being made from the original prints of the movies, will just be rips of the Laserdisc versions. Lucasfilm claims that no unmodified prints of the original trilogy remain to use. This is the artistic equivalent of painting a beret on the Mona Lisa, or scribbling 'no fat chicks' on the Constitution. It gets worse. What I'm about to say is an opinion, not a fact. But I fear in the depths of my soul that sometime in the next few years this will come to pass.

I am convinced that George Lucas is going to REMAKE the original Star Wars Trilogy

New actors. New effects. 'Plot improvements'. The whole nine yards. Why do I think this?

• Liam Neeson has said in interviews that there were plans was for him, Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen to reshoot the scene with Obi Wan, Anakin & Yoda from the end of Return of the Jedi.
• Lucasfilm repotedly signed all of the key technical people to work on at least 1 more Star Wars film.
• Both Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen are supposedly signed for one more film at Lucasfilm
  
• Lucas is nuts and won't leave well enough alone

Could I be wrong, or crazy? Sure, after all this is still just speculation, but I feel in my gut that this IS what will happen. Do I expect an announcement tomorrow? No. He'll release the crappy laserdisc transfer of the OT on DVD, then 6 months to a year later an unaltered print of the OT will 'mysteriously' appear in time for a 30th anniversary holiday release on DVD. (I say he's evil, not stupid) Then some time after that, say 2008-2009 Lucas will come down from the mountain top and proclaim that 'fan interest' has convinced him to reimagine the original trilogy. It will be big and flashy and vapid. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The effects will be amazingly lifelike. The acting will be more wooden than you'd think is humanly possible. And it will make a Lucas a mint. Again.

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