Quote:
Originally Posted by KJ
With all due respect Eric, thats just probably YOU feeling so! And not the major majority feeling of everybody else who's an original series Galactica fan.
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I don't think there's been a scientific study of the matter. Regardless, I am opposed to the idea completely, because to me it is a matter of general principle that to do this harms completely the integrity of the original work. As far as I'm concerned the only reason why George Lucas so obsessively tinkered with the original trilogy is because that speaks volumes to his general obsession with FX over storytelling and the fact that he doesn't have much confidence in the story to carry the day. For me, a true special edition would involve restoring scenes cut that had to do with enhancing the characters and not giving us a pointless scene from a storytelling standpoint (the Jabba one) that just recapitulates word for word the same dialogue we had in the Greedo scene, and then becomes an excuse to say "Look there, I stuck Boba Fett in!"
Films IMO are not supposed to be tinkered with out of the context of the time they were created in and the same should apply to TV series. If Galactica did the same thing, they would get the same attention from me that the tinkered Trek episodes get from me which is zero. I watch Galactica because the stories interest me and the stories aren't going to be changed one iota by FX sequences that clash with the interior set designs, costuming etc. that were made in another era altogether.
And let's carry this arugment to the non-scifil realm. Should "Gone With The Wind" and "The Wizard Of Oz" be altered with modern CGI FX for the sake of being "with it" with a new generation of audiences, or should the power of what they did at the time they were made in with the tools that were available in that time be respected? I am emphatically for the latter and just as the idea of a CGI enhanced burning of Atlanta would make me cringe, so too would the prospect of seeing the Galactica I have never become bored with over the yahrens altered make me cringe as well. Let Galactica's merits as a fine piece of storytelling in the era it was produced carry the day with its ability to connect with future generations.
Or let's cite another example. Which version of "King Kong" is still going to remembered as a classic a generation from now? The 1933 one with its "dated" special FX or Jackson's bloated 2005 CGI self-indulgence that was one of the most boring times of my life in a theater? That to me, sums it up as to why CGI has nothing to do with whether or not a film from the past is worthy of being called a classic or not. It's the story and the acting and the directing that carries the day ultimately. To suggest otherwise IMO cheapens the integrity of the original product (this is also why I'm opposed to replacing musical scores with new scores composed decades after the fact as was done on the expanded version of the 1965 western "Major Dundee")
Now I'll admit, that speaking as one whose training is in the world of history and archiving, the matter of preserving the *original* work that was created at the time does matter a good deal to me from a professional standpoint, and I fear that Lucas's self-indulgent obsession means that future generations will never get to see Star Wars as I first experienced it, and when it was frankly a much better film. Instead, we have seen Star Wars irrevocably damaged for the sake of synching up to some lousy films Lucas made two decades later that represented the triumph of CGI over good storytelling because there wasn't even a decent remastering of the original version done.
