Rumors have been circulating for awhile now that Disney is planning on re-releasing the theatrical cuts of the original Star Wars trilogy, which as far as pretty much every Star Wars fan ever is concerned, are the true definitive editions; no matter what George Lucas would have us believe. Until that fateful day comes to pass, most fans who didn’t hold onto their old VHS tapes or LaserDiscs, or those who don’t mind downloading poor quality torrents, are stuck with the “tainted” remasters that Lucas has somehow made worse with each subsequent update.
While there are some ways in which the remasters improve upon the theatrical cuts (mostly in the effects department — the lightsabers in particular look much better), most of the changes that Lucas has made ever since he released his first updates in 1997 have made the films worse. While nothing in these films quite reach the lows of the prequel trilogy, Star Wars as a whole isn’t as special as it used to be and balance won’t be restored until the theatrical cuts are made available to everyone again.
12. No More ‘Yub Nub’
To say that music plays an important role in Star Wars would be a vast understatement (if you find a film score more iconic than John Williams’, please let us know). While George Lucas thankfully never tampered with the more significant parts of the score with his multiple updates to the original trilogy, he still found a way to tamper with music in largely pointless ways. While cutting the Ewok’s ‘Yub Nub’ song at the end of Return of the Jedi isn’t as egregious a change as addition of the abysmal ‘Jedi Rocks’ (which we’ll get to later in this list), it’s still one of those changes that leaves you scratching your head. ‘Yub Nub’ isn’t a particularly great song but for those who grew up with the trilogy, it holds significant nostaligic weight, thanks in large part to its sickeningly upbeat melody (seriously, try not to get it stuck in your head). Sure, replacing the song with a more generic “triumphant” score and scenes of various planets celebrating a Rebel victory is a good way of tying together the two trilogies, but was it really worth cutting out such a cherished song for? You be the judge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiM5zEEI_Jo