RHYMES WITH MUCOUS
By Carrington Vanston - February 11, 2004
http://www.carringtonvanston.net/archives/mucous

George Lucas finally announced that he'll be releasing the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. To me this is an exciting development. It's exciting because I'm very interested in language and as far as I can tell this is an original use of the word "original."

By "original," of course, Lucas means "new special edition verions." ("Special" in this case is used in the sense of "he's so Special he should have his own Olympics.") That is, our boy George is not talking about the actual original movies but instead new universally disliked versions that were produced many years later.

Isn't it exciting that our language can develop right before our eyes? I love it when words evolve new meanings or new words are invented. New words like "punkassmoviewrecker." I've been using that one a lot today. It's handy.

The Star Wars movies will be released only as a 4 DVD set. There will not be an option to purchase A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back individually, nor the first half of Return Of The Jedi. Instead you must purchase the entire trilogy as a set. The fourth disc contains a half hour Making Of movie, a three hour Making Crap Out Of movie, and an original bio-pic called Not A Fan Of His Own Films.

The price for the package hasn't been announced yet. I suppose Lucas is still waiting for the contractor estimates on the latest extension to his ranch.

[aside]

As a sad side-note, Lucas built a beautiful ranch years ago but his once admired home is now a structurally unsound jumble of wedged-in additions that simply do not suit the original blueprint. And after the last round of modifications it simply had to be condemned.

Soundly.

[end of aside]

As I mentioned, these will not be the original movies in their original form. In fact, these won't even be the "Greedo shoots first" editions which became famous as the root cause of the last big blackout in California (due to the massive power spike during the broadcast premiere of A Newer Hope when Han Solo's head was digitally jerked to the side and a million nerds suddenly cried out in terror from their parents' basements and simultaneously fired up their modems to chat about it).

Nope, it won't be those versions. We should be so lucky. Instead, these are the "Even More Specialer" editions. Some highlights of the improvements (another new definition!) that Lucas has made include:

Greedo not only shoots first, he shoots multiple times. Then he calls over some friends, and they all shoot. Meanwhile, Han dodges all these lasers with sudden sideways jerks of his head. In the end Han pulls his pistol, carefully sets it to "gentle stun," and cautions the Greedo Gang to lower their weapons or he'll tell on them. After some "open, constructive dialog" it all ends in hugs and extended therapy sessions. They keep in touch at holidays.

The garbage compactor scene has been replaced by an extended prison escape sequence in which the rebels are chased by storm troopers back and forth across a long corridor lined with doors. Sometimes they get confused and the storm troopers are briefly chased by the rebels. Hilarity ensues.

Luke's character has been subtly altered through the latest digital technology so that he appears ever so slightly younger. Lucas hasn't said yet how much younger Luke appears, but insider estimates put him somewhere between nine-and-a-half and sperm.

The Jawas have all been replaced by Ewoks. As have the Sand People. And most of the rebel army. And Han.

All that yucky kissing is gone.

There's a new all-digital Yoda which, after many thousands of hours of complicated and expensive computer graphics work, is finally almost as good as the old puppet.

Nine new racing scenes have been added. Per movie.

To help the audience follow the new and oh so convoluted racing subplots these new edits conveniently show the number of remaining game credits in the lower corner of the screen.

Han's sidekick has been replaced by a new digital character called Scooby Chew.

And most exciting of all (gee, an exciting new definition for the word exciting!) these movies will be the first to feature Lucas's new Digital Insertion technology. Similar to the computers that paint the yellow first-down line on televised football games, Digital Insertion adds new toys and fast food tie-ins to existing movie footage. We're told that "old fans will get a real kick out of seeing Luke's speeder covered in bumper stickers advertising web sites and seeing C3P0's handy new collectable attachments." It'll be a kick alright. A kick to the jumblies.

The same Digital Insertion will place small hovering signs on screen to display up-to-date information about local pricing and stock levels for the new collectable movie merchadise shown in every scene. Clearly, the phrase "Digital Insertion" is being used by Lucas in the sense of "pardon me sir, but you seem to have inserted your digits in me someplace uncomfortable."

Yes, this truly was an exciting week for wordsmiths like me. So to celebrate, let's play a vocabulary game. Make a sentence out of the following words:

Bite. Lucas. Ass. Can. My. White. Lily.

Answers on a postcard.

Carrington Vanston
carrington@carringtonvanston.net

[This article is released to the public domain.]