Do-over of the Fates

Finally, after more than a year of brutal critical and fan backlash, Disney has fixed The Rise of Skywalker! Can you believe it? The film can finally be-huh? No, they didn't fix the ending. But they did-what's that? No, the story still makes no sense-wha-oh, no Carrie Fisher's scenes are still awkward and difficult to watch.

Yeah, and they still rip off The Goonies.

"You mess with the bull, and
you get the horns. Ho-ho!"

But they did finally get rid of some of the dumb blue color correction. So there's that. At least I think they did. Someone had Tweeted some comparison shots, but the post has been taken down and the account was deleted. Same same for another Twitter used who posted about some captions that added names to the "ghost Jedi" scene, where the voices of dead Jedi tell Rey to, you know, to Jedi or whatever. So what happened? Did these changes even really happen? Did the Twitter users run afoul of Disney's legal people? And are they ok? Because I take my unpaid job that no one asks me to do very seriously, I did some research (meaning I opened the Disney+ app and fast forwarded to the scenes in question) and, I don't know, Maybe they did? 

It's hard to tell without something to compare it too, but Harrison Ford and Adam Driver's scene on the Death Star ruins (the one most of the stories about this point to) does look a little less blue than screen shots I find online. And the captions in Daisy Ridley's scene do identify which Jedi's voices are being heard, but I don't know if that was always the case. 

I would have said "cackling maniacally," but I suppose
the captioning people must know what they're doing.

While were at it, maybe no more climactic
showdowns where characters tug'o'war an energy
beam back and forth until someone explodes?

And look, I'm all for un-color-correcting movies. If I may slip into my habit of curmudgeonry, one of the things that makes recent genre movies inferior to older ones is the over reliance on things like quick cuts, CGI, and flooding every shot with a color. Especially in something like Star Wars where you need to feel like something on screen is real, making every shot blue takes you right out of that. But is this a thing they're going to be doing from now on? Streaming service adjustments and retcons as a matter of course? And is this a good thing?

Like, there is not a single person in the world who would agree that the Special Edition versions of the Star Wars movies are better than the original theatrical releases. And if there is someone saying that, they are wrong. Objectively. 

I rest my case.

When the VCR ran out of whale oil, we'd go
outside and play with our hoops and sticks.

Ok, but just for the sake of argument, let's say it's because I'm one enough to remember when crappy VHS copies were the only versions we knew for years. Which is to say, quite old. They were still good movies to begin with. Rise of Skywalker was not. So it could be that I just have an objection to fixing something that doesn't need fixing. But how far would be too far? The Special Edition Star Wars movies didn't change the story, and neither do the changes that Disney+ may (or may not) have made. But what if they did? Would that be weird?

"How dare you!"

-Some troll.

Like, what if they took out the bit about Palpatine being Rey's grandclone or gave Rose something to do other than wikipedia research on the Star Destroyers? I'm not saying that listening to internet trolls is a good idea. In fact, no one should ever listen to internet trolls. For every Sonic The Hedgehog movie, there's-well there's half a dozen Rises of Skywalker (it's like mothers in law). But still, I can't say I'd mind a cut of Episode IX that wasn't a confusing hodge-dodge of missed opportunities and storylines that went nowhere. 

Looking at you, CD Projekt Red...

For awhile now, video games have had the option of post-release patches, DLC, and in some cases do-overs. Final Fantasy XIV was so bad, SqaureEnix just straight-up apologized and remade the game. But with movies it feels different somehow. Maybe it's because a game is an interactive experience that changes every time you play and so change is part of it. But it seems like the expectation with a film is that once released it should remain unchanged, right? 

Is a better, more satisfying conclusion to the Star Wars series worth the confusion of multiple versions? Or the compromising of the director's artistic vision? However misguided or unsuccessful it might have been. What if Disney just went and remade Episode XI? A Do-over of the Fates, if you will. I mean, they won't. Of course they won't. That's not how the film industry works, but still, I'd watch it.

Also, they couldn't just do that to the heroes who write Wookiepedia 
who are already juggling Legends and New Canon. People have their limits.