George Lucas has held out releasing the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD for a long time, but, apparently against his hopes, demand has not dwindled. The good news is that the wait will end this September. The bad news is that the DVDs will have the Special Edition (”special” here meaning what it does in “Special Olympics”) versions of the films only. Even though some of the space battles are a helluva lot more dynamic with modern F/X, they look just as crappy as the kid-friendly lounge singer at Jabba’s in the updated ROTJ. Then there are the breaks in logic: like how could Han let Greedo shoot first!? And: how could Jabba grow from human-sized to Winnebago-sized over the course of the series!? And what’s up with the sappy galaxy-wide 4th of July party at the end of ROTJ!? (Here’s a list of the alterations.) To me the Special Editions are a slap in the face to all the fans who want to remember those movies the way they were when we saw them the first time. The F/X model techniques Lucas and his team improved upon and pioneered in late 1970s and early 80s may now be obsolete, but they raised the bar for the future of filmmaking and forever changed how stories are told in moving pictures. I wish moviemakers still used those techniques because they had a unique texture that computer models never will have. Unfortunately CG effects have made the cost of using real models so prohibitive that they may never be used again. All I can say now is that I’m glad and proud to have bought the THX letterboxed VHS version of the trilogy when they said it would never be available again. Let’s hope, however, that Lucas doesn’t make good on that threat.