Phantom ‘Star Wars’ editors will only create misery

Would you call it a case of the worm turning• Or maybe, what goes around comes around•

George Lucas, in his four "Star Wars" movies, revolutionized the application of special effects. Now he's receiving countless compliments of a sort that filmmakers and industry moguls would prefer to live without.

Compliments• Call them cutting-edge slaps.

You might have heard that computer techies, who grew up on the movies of Lucas and other effects-yielding filmmakers, have been using their sophisticated computer skills and equipment to re-edit his 1999 blockbuster "Star Wars - Episode One: The Phantom Menace."

It seems that from the get-go, worshipers of "Star Wars" (1977), "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) and "Return of the Jedi" (1983) were disappointed with "Menace."

They supported it to the tune of $431 million in North America and $923 million worldwide, not counting DVD and video rentals and sales, but they found it juvenile, overdrawn with extraneous scenes and annoying whenever the character Jar-Jar Binks appeared.

An anonymous Los Angeles-based "Star Wars" buff who dubbed himself the Phantom Editor created a cut of the 133-minute "Menace," this one running 113 minutes and titled "Episode 1.1 - The Phantom Edit."

According to Daniel Kraus of the Web site www.salon.com, the Phantom Editor made his cut available for private screenings, copying and Web-site downloading. Even Lucas reportedly was intrigued at first by the manipulation and possible "improvement" of his movie.

Not only did copies of "1.1" proliferate, but so did other personally honed editions from several other sources.

Among the common alterations, they shortened Jar-Jar's role, dubbed over his voice and dialogue, toned down the exuberance of young Anakin and streamlined plot elements.

They did, in effect, what Lucas did when he re-released "Star Wars" in the late '90s or what Steven Spielberg has done repeatedly with that infamous blockbuster in flux, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind": They came, they saw, they tampered.

Frankly, except as a matter of principle, I don't care what they do with the "Star Wars" series or the "Star Treks" or the movies of Kevin Smith, Jean-Luc Godard or Jerry Bruckheimer. There's much too much to see, much less real life to experience, without spending the rest of one's life examining everybody's personal edit of movies for which one viewing is sufficient.

Still, such tinkering with movies that millions admire, or even one really good movie that someone admires, raises more than ethical, legal and commercial considerations.

A film's creator's vision is at stake. I know that thousands of filmmakers have complained since the genesis of celluloid that vulgar producers and callous studio moguls have ruined their pictures by chopping, adding, changing endings and altering the tempo.

But how can you make a Lucas movie more Lucas-y than Lucas himself• Isn't his vision central to the experience•

If you doctor it, if you stifle Jar-Jar and Anakin, aren't you kindred to the mad Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), who, in "Misery," is so unhappy with the novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) for killing off the fictitious Misery that she physically coerces him to retract the character's fate•

Isn't that the literary equivalent of being holier than the church•

A brilliant "Star Wars" buff I know likens the maverick adaptations of "Phantom Menace" to an obsession, a religion that has become so consuming for some that they manifested their expectations as fallen-away Catholics did during the Reformation by becoming Protestants.

Lucas is the guardian of the "Star Wars" empire; he is its deity, its author, its arbiter.

When I watch any of my own 5,000 favorite movies, I may be helplessly aware of its flaws, but for better and worse, I expect each experience of it to replicate my expectations, even if I've outgrown some of my affection for it, as one does certain childhood favorites.

Admirers of "West Side Story" from the outset recognized that Richard Beymer was too nice-boyish to be Tony, co-founder of the street-gang Jets, and that the staging of "One Hand, One Heart" is the least cinematic of any song in the film. But I don't want a frame of the character or of the song to vanish to satisfy some other fan's preferences.

Tinker with "Rear Window"• Blasphemous. Toy with "On the Waterfront"• Arm yourself.

Leonardo da Vinci chose to make the Mona Lisa's smile enigmatic. It's nobody's business to make her happier.

JAZZING UP AN OPENING

When East Liberty's former Regent Theater opens tonight to the general public, the African-American Jazz Preservation Group and students from the School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) will entertain.

It isn't the Regent anymore, though.

The renovated former movie house, dating to Nov. 7, 1914, henceforth is called the Kelly-Strayhorn Community Performing Arts Center in honor of late East End natives Gene Kelly, the actor, singer, dancer and director, and Billy Strayhorn, the composer and jazz pianist.

Under the title "East Liberty: Embracing the Past - Fulfilling the Future" the evening will include the installation of at least 71 photographs of people associated with the arts (Billy Porter, Billy Eckstine, Charles Grodin, Frank Gorshin) who are from the East Liberty area.

A social hour will begin at 6 p.m. The program, at 7, will include remarks by some of the honorees. Sponsors are the East Liberty Quarter Chamber of Commerce and its executive director, Paul G. Brecht.

Just poking around the renovated, venerable theater will be part of the visit, partly nostalgic and partly hopeful about the theater's future as a performance venue.

Tickets are $50 at the door.

Kelly-Strayhorn is at 5941 Penn Ave., near Highland Avenue, and is not to be confused with Regent Square Theater, still operating as a movie house at 1035 S. Braddock Ave. The Regent and Regent Square frequently were confused until the Regent shuttered as a movie house in '79.

SOUNDING GOOD

We are not in the golden age of film score composing, but the scoring for two films, Mark Adler's for "Focus" and Yann Tiersen's for "Amelie," satisfy double criteria: scene-specific suitability and listenability.

MORE "POWERS" TO YA

Not only will there be a third Austin Powers movie, but it already has staked out an opening date: July 26, 2002.

Announcing a probably blockbuster so soon is a way of warning all other schedule drafters: Buzz off, fleas.