‘Star Wars’ on DVD more politically correct for 2004

George Lucas is messing with our heads.

This comes as no surprise. Ever since Luke Skywalker first picked up a light saber, the world of film has moved into a new realm of surreality. As Yoda might say, “New ways of seeing the old given to us Lucas has.”

These days, though, Yoda might add, “Changing the old to fit a new attitude Lucas now is.”

Example: The scene in the Mos Eisley Cantina, from “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope,” in which Han Solo shoots it out with a distinctly unfriendly alien bounty hunter. In the original 1977 release, it looks as if Han shoots first.

Not so in the updated version, now available in a three-disc DVD boxed set. In fact, in this reinvention of “Star Wars,” which now carries the subtitle “A New Hope,” it looks as if Han is merely beating his foe to the draw.

Whichever way you read the scene, though, Lucas’ intention is clear: He doesn’t want anyone to think that Han actually would, in the words of today, engage in the doctrine of preemption.

“We like to think of (Han) as a murderer because that’s hip,” Lucas told Entertainment Weekly. “I don’t think that’s good for people. I mean, I don’t see how you could redeem somebody who kills people in cold blood.”

Oh? Killing somebody, as Lucas says, “in cold blood” might be a dangerous course of action for a political leader, but it is exactly what we demand of fictional rogues such as Han. The possibility that he would shoot first and dismiss questions later is exactly what separates him from Explorer Scout Luke. He’s the tarnished yin to Luke’s golden yang.

As for such a character going on to find redemption, we need to look no further than James Bond. When “Dr. No” debuted in 1962, we still didn’t know what to expect from the British superspy 007 (then played by the great Sean Connery). So it was a shock to see what occurred when he confronted Prof. R.J. Dent (Anthony Dawson). As the writer on James Bond Multimedia ( www.jamesbondmm.co.uk) tells us, “Bond confronts Dent, and after a short interrogation Bond calmly shoots him.”

So that’s what it means to have a “license to kill.”

You could argue that “Star Wars” was never meant to portray the kind of complicated hero/antihero worldview that Ian Fleming created with his best-selling Bond novels. But then Fleming never could have predicted that Bond would have inspired such a series of box-office-busting films.

And while, say, Pierce Brosnan’s brand of Bond is far from an angel, he’s closer to Luke in temperament than he is to the 1977 Han, much less Connery’s 007 of ‘62.

Besides, if it’s OK for Princess Leia to wrap a chain around the fat neck of Jabba the Hutt in what basically is an act of revenge, why can’t Han blast someone who is an immediate threat to his very life? After all, Han has been targeted for death by Jabba. And because he knows how ruthless Jabba is, Han also knows that whoever comes for him will do so with murder in mind.

Doesn’t Leia need redemption, too, or does Lucas expect us to accept her as a strangler simply because she’s been treated as a sexual object by a creature who looks more like a slug than a human being?

Lucas wouldn’t be the first filmmaker to get lost in the contradictions of his own creation. The good news is that Lucas – who calls the “Star Wars” series a “detour” from what he figured he would become, namely a documentary filmmaker – doesn’t take himself overly serious. He knows he’s creating entertainment and not high art.

Which is something that can’t be said of Bernardo Bertolucci.

Bertolucci, you’ll recall, is the Italian director of such films as “The Conformist,” “Last Tango in Paris,” “1900” and “The Sheltering Sky.” He earned a Best Director Oscar for 1987’s “The Last Emperor,” which won nine Oscars in all, including Best Picture.

He’s also the guy who directed a film that is now available in your neighborhood video store.

But why anyone would want to see that film, “The Dreamers” – which premiered in the United States at January’s Sundance Film Festival – is a question better left unasked. Ten minutes in, my wife lost interest. But I persevered.

This can’t be as bad as it seems, I thought. It has to get better.

It didn’t. Dismayingly unintelligible, “The Dreamers” may be the worst film ever made by someone with an Oscar on his or her resume.

Compared to the depths to which Bertolucci has fallen, a couple of contradictions from Lucas can be forgiven.