Sandbox

In more than one episode of South Park, Stan and friends set out to prevent George Lucas and Steven Spielberg from ruining some of the classic films they made years ago—Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back among them—via ill-conceived digital “enhancements.”

Sadly, as many already know, this is not fantasy: Spielberg returned to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to replace the weapons in the closing shots with computer-generated walkie-talkies, and Lucas has made so many misguided edits to the original Star Wars films—in addition to the franchise foul-up of the newest three—that I don’t have space to count them here.

And lately it seems that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, despite all of his failed attempts to imitate the appearance of Steve Jobs, is actually doing his best to join the ranks of Spielberg and Lucas in that regard. It is every few months that we find more and more impenetrable alterations made to the website’s layout—always, for some reason, while we sleep—accompanied by a general outcry from the affected population. And every new change to Facebook comes off like another Football Gameday. “You’re going to love this,” its administrators encourage, while patrons are left instead to shake their heads and wonder what happened to this thing they used to love.

There are any number of reasons why people who create something great might be then compelled to turn around and ruin it: money, megalomania and a lack of constructive criticism from intimidated underlings all come to mind. But I suppose its better to have loved and lost—everything from Star Wars to separate chatting and messaging features to Tailgate—than never to have loved at all.