Writer: Why Watching the Original Star Wars Again Was a Bad Idea (cnet.com) 400
An anonymous reader writes: CNET's Michael Franco recently sat down and watched Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope again in preparation for the release of The Force Awakens later this week. His advice to anyone who's thinking of doing the same is to save your childhood memories and skip watching it again. Unlike wine, Franco doesn't think the movie gets better with age. He writes: " Since that first viewing, Luke, Vader and company have loomed large in my imagination, and clearly in the imaginations of many other adults introduced to the sci-fi franchise as kids. So have the rest of the characters, as well as the sounds of a lightsaber, a Wookiee and a TIE fighter and the idea that someday I would learn to control people through the power of suggestion and a wave of my hand. But it now seems that maybe all that got a little gilded in my memory."
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You can save yourself the trouble of this one if you just read thi quote:
I know I've been spoiled by movies with bigger and bigger budgets over the years, but it seems like Lucas could have leveled up those costumes.
If you're the kind of person who can't appreciate something as being from an era, because OOH FAST SHINY LOOK A SQUIRREL then OK, rewatching the original films may not be for you. Otherwise, they're still just as good (or not) as they were when they were new.
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The original has been completely ruined by Lucas with all his remakes and extra scenes.
Cutesy extra creatures _everywhere_, Han shooting second, that barf-worthy fake scene with Jabba The Hut... it completely changes the feel. And it's awful.
Take all those out and it's still quite good.
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The original has been completely ruined by Lucas with all his remakes and extra scenes.
Cutesy extra creatures _everywhere_, Han shooting second, that barf-worthy fake scene with Jabba The Hut... it completely changes the feel. And it's awful.
Take all those out and it's still quite good.
What ruined Star Wars for me can be described with one word: Ewoks ... Everything else is a mere annoyance, even Jar Jar Binks.
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What ruined Star Wars for me can be described with one word: Ewoks ... Everything else is a mere annoyance, even Jar Jar Binks.
If you think the Ewoks are worse than Jar Jar then you won't find many who will go along with that one.
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They were the worst UNTIL Jar-Jar. They did spoil the anticipation felt after Empire, that's for sure. I was only 8 when that movie came out - but I was probably 9 or 10 before I saw it on TV. That's when I officially felt too old for Star Wars. And I was still playing with GI Joe and Transformers.
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I had a tantrum? No, I just didn't buy (or rather, whine until my parents bought) any Jedi toys. Everything is subjective, but it's pretty hard to find people who consider Jedi to be stronger than Empire.
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I thought the theory was much stronger with Yoda as the undercover Sith, but in either case, it would have been an instance of a character being revealed to be to someone radically different than we realized, which underscored many of the best plot points of the original trilogy, but were starky (in comparison) absent from the sequels, unless you count Padme's "stunt double" and I don't. That added nothing to the story and could only have served to confuse viewers.
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What ruined Star Wars for me can be described with one word: Ewoks ... Everything else is a mere annoyance, even Jar Jar Binks.
If you think the Ewoks are worse than Jar Jar then you won't find many who will go along with that one.
I don't really care about Jar Jar Binks. He's a stupid comic relief character that went off the rails and he doesn't appear that often anyway. As annoying caracters go C-3PO annoys me way more than Jar Jar because C-3PO is just as cheesy but he has way more screen time than Jar Jar got (at least it feels that way to me but maybe that's because C-3PO annoys me more). Having said that, "Great teddy-bear Luau of Endor" basically ruined the second half of that movie when it could have been a cool jungle battle
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Lucas is that you? There is no one in the universe that thinks C-3PO was at all annoying in the original movies. Please stop. In fact the banter between him an R2D2 when they arrived on Tatooine was creative and funny. Again these are the original theatrical releases and not the prequels nor the modified crap that Lucas put out later.
Lucas? Lucas came up with this tripe, the script writers came up with something mildly plausible and Lucas turned it into toy selling crap. Why would he be ragging on C-3O? As for C-3PO, what about the cheesy British accent? The fact that such an advanced culture as the one in Star Wars cannot create better hydraulics than so that C-3PO looks like he's got two peglegs and a crowbars stuffed up his robot ass when he walks? The endless cheesy " my circuits " whining?? It just gets tiring after a while unless
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I take it you are completely unaware of the environment in which Star Wars was created. You might want to take a look at other movies and previous space opera.
What Lucas actually wanted to do was Flash Gordon, but he got laughed out of the room and someone else got to make that one. But Lucas really wanted to do a Flash Gordon space opera, he had really enjoyed the serials as a kid.
Now, watch those serials and you will see some of what Star Wars was trying to be. Except that Lucas did it better (no surprise, those serials were not exactly high budget productions and were old when Star Wars was new). In fact, Star Wars was phenomenal. No other scifi movie had been as epic as it was. The fact that it is a hodge podge of Flash Gordon, Hidden Fortress (e.g., c3po and r2d2 on tattoine), Doc Smith's Lensman, etc., is beside the point. No one else had made a movie like Star Wars yet.
Maybe its because I was old enough to actually remember Star Wars when it came out, but people who were little kids are the ones who seem to have the most issue with it.
BTW: my son loves Star Wars and likes the originals as well as the prequels. The reason he likes the prequels more is very simple: the first one stars a little boy. Little kids care less about flash than fun so the gorgeous cgi is wasted on him. Luke was young, but Anakin was close enough in age for him to project himself on to very well.
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What ruined Star Wars for me can be described with one word: Ewoks ...
Agree 100%. Ewoks is where I stopped watching.
And "Ewoks" is basically what Lucas added to the original to ruin it.
Not actual Ewoks but "Ewok" look and feel.
Barf.
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What ruined Star Wars for me can be described with one word: Ewoks
You... You... YOU INSENSITIVE CLOOOOOOOOOOD!!
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I do think the anti Jar-Jar hype is over the top, (he was annoying but I've seen worse) but everyone has to be on board with it now, because of the "racist" connotation.. despite the fact that other characters (the Trade Federation) who seemed to be little more than shallow caricatures of Asians didn't so much as raise an eyebrow.
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I agree, no need to tweak some scenes, the shooting scene, adding Jabba and the Sarlacc change are all completely unnecessary.
However I don't really mind the background effects where a few new animals were added in Mos Eisley, mostly since they were just side-effects.
I don't mind enhancements where mishaps are corrected like misplaced items, people in wrong clothing or obviously flawed special effects in the originals - but don't change the special effects too much, just polish off obvious potatoes.
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How about where they added an "Ow!" where the stormtrooper bangs his head on the door?
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Clone soldiers have feelings too! Not much spatial coordination, of course...
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That's not a potatoe.
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The extra animals didn't bug me, but Han stepping on Jabba's tail was just stupid.
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When the scene was filmed, Ford walked around behind the actor playing Jabba while talking to him. Since they had established Jabba as a giant slug prior to deciding to put that scene back into episode IV, they had to figure out how to handle it. They couldn't cut the part where Han walks around behind him, because of the continuous dialog. The compromised by having him step on the tail.
The stupid was not just leaving the scene out as they did for the original release. It adds nothing to Han's back story th
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Indeed! Even though I already had a couple copies of Star Wars IV-VI, I broke down and bought that release solely so I could have the non-special editions.
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Search for Hamzy's "Despecialized" editions - he used HD sources, and got them as close to the theatrical editions as he could.
It's the only version I keep on my shelf.
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Check out the de-specialized versions.
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oh come on...
for the despecialise edition: telnet Towel.blinkenlights.com
for the edition with extra colours and scenes: ditto, but use IPv6
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s/lise/lised
Re:wah wah wah clickbait (Score:5, Informative)
If you take the prequels as canon then Obiwan is a really horrible manipulative liar in Ep 4. "Skywalker... now thats a name I haven't heard in a long time" - you mean since you chopped up his father and threw him into a volcano? "Vader betrayed and murdered your father" - we've always known that was a lie, but the fact that he was nearly Luke's father's killer and was lying about this raises it to a whole new level. The "pretending to never have seen the droids before" stuff, the "reluctant warrior" schtick when we know how he actually felt... there's no other way to interpret Ep 4 in conjunction with the prequels other than that he was feigning ignorance in an attempt to manipulate Luke into joining the rebellion in hopes of amending his earlier mistakes. And given that he'd lie (repeatedly) in order to do this... it makes you wonder whether it even was the empire who killed Owen and Beru, rather than Obiwan hiring someone to do it (not like there's any shortage of thugs for hire on Tattooine that he could have paid). I mean, seriously, "Only imperial storm troopers are so precise"? What sort of transparently false "evidence" was that?
And Luke... what kind of moron was he? He's handed a deadly weapon he's never seen before and immediately points it at his head, then opens it and starts swinging it around... then basically converts religions within minutes of meeting Obiwan. Not just converts, but becomes a zealot, scolding Han about not believing in the force literally like half an hour after he first hears of the concept. His only demonstration of "the force" at that point was having seen Obiwan get an unknown person in a white suit to agree with him, when there's tons of alternative possible explanations for that. Quite simply, if Luke were alive on Earth today, he'd be recruited into a cult in no time flat. Could be quite easy pickings for a group like Daesh as well.
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... then basically converts religions within minutes of meeting Obiwan. Not just converts, but becomes a zealot, scolding Han about not believing in the force literally like half an hour after he first hears of the concept
Soooo. Typical teenager, eh?
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No one does.
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Many people think the prequels should be shot from a canon.
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If you take the prequels as canon then Obiwan is a really horrible manipulative liar in Ep 4.
He's only a spectacular liar about Vader, which admittedly is a pretty major thing to lie about. But the Jedi have always been manipulative, superior dickheads, so meh.
I mean, seriously, "Only imperial storm troopers are so precise"? What sort of transparently false "evidence" was that?
Well, there is this meme going around suggesting that when the troopers are missing our heroes, they're doing it on purpose so that the rebels can get caught up in a sting that goes horribly awry when the last Skywalker shows up. Vader senses a presence and storms out of the room, Ben gets killed and our heroes escape by flying casually away
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"Skywalker... now thats a name I haven't heard in a long time"
He actually said that about the name Obi-Wan Kenobi, not Skywalker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Ha!
LOL leave it to the "pirates" to get their video editors out and give the people what they actually want. Oh, yeah, they're the criminals.
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There were changes that I thought were fine and added to the movies. There were clearly places where they added details that were likely only left out originally because of budget or technical constraints. There were a couple of "beauty shots" of the X-Wings on their way to the Death Star that were a really nice addition, for instance. And fixing little mistakes, etc., is something I would whole-heartedly support. Or how the Emperor originally appeared like some weird bug-eyed muppet. Changing that wa
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Sadly, George Lucas could have used that advice.
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We should care about his opinion BECAUSE he's not a Star Wars fan.
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If you really want to be disappointed in costumes, try to watch the Ewoks movies.
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I have had exactly the opposite experience as this "journalist". Upon re-watching Episode 4 after more than 20 years, I was struck by how superior the set design and and acting was to the prequels. Yes, it's nowhere near as glamorous or sheened to perfection by CGI, WHICH IS EXACTLY THE POINT. Everything had an authentic air to it that you just don't get later on. And this magic is strongest in the first two movies.
I Tor'd the original Han-shot-first edition, of course, and watched it looking intently for a
Not the Original Star Wars (Score:5, Informative)
In TFA he says he fired up his Apple TV and rented the movie. This is not the original Star Wars. This is the Remastered Fifty Times George Lucas is a dick edition that is probably terrible. Go watch the Despecialized Editions and you might appreciate it more.
George Lucas destroyed the movie industry .. (Score:2)
I disagree, the subsequent prequels and the remade insertions into the original were a disaster. Not only that Lucas never went on to make another decent movie. Not only that Hollywood stopped making movies for grown-ups and concentrated instead on special-effect extravaganzas which, while being expe
I was never meant to be good (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the day, when Lucas was just a filmmaker, Star Wars was conceived literally as "a cowboy western in space".
It was SUPPOSED to be action-packed and a little cheesy, with hammy 2d archetypes for characters...
The way that this subsequently has ended up hallowed in some peoples' minds (including Lucas, who never has apparently missed a step on his own hagiography) does a disservice to what it was really intended to be.
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I did watch the episode 4-6 last weekend, just to get a refreshment. What I think still is good with them is that they feel a lot more real than the prequels. Parts of actions interluded with some afterthought.
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I'm filing this tidbit away.
If I'm ever forced to watch the prequels again, I'm going for a Spanish dub with English subtitles. (Once Google perfects Glass II, we can all have our own private audio and caption feed, while still sharing the same buttery, communal popcorn.)
Perhaps Glass Halo Elite Strikes Back wil
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But it wasn't the CGI excess that killed the prequels (although it helped), it was the wooden acting, the horrible dialog, endless scenes of people sitting around talking (but not about stuff that was all that interesting), a political plot that not fleshed out enough to be interesting or really understandable, and the horribly uneven pacing. Short action sequences, long drawn out talky parts, 87 minutes of pod racing without 1 molecule of drama, "Spinning is good; I'll try that.", a love story that made
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And you know what? I actually prefer it that way. I like how rough around the edges the original movie is. (And FWIW, I still have never watched episode 1-3 and am not really interested in episode 7.) But then I'm an early Gen-Xer, not some damn millennial, running through people's lawns all the time, and needing a bunch of flashy special effects shit to keep my brain from shutting down.
Did you know that it was initially in such low demand by theatres that theatres were required to show it if they wanted t [wikipedia.org]
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Back in the day, when Lucas was just a filmmaker, Star Wars was conceived literally as "a cowboy western in space".
It was SUPPOSED to be action-packed and a little cheesy, with hammy 2d archetypes for characters...
The way that this subsequently has ended up hallowed in some peoples' minds (including Lucas, who never has apparently missed a step on his own hagiography) does a disservice to what it was really intended to be.
Yes and no.
The original drew heavily on Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, and so bolstered up the lightweight 2d archetypes with "twilight of the samurai", creating a very strong effect: "oh, weren't things simpler in the old days, and we can go back to that". I don't really credit Lucas for constructing that -- I imagine a lot of it was more accident (and plagiarism) than design.
However, the real enduring power of the trilogy came out of what Lawrence Kasdan did -- he managed to maintain the shallow good-and-evi
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Back in the day, when Lucas was just a filmmaker, Star Wars was conceived literally as "a cowboy western in space". It was SUPPOSED to be action-packed and a little cheesy
As far as I'm aware, it was heavily influenced by the original Flash Gordon and similar serials from the 1930s- apparently Lucas originally started out trying to get the rights to remake Flash Gordon. You can even see signs of this in the stylised screen wipes, which a lot of people now associate with Star Wars and don't realise are an obvious homage to the use of those wipes in those old serials.
(The final script also apparently owes a lot to the 1958 Japanese film, The Hidden Fortress [wikipedia.org]).
Regardless, whe
I did the samw thing.... (Score:5, Insightful)
... and I didn't think it had aged too badly. It's more or less what I remembered. A lean, fast-paced space opera, with a handful of iconic scenes and an uncanny ability to raise a smile. It's not a deep or profound movie, which is in some ways part of its charm.
For me, the Star Wars I loved growing up was never really about the movies. It was about the 1990s games; in particular X-Wing and TIE Fighter, which unlike most other space combat games of the time weren't afraid to allow their starfighters to be complex, tricky beasts, and the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games. It was also about the early novels; the Timothy Zahn ones in particular, before the later degeneration into unreadability. Those games and books showed a very different Star Wars to the one you saw in the films; darker, more complex and more focussed on detailed world-building, compared to the light-touch magical space-opera of the films.
That Star Wars is gone now; it took a body blow when the prequels ignored it and since Disney took over the franchise it's been officially retired. But that's fine, I can live with that. I'll go and see the new movie and I hope I'll like it. I'm fairly confident it won't be a mess on a par with the prequels. But it won't be the Star Wars I grew up with.
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I watched the Original star wars in the cinema because my aunt (!) obviously thought that it was something you just couldn't pass by.
I myself never though about it that way. I thought it was just me liking Sci-Fi (nobody in my family really does (that aunt doesn't really count)).
It's only by looking at the prequels that I figured out how well made the movies were. Not just the special effects, nor the epic figures like Yoda and Darth Vader.
It's just the finnish on it: the music (which is still legendary), t
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I loved Zahn's Thrawn trilogy. I don't really remember any of the other Start Wars books I bought, and I gave up on them fairly quickly, but those were good.
Lame (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just lame. For starters, anyone who saw Star Wars once in 1977, and never watched it again until now, is clearly not a big fan of the sci-fi genre in the first place. Even if you managed to avoid it on VHS, DVD, etc, the original trilogy was re-released to theaters multiple times, the last being in 1997. I saw it again on the big screen then, and it held up as well as ever.
As for his specific points, and how things didn't exactly align to what he remembered from four decades ago, Luke was whiny at first - it is a coming of age story. C3PO has always been a "nervous wreck". He's was a vaudeville type comedy relief. Obi-Wan simply put Luke on the right path and their time together was very short. The movie isn't about Obi-Wan. Costumes were fine, and as for the aliens, I'd rather have practical effects that are slightly flawed than 100% perfect CGI aliens (is that really what he wants??). And finally, it is a very fast paced action movie with only a couple breathers in the whole thing. Yet it manages to create such a vast world with so many nuances in short time - you couldn't take it all in in a single viewing (Ah, maybe that's his problem right there! LOL)
That article was just silly.
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anyone who saw Star Wars once in 1977, and never watched it again until now, is clearly not a big fan of the sci-fi genre
I disagree. I saw the first one at the Leicester Square Odeon when it first came out and right from the opening sequence it was a game-changer. It needed a big, huge, screen and rumbling sound system. Without that, it's a weak imitation of the film I saw.
I saw the next one at the cinema, too. Not as good and the one's after that I didn't bother with.
However, I definitely am a fan - not someone obsessed with the notions portrayed in the film - but a fan of the idea, the presentation and the size of the ven
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Word.
After over 10 years or so I just watched the original trilogy in preparation for the new Star Wars, and found the movies just as awesome as ever, or even more so. The only reason I didn't watch them for so long was that I refused to watch the special editions, and for a long time there was no alternative. Now, thanks to the despecialized editions - there is finally a definitive way to watch the originals again.
The movies - are - fucking - awesome - period.
One of the reasons they are still so great now
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You think the charred bodies of Luke's stepparents, chopping off arms and hands, extorting information using drugs and torture, choking people to death and slamming them against a wall, mass genocide, killing people as punishment, huge, nightmarish man-eating monsters and sand worms, eating live pigs, electrocuting someone to death, the emperors evil grin and killing teddy bears is something for kids?
Really?
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Did you know "Planet of the Apes" was rated "G"?
All I can say it, you shouldn't go back and read fairy tales from before the last century. You might gasp yourself to death.
Believe it or not, there was a time when children's fare didn't automatically mean something so sterile and artificial that no self-aware person could take it seriously.
Perhaps this is why the news is full of college students, legal adults by the way, who are whining and pitching a fit because they've been made to feel uncomfortable by m
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I think you just saw Return of the Jedi at precisely the wrong age. Your comment reads like the xbox fanbois who won't play Super Mario Bros or Zelda because its a 'kids game' and they want everyone to know that they only like mature things and therefore are mature.
I saw RotJ when I was 10. And I loved it.
Today I watch it and I get that the ewoks are a bit too cute. But all the scenes they are in are still fine. From them finding Leia, to C3P0 pretending to be a deity, to their attack on the shield generator. I just don't see anything wrong with them; such that they 'ruin' the movie.
They only ruin the movie for someone who wanted... no... needed RotJ to be a "mature" movie so he could enjoy it without people questioning his adulthood. The ewoks aren't "dark" they aren't "serious"... and their presence softens the tone of the movie (especially as Luke was much darker and more serious in this movie and the ewok scenes are spliced with the MUCH darker throne room scenes). But too me RotJ really is quintessentially "Star Wars".
I watch them again before the release of the new trilogy, this time as an adult, and found the original trilogy to be nothing but movies for kids
Right. That's all it ever was.
Apart from the pleasure of reliving childhood memories, I was seriously disappointed.
That's more on you then on the movies. The movies haven't changed. I re-watched them WITH my kids; and they were just as enjoyable as they were the first time(s).
Perhaps I'm wrong about you. Or perhaps I'm right and you won't admit it. ;) But whether or not I am right about you specifically, I think a lot of Ewok hate in general is from people who were becoming adults themselves, who wanted Jedi to be a 'mature serious war movie' and not a 'family fun' movie.
As for the prequels, they are just bad movies that spend far too much time throwing shit in your face then telling a story. And then when they get around to the story telling its just painfully bad.
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For starters, anyone who saw Star Wars once in 1977, and never watched it again until now, is clearly not a big fan of the sci-fi genre in the first place.
Star Wars is hardly genre-defining. It's space-opera. You could be the biggest sci-fi fan in the world and have only see Star Wars once. It really doesn't have the depth that requires multiple viewings.
Loser Luke? (Score:2)
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kinda/sorta like listening to a joke (Score:4, Interesting)
Watch Spaceballs, instead (Score:2)
"We Brake for Nobody"
OK, so the humor level is about 6th Grade, but it's still more fun than watching the first Star Wars again.
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Spaceballs: the Flame Thrower! (The kids love this one.)
May the Schwartz be with you!
I've never understood the adult fascination with (Score:3, Informative)
the whole Star Wars universe. The original was clearly a kid's movie, as were all the follow on stories. It's like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny- there's something wrong with you if you haven't grown out of it by the time you're 8 YO. I mean really, one of the movies had teddy bears ferchrissakes!
I do a lot of 3D printing and I swear if I see one more Yoda head or storm trooper head or light saber being printed by an adult I'm going to scream! If you look at sites like Thingiverse or Youmagine, 70% of it is iPhone cases, 29.9% is star wars figures, and the rest is good/useful/interesting stuff with some artistic or functional merit. I wish they'd spin off separate sites for that stuff so I could avoid searching through all that dreck...
Re:I've never understood the adult fascination wit (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, Dad. Stop coming on here and embarrassing me in front of my friends.
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Because we were kids once and nostalgia is a thing.
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I agree with you in the sense that SW is a children's franchise. I loved SW as a kid (but only for the last 20 minutes of space battling), but then by the time Empire came out I wasn't so enthralled anymore.
I don't know, I will always have a soft spot for the original, like many my age, but I certainly don't live for the movies.
Now, the Star Wars universe is *very* compelling to me. The idea of alien civilizations who have lived with technology for thousands of years before we were even walking upright and
Times change and we change with them (Score:2)
many other adults introduced to the sci-fi franchise as kids
Maybe you just grew up?
If You Think It's Bad. Look at the Prequels! (Score:2)
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The difference is, the originals were good but aged badly. The prequels started off bad.
Sounds like someone was too young (Score:2)
If you think a classic story has aged then it sounds like you were too young or immature to realise what was going on in the first place.
The story hasn't changed, only your perception of expectation of it has changed which makes me believe that you don't like it as much any more because you simply don't remember what it was like in the first place. Rose coloured glasses for your hindsight.
I just watched it recently. It was exactly like I remember it, cheesy and entertaining. If your suggestion is to not wa
Just goes to show (Score:2)
He doesn't say which version he watched. (Score:2)
Fuck Lucas, if you're not watching the original theatrical version (yes you can find a torrent of the before-George-Lucas-raped-your-childhood version which is quite good) you aren't seeing the real thing.
It doesn't sound like he was fan to begin with since he talks about seeing it last at 9 years old? But, then he says he saw Jedi as a senior in high school? Okay, so New Hope comes out in 1977 and he's 9 years old.
Jedi came out in 19
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Yea, I'm a fan of the original trilogy and it was sad to see George Lucas turn in to his own characters (young Lucas = Anakin, old Lucas = Vader).
Anakin was a whiny wee brat who grew into a petulant unpleasant youth with serious attachment issues who hated anyone who didn't massage his ego. Vader was a galactic-scale badass with an iron strength of will who had the wherewithal to question his own mistakes and set his own course in life.
This Franco dude is an entitled ass! (Score:3, Insightful)
I was nearly 20 when "Star Wars" first hit the screen and, except for "2001", it was the best science fiction movie to date. Compare it to "War of the Worlds", "The Phantom Planet", Panic In The Year Zero", "Robinson Crusoe On Mars", "Crack In The World", "Farenheit 451", "Planet Of The Apes", etc and you will find nothing comes even close to the epic sweep of adventure that the original "Star Wars" brings to the screen. Hell, I do a rewatch every year and it is still my favorite episode in the series.
Re:This Franco dude is an entitled ass! (Score:5, Interesting)
Star Wars kind of suffers from the same problem that Tolkien suffers from when one goes back and reads LotR (well, apart from his long-winded writing style): it all feels so cliche now, done to death a million times over. But that's not Tolkein's fault because, while he hardly invented the tropes in LotR, he's the one that really popularized them and inspired a million other works to pick up those tropes and run with them.
Star Wars certainly had its cheesy elements (a *lot* of them, and they don't start at the ewoks), but it did innovate too. My favorite example is the use of "crappy spaceships". It'd always generally been a sci-fi rule that, unless a ship has been recently damaged in combat, it's a shiny awesome wonder of technology. But the first space ship (after the initial chase scene) we're introduced to in Star Wars is a run-down piece of junk that's always breaking at the most inopportune times. Most of the rebel ships look like they're practically being held together by duct tape and poorly improvised spot welds.
What a coincidence! (Score:2)
I just sat down and watched Hardware Wars (1978, directors cut) and it demonstrated that Star Wars was a masterpiece of technical and special effects.
Also, Luke was supposed to be a farm kid, not larger than life. The whole point was the ordinary farm kid had this in him. Duh.
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For me, the Original Trilogy clicked when I realized that Luke's 'serene detachment' throughout most of Jedi was, in fact, PTSD, possibly moving towards dissociative disorder and/or catatonia.
Lightsabers are dangerous (Score:2)
After seeing the movie for the first time after 20 some years, Obiwan letting Luke fire up his father's lightsaber kina bothered me a little. Holy crap, he's waving this thing around IN THE HOUSE! I got a 17 year old & there is no way he is playing with a lightsaber in the house. TAKE IT OUTSIDE & make damn sure the dog is inside!
My wife would be like "NO WAY is he playing with that thing", you take it back to the store right now!"
Dammit I must be officially old now.
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Not to mention that at one point while Luke is fiddling with it he actually has it pointed at his head ;)
That said, I think the best thing about the light sabers is how it seems to automatically inspire in nerds the same thought process: "Okay, clearly there's no obvious way in compliance with the laws of physics to make something like that... what's the closest one could actually get?
The best I ever came up with is that it's a combination electric/plasma sword around a telescoping core. So the sound you he
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I guess another option for the color variety would be just thermal radiation from the plasma sheath, with the temperature of the sheath indicating the colour. But that wouldn't allow for, for example, green light sabers, you never see a blackbody glow that looks green. Hmm... if the plasma wasn't in thermal equilibrium and was instead monoenergetic, that could theoretically yield whatever colour. But that would be harder to achieve and I can't envision a particular benefit to it...
A movie with sets (Score:2)
Lucas gave an interview once where he explained his original motivation for making Star Wars: he wanted to make a movie with sets. The old-fashioned, Hollywood studio way. (Unlike, say American Graffiti, which was shot on location.) When you watch Star Wars, feel like you are on alien worlds, and space ships, and in outer space. But for the filmmaker, the whole thing was done on studio lots, with painted sets and props.
I rewatched the move some years later, and it really struck me how easy it was to visual
maybe all that got a little gilded in my memory (Score:2)
But it now seems that maybe all that got a little gilded in my memory.
I find your lack of faith disturbing, Michael Franco.
A comic book on the big screen (Score:2)
When I saw the original Star Wars, it was an epic.
When I saw The Empire Strikes Back a few years later, it seemed...smaller. The plot had become parochial; the relationship between Han and Leia had degenerated to bickering. The cognitive dissonance resolved when I realized that I wasn't watching an epic: I was watching a comic book on the big screen.
Watch the de-specialized versions. (Score:4, Informative)
They are in experience in themselves. Watching them was much better than watching any of the remade versions Lucas has put out. The movie has a very genuine and unpretentious feel yet still has all the excitement you remember from when you were younger.
I get it, but don't think it was fair to the movie (Score:5, Interesting)
Technically, the author of the original article is probably right. C3P0 *was* a pretty annoying robot, and I remember having the realization that he grated on my nerves a bit the last time I re-watched the original Star Wars episode 4 too.
And sure, the quality of the costumes of the aliens aren't all that impressive by today's standards.
But I wonder how many other movies, cartoons or TV shows he remembered fondly as a kid but didn't ever re-watch as an adult? Because wow, if you do that with some of them I personally loved as a kid, it's brutal how awful they really are. (I grew up liking shows like "Super Friends" in the 70's -- and that's a GREAT example of a cartoon best left as a childhood memory and not EVER revisited!)
I think with the original Star Wars series though? I've gone into it with expectations adjusted for the era. Before Star Wars, there were hardly ANY movies dealing with aliens or outer space that weren't completely cheesy! Viewed through that filter, I find it stands up pretty well today as some of the best film-making of the 70's dealing with the genre. Those cool blaster sounds? They came up with banging on steel tension wires holding up telephone poles to get those! They didn't have all the computer and CGI tech. we take for granted today to pull any cool sound desired out of a hat. And new technology had to be developed just to film Star Wars, with cameras running along wires and so forth.
Not only that, but the first time I re-watched Star Wars as a young adult, I remember being really shocked/impressed by the complete lack of cursing in the films. That became such a "staple" for any movie with action and explosions in it, it seemed strangely missing from Star Wars. But that's part of the beauty of it. Nobody needed to drop an F bomb to get the point across that someone was scared or tense or angry. It was all kept very clean and kid-friendly without becoming sappy.
I've seen them recently (Score:2)
The new one coming out, from the previews, looks like it will be Star Wars meets Batman Returns. It looks to be very dark, unlike the light hearted action of the first movies. I usually don't care for dark, so I probably won't like the new one. I may or may not see it in the the
the effects this, the dialogue that, cp3o this... (Score:3)
Online reporter grows to be a cynical, .. (Score:2)
.. unimaginative douchebag.
News at 11
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The hoopla over Star Wars has always baffled me.
The hoopla over Hollywood has always baffled me. You remember when people were seeing counselors for feeling suicidal because they couldn't go fuck furry blue people like in Avatar? But when Star Wars came out, there was nothing quite like it. Its popularity was backed up by sequels. The actors have gone the extra mile and been spectacularly good to fans. And people have a need to belong to something, and to wear silly hats, and Star Wars is as good a way to fulfill that as any. It's a damn sight better tha
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