Official: STAR WARS THREAD. These are the droids you're looking for. **WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

[FlyingMonkey]

So I wonder were actual racism part enters in to the equation.

Look, it's very simple: The Phantom Menace consistently uses and perpetuates negative stereotypes about peoples. It's not hidden, it's not even subtle. You have to be a special kind of stupid (or have your own not so subtle views) to deny this.

Anyway, I just posted a re-review of the original Star Wars. I said a bad thing about Han Solo.

 

[lawyerdad]

Must be loved child of these greek-jewish couple from My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Never saw that one. ??‍♂️

 

[Reggs]

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is one of the few chick flicks I enjoyed.

 

[willy cheesesteak]

 

[lawyerdad]

 

[hpreston]

Okay, the film I will always think of as Star Wars, but which my son insists on being called A New Hope. The first thing you notice about this film coming straight to it from Rogue One, is how it now really does seem to be be in the middle of something. Lucas failed to achieve this with his prequels. You now know the true power of Darth Vader, and so he seems to be imbued with a lot more menace throughout, as if he's holding back (or more often than not, being held back by nominal superiors). Mark Hamill's Luke is whiney at first but you do actually grow to like him. Alec Guiness does a very good job of pretending to take everything very seriously as Obi-Wan. Harrison Ford as Han Solo comes across as much more of an smarmy asshole than I remembered. Princess Leia really looks like the only one who actually knows what's going on half the time. And the final attack on the Death Star is as thrilling as it ever was. I expected I would find it slow in comparison with later films, but it's actually very well-paced. It has time to dwell on some quite beautiful landscapes on Tatooine (AKA Morocco).

It's noticeable how the proposed storyline is different: Lucas had intended for Luke's father and Darth Vader to be different people, and 'Darth' isn't a title in this one, it's just his first name, as Obi-Wan keeps emphasizing. And of course, Leia isn't Luke's sister and isn't going to be. Of course the later Lucas digital additions are annoying and pointless like all of his messing about, and add nothing to the film, particularly the laughable Jabba the Hutt sequence in which he appears to change size several times - but it's interesting that the one thing he didn't do was the go in and edit for continuity. I'm glad he didn't because I like it that really he and most of the cast didn't have a clue where they were really going with all this (and of course Ford and Fisher and Hamill were off their heads most of the time too). It all makes it much more enjoyable.

Is it a good film? It's difficult to say how good it is in relation to the other SW films, because none of them would exist without it, and because technologically so much more can be done these days. But it's certainly not the best for a couple of reasons. One is that neither the chemistry between the characters nor the sense of a whole galaxy out there are really present yet, and second, without the actorly grounding provided by Guiness, it would have across as a lot more lightweight.

Still enjoying your write-ups. Keep em coming.

FWIW, most Tatooine scenes in SW (ANH) were filmed in Tunisia (not Morocco)

Re: Han Solo, (my opinion) he is supposed to be smarmy and mostly an asshole through much of ANH, that just makes his return at the end (ooops! Spoiler ) that much more satisfying. It is also the reason why George’s revisionist history (changing the Greedo scene, makes NO SENSE!)

I can't watch the special editions (previously mentioned Greedo scene, Jabba, Mos Eisley sillynesss.....), Harmy or Project 4K77 for me.....

 

[lawyerdad]

Look, it's very simple: The Phantom Menace consistently uses and perpetuates negative stereotypes about peoples. It's not hidden, it's not even subtle. You have to be a special kind of stupid (or have your own not so subtle views) to deny this.

Anyway, I just posted a re-review of the original Star Wars. I said a bad thing about Han Solo.

Stop being such a 9th-wave feminist/identity politician! If you are not openly advocating a race-based caste system or genocide, how can you be perpetuating racist attitudes? Especially if you're even willing to have some of them working for you?

 

[FlyingMonkey]

I'm not sure people here are going to like this, but The Empire Strikes Back is not as magnificent as I recalled or as diehard fans seem to think. It does look a lot better than Star Wars, with some real attention paid to colour and contrast, visible for example in the final battle between Vader and Luke with its lustrous blacks, blues and oranges - a colour scheme which has since become something of a visual cliché in Hollywood films. The characters have changed a little: Han Solo is slightly less of an asshole, Leia slightly less in control, Luke slightly more mature. Darth Vader has his evil way with the disposable cast of British character actors who populate the upper echelons of the imperial navy, but this feels more like comic relief than menace by now - and at the time: we all remember pretending to force choke our friends, right? But on the other hand, it's hard to see now what made either Lando Calrissian or Boba Fett cult characters. And Yoda is, as my son put it, kind of ridiculous, when we first see and hear him. He really does act like, look like, and sound like, a muppet in a film full of humans, and sounds much more like Frank Oz's at that point more famous creation, Grover, than I had remembered. But his ridiculousness does gradually give way to sense of restrained power at least. The changes Lucas made from the original aren't quite so pointless this time with the exception of the Wampa scene on Hoth, which was far more effective and frightening when you couldn't see everything. Lucas's film-making philosophy is basically "more is more" - and it isn't. The model sets and ships are still excellent and better than any CGI. But the problem is that it's basically just a very long chase film, designed to fill space between Star Wars and the then as yet unnamed concluding film of the trilogy, and while it is very well done, it suffers in much the same way as many 2nd volumes or 2nd films, and it does begin to drag as it goes on. I had expected Star Wars to be the film that would feel slower in pace, but it surprised me that ESB was the one. I'd struggle now to put this above the original.

 

[Jr Mouse]

And Yoda is, as my son put it, kind of ridiculous, when we first see and hear him. He really does act like, look like, and sound like, a muppet in a film full of humans, and sounds much more like Frank Oz's at that point more famous creation, Grover, than I had remembered.

 

[Reggs]

And Yoda is, as my son put it, kind of ridiculous, when we first see and hear him. He really does act like, look like, and sound like, a muppet in a film full of humans, and sounds much more like Frank Oz's at that point more famous creation, Grover, than I had remembered.

On the bright side, he didn't perpetuate any racial stereotypes with his voice, so intelligent people can watch his scenes without feeling offended.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Frank Oz actually has some fun as Grover playing Yoda (well, "Groda") in this Sesame Street parody...

 

[FlyingMonkey]

So... Return of the Jedi, the one that everyone says is the worst of the original trilogy, mainly because Ewoks but also because a quarter of the plot is basically a re-run of the first film. There are other things about it that aren't great, particularly the clumsy way in which the new story is retconned in, the whole "so what I said was true, from a certain point of view" speech by Obi-Wan's force ghost and Leia claiming that she "always knew" that Luke was her brother, in which case... you perv.

This is also the worst of the trilogy for Lucas's digital meddling, changing music to make it worse than it was, and the scenes in Jabba's Palace are a particular casualty of his apparent need to shoehorn in stupid-looking CGI creatures wherever he can, and in this case, have them literally in your face as if he's challenging viewers to hate it. The Jabba's Palace in the original version was a dank, shabby and disreputable gangster's den, now it starts to look like a 3rd-rate niteclub. And of course the completely unecessary and illogical addition of Hayden Christiansen as Annakin's force ghost at the end.

However... despite all of this, Return of the Jedi is the best-paced of all of the original trilogy. The plot moves along well, Han Solo seems to have come out his cabonite ordeal transformed from immature asshole into a brave and likeable hero, Leia is feisty, Chewbacca gets more to do, Lando starts to be more of a character, and we get the final 3-way battle between Luke, Vader and the Emperor (who is definitely dead at the end BTW - THERE IS NO CHANCE HE SURVIVED - glad we got that settled...). My son thinks it's the best of the three, because it answers his questions, my wife actually enjoyed the Ewoks, and I found myself thinking, 'you know what? Maybe this is the best family film of the three...' - which is exactly why self-described fans like it least. Make of that what you will.

 

[otc]

FWIW, as a kid I always liked ROTJ the most on rewatch. It just had all of the cool stuff happening, the biggest space battle, etc. I think that's stuck with me even though I buy into the argument that IV is better as a solo journey/introduction and V is better as an overall film. ROTJ is fun to rewatch.

But it is definitely also the one that benefits the most from watching the Harmy's version. I grew up with the pre-special edition THX box set:

and while I saw the special editions in theater and have almost certainly seen the DVDs at some point, I have not seen the blu-rays and I don't think I could bring myself to watch anything except the Harmy's edition these days.

 

[hpreston]

So... Return of the Jedi, the one that everyone says is the worst of the original trilogy, mainly because Ewoks but also because a quarter of the plot is basically a re-run of the first film. There are other things about it that aren't great, particularly the clumsy way in which the new story is retconned in, the whole "so what I said was true, from a certain point of view" speech by Obi-Wan's force ghost and Leia claiming that she "always knew" that Luke was her brother, in which case... you perv.

This is also the worst of the trilogy for Lucas's digital meddling, changing music to make it worse than it was, and the scenes in Jabba's Palace are a particular casuality of his apparent need to shoehorn in stupid-looking CGI creatures wherever he can, and in this case, have them literally in your face as if he's challenging viewers to hate it. The Jabba's Palace in the original version was a dank, shabby and disreputable gangster's den, now it starts to look like a 3rd-rate niteclub. And of course the completely unecessary and illogical addition of Hayden Christiansen as Annakin's force ghost at the end.

However... despite all of this, Return of the Jedi is the best-paced of all of the original trilogy. The plot moves along well, Han Solo seems to have come out his cabonite ordeal transformed from immature asshole into a brave and likeable hero, Leia is feisty, Chewbacca gets more to do, Lando starts to be more of a character, and we get the final 3-way battle between Luke, Vader and the Emperor (who is definitely dead at the end BTW - THERE IS NO CHANCE HE SURVIVED - glad we got that settled...). My son thinks it's the best of the three, because it answers his questions, my wife actually enjoyed the Ewoks, and I found myself thinking, 'you know what? Maybe this is the best family film of the three...' - which is exactly why self-described fans like it least. Make of that what you will.

I grew up with the OT, saw them all in the theater, I was 6 when ep IV was released. I generally like EST the best, but agree that ROTJ does hold up quite well. Also agree on the special edition changes, ANH and ROTJ are the worst changes.

 

[edinatlanta]

I grew up with the OT, saw them all in the theater, I was 6 when ep IV was released. I generally like EST the best, but agree that ROTJ does hold up quite well. Also agree on the special edition changes, ANH and ROTJ are the worst changes.

Lmao old man.

@otc can you hook me up with a torrent or whatever of phantom edit