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Writer: Why Watching the Original Star Wars Again Was a Bad Idea (cnet.com)
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."
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
Just because this guy has become a cynical, unimaginative douchebag doesn't mean the rest of us have.
I watched episodes 4-6 this past weekend and I enjoyed them every bit as much as I did when I was a kid.
'Michael Franco recently sat down and watched "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" again .. His advice to anyone who's thinking of doing the same is to save your childhood memories and skip watching it again..'
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 expensive to produce, would be guaranteed to make money in across the movie going demography.
George Lucas Destroyed Modernity
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.
-Styopa
Never forget that.
... 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.
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.
Better known as 318230.
I get little excitement from gaudy effects, and while it's absolutely possible to produce a good film with good CGI, I've never watched something from the past and thought, "Oh wow! The poor effects are spoiling this!" Use your imagination, cunts. Or let the scenario speak for itself. A modern high res computer-generated action scenario is probably no more realistic, anyway - space is actually big and mostly empty, war rooms and costumes aren't polished to within an inch of their life, every second of existence doesn't come with a backing track, and humans need to concentrate to do hard shit rather than be confronted with a billion distractions. In fact, just read the half a dozen articles like this one about how modern special effects don't really work out well for a decent narrative, i.e. not unless all you're looking for is special effects.
The author complains about Luke being whiny, but what does he expect? The whole back story with Luke was that he is miserable and stuck on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Then of course there's the fact that he keeps asking Owen when he can go to the Imperial Academy. What lonely, bored high school/early college aged kid wouldn't be whiny?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
hilarious the first time.
.. unimaginative douchebag.
News at 11
"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.
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...
many other adults introduced to the sci-fi franchise as kids
Maybe you just grew up?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
That's offensive. In the future please use LBGTQNAA.
Honestly, if you think Star Wars IV hasn't aged well, watch the prequels. They are excruciatingly bad.
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 watch the original because it may ruin it for you, then maybe you don't like Starwars.
The past isn't what it used to be....
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
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 1983. That's 5 years. So he was a senior in high school at 14? Not impossible but pretty unlikely.
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). I still have PTSD from the first prequel which came out when *I* was a senior in high school, so I won't be in line at the theater for the new movie any time soon, but, it's also okay to make fun something when done well (there are 3 Rifftrax of the original movies) but this is supposed to be "commentary", filed under "tech culture"? Really? This is a poorly written editorial and some how ended up on /.
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.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Some people have no taste. Yes 3PO's whiny, the costumes can be funny at times and Luke's a big complainy-pants before he matures into his Jedi persona in SW:ROTJ but this is all part of the fun IMHO. We watched the HD remastered version last night as we are watching the six movies chronologically, one per day, leading up to when we'll be seeing SW:TFA on opening night (Empire tonight!). As ever that 1977 movie, now turned into as multi-time-remastered classic is still one of the best movies ever made. Despite being slightly marred by the now dated-looking CGI Lucas slapped on top of it (why walk a big CGI creature right infront of the Luke & Ben in the "These are not the droids you're looking for" scene?), the imagination, tension and (still) wonderful imagery in crisp HD with DTS-HD Master audio makes it one of the movies to own if you have a decent system to enjoy it on. Maybe watching it compressed to death through an Apple TV wasn't the good idea.
CN=poolmeister.OU=lurkers.CN=slashdot
The hoopla over Star Wars has always baffled me.
Yeah, they were fun movies, they were entertaining movies, but the level of fandom has always puzzled me.
I mean, camping out for 10 ten days in front of the theater just to be able to see the new movie? Really?
I appreciate fandom and I think a lot of it is cool and quirky and fun, but the level of fandom that Star Wars has inspired is just, I dunno, baffling to me. And I like the movies, I think they're a ton of fun. But having a Star Wars-themed wedding seems a bit much to me.
If that's your thing, though, go for it, and more power to you.
Oh well, another one of life's mysteries for me to ponder. :)
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Lucas made a whole bunch of alterations to the original trilogy that change the feeling of the movie. If you want to time travel back to the 70's, you need to watch the despecialized edition.
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.
star wars definitely has not aged well... there are many more compelling stories than post-apoc Force. tbh the games and the mmo 'the old republic' have much more compelling stories. TOR in particular is kind of epic. force user factions slugging it out at the height of their power? epic. The movies are not good, and has not aged all that well, but it has spawned some epic stories from third parties
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.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
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 visualize the scenes being shot on the stage of my high-school auditorium.
Everybody's got an opinion, I guess, but I think Episode IV (or, let's face it, the movie that everyone means when they just say "Star Wars") holds up really well.
- The music -- is there anyone in the world who doesn't hum along? The music is melodramatic, but is a perfect match for the tone of the movie. Epic story! Heart-stirring!
- Princess Leia, childhood crush justified
- Han and Chewie, one of the best science-fiction buddy pairs; always wondered about whether their mixed-language conversation was partly inspired by Lassie ("Bark! barkbarkbark! Whine, bark!" "Little Jessica's in the well, you say, and she's refusing to leave until all her demands are met, and you think she may have been hypnotized?!")
- Special effects *still* look good to me; the more original ones generally seem more organic and real than the fancier replacements within scenes (thought the wholly new insertions are dumb)
- The story overall
- The camera movements and other filming choices still make it seem to me like "a modern" movie. One example: Film stock can bother me; I dislike evident grain, and the really orangey cast of a lot of '60s and '70s movies (not sure how they originally looked, but that's the way they look to me now). Star Wars has only a very slight cast; compared to others from the late '70s or early '80s (and some far more recent), it just doesn't feel dated in the same way. Some movies you get the impression that you're "watching a movie," but with Star Wars, I am totally sucked in / absorbed, even with the funny wipes between scenes. Can't see those wipes elsewhere without thinking of SW, actually.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
What makes it no fun to rewatch is seeing it with my daughter, who is so busy being politically correct and saying that Luke and Han should just make out and get it over with. I blame her mother, who is now doing her best to infuse science fiction conventions with so much political correctness no one can even leer at this:Harley Quinn costumes.
Han and I knew a vital lesson: the princesses really go for the bad boys, partly because they do so love "redeeming" us. My daughter claims she doesn't believe me about any of this stuff, but when she chases girls, I notice that her "bad boy" behavior is what hooks them. The kid just has no idea of the archetypes she's living up to, partly because her mother has done her best to reinterpret everything in political correctness terms. But she is so very, very definitely my daughter!
Heck, maybe in another 10 years, we can watch all the Seven Samurai variants, including the Magnificent Seven and the Battle Beyond the Stars, so she can get a sense of common themes in different genres of movie. Maybe as a MST3K marathon? If we can get them to do it now that they're back in business?
Sentence structure anyone?
But it now seems that maybe all that got a little gilded in my memory.
I find your lack of faith disturbing, Michael Franco.
Oh, Dad. Stop coming on here and embarrassing me in front of my friends.
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.
I saw Star Wars for the first time at 21. I watched the entire thing and mostly considered it a poor science fiction movie. Not terrible B-grade schlock I could laugh at, but just a poor story with little depth that would capture the interest of most kids 12 and under. I've never been a fan of the star wars franchise. Just doesn't cut it for me. The movies just don't hold my interest.
Now, Star Trek I watched at a young age and I will forever enjoy the first movie, even though I know it's similarly terrible (Though I do believe the plot is at least a small bit more interesting than the original Star Wars, the acting sucks and the movie plods along). So, of course, I enjoy all things Star Trek.
The rose coloured glasses you watched movies with the first time forever affects your view of sequels. I have a friend whose family was way too broke to afford TV, never mind movies when he was a kid. It's fun sitting down and watching what was considered a big time movie (Alien, Robocop, Ghostbusters, Abyss, etc.) upon release and getting a proper critical opinion. You tend to realize that some movies were products of their time, and some were really only exciting as a kid. And a few still hold up as gems today (Out of that list, Ghostbusters).
It may be that you look for different things in a movie now, and the story was pretty simple in ANH, and the others. However, those failures were ALWAYS admitted by the fans (see Ewoks). DESPITE those flaws, the movie is a good movie, and the staging of the scenes is top notch. The opening of ANH will remain a classic, much like the opening scene of Psycho.
We can get away with more in movies now, so we EXPECT more out of movies.
If ANH were brought out today, it would be middling to good. Much of that because the film redid how we do films to such an extent that the movie would be "old hat".
This, however, is one reason why the remastered crap is really crap. It doesn't add anything to the original scenes that were worthy (apart from the attack on the death star having more than five fighters in the squadron), all the other additions were at best pointless additions, in two cases, really screwed the point of the flaming story: Han shot first BECAUSE he wasn't a hero then. He grew into one over the movie. If he shot in self defence second, he never changed from "Hero" (really, "Dumb as fuck hero"). And stupid "gag" stepping on Jabba's tail. Not only didn't work in the scene, not only not funny, but rather fucks up the reason for Han to leave, if he's so blase about Jabba he'll step on his tail without a blink, why the hell would he rush off to pay a late debt with massive compensation for being late? Obviously not scared one bit, so send off a courier or bank transfer.
But the original were crude storytelling, the 80's version of the Harold Lloyd movies. If someone brought out one of those today, it would be "Meh", because comedy movies have moved on. Does it make those classics a bad idea to watch???
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.
Bzzzt! That's supposed to be LGBTQNaA.
Yeah because Empire was a total kids flick *eye roll*
When you claim you will take the original three as canon, you no longer have those droids AT ALL in Obiwan's life, so including that as his lie is BS under your professed restriction.
It's why that isn't worth having in the prequels: there's no damn need to have them. What's the service life of a droid for an Alderaan princess anyway? Especially since Vader would recognise them,therefore they couldn't stay with the Organa family unless they refused ever to go to Corsucant with the droids,which makes them odd to include in the ship Leia was caught on.
It doesn't fit, and there's no damn need for it either.
Stormtrooper rifles on CIWS mode are really REALLY inaccurate. It's a plot device. But it could be that the tactical use of a spray and pray weapon, especially if there's no need to ever reload, could be worth it. You don't WANT accurate close in to provide covering fire. If the blaster had a precise mode where it took time to collimate the beam and make it shoot precisely, so an ambush or sniping position could be filled with the same mass-stamped weapon and a simple mode change on the gun could save the sniper if they're jumped in close quarters where a precise weapon is worse than a club, the process could be tactically sound AND allow stormtroopers to be precise.
The AK47 is supposed to be pretty damn inaccurate beyond about 30 yards, but it's VERY cheap to make, VERY robust and most shots, even by trained troops, will often miss if aimed anyway beyond that distance, it becomes not a liability, but a compromise to design that is a net benefit.
But really, it's no more than plot armour for the heroes. Accept it as plot armour.
Well you see children have a lean, muscular, healthy imagination.. where as adult imaginations are, well, fat and flabby.
Some people -- and this kinda weirds me out -- forget what it's like to be a kid. Or have this rose-colored glass through which they view childhood. I enjoy IV just as much now as I did back then (though I grant you the novelty wore off a while ago). But it's a fun story! Are the special effects awesome by today's standards? No -- but they hold up remarkably well for being 30+ years old. Etc. At the end of the day, though, the story's still the story, and the characters haven't changed. It's still the corny jokes, the incestuous romance (yetch!), and so forth, and I love it.
So I guess, if you're the kind of person who reads a book at 40 that you read at 15, and don't like it, maybe you should avoid revisiting IV & Co. But if you realize that things have changed, you're more mature, but you can still enjoy fun stuff, then hell yeah, watch 'em all, and have a damn marathon!
$.02...
Posting AC for obvious reasons.
I have laserdisc rips of the original trilogy, starting with a movie called "Star Wars." No bloody episode IV or New Hope crap.
Oh, Han doesn't shoot first if you recall. Han shoots, and Greedo dies. Greedo didn't even have a chance.
I'll get it up on torrent this evening.
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.
"...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."
If you're having such a difficult time suspending yourself in fantasy for two hours watching the old one, care to tell me why you're preparing to spend a considerable amount of money and time to try and do it again?
Seriously, I hope you're not expecting the new movie to be more of a documentary because the ISS now exists, or have less hand waiving in it because you don't believe in Santa Claus or The Force anymore.
It's called "Star Wars". We can't even get to our own damn moon again, so I'd say the plot line is still solidly buried in fantasy.
I've seen them recently and they were exactly as I remembered them. I enjoyed them. I haven't seen the prequels yet. I've seen parts of the prequels but after having seen those parts, could not force myself to watch the whole thing.
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 theater depending what I hear from friends. I'm sure many of my friends will have seen it by Saturday morning.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The Zahn Trilogy were what made me love Star Wars. Without that, I'm not that keen on the new movies.
We'll see if I change my mind.
Watch the Original Star Wars Trilogy As It Was Before George Lucas Screwed It Up:
http://lifehacker.com/watch-th...
Because we were kids once and nostalgia is a thing.
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 which appears to be magic to us... THAT is cool to think about. Probably my favorite interpretation of Star Wars is the MMO "Star Wars: The Old Republic" which is very creative and really takes time to delve into many unique and inspired stories.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Am I the only person that thinks star wars is nothing but an overrated merch machine? I was exposed to star wars for most of my childhood, and sure I liked it when I was 7-8 years old. But as I matured, so did my taste in fiction I suppose. The last movie I saw with my father was Episode 1 and I have regretted it ever since. I haven't even seen the other 2 prequels, and I don't plan to. I also don't plan to see this new one, if only to show my distaste for having everything that I remember beign chopped/screwed/repackaged and force-fed through every available media and merchandising outlet. If there is one thing that I loathe, it is being marketed to. Yuck. Most people seem to eat that shit up with a spoon though.
Yes when watching the original again it's amazing how few lines Obi-Wan says in the entire movies.
Perhaps the conversation felt deep when watching as kid even though it's very short.
I still want to believe the movie is about Obi-Wan. It's something that can happen in real life. You encounter an old man that you instantly recognise as trustworthy and caring, like some aura is emanating of him. Benevolence and well-being, wisdom.
That's about the opposite of depictions of old people as old-fashioned, bigoted, inflexible, repulsive or downright evil (e.g. the big bad corporate executive, the remorseless senator or vice-president that has shady deals with the aliens and a rogue intelligence organization, etc.)
Nope, Obi-Wan is your ideal grandpa or dad right away, or that one teacher that got a full classroom of whiny bastard children complying from the first to the last day, doing nothing other than, er, teaching.
Have to disagree with this one, it stands up as a great piece of film making in all the ways that matter, though dated in some technical ways. I think it's more likely that his brain has grown accustomed to modern day cgi fests and it was too jarring seeing something old school. I also suspect the author is too young to have seen it as an older child/adult with contextual knowledge of film when it first came out and doesn't fully grasp just how revolutionary it was, and how influential it remains, even in less than obvious ways. It combined the best of serials, avant film makers like Kurosawa, and the spirit of the late 70s. If you don't like it that's personal taste and your prerogative, but that shouldn't be an indictment of the film.
But episode 4 and 5 get played in my house once a month on average. If you had to "go" back and watch it again, then I would say you really aren't a star wars fan.
watch the best short parodies of it.
The best, IMO - Robot Chicken's Emperor Palpatine going off about the Death Star.
If you want a great view of what the prequels could have been and burn a few joules off saying, "Damn it," a few more times about what they actually are, here's one man's great takes on Ep. 1 and Ep. 2. It's too bad he wasn't actually a Fox exec...
I watch the three originals whenever they come on, which is usually several times a year. They are still the best, I have only seen the three new ones once and they sucked. I don't really care about the new one at all.
"watched Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope"
Maybe he should have just watched the original Star Wars, without the subtitle.
When I watched the original Star Wars, first we went as a family to the London opening, so it was a "Big Deal" (tm).
Second though, was that the pace of the movie was so much faster than anything I had ever seen!
It was so fast for me, that details about the plot or whether is made sense or not, simply did not apply.
It was all about the rush of the new, the space and landscapes, the machines and the simplistic mystical idea of good is better than evil because of a mystical life "force" which a kid was able to let flow through him at a crucial moment. It wasn't even that the kid couldn't have done it on his own, but rather, that the odds were weighted in his favour because of this "force".
They could have taken the "force" out of the movie completely and it would still have made sense. People fight with swords without needing a "force", he could have hit the exhaust port without the "force" too. It just added an extra level of intrigue and mystery.
If I compare it with 2001: A Space Odyssey, for example, the pace of Stars Wars was extreme.
Of all the considerations of making another in the series, the pacing is one of the key elements, and I hope they get that right in the Force Awakens.
Wait.... 3CPO was annoying?
I thought that robot was about the only classy guy in the movie.
Now, R2D2.... that bot was freaking annoying.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I was about 19 when the original Star Wars film came out and I absolutely loved it. Maybe a decade or so ago the series was re-released in British cinemas so I went to see the first one again. And came out thinking, "well that wasn't really up to much". So I didn't bother going to see the rest of them.
I very rarely go to the cinema, so I don't think my perspective has been affected by more recent releases.
To me Star Wars is a hot summer day on the Somerset theatre with my friend Ben.
I was 14 and that day is still etched in my brain.
Till this day every time i hear the opening music I get shivers.
I have maybe a half dozen perfect days in my life and treasure them,
I watch this movie every year and it is still awesome.
You simply can't watch these movies through the eyes of an adult. You need to be a kid again. I provide the following counterpoint, which totally gets it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The thing is, he really isn't that annoying in the original trilogy. He's hapless and completely pessimistic, but he's not that annoying. In the prequels, however, he's gone to complete bumbling stupidity and slapstick humor at his expense, sometimes to the ridiculously improbable level. Look at ESB; Luke and Han are missing, and Threepio stupidly tells Leia how long the odds are. Afterward, he realizes what he did, and he super-awkwardly tries to apologize to her to make her feel better. He understands how big a mistake he made, and in a completely droid-like way, tries to fix it. In AotC, on the other hand, he's literally chopped up in a cartoon-like fashion and reassembled with different body parts and accidentally participates in the battle, all the while telling snarky bad jokes. There's no deeper layer of subtle understanding; he's just gone from the pessimistic character to the comic relief.
The original was clearly a kid's movie
No it fucking wasn't.
Once we got to the part with Ewoks, then yeah they were trying to make it more kid friendly.
By the time we got to Episode one they were beyond kid friendly and were apparently targeting retards.
Something about having a greased up Yoda in my asshole right now...
You are exhibiting symptoms of extreme butthurt.
Apparently Michael Franco shot first.
Just watched the original today after recently seeing the three new ones back to back. It still holds up very well. Whoever wrote this article doesn't know what they are talking about.
With the movie fresh in my mind, my complaints were:
- There's a "computer" type of sound you hear constantly droning in the background when they are on most spaceships. It's very irritating.
- Some dialogue is delivered too fast and needed some natural pauses.
That's really it. If anything, the biggest offender was the extra crap Lucas CGI'd in to the scenes which was hugely distracting.
I was a snarky teenager when I saw the original Star Wars (no IV: A New Hope), and I was impressed by how much the audience laughed at every campy, over-acted scene and every bit of rote dialogue. Of course, that was basically the whole movie.
Up until recently, whenever I re-watched the movies, I was never able to re-capture that delightful feeling of camp from the first movie (IV: A New Hope), but last night I did - and I noticed (again) all of the Star-Trek sound effects (quietly in the background), the use of Photon Torpedoes (did they ever make it to other movies), and so on.
This isn't an endorsement of the new movie, which I haven't seen - and I'm sure it's not the kind of endorsement anyone who has fallen in love with the movies would care to hear. But it's my experience of re-watching the first movie and how I was able to recapture the magic I felt back then when R2D2 being zapped and falling over had the audience groaning with laughter over the well deserved fate of an annoying character (but all of the characters were annoying to that audience.)
A few seconds of Jar Jar will make Mark Hamill's portrayal of Luke seem like an Oscar winning performance. Warning: it may make you lose all faith that VII will have any chance of decency.
Are you saying that because of all the remakes and extra shit, you can't even stomach watching the untouched original theatrical release?
I tried re-watching the police academy movies just recently....just don't do it. Some things are better left as fond memories.
Would you accept Star Wars: The Toaster instead?
Knowing it all since the late 70's.
It died a long time ago, and what we've been seeing is just zombie-Star Wars, being propped up by whoever had control of the rights to it. I've got exactly zero interest in this new 'Star Wars themed movie', and sure as heck aren't going to pay to see it.
The above also applies to Star Trek; it died much more recently, and anything that came afterwards is just a 'Star Trek-themed science fantasy adventure movie', having only superficial resemblance to what I remember.
For a person who says he wasn't much of a whiner when he was 9, the author sure got better at it over the years....
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Gene Roddenberry had publicly marketed Star Trek (TOS) as a Western in outer space—a so-called "Wagon Train to the Stars." (from the "roddenberry.com" website).
The original Star Wars also reflected a throughback to the 1930's through 1950's styles for serialized westerns, science fiction, etc., with the aforementioned "cheesy" scene transitions, the fairly simple characters, the obvious good vs bad.
Star Wars is still as much fun to watch now as it was then.
Back before TPM came out, my college (I know, I'm old) had a special showing of the original trilogy.
What I couldn't get over was how hokey it all was. What had seemed to me as a kid to be the very pinnacle of epicness (next to Robotech) came across as cheesy, with lame dialogue and a simplistic plot. Yes, even Empire: all its vaunted "darkness" was quite clearly a way of setting up a cliffhanger to make damned sure you were at the theater when Jedi came out.
But it was the best kind of hokey: it was labor-of-love hokey, it wasn't trying to be anything else. It was entertainment in the fullest sense of the word, and it's clear that the people who made these movies, cared passionately about entertaining the audience. So I discovered a new kind of fun and appreciation in watching Star Wars.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Lucas was just an amazing idiot.
I think the downfall started with Vader being Luke's father and neither Kenobi nor Yoda telling him before the confrontation. It was no wonder that they had to have Yoda confirm it, because Vader, the evilz villain had every reason to lie; but didn't. An both Kenobi and Yoda lied about it. Kenobi by saying Vader killed him, and Yoda by omission.
And Lucas's magnificent creation went down hill from there.
I think it plays well.. but I saw it when it *first* opened in Philly, as an adult, who'd read tons of sf & fantasy. And had seen the old serials. This writer's still missing a lot of the movie.
But then, I really liked Episode 3, which was the episode 3 I'd been waiting for, and apparently 90% of you, at least, still don't understand.
Nor did the utter and complete MORONS who brought their 9 yr olds to see it; that clearly did not understand PC-13, nor much of anything else....
mark "clue: Oedipus Rex"
I was in high school, a senior, when the original Star Wars came out. I was definitely not a nerd, and didn't see it. Really, I don't remember it being big in the culture at the time. No one I knew talked about it, and all that came later, in the eighties.
A couple of years ago I decided to finally watch them all, in order. By then, of course, it was such a large part of the culture that I knew much of what was supposed to happen in the films, and certainly I'd seen bits and pieces of the films over the years. What struck me was how cheesy the original Star Wars was. It really is a children's movie, not the kind of thing that would interest most adults. It seems to me that one has to have seen Star Wars as a child in order for it to really capture your imagination. I can imagine how going back to it might lead to disappointment. The rest of the series wasn't that much more impressive, either. IMHO, of course. But compare it to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which came out ten years earlier.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
If you're using the words "A New Hope" in any form, you weren't watching the original. The original was called "Star Wars".
Star Wars is a timeless, existential masterpiece.
Luke wasn't really trying to destroy the Empire as much as he was trying to come to terms with his own beliefs and the extent he was willing to go for them.
He ended up trusting an old guy in a desert for his career and trying to save a man who was able to ruin the galaxy.
Along the way he fought not only against storm troopers, but against the Public who thought he should settle for something more mediocre.
The prequel trilogy was about interactions between societies, gobs of people, bloviating about the common good, blah, blah, nothing to be confused with greatness.
You can tell that JJ Abrams gets this because in the trailer he explicitly and unapologetically confronts the viewer as an individual. "You have that power too".
The original trilogy gets a lot of attention because of flashy swords and space dog fights, but it really establishes the inward authority of the franchise.
And its tie-ins to the 'non-canon' media projects, the LucasArts videogames, Shadows of the Empire, the various Micro Machines toys (Prior to the Hasbro buyout of Playmates and WotC).
The world that made Star Wars magical to me wasn't Lucas world. It was a collective word of dozens to hundreds of creative individuals many of whom at least ATTEMPTED some semblance of consistency with their compatriots, to greater or lesser degrees. (EU was more internally consistent than the prequels were with the original trilogy, for instance.)
If you are going to watch just one, then watch RETURN OF THE JEDI, as that is the last thing that happened before this one.
BUT...
J.J. Abrams screwed up Star Trek by creating to campy films despite great effects and I expect him to screw this one up just as much. In fact I'm going out on a limb and predicting it's going to be one of those lame pass the torch type movies. He will probably have Luke Skywalker dragged through the plumbing of a star destroyer like the fat kid on Willy Wonka.
It was stupid to let him be the director. And Lucas could have done a great job if he would remember what made A NEW HOPE great... Subtlety! Not a bunch of slapstick nonsense (which we saw in the later films).
I'm going to go see it this weekend, but I don't expect it to be as good as the previews.
...you need more range time.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I picked up the VHS cassette of this about half-way through seeing it at the cinema. Thank you, Instant Cassettes!
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
When Star Wars was new, I was 11 years old, and I thought it was the greatest movie of all times. And it may still be the greatest movie of all time -- for 11 year olds. Now I'd rather watch 2001 or The Right Stuff -- or The Martian. Now I can actually appreciate Blade Runner, too. And as for Star Wars. . . eh. . . yeah, it's still fun, once in a while, and so are all those legions of superhero movies these days, but it's all kid stuff. I don't want to live on a steady diet of kid stuff, and it's a little disheartening that there's so much of it, and that the kiddie shows get the huge budgets and production values these days. Star Wars (plus a nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark) did that. It led us to this infantile place.
The intense focus on sequels and franchises irritates me too. How much did Disney pay for the Star Wars franchise? Billions? There's absolutely nothing in there that they couldn't have created their own counterpart to -- and it would have been fresher. Why can't we get that Ringworld movie that's been rumored for decades? Why not bring some of the other classic worlds from SF literature to the big screen, or just do something all new? It seems we've reached the point where originality is not merely devalued, but is actually feared and loathed.
I was about the same age when I saw 'Forbidden Planet' in its 1st run as the OP was when he saw 'Star Wars' (That's what it was called when I saw it in its 1st run in theaters.)
I have to say, my overall opinion of FP hasn't changed much. I loved the philosophical implications then and I still do now. I didn't like the stupid mushy romance between the Captain and Altaira then and I still don't like it now. I liked the special effects then (though even as a kid I could see that clunky, barely able to walk Robbie wasn't a very practical design), and I still like them now. (One difference, now I can see the monster without getting nightmares.)
After seeing 'Star Wars', I left the theater thinking it was a lot of fun, but overall, probably not quite as good as Lucas's 'American Graffitti'. Hmm, I wonder, if I saw 'American Graffitti' again, would I think that had aged well or poorly.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
I just wanted to mention that I appreciate the fact that there wasn't any cursing. What really grinds my gears are series that make up curse words (Frack-ing, Schtako etc).
If they wanted to retain their lower age ratings, why not just leave that out of there and use different words from the English language that aren't curse words. They took it out because they didn't want children to hear them, but they left the imaginary ones in there to give the adults a sense of the feeling/urgency/anger felt by the person saying them at the time. Unfortunately for me, every time I heard one of those totally ruined any immersion or connection I was feeling at the time.
If you haven't seen it, there is the fan (plural) -made Star Wars (and Empire Strikes Back) Uncut, which is pure genius, and mucho fun:
http://www.starwarsuncut.com/
I saw the original Star Wars movie on the day it came out and was blown away. The special effects were so awesome for the time. Will never forget how much I enjoyed it.
Everything else is a mere annoyance, even Jar Jar Binks.
Jar-Jar was a competent Force user, very likely Sith by the end of the trilogy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarW...
Quick summary: Drunken Fist martial arts, highly successful even when the odds are against him, waves his hand before people agree with him, so low-keyed that people under-estimate him (so no one pays too much attention, letting him be out of the spotlight).
At the start of the trilogy? He's helping the good guys.
By the end? He's working with Palpatine.
Every aspect of the pacing puts him as the foil to Luke or Yoda from the original trilogy. He's just not looking for attention.
If you haven't seen an episode of Star Wars in 10 or 20 years... Then you aren't a fan. Don't tell me to skip watching it because it "wasn't as good as I remembered it to be"..... Fucking really? I actually watch A New Hope two nights ago on blue ray.
It's like the kids in elementary school back in the 90s. I had a vast array of actio figures and collectibles including a printed vinyl soundtrack, limited vintage 1980 rancor with action jaw, and darth vader with the extra long lightsaber. They used to make fun and tease me for drawing scenes from Star Wars. They were so mean and once it triggered a bully to break my glasses. No lie. THEN when Episode 3 hit the theater, guess who showed up wearing lightsabers and masks?... Those assholes. Same bully that broke my glasses happens to be sitting behind me "Dude! Jack! you like Star Wars too?" Fuck you guy. Just because it's after high school doesn't mean we are friends. I didn't show up wearin trendy shit. I showed up drunk and high. Maybe I'm not the fan... Oh wait nvm. Fuck this article.
It made a huge impression. That being said, though I was a child, the thing is just as I remembered it. Like most movies and TV shows I saw as a child. Some people alter their memories markedly with age more than others, this is not uncommon. It's funny to me, I saw No Highway In The Sky on TV around the same time, and that flick is pretty much the same as I remember (awesome). Maybe the issue is something else, having to do with how you've changed, and not so much about the actual flick.
Star Wars (and Star Trek) has always sucked, Stargate is WAY better.
Humans seem to remember everything in High Definition (we don't but you get my meaning), regardless of how crappy the original was (eg my friend remembers Gigantor as being 'green', but of course he was Black and White on the TV)
Sorry, your son is a simpleton.
I was 6 and saw these movies in the theatre when they came out. But you seem to completely fail to realize the impact these had any EVERYONE who saw them at the time. It's like you're looking at King Kong and saying "meh, bad special effects".
These movies were unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. They changed movies and movie going as we know it. My mother and her friends were just as blown away as everyone else.
The problem is not in the old films, at least no more than originally. It is in our older selves, worn down and jaded, no longer able to maintain the necessary "willing suspension of disbelief". A good movie requires work from the viewer, not just the actors, writers and crew.
Besides, any hollywood movie is tacky, to a person who makes their living making the real tech! 8-)
However, make sure you know which version you have, Lucas changed the later versions of the movies. 8-(
I recall having a similar discussion into the variance in Batman movies, after the original Joker (btw the ages 9-15). I felt a societal change back then, and why any follow up movies don't appeal to me. I can think of one anomaly and that was Heath Ledger’s stellar performance in the Dark Night Rises. Even as a boy I think Princess Leia's rescue and attire would be appreciated more than a better digital experience.
There is a fan-produced edition that cuts out all the BS and returns as closely as possible to the original theatrical release, but in HD. I haven't watched it yet, but a quick skim looks like pretty decent production quality.