PDWT_12 said:

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II probably won't get around to rewatching this movie this month, I got to see it while the Houston Symphony played the score for it a couple of months ago (a very cool experience I recommend if you ever get the chance). Like most Star Wars fans, I love this movie. I was born just a little after this premiered in theaters (14.5 years or so), but I distinctly remember being around 4 or 5 and getting to watch it on VHS at our house. The burned skeletons, the alien getting his arm cut off in the cantina, I remember my parents thinking some of that was too intense for me. But I loved it. I won't spend too much time here, there's been enough said about this movie and the ensuing cultural phenomenon to fill a library.

What I Like:

The opening scene is was one of my favorites of all time. It sucks you in like very few movies ever do, regardless of how many times I've seen it. The opening crawl, the Corvette chased by a Star Destroyer, I'm locked into it every single time.

The perfect amount of world building. Just enough of solid information/backstory provided, just enough strange details in the background, just enough left up to the imagination. I can think of very few movies who walk that line so well. Bladerunner (both the original and 2049), maybe John Wick with the assassin guild and hotel for a recent example. It's not a long list.

"You're all clear kid. Now let's blow this thing and go home." Will never not give me goosebumps. Pure eucatastrophe.

I love how self contained this movie is. If it hadn't spawned sequels and prequels and cartoons and theme parks, the world would be much worse off. But it would still have 1 amazing movie that taught everyone what a Hero's Journey truly looks like, how to create a legitimately scary villain, and how to inspire awe in your audience, regardless of their age.

What I Don't Like:

N/A

Favorite Tracks:

The whole score is phenomenal but I guess you first have to bring up how incredible the opening title is. It's become so iconic it's hard for me to wrap my head around John Williams just banging that out from scratch on a piano. The Binary Sunset, Princess Leai's Theme, Burning Homestead, Imperial Attack, The Last Battle... I could spend too much time on the music here. It's all so good. The human race has never done anything to prove that we deserve John Williams but luckily he graced us with his genius anyway.


I believe it was brought up in the main Star Wars thread, but if you haven't listened to it yet I recommend The Blockbusters podcast. It talks about Lucas, Spielberg, and Williams as their careers began to take off with Jaws and Star Wars, and some of the issues they faced in their productions. It's a voice acting dramatization (like an old timey radio serial or something), which I'm sure some might find cheezy or annoying but I think perfectly fits the story it's telling.

Knowing how close Lucas came to not pulling this off, with Fox ready to shut him down, Obi-Wan death being written in later on, the fantastic editing done by Marcia, so many other things that went on behind the scenes that made George feel he had a legitimate failure of a film on his hands... It's a miracle that we get to sit here and ***** and moan about the prequels/sequels.


Rankings so far are:

A New Hope
Rogue One
Revenge of the Sith
Solo
Attack of the Clones
The Phantom Menace

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Tjats my top 3, id put esb 4th then solo, then rotj

Episode IV does a great job of shutting off the dialogue at key points and still telling a story. Love it.

CJS4715 said:

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Episode IV does a great job of shutting off the dialogue at key points and still telling a story. Love it.

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A very good way of putting it. You can read/hear some stuff about behind the scenes, several of the actors (including Ford) had a lot of trouble with the dialogue that George wrote. Now some of that is probably not understanding everything that's going on in the movie, but I think the prequels proved George isn't the greatest at writing natural sounding dialogue.

I don't know what all was cut out in the writing process, editing room, and reshoots, but I think this was one thing they managed to get right. Let the moment (the scenery, John Williams score, etc.) speak for itself.

CJS4715 said:

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It doesn't make sense. Why would Jabba send a bounty hunter and then have follow-up meeting almost immediately after the bounty hunter is dead?

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<channels inner nerd>

Han had a bounty on his head. Greedo had a chance encounter with him, tried to collect, and got smoked. Word traveled fast to Jabba. Han probably gained respect from Jabba for turning the table. Jabba goes and pays him a visit as a not too subtle "hey you smoked one of my guys, I can respect that, but this is your last warning."

Not saying I think the scene was necessary, just sayin.


I have a question though. So I knew they filmed that scene originally then left it on the cutting room floor. Does anyone know if Boba Fett was in the original scene or was added for the 1997 version?

Urban Ag said:

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CJS4715 said:

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It doesn't make sense. Why would Jabba send a bounty hunter and then have follow-up meeting almost immediately after the bounty hunter is dead?

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<channels inner nerd>

Han had a bounty on his head. Greedo had a chance encounter with him, tried to collect, and got smoked. Word traveled fast to Jabba. Han probably gained respect from Jabba for turning the table. Jabba goes and pays him a visit as a not too subtle "hey you smoked one of my guys, I can respect that, but this is your last warning."

Not saying I think the scene was necessary, just sayin.


I have a question though. So I knew they filmed that scene originally then left it on the cutting room floor. Does anyone know if Boba Fett was in the original scene or was added for the 1997 version?

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Having watched all of the originals in "real time", the added Jabba scene is my most hated part of the remastered versions. I thought one of the cool parts about Jabba was he was this unknown gangster who was talked about but unseen in the first two movies, which added to his mythical stature. Then, in ROTJ, we get to see him for the first time and he is a cruel, force-immune bada$$. For me, it was a huge moment, which would not have happened if I had seen Jabba waddling around impotently in the first movie.

I skipped the scene when I showed SW to my son.

I have the original theatrical versions on DVD. Expensive but worth it; there are 10 bad additions for every good addition, and some of them are shockingly dumb.

I have heard (maybe incorrectly), that the intro scene to this movie is what convinced James Cameron to go into the movie industry. I think he was a truck driver prior.

Loved it the first time I saw it. Then my best friend's dad, a radio DJ, purchased the beta max tape of it and we watched it every Friday night for weeks.

That love of the franchise continued on through Rogue 1....until The Last Jedi...where it unmercifully died a violent death. I am hoping that somehow the next one can pull me back in.

Ulrich said:

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I have the original theatrical versions on DVD. Expensive but worth it; there are 10 bad additions for every good addition, and some of them are shockingly dumb.

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From where? How? I thought Lucas had bottled these up.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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I think the bad sticks out more than the good in people's minds, but there's a lot more good than bad, IMO.

(Even more so in ESB.)

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Come to think of it, I cannot think of a remastered change in ESB that was bad, IMO.

I was 10. This showed at the theater in Manor East Mall - a bike ride from my house. I must've seen it dozens of times, but don't even remember the first one. Then the "action figures" came out. My dad always had a yard or so of dirt in our back yard for landscaping and my neighbor (now a dentist) and I spent hours and hours recreating scenes. Watch that opening clip from the mindset of a 10 year old boy and it's obvious why this movie became what it is now.

Simply my favorite movie of all time. Second isn't really close.

CapCityAg89 said:

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Ulrich said:

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I have the original theatrical versions on DVD. Expensive but worth it; there are 10 bad additions for every good addition, and some of them are shockingly dumb.

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From where? How? I thought Lucas had bottled these up.

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I have the despecialized versions on DVD thanks to that fan work. They are incredible. That's what my kids watch in our home.

chipotle said:

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I remember when they "remastered" this and somehow left in some really bad special effects.

#hanShotFirst
#itsJustStarWars
#newHopeGay

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This was the scene I was talking about:

They are missing out on how cool Cloud City is.

Quote:

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Does anyone know if Boba Fett was in the original scene or was added for the 1997 version?

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I'm going to say that was a 1997 addition.

The original footage exists out there. I have the original movies, unaltered, on this really ridiculous "technology" called laser discs (you might have seen them in Back to the Future Part II when Doc Brown and Marty McFly land the DeLorean next to a bunch of pallets full of these silvery discs). The boxed set of the OT includes a bunch of outtakes, one of which was the infamous scene with Jabba. In that version, Jabba was a fat waddling dude, not a giant slug. Boba Fett most certainly was not in that footage.

Boba Fett, if I recall, was introduced via some other medium, perhaps a comic book? in about 1978, and there was a marketing push for kids to get the action figure at some point prior to Empire being released.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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I think the bad sticks out more than the good in people's minds, but there's a lot more good than bad, IMO.

(Even more so in ESB.)

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I agree. It's not like I ever felt there was a need to "improve" the OT but I think most of it was pretty cool.

CapCityAg89 said:

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Ulrich said:

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I have the original theatrical versions on DVD. Expensive but worth it; there are 10 bad additions for every good addition, and some of them are shockingly dumb.

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From where? How? I thought Lucas had bottled these up.

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There was a 6 disc box set that had the original versions and the "special" ones. Got it at Best Buy or amazon or somewhere about 10 years ago.

CapCityAg89 said:

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Ulrich said:

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I have the original theatrical versions on DVD. Expensive but worth it; there are 10 bad additions for every good addition, and some of them are shockingly dumb.

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From where? How? I thought Lucas had bottled these up.

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Fox released the originals on DVD 10-15 years ago. But they are non-anamorohic, not remastered versions, and people tend to not be big fans of them.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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They are missing out on how cool Cloud City is.

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I'll be sure to trick up the Mona Lisa before I show it to them.

In your analogy, you are showing them the Mona Lisa when it was just the tracing and da Vinci hadn't filled in the paint yet.

Uhhhhh ... do I really need to point out the problem with this meme?

Clearly, I was being a tad facetious. It seems Lucas added those windows so you could see things flying by. Feels very much like what he ended up doing with Coruscant.

We can talk about Empire in a month. The additions in that one are the best of the 3.

And what is Chewie doing to 3PO?

Quote:

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Boba Fett, if I recall, was introduced via some other medium, perhaps a comic book? in about 1978, and there was a marketing push for kids to get the action figure at some point prior to Empire being released.

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He first appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Is that going to be on the rewatch list?

Quad Dog said:

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Quote:

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Boba Fett, if I recall, was introduced via some other medium, perhaps a comic book? in about 1978, and there was a marketing push for kids to get the action figure at some point prior to Empire being released.

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He first appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Is that going to be on the rewatch list?

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Ah, that explains it.

I remember being really amped to watch that. We watched it. Curiously the only thing I remember is that I don't recall a thing about it. And having seen some of it online somewhere in recent years, I am probably not out of bounds in saying that was an abomination, which explains why I don't recall that introducing Star Wars fans to Boba Fett.

I couldn't remember anything about it either just that I know I saw it. I wasn't even five yet. Read the "plot" section in the link. Turrible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Holiday_Special

I have another change in TESB which kills me. It's when Luke arrives on Dagobah and R2 is spit out by the swamp monster.

Special Edition line from Luke to R2: "You were lucky to get out of there."
Original line was: "You're lucky you don't taste too good."

I've read there were different versions from the beginning having to do with Dolby vs. mono mixes. IMO, one is so superior I can't understand why Lucas would allow the inferior to become cemented going forward.

One thing that still confuses me is how Lucas went from something that was this great dialog-wise to so bad in the prequels.

It's like he fired his Vince Gilligan during the interim.

I was 10 in 1997 when they re-released it in theaters. I had zero interest in it, but my dad forced me to go. I'll never forget the feeling I had leaving that theater - 10 year old me was absolutely blown away.