Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

[metirish]

My son has been talking a lot this past few weeks about Star Wars....he must be getting it from Pre-k because I have never actually watched any of them. My wife bought him some PJ's and shirts last week and it's all he wants to wear. There is a Star Wars cartoon that we let him watch at times....loves it....then a few days ago he asked me if he could watch the Star Wars movie , I told him we didn't have it and he asked me to get it......he's talking up a storm these days....so I told him I would buy it and that we would watch it when I got home, missus said it was all he talked about on the way home form school...luckily I had gone to Best Buy and got it......so , for the first time ever I watched the whole movie and it was with my son......very cool.

So , the movie even now looks pretty cool graphically, it must have been revolutionary in 1977 , we enjoyed it a lot and I felt like wow about time I got in to it

When I came home yesterday it was on again...

Edited October 21, 2010 by Guest

[TransMonk]

Empire's better.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Lunchpail also purports to like Star Wars too without much help from us.

We rented a "Clone Wars" DVD from the store but it didn;t make much sense to either of us. If this is the first movie, which I think it is, it's the only one I ever saw of the series and it's OK.

If we were to watch SW, should we do so in the numeric order these repackages suggest?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Star Wars never did anything for me. Don't know why.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Star Wars never did anything for me. Don't know why.

Same here.

[Guest themetfairy]

Star Wars never did anything for me. Don't know why. Same here.

Not my cup of tea either. But I live among people who love it.

And irish - what a great bonding moment with Lorcan. Very sweet

[metirish]

Star Wars never did anything for me. Don't know why.

This , and even though I enjoyed it I think I enjoyed it more because of my son....I know I would have not sat through it otherwise

thanks Sharon

[Willets Point]

First movie I ever saw in a movie theater when I was 3 1/2. I must've fallen asleep during it though because until I saw it again on tv years later* I thought they went straight from the trash compactor to the medal ceremony.


* Life is so different now. Kids these days will never know that if you didn't see movie at the theater it would be years before you had a chance to see it again.

[Vic Sage]

here's the thread where we discuss the relative qualities of EMPIRE & STAR WARS
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1972

My point was:

the reason that critical opinion has evolved favoring EMPIRE over STAR WARS is that it is... (drum roll, please) ... (wait for it) ...a better movie. Yes, SW had the advantage of being new, for its time. It also had more stilted acting and dialogue, slow expositional sequences, and less impressive effects. EMPIRE uses a non-stop narrative structure, with 2 parallel story lines... one a long chase for the supporting characters (an outward journey, if you will), the other a journey INWARD for the hero... with a convergence at the climax. By moving more quickly, the film has less time to dwell on the wooden characterizations, and more action means less bad dialogue. The film also has a darker edge than the "gee whiz" nature of the 1st. EMPIRE's overriding problem is the one inherent to the middle chapter of any trilogy... it ends before achieving a satisfying climax (which has to wait till the final chapter). Since SW had to be self-contained (with no guarantee there'd ever be sequels), its heroic conclusion gives it a better payoff. EMPIRE holds up better, thus allowing critics time to get past the "fallacy of the new" which overvalues SW, and appreciate the superior story-telling going on in the sequel. Don't get me wrong... i loved SW. Saw it opening weekend at the Loew's Astor Plaza on 44th St in Times Square. When that massive ship came into view overhead, after the opening "Chapter IV" crawl, the place went nuts. and nothing is ever like that twice. But getting past the thrill of nostalgia and taking a hard look at the qualities of the 2 films side-by-side, it seems like no contest to me.

and later:

As a screenwriter, Lucas is an excellent director. And as a director, he's a terrific technician. He just sucks with words and actors.

[Guest sharpie]

Movies didn't do it for me when I first saw them.

Later, when my son was getting into them (big time) and I did a bunch of work with the Lucasfilm folks I reassessed a bit.

I've heard that seeing them in episode order (starting with The Phantom Menace) apparently takes all of the juice out of the later movies. The tech aspects go way down and the tension of Luke finding out that Vader is his father is also gone since you've known that for some time now.

I still vote Star Wars over Empire.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I'm on Team Empire with Monk and Question. FAR better movie, if less "iconic" (read: seen less often on TV/parodied less often in pop culture).

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: If we were to watch SW, should we do so in the numeric order these repackages suggest?

Been debating this in my head. I'm considering pulling a Rocky V here and pretending that "I", "II" and "III" don't exist... at least until YoungerPooper's classmates start teasing her.

[metsmarathon]

would you watch pulp fiction in chronological order?

[RealityChuck]

Great film. The only downside is it marked the beginning of the end for films for adults and intelligent science fiction. But that's not entirely the fault of the film and it still holds up very well.

[Vic Sage]

for more in-depth analysis of the SF films of the 70s, i recommend this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8860

[Ceetar]

I'm not sure I've watched them enough to critique them, but I've always felt art/movies/tv are too subjective for ranking one as 'better'.

In the quick scanning of things going by my brain while on vacation I saw someone mention a sequel trilogy? Someone with more info on that want to fill me in/start a thread?

[Fman99]

I love it.

I tried showing it to Fboy who was bored stiff after the first 30-40 minutes of C3PO walking around the desert and complaining like a fruit.

[smg58]

It came out the summer I turned 7, no other movie has ever left as big of an impression on me, and I can't imagine one ever will.

The adult me would concede that Empire was the superior movie (and lament the degree to which the franchise tanked from there). But the original Star Wars still holds up really well, and will always hold that special place.

[Vic Sage]

smg58 wrote: It came out the summer I turned 7, no other movie has ever left as big of an impression on me, and I can't imagine one ever will. The adult me would concede that Empire was the superior movie (and lament the degree to which the franchise tanked from there). But the original Star Wars still holds up really well, and will always hold that special place.

even though i was 16 that summer, i feel the exact same way.

[Centerfield]

Yup.

[MFS62]

When I was a kid, I loved the old serial films, both on tv and atthe movies on Saturday. Each "thrilling episode" ended with a cliff-hanger, to be resolved atthe start of the next episode with either a diffferent camera angle or some downright revisionist history.
SW III was the logical extension of the Flash Gordon movies, just as Indiana Jones was the logocal extension of Time Tyler's Luck, with a little Zorro and Gene Autry's Radio Ranch thrown in for good measure.
When I saw the first Indy movie, I loved it, and couldn't help think where a director might have ended an episode and how the situation might be resolved next week. But SW III brought back some great memories.

Years later, when I joined my present company, I looked around the Customer Service department and thought they could have cast the bar scene there.

Later

[seawolf17]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: If we were to watch SW, should we do so in the numeric order these repackages suggest?

No. Gotta watch them in release order, especially with a kid. The "I am your father" moment in "Empire" is one of my favorite moments as a parent. MiniWolf was horrified for days.

I really should check this forum more often.

[Edgy MD]

I certainly think that's the order they are meant to be consumed in.

[Edgy MD]

You're not alone.

[seawolf17]

"Does that make me a bad father? Probably."

Love it.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

We just finished watching this all the way thru at Lunchpail's request. Better than tonight's (10-0) Mets debacle but jeez is the dialogue and acting just awful. I pretty much liked this because I was supposed to when I was a kid, and I liked the explosions. But what a piece of garbage in every other respect.

The 'Pail already knows Darth Vader is Luke's father as a result of some of these books he gets out of the library.

[metirish]

True , the acting is awful.....the scene that sticks out for me is when Hans is sitting down with the aunt and uncle and they want him to stick around for another eyar yyybbb...it was less than convincing.

[Edgy MD]

Hans?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I was discussing this with a friend the other day and he said there were some changes coming along with the repackaging. One was that Han Solo in the bar scene shoots a guy without provocation in the original version, but is defending himself in the repackage. Is that true?

To be honest I was so bored watching I wasn't sure what happened in that scene.

[Willets Point]

This thread is killing me.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I was discussing this with a friend the other day and he said there were some changes coming along with the repackaging. One was that Han Solo in the bar scene shoots a guy without provocation in the original version, but is defending himself in the repackage. Is that true? To be honest I was so bored watching I wasn't sure what happened in that scene.

Greedo-- the anteater-looking dude who's threatening to hand him over to Jabba.

In the original, he shoots first; in the redux, his character's cleaned up like the matte lines. It's a little shitty-- that the princess falls for a rogue/murderer who tentatively comes-to-Jesus is one of the few complexities of the original trilogy. The second way, he's just a down-on-his-luck scamp.