4, 5, and 6 are definitely better in a different way that resonates with younger kids and certainly George Lucas is prone to making weird decisions and writing bad dialogue. The actors though were the right people in the right place. The movies succeeded almost in spite of Lucas. However, what I’ve been struck by, now as a father, is less the sci-fi-fantasy, and more the sort of coming of age and father-son dynamic that is a bit more universal, that’s the core story.
Luke grows up on a backwater world, never knowing his father. He dreams of going to the academy to get the hell out of there. Then one day someone tells him his father was a knight and an ace fighter pilot to boot, the guy was a fucking legend. Luke builds up this impossible image of his father who was struck down by the evilest guy in the world, this total shitbag that works for the government. All the love he would’ve had for his Dad, he pours into hating Vader, he’s taken everything he ever loved away. Then, when Luke finally has a chance to confront him face-to-face, he discovers Vader was his Dad all along. It knocks the wind out of him, and suddenly he has to come to terms with that Dad on a pillar he’s idolized his whole life with that detestable boot licker he’s grown to hate.
“I am your father,” is the pinnacle of the OT, it’s where everything was leading to, that discovery. It’s that mixture of love & hate, how do choose to deal with that as a person? Luke chose love, and I think that’s an inspiring thing. The sci-fi-fantasy thing is just sort of there for the kids, but it’s not the crux of the story.
You need to go more unpopular. Most SW is only really good when you’re 8.
An edit for the aggrieved: If actual creative people are in control instead of GL or idiot corpos, SW can make for decent space opera. Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars will be good no matter how old I am lucky enough to get, as will some of the EU books that were de-canonized by Disney.
I totally agree!
But with I-III and VII-IX, there’s a common consensus that they weren’t exactly great.
The only exception to the rule is Rogue One. Generally speaking: Star Wars without Skywalkers is better.
I wholeheartedly disagree, but only because 4,5 and 6 are the only truly good ones, with good acting, great effects, and a fantastic story. The prequel trilogy were just bad cgi that looked passable at the time, and 7, 8 and 9 are movies trying to copy and paste what was good about the originals with a bit of moder comedy thrown in (“do you talk first or do i talk first?” 🤮). Rogue one is immensely overrated, namely because the story is only ok, and the Vader voice has a random aftican accent put on by JEJ, and that ruins all the rest for me. Except the hallway scene. That scene is so out of canon it makes me sick. The speed with which Vader moves goes against everything shown prior. He’s supposed to be a bruiser type, not a rogue.
When people are young they are not brainwashed yet and can see the world for what it is, when they grow up they get brainwashed and stressed to stupidity. Unless you provide a valid comparison to claim original star wars movies are bad i’m going to assume you are one of these people that burned out every inch of their brain
De gustibus nil disputandum, old chap. The fresh eyes of the young have their merits, but we’re at our best when we’re a little critical, don’t you find?
De gustibus nil disputandum
Send hollywood your cv with a video of your acting, when they tell you it’s too bad reply with de gustibus nil disputandum
What, and disputandum their gustabus? Sounds like a bit of a knocksy moron, don’t you think?
I just watched 4 and 5 with my gf who hasn’t seen them all the way through. I’m 35 and I still think they’re great. I gotta say I really hate the shitty CGI that Lucas added in the late 90’s. We’re watching them on Disney+ and I’m thinking about trying to torrent the original non-“remastered” versions before we get to 6. The CGI singing alien in Jabba’s palace is the worst part of any Star Wars movie ever made imo.
Find the Despecialized editions
Do it, the bad CGi completely ruins the emergence.
Search for 4k77, 4k80, 4k83.
Seem like you were smarter when you were 8
They’re good films IMO. More coherent plot than the sequels.
But everyone who hated on Jarjar conveniently forgot about Threepio and Ewoks.
No, I didn’t conveniently forget about anything. Jarjar is a racist characiture, c3p0 and the ewoks are not. Funny how you “conveniently forgot” about that.
He is also 10x more annoying than a robot that has more personality than him and a bunch of teddy bears that have zero intelligible lines. It’s actually impressive how fucking bad of a character he is.
c3p0 and the ewoks are not
Oh boy. No offence, but you really need to go back and watch those movies with fresh eyes.
They also forgot the legions of children who loved that shit. I was in 2nd grade when phantom menace released, and for the rest of the school year “who does the best Jarjar voice” was the game on the playground
Fuck yes - c3po was way more cringe!
George Lucas is shit for throwing in stupid drivel to keep kiddies happy (much like the guy that produces LOTR and the hobbit)
I wasn’t a big fan of The Hobbit films (big money grab), but The Hobbit was literally a children’s book for Tolkien’s kids. That being said, I can’t say there was anything added “for the kiddies”. In terms of the LOTR films, I’m not sure what was there to appease kids that could be compared to anything Star Wars ever did. They weren’t a perfect adaptation of the books, but those movies still hold up and I wouldn’t let my young kids watch if.
You like them less now because you’re watching the “remastered” versions, which butcher the originals.
I hadn’t seen them until somewhat recently, figured people were exaggerating. They weren’t. Have to go find an original torrent on the web if I want to rewatch them. Jabba is sooooo freaking bad. Just completely doesn’t match. Looks like a middle school students first video editing try or something.
Yeah, I can’t watch any of them any more it ruins the nostalgia and reminds me how dumb I must have been. I can’t stand to watch most mainstream stuff any more though. The second the plot goes stupid I turn anything off. I’ve wasted far too much time due to investment banker produced media. First hint is all I need.
Investment banker media - that perfectly sums up all the modern popular trash!
And fuck you marvel
I totally get what you mean. I wonder wheter writing a decent plot/characters/dialogues is really that impossible or whether there’s some other issues at play.
I mean, book authors routinely manage to do pretty good writing, why can’t we have that for film as well?
I will humbly submit that perhaps you are watching the wrong films.
I mean, book authors routinely manage to do pretty good writing, why can’t we have that for film as well?
You really can’t compare the two mediums. What works in books most likely doesn’t work in movies. Like trying to do a setup like in a book would bore the shit out of everyone if it was done the same way in a movie. You and I might be interested in that long setup, but the GA definitely doesn’t give a shit.
There’s a reason why Disney Marvel movies insist on making a joke every 5 minutes in their movies.
Try watching movies/shows from around the world, you’ll be amazed. I gave up on USA shows some time ago and never looked back.
Shows in the US aren’t the problem, it’s just the most mainstream ones are the issue. There’s plenty of less popular USA shows that have phenomenal stories.
That is true. The issue is only that it’s mostly hard to find these movies. It’s much harder finding movies from my own country than US movies.
Best-sellers tend to be shite, though. And most of what you’re talking about as “mainstream stuff” is the movie-making equivalent of best-seller books.
Don’t look at the heavily-marketed stuff. That’s like the “best-sellers” rack at the bookstore (or the “Recommended for you” section of book-selling websites, equivalently). Look for the stuff that doesn’t have billion-dollar budgets, big-name stars and advertising campaigns that cost more than many small countries produce in a year.
Clone wars show and the animated shows in general + andor are peak Star Wars imo
Andor is amazing. As far as the movies go, Rogue One is my favorite, but Empire Strikes Back will always have a special place in my heart
Haven’t watched Clone Wars, but I agree on Andor. Generally speaking, the less Skywalker the better.
Every single Star Wars Movie is uniquely and horribly flawed and I adore all of them.
Yeah but they had Carrie Fisher in a bikini sigh
Whilst that may have been relevant in the 70s since then many women have been in a bikini
'80s. Return of the Jedi (which is a fictitious film that was never made!) was made in the '80s.
I feel like you’d never get away with that these days, and that’s probably a good thing (not 'cos she’s dead)
I certainly grew up a little faster after those scenes though…
Yes. Hollywood is 100% restrained in its portrayal of the female form these days. No gratuitous T&A teasing in the slightest.
Wait, didn’t Asteroid City have some full frontal nudity? The Last Duel certainly did. I’m … pretty sure Hollywood still stuffs objectified female bodies (more so than male bodies) in every second film. Including in the sex scene that seems as de rigeur these days as does the car chase and the fisticuffs.
You’re not wrong. You’re not right either, mind.
Star Wars was groundbreaking not for story, acting, or even direction but for its special effects and a grand vision that had not been common in movies before. Attempts were made to do things on that scale of vision before, but let down by technology and technique. For an example of what I mean by “technique”, Star Wars was almost unique among space epics for having a gritty, grimy “lived in” look in its settings. Spacecraft had scars and flaws. Buildings looked dingy. So in the sense of pushing back the boundaries of what could be accomplished in visual storytelling, it qualifies as a qualified “good” in my book.
The Empire Strikes Back pushed back the boundaries on the visuals even more than did Star Wars and had vastly improved writing and direction on top of the continuation of that sense of scope that made its predecessor so memorable. I think it stands up on its own merits as a film and qualifies fully as “good”.
We now enter the silly zone…
I reject the ludicrous conspiracy theories that claim there are more than two films in the Star Wars milieu. To wit:
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I reject the existence of a purported 3rd movie entitled Return of the Jedi in which the Empire is defeated by a bunch of primitive Teddy Bears. That people think Lucas would let his grand vision be so laughably terminated is risible. I understand he was intending to write and direct a third movie that was going to close out the story, but apparently life intervened and it was never completed.
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I reject the thesis that Star Wars was always intended to be a 9-part story, given that there was no hints of this in the first movie and that the “Episode V” in the opening crawl of the second was clearly a typographical error:
IIbecame somehow\/and this was interpreted as “five” by the people who transcribed the text. -
So this naturally means I reject the existence of movies like the ridiculously-titled The Phantom Menace, the Attack of the Clones purported movie (whose title is obviously the product of fevered imaginations adding to the impressive world-building of the first movie!), and the uninspiring Revenge of the Sith title (revenge for what?!). Further, the supposed storyline that is circulated by feverish conspiracy theorists would have us believe that Lucas would open a trilogy “prequel” (as if that were even a word!) to what was then one of the most beloved of sci-fi ACTION movies … with long, tedious talks about trade negotiations. Would continue that trilogy with long, tedious talks about governance. Yawn Yeah, go pull the other one. It plays “Jingle Bells”!
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Need I go on to say how I feel about this ridiculous notion of another trilogy sequel? And spin-offs? The only spin-off ever made was the Star Wars Holiday Special and that one is best left buried for all eternity!
Correct, there are exactly two Star Wars films. Nothing more.
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When I watched star wars for the first time, I watched them in story order, not realising episode four came out decades before episode one. I was confused about how people said the CG looked dated, that’s for sure.
Honestly, I believe episode 4-6 were revolutionary for their time, but I don’t think they hold up. The Ewoks were worse than Jarjar. C3PO’s dialogue was as clunky as Anakin’s and slave Leia was just weird to randomly put in there out of the blue. She’s hot and all, but her in a bikini didn’t serve any purpose for the plot. The movies were slow and the places the plot took the characters felt more like “look at this wacky space location” than logical next steps for the characters to take.
Episode 1 was a combination of cringe (kid Anakin) and an interesting setup for the geopolitical situation of the Republic. I honestly found the plot about the fall of the Republic and the internal struggles of the Jedi as they turned from peacekeeping force into soldiers more interesting than the plotlines about the rebels. I think the prequels are as good or in some cases better than the original series.
I watched the sequels as they came out, and they all felt like stories that merely happened around the same universe rather than as sequels to the movies. I later read that this was intentional (they wanted three directors for three movies to have three takes on Star Wars) but I can’t say that I ever bothered to watch them again to check if I still think the same way.
There were the other Star Wars movies that were just “things that happened in the Star Wars universe” which came out a lot better than the sequels because they knew what they were.
In my opinion, the peak of Star Wars were the Clone Wars cartoons, and specifically the episodes about the slow decay of the Republic. There were a lot it “wacky robot adventures” and “Padme proves she’s a big girl that needs no man” episodes that I didn’t care for, but the good ones made up for the bad ones.
I watched Star Wars Rebels and the Bad Batch but honestly I think they tried very hard to get the Clone Wars feel but just couldn’t get it done. They’re entertaining shows, but not that great in comparison to good Star Wars in my opinion.
The Mandalorian and The Mandalorian 2: Boba Fett Boogaloo both started out great but after one season I felt like the writers weren’t sure where they were taking the show. Lots of crossovers and references, going as far as to bring back Clone Wars characters, but more fan service than good plots in many circumstances. The Mark Hamill cameo made no sense and was a terrible decision in my opinion.
Obi Wan felt like they had an interesting concept that was wasted on yet another child character. All I can remember after finishing it is how Obi Wan played babysitter for a while and the character could’ve left a much more lasting impression.
I still need to see Andor, I don’t have a good source for that show at the moment. I’ve read high praise about it online and here so I’ll have to download it, I suppose.
The best Star Wars is the show that gave us Boba Fett: the Star Wars Holiday Special. I think Lukas’ vision really came through when grandpa Chewy watched softcore VR porn in the living room. Nothing quite matches the aesthetic of “panicked holiday release” like the show Lukas secret wants you to forget about.
slave Leia was just weird to randomly put in there out of the blue. She’s hot and all, but her in a bikini didn’t serve any purpose for the plot.
You mean other than the fact she was literally sold as a slave in the previous movie??? You can disagree with the bikini, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t serve any purpose to the plot.
For the plot it’s important that Leia got caught and her friends had to come rescue her. Turning her into a sex slave did fulfil that requirement, but it’s just a weird thing to jump to in my opinion.
Could’ve just locked her up, maybe torture her for information, and still have the same story flow without putting her on display like that. The way it was done just felt unnecessarily horny.
Sex, swords and sandal movies were fairly common. Kids didn’t get the slave thing, parents thought it was hot.
The population of the West has become older, more prudish, and has less sex. Look at average pictures from the 1970s, and 80s. People were skinnier, wore less clothing, and were generally hotter.
Watch Andor
Star Wars when it doesn’t pander obviously to children is good. When it does, it is god awful most of the time.
And that is why Start Trek > Star Wars
The prequel trilogy was much better than the orginals. The sequels were trash.
Were you around 8 when you watched the prequels?
The last time I watched the original trilogy it was horrible. That was also the first time I watched any of the special editions. I grew up on the original releases taped off the TV so all the extra cgi and changing of songs etc really ruined it for me. I know that the original theatrical versions I’ve got on dvd will hit that rose tinted goodness for me.
Despecialized edition, try it!
+1 on this, despecialized is the only way to watch the OT.
The prequels at least didn’t have actors that were so drunk on set that they constantly had to hold on to furniture so they didn’t topple over.
But go rewatch the original trillogy with an open mind. It’s not good.
The only advantage it has is that you were younger when you watched it.
