Maclunkey!
I'm too young to have watched the movie before the "episode" titles. But i'm too old to have watched the special editions. During my time Star Wars has already became a cultural milestone in the west, with all the imported media referencing and memeing it. So in my childhood i loved imperial march, Darth Vader, TIE fighters and Jabba, long before i ever saw the films properly.
There were many other things called "Star Wars" on TV and none of them was this, leaving me disappointed. For example that name was given to V (1983) that i saw a lot of. I wanted to watch Star Wars films but had no opportunity.
My uncle was the only person who loved Star Wars so he's got a VHS box with the "trilogy" right before the seventh movie came out, and i've finally seen the three main-line movies from start to finish. I've never seen any of the HD remaster editions and don't plan to.
TIFO that technically this is based on a book, because they've released it before the film. It's attributed to Lukas, but it is ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster. And that name kinda makes me want to read it.
This is a generic space adventure assembled from all the usual cliches. And it sure is better than that stupid Flash Gordon movie. I saw that a very long time ago, but i still remember not liking it.
The main characters is a comedic duo of tall + short. They are literally in, like, every scene from start to finish, while the rest of the cast appears episodically.
Knowing the current lore makes it annoying to watch the first film. They've retconned almost everything show here. All the facts you know are garbage very obviously not present in this film. Not the family relations, not the daddy issues, not the sequels, nothing. I saw these C3PO and R2D2 in the seventh film hanging out with Anakin and never questioned it. But if they knew the whole story, why wouldn't they tell Luke, or would call Leia a random passenger on their ship? I assumed a stance that all the sequels more or less suck some time ago. I didn't expect it to be this true. Everyone is memeing on the bad movies and dislike Jar Jar. But no one talks about how nothing is true to the first film and directly contradicts it in almost every detail.
The first third has quite solid writing in how all these people got together. Instead of stupid artificiality and coincidences, with some luck, all these things are plausible to happen.
But then the film starts to really drag in the middle. It feels too long and should be trimmed. Like the whole segment between them opening Leia's cell and the Darth Vader fight. It is very stupid and kinda contradicts the rest of the movie. First there's the monster that survives regularly being squished with garbage by a hydraulic press. He attacks and then runs away for no reason in a pretty bad scene. Next, Han scares away ten or more troopers solo by running at them while screaming and waving hands. Then they show how Luke fiddles with his very convenient batman belt for ten minutes, while the troopers introduced like great shots can't hit the stationary targets. And everyone just accidentally gets together in the same place.
Obi-Wan's out of body experience is not properly narrated. You have to think up an excuse for this film by yourself. He did that so that the ship would fly away without waiting for him, but it's filmed very awkwardly. And the characters has ruined his fight by screaming at him for no reason, alerting the enemies to their presence.
The last fight is about as solid as the beginning of the film. They actually show them try several times and fail for different reasons. They set up that their computers are not good enough for this shot. It's not a one in a million chance dumb luck. Everything kinda clicks. It's still annoying that after three passes they didn't shoot any of the turrets inside the trench to help the next guys. The literally fly in a straight line doing nothing, wingmen could've shoot at least. This is space, rotate your ships and shoot backwards. Also they don't explain why the trench. Maverick was very clear about its plan stolen from here.
I've spent my life really hating that the spacepedoes do a 90 degree turn in the end. It has bothered me from the first time till now. But it turns out they just poorly filmed a typical gravity-influenced bomb run. Now i'm at peace.star wars torpedoes star wars torpedos slowThey make sure you will see Darth Vader flying away, and it did bother me a little bit in my childhood. But this is a finished story, there's even an awards scene. The most definite imagery for the victory in cinema.
It didn't need bad sequels. Maybe a properly written continuation since there's that cliffhanger. But all we've got is violent retcons contradicting everything. And the longer this franchise goes the more disjointed it becomes.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away everyone used WW2 guns.
The movie has a lot of great practical effects, and it's brightly lit for the most part. There's a big variety of aliens, even if episodic or joke ones, like the werewolf and the devil. There's more actual diversity than in the most of space soaps filled with humans, humans but blue, and humans with prank-store rubber noses.
The orchestral music that sounds like crap in the modern movies is a part of the sound picture here, being played over all the noises and sound effects. It's a background element, not a sacred cow for cultists to worship like it became later. And the jizz music in the cantina is just great.
That middle part is dragging unfunnily, it doesn't fit the rest of the movie, and is very poorly written. But all the rest is pretty good. It's an enjoyable watch.
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