WHAT ONE ELEMENT WOULD YOU CHANGE OF THE ORIGINALS?

No incest, and NO ROSE TICO!!!!! (kidding.....I love Rose Tico)

But really, no incest in a movie series is always a plus. I don't normally get into movies that have a heavy incest theme. Some incest is okay I guess...but not so much that it just slaps you in the face.

Slapping, though, I do like. I like when slapping is a heavy theme in a movie. The more slapping, the better. I"m hoping so bad that JJ Abrams adds more slapping. I think Leia slapped Poe Dameron in The Jedi Movie. I'm thinking he got slapped a good one. A firm slap to the face, coupled with some clever lens flare would be (chef's kiss) sublime!

But it has to be clever. Any tongue-in-cheek, in-jest slapping and I just lose it. That, and the pacing. The pacing has to be a thing, slapping or not.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 4, 2018, Original Post Date: Jul 4, 2018 ---

It happens to the best of us. Life ain't nothin' but b1tchez and money!

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 4, 2018 ---

Have the dude at the beginning shoot the escape pod. Spare us all the trouble. Done deal.

 

Changes I would make to OT:

-Mark Hammil re-record the “power converters” line.

-Use the words “sith” “padowan” and “Palpatine” once in a while.

- instead of another Death Star, make the Imperial battle station something else. (Watermelon shaped, square, etc. Just not another Death Star.)

- More Mon Mothma (she’s the leader of the Rebellion, I expect her to show up more often.)

- The Ewoks should have their own brand of magic, not just sticks and stones, (to make their chances of winning more plausible. )

- Show the internal struggle within Darth Vader, (even if he’s alone in a room for one scene.)

-CG Dianoga.

- a longer showdown between Vader and Palpatine. (Instead of just throwing the guy over the rail.)

-No “from a certain point of view” line. Obi Wan Kenobi should say: “Luke, I lied to you. Sorry. I just didn’t think you were ready to know the truth yet.”

 

I think I can get behind this one at least.

Luke: Why didn’t you TELL me?

Obi-Wan: Well hell kid, I was trying to convince you to help me restart the Jedi. It doesn’t really help my case to let you know your dad is part of the reason they’re not around anymore. I mean, what was I supposed to say? “Sure, I knew your father. He’s like the second evilest guy in the whole galaxy. He murdered my coworkers, a mess of kids, and your mom - more or less. Oh, and here’s the thing he used to slaughter most of his victims with . . . I think he’d want YOU to have it.” Not as good a sales pitch, is it, Luke?

 

It also serves to demonstrate how much Luke cares about his friends and his willingness to fight to defend them. That was the card that would be played against him in the finale. Makes sense they'd want to do something to set that up at the start.

It is a little overlong though. Especially with that horrific song and dance number added to the Special Ed <groan>

 

Great choice.

I'd rework the romance aspects, along with the Twin Reveal. More foreshadowing for the latter (and getting rid of "The Kiss,"), and...something for the former. I love Han and Leia as much as anybody else* but that romance for the first half or so of ESB did NOT age well. Especially in mixed-company.




*okay...not really as much, but I don't have a problem with it!

 

I would change neutrouim a light gas into radidium a heavy liquid.

 

The only two things that I would have appreciated are:

1) In ROTJ, I would have rather Lando save Han from the Sarlacc pit because it would make more sense for their relationship recovery to have Lando save Han after screwing him over in ESB, as well as given Lando a redemption moment on screen. As well, it would have made more sense as an introduction that Lando was around for Han since Han was never shown to know this information, and it also would have made more sense for Han to fall over since he was blind.

2) In ANH...basically the entire arc for Luke. ANH is my favorite original trilogy film, but not because of Luke; more in spite of him.
Luke's arc is effectively worthless, and the cut out material really wouldn't have changed any of that because my issue with Luke is that he doesn't really have growth.
He's anxious for adventure and wants to be the hero in the begging, finds adventure in the middle, and is the hero in the end...sort of anyway. Point being that he doesn't really grow in the first film and instead has to do the mass majority of his growth rather rapidly in the next two films in about four scenes worth of time, all being rather short.

Others have mentioned the oddity of his behavior regarding his Aunt and Uncle's death, so I don't need to cover that, but the further problem that always bothered me with ANH is that Luke starts off denying, slightly, that he can be capable of doing anything related to this Force stuff that Ben wants him to do, and never really has a character exploration to birth into accepting it. He more or less just dabbles a bit with a couple moments of training on the Falcon, gets emotionally hurt by Ben dying (more than his Aunt and Uncle), effectively drops the growth from there on until he hops into a cockpit in the final scene and has a moment of feeling that he should use it due to a voice from Ben and uses the Force to determine when to shoot a torpedo.

There's no real character struggle given regarding this. It's just, "No, I can't do that". Tries a little. "I think I felt it." Drops it when his mentor dies. Uses it full-on to shoot a torpedo.

Luke had an opening to embrace, in narrative form, his heroic tale and all of his loss all at the same time when Ben died, but all we really get is a bit of sulking and then right back to action. We don't really see Luke figure out his trajectory and make a choice.
He never really does make a choice much, except in not using the computer for shooting a torpedo. Cool? I guess.

His faux choice to follow Ben isn't really a choice because he has nothing to lose with his family being dead, and even after he goes he still denies being whatever this thing is that Ben wants him to be. He admits that he found excitement in feeling something; or at least he thinks he does. However, we don't ever see him come to terms with what's happening and accept his heroic role.

Han actually has a larger character growth than Luke, even though it's not explored very deeply...at least he has one. He moves from being self-interested to actually saving Luke and, in part, the day.



Further beyond this, the end is a mess for Luke.
He shoots a torpedo to save the day.

This is entirely off-center from the lead-up before that. If this had been a standalone film, we would have seen Luke learn to use a saber to fend off some laser bolts in training, then seen Ben square off with Vader, and then Luke...um...not use a saber to square off against Vader, but instead shoot a torpedo...not at Vader, but at the battle station... huh...

For instance, Luke could have squared off against Vader, losing horribly due to lacking really any training - even worse and faster than he loses in ESB. Vader could even toy with him in humor at the silliness of this child's attempts, and then Luke runs away and hops into a fighter because he's just getting tossed around like a rag-doll, and also Luke here doesn't use the Force to feel anything, but instead just attacks in anger with no grace at all; crudely.
While fleeing out of the hanger, he sees the other X-Wing runs fail and decides to jump in and take a run at it with Vader on his heels...and then Han surprise saves him, etc... to the same net-ending.

Instead, we're egged on with saber after saber and a villain who also uses them, and all this Force stuff revolving around the same moments as the sabers, and is very personal in each case, and the final climax is the absolute opposite of personal with the hero and the villain entire ships apart from each other, and further, no saber anywhere in sight. Instead we see the hero use the Force to shoot a ... um...torpedo. Something only made more awkward by the fact that he previously bragged about being able to make that shot easily due to similar types of shooting back home.

This is about like the Good the Bad and the Ugly ending in a three carriage race with Angel Eyes' carriage going off a cliff and then Tuco smiles until he sees the note in the strong box from Blondie that tells him that Blondie screwed him over as he watches Blondie ride off in Blondie's carriage into the horizon.

It would be weird because the entire film built up around trickery revolved around seemingly impossible odds with guns, especially the whole motif of hangman's nooses and long rifle shots.

The hangman's noose of ANH is the Force and the long rifle is the saber; that's what was built up and foreshadowed, and then we instead got a three-way space carriage chase instead.



Cheers,
Jayson

 

Luke starts the story off as a sniveling twerp whining about having to do chores instead of dicking around with his play chums and ends it as the impromptu commander of a suicide mission to save the universe. That’s one hell of an arc, man. We’re introduced to a character wanting to shirk responsibility in order to fulfill some childish desire for adventure.

At the story’s conclusion, this character has undergone the transformative process of discovering that ‘adventure’ doesn’t operate on your terms. It isn’t all frivolous escapades of derring-do. It means hardship and sacrifice and far more responsibility than prior experience has prepared you for. Maybe more weight could have been placed on the losses he suffered along the way, but I’m not sure how that can be categorized as “worthless”.

I’m sorry. I’m confused. Is your issue with Luke’s development as a character, or with his use of the Force? You seem to be equating the two and I’m not sure why. The Force, from a plot perspective, plays a minimal part in the narrative until the climax where it becomes a metaphor for ‘believing in yourself’ - trusting your instincts and having faith in your ability.

It plays into the underline theme of ‘nature versus technology’ and makes good on Vader’s earlier claim “Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” The culminating moment of the screenplay is a hopeful youth rejecting technology and trusting in his intuition to extinguish an artificial planet that exists to obliterate REAL planets. SUBTEXT.

The central antagonistic influence of the story - what everything revolves around – the focal point for all the events that transpire is: the DEATHSTAR! From the opening crawl, through all the three acts; the world destroying, galaxy dominating super weapon is the crux that dictates ALL the action. The finale is our hero defeating THAT threat. Not some shmuck in a black cape, but the greatest peril and menace to liberty there is. What do lightsabers have to do with that and why would you want them to?

The point of having Red Leader’s torpedoes impact on the surface was to demonstrate that it wasn’t as easy as Luke made it sound. A seasoned, veteran pilot, using all the tools at his disposal, failed to hit the target. What reason would we have then for expecting Luke to succeed doing the same thing?

However optimistic he’d been in appraising a situation he knew nothing about, that shot was impossible. Or “one in a million” according to Han. It would have taken a miracle and that’s exactly what Luke brought. He let go his conscious self, stretched out with his feelings, acted on instinct, and accomplished the impossible.

 

So yes and no, on equating the two.

Firstly, to address the first part regarding the arc that Luke does have.
Yes he does have an arc. It's just that, to me, it is effectively a worthless one. Or rather said, rather benign and minimalist.
To convey what I mean by this, try answering some of these ideas using only what we are shown in the ANH film:
How does Luke feel about being a hero?
What great lesson does Luke feel that he has learned?
What internal character flaw does Luke have that he must overcome?
What external character or dilemma reflects Luke's internal struggle to overcome his character flaw?

We'll start and move on from there.


Secondly, regarding the sabers and the Force, I'll pocket that explanation for later in the conversation as it will make more sense (probably) later, but I will answer it somewhat a bit here by saying that I do conflate Luke's arc with the Force because the Force is used as a motif of deeper meaning and growth in the film, and the symbolism involved in the film ties, immediately, the Force to two things: 1) being a very up close and personal experience and application. 2) being a representation of Luke's hero's journey.

In each case where the saber and Force are shown, the three times in which they are, a very personal reverence is shown and they are moments which are key points in Luke's hero's journey. It is an Arthurian narrative. So goes this magical sword, so goes our hero.
That is, rather quite purposefully, the symbolic narrative being conveyed in the first half of the film.
The only Act which does not contain the Arthurian narrative is the third Act where it is entirely dropped because the film had to be re-written in ways that Lucas hadn't originally intended and a mess of narratives had to be re-woven in ways that were probably very confusing to untangle, considering the much larger story Lucas had originally intended but wasn't sure he was going to get to put in.

Since he got to do two more films, he was able to rescue that Arthurian narrative and put it back on track for Luke and get him headed in the right direction again with a proper face-off, and really build up the duel between Luke and Vader through two physical duels and two mental duels.

This was basically to correct the absence of this in ANH, where, again, if you had to take the film as a standalone film (which it could have been), you would never have as the final result.
You would have the start and middle of an Arthurian narrative, and a really fascinating one at that, and then no resolution for the primers that were set up in the first half of the story.

We'll circle back to this again later, but that's a cursory explanation.

I don't actually agree here at all.
That's the social plot, and every Star Wars has one. But that's not the personal narrative.
Every Star Wars tells, at least, two primary stories: a personal moral narrative, and an ethical social narrative.

They do not always directly relate to each other, such as in ESB, for example, where they are more distanced but still affect each other.

There's no problem in my mind with the Deathstar being involved, nor that the film is climaxed with it blowing up.
Nor do I have any problems with Luke being the one to shoot it, nor that he uses the Force to accomplish this task.

Instead, it's that this is the only fruition of the Arthurian narrative and it breaks with the symbolic motifs established in the film around his Arthurian tale.
An in-between where he does face Vader, but fails to employ the Force or even stand much of a threat at all to Vader at any level and comes face to face with the reality of the terror of being a hero and that he cannot simply swing in and save the day like he thought just because he has a sword, conviction, and impassioned want for revenge on the man who is the face of the death of his Uncle, Aunt, Mentor, and Father, would have polished it off quite a bit more.

Vader, and Luke knows all of this, is so much a definitive part of Luke's life in ANH. He has been involved in causing the most amount of damage to Luke, and this is not something that Luke ever deals with in the film. He never behaves like someone who must come to terms with a villain who represents all of his pain and anguish; all of his suffering and hurt. He never immaturely wants to dash off and try to kill Vader.

And because he never physically faces Vader, he never symbolically addresses all of his pain and hurt and internal struggle within; we never see Luke try to solve his pain and anguish in ANH by causing pain and anguish through the guise of justice , or anything of this kind.

We could have. We could have had him try against Vader and fail horribly, run away, and then Vader chase after him, Luke see the Deathstar runs fail, and then Luke use the Force because Ben coaches him in voice and because he now removes his clouded emotions et. al. he taps into the Force and succeeds at saving OTHERS where he previously failed to so far save HIMSELF.

It would have wrapped up the Arthurian narrative, and tied the personal tale in juxtaposition with the social tale, and given a poetic parable for Luke; leaving room still in plenty for the following films to explore the same narratives that were explored.
It would have amplified that narrative of self-salvation through forgiveness rather than revenge and hate; allowing Luke to fail to save himself and yet save others because he was only capable of setting aside his emotions to help others - pointing out his weakness, which he does indeed have - an inability to be as good at helping himself as he is at helping others. Luke is repeatedly better when he is trying to help other than he is when he is doing something that deals with only himself and his internal emotions and his ontological and existential struggles.

That could have been represented rather easily in ANH by a failed exchange with Vader where Luke thinks that killing Vader will bring Luke peace and solvency, but finds instead that it is in letting go that he finds peace and succeeds. The failure being in a one-on-one fight for himself, and the success being in the X-Wing to save everyone else.

I don't care about the logistics, nor is this a really solid point that I was actually hinging anything on.
I was just mentioning that it was an awkward moment because it's never really addressed. No one anywhere in the film actually recognizes that Luke was wrong about his presumption; not even Luke. It's literally never brought up after Luke says it, not even a simple one liner of, "OK, not like womp rats..." from Luke.

But this isn't really a big point; the narrative dangling that I discussed above is more the focus. This is pretty small change only mentioned in passing by proxy.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Well, it’s meant to be digestible to 12 year olds, so yes it’s certainly painted in broad strokes. But I fail to see how that negates its value.

On the outset, Luke has no interest in heroism as an underline ethos. He’s simply disenchanted with his mundane existence and wants to see the outside world. He has obligations, but he feels them pedestrian and unworthy of his attention. He sees himself as an extraordinary person in an ordinary world (classic Campbell). When he’s presented with the perfect opportunity to do exactly that though, he wilts out of fear of the unknown (refuses the call). Being a hero isn’t something he consciously contemplates, he simply reacts out of a natural impulse to do good and heroism is what results. That’s the character.

Responsibility. Luke wants to escape his banality and trivial obligations to a life of excitement and adventure. What he finds is that responsibility will always find you. You can’t avoid it forever. You have to grow up sometime. He took it upon himself to rescue Leia; to join the Deathstar assault; to take command of that assault when its leadership was lost. Not things pouty faced Tatooine Luke would likely do.

As stated above, his resentment of accountability, expressed in the desire for an exotic existence and contradicted by his fear of the unknown. Luke is like every big talking kid from a jerk water town who dreams of ‘making it’ but is too scared to really do it.

His deliberate acceptance of assuming the weight of saving the galaxy by joining the battle of Yavin. He could have left with Han. No one would have blamed him. He took on that immense responsibility, understood the cost of failure, and went anyways. No more looking to the horizon of some theoretically better tomorrow, but dealing with the obligation of the here and now. A point so important, Lucas had to have Yoda blurt it out in the sequel.

So, you’re dissatisfaction stems from the narrative breaking with convention and not doing what you’d expect? Interesting. I feel like I’ve heard this complaint somewhere else before. Hmm, no bother.

I agree that Vader is clearly positioned in the function of adversary for Luke. Whether intentional or not, that this is something omitted from the first episode is absolutely sensational in my opinion. It creates so much more calculated tension and outstanding dramatic forbearance when these two, who are certainly on a collision course, finally confront at the end of the second episode. It’s so exquisitely tantric in its execution. I honestly don’t see how including a truncated version of this in ANH accomplishes anything more than woefully diminishing that effect.

The saber, for Luke, symbolizes his father and the (supposed) wish for Luke to possess it - the weapon of a Jedi - to become a Jedi - to be like his father. The direct comparison made between these two is in reference to their piloting prowess, not sword fighting ability. Luke is first presented to us as a skilled pilot and THAT’S the attribute that’s utilized to achieve heroic deliverance.

When Luke trains with the saber, he again, isn’t simply learning to sword fight. The saber is only a tool. A thing. Something that aids his actions which are enhanced by the Force (like the torpedoes). Luke is learning to see and react in a spiritual capacity and THAT’S the other attribute that’s utilized to achieve heroic deliverance.

Every part of the Luke character we get in ANH is structured amiably. His developmental aspects are setup plainly enough and competently paid off at the end. Would Lucas have approached him slightly different knowing there’d be multiple installments? I imagine so, sure, but that doesn’t undo anything. It’s a strong character that works within the context of the narrative.

It being “worthless” because it doesn’t deliver on the portentous reckoning until the sequel, is so strange to me. Are you equally upset that when it does happen, the outcome is unresolved? That the stakes are inverted? I don’t know. I just don’t get it.

 

Look at these walls of text.
Fuggin Nerds.

 

So I'm going to focus on two parts of post because it simplifies the conversation to a more focused view on my points from your perspective, but before I begin, I'd like to take a moment and remind that I'm not of a position that ANH is a bad film, nor that it is one that "needs to be fixed".
It is instead, that I was answering the question of the thread which asked about elements of the OT that we would have changed.

Every Star Wars film has elements I could outline for change, and this isn't reflective of Star Wars; I hold that view on nearly every film I've seen.
It is the extremely rare film which I cannot think of something somewhere in it that could have been altered in just a slight way.
I don't think this is really odd either, because many heavy-weight directors think such of their own films, but at some point you have to put the brush down and walk away (I'm looking at you Lucas and Ridley Scott! ).

So while I may seem like I'm picking apart a great film, don't think for a moment that I don't smile and feel all warm inside when I plop this film on.
Heck, I have a copy of it in its original pre-cgi form because I love this film so much. It's in fact probably only because I love this film so much that I have these views at all; because I've thought about the film a lot over my life.

And I do hold, even as is, without any caveat regarding what I would change if I could, that ANH is the best OT film, and quite possibly the best SW film as a whole for me.

This is because of far more than just the narrative structure, but related to multiple aspects of the film - but I don't want to go into that at the moment (it's too long of a description to digress into here).

So, on to the discussion points at hand.
As I said, there's really two parts of your post that I'd like to focus in on as while other parts are capable quite finely of being discussed further, these two parts really highlight the core points and more efficiently move along the main thrust of the idea.

Quite so. So it should not be a surprise that I could, as a person far from a 12 year old, be interested in a meatier version which exhibits more of Luke's emotional struggles and themes than was carried out in the current form of ANH.

And Lucas also had issues with it:
"He didn't feel Star Wars came up to the vision he initially had. He felt he had just made this little kids' movie." - Steven Spielberg.

Well, firstly, again, I'm not dissatisfied in any negative way.
This, to me, is more a playful exercise. Again, I don't watch the film frustrated - never.

Secondly, since we agree that a clear juxtaposition and compelled meeting between Luke and Vader is foreshadowed in ANH, I think you can at least understand how I could have such a view since it was unfinished within its own narrative. You may not agree that it's something that leaves anything that could be adjusted slightly differently, but I think you can forgive my want since it was quite clearly left as an unclosed loop in the film.


Now, this issue of refinement has nothing to do with convention or not, because honestly, having a personal duel with Vader wouldn't suddenly streamline ANH into a cookie-cutter box. It would be still very much atypical fare, and it would actually enhance the atypical aspect that is at the root of the Star Wars charm, which is the reprise of classic epic story telling elements and motifs. Joseph Campbell even watched SW and further commented on them in regards to their relationship to ancient myths (while hanging out at Skywalker Ranch, no less).

It would have also roped in symbolism in the Star Wars manner in a very nice way, because Star Wars is a chiastic story narrative, and many elements in ROTJ are refrains from motifs and elements in ANH, and as such, having Luke and Vader square off in ANH would have actually created a Trilogy of meetings between the two where in ANH loss of self-salvation is occurred due to blindness and ignorance, in ESB discovery of the true self is found through pain and loss, and in ROTJ self-salvation is fully realized through self-sacrifice and forgiveness.

Currently we lack the first ANH model to juxtapose the ROTJ motif against between Vader and Luke. ESB and ROTJ are the only two which compare to each other in such a way, and that leaves the chiasmus structure slightly a bit lopsided instead of well symmetrical.

Further, it would satisfy the chiastic structure within ANH itself, as currently ANH's third Act does not purely juxtapose the symbolic themes of Act one in the correlated scenes (because Lucas had to reinvent the entire story in a dash-slash way that he didn't originally design, but the original was far too long and was more in line with refraining previous element - which he's talked about how that ended up being moved off into the other two films since it wasn't able to fit into ANH as he had originally planned).

The chiastic structure of the saber of his Father at the beginning, and then he brings that same saber to his Father (unknowingly) at the end.
In Act one, Luke would learn about himself by receiving the sword, while in Act three, Luke would fail to realize himself by taking the sword to action.
In Act one, Luke would be launched into learning about his Father, while in Act three, Luke would be pushed into a realization about his self.
In Act one, Luke would favor the sentimental (emotional) over the technology and must learn to accept the technology (deal with the reality that technology may not be ideal - breaking droids, harvesters, pile of junk star ships, etc... - but it has its uses without being emotional about it - Luke throws a fit in every scene regarding technology and it's Ben who eventually sets him straight on chilling out on this), while in Act three Luke would favor the technology too much and need to learn to trust his sentimental side, racing off to fight Vader with the saber and thinking that he could win just because he has the sword; failing to realize that the sword itself is just technology and not what makes Jedi's succeed, and then in the X-Wing, finally realizing to focus on his emotion rather than the technology.

There's quite a few chiastic relationships that would be tied up rather nicely that were left slightly loose in ANH due to the restructure, and I think it would be an elegant and pretty structure and narrative prose had it been done.
However, there was one very large problem with this idea; practicality.

Lucas really couldn't have had Luke and Vader face off. He could barely have them do so in ESB, but at least could pull it off.
In ANH's timeline of film production, and capability, even the humble Ben and Vader scene was a strong challenge - and that's just two people standing relatively still and not touching their blades together for fear of breaking them.

Lucas couldn't really have gotten an emotionally charged scene of Luke running and screaming at Vader, and wildly swinging a saber around.
I mean, I suppose he maybe could have if Lucas had came up with the telekinesis part of the Force and had Vader just standing still, flinging Luke around like a rag-doll while Luke kept getting up and trying to run at Vader...but Lucas hadn't developed the Force beyond a mystical gut sense at this point, so that idea wasn't really likely and everything seems to suggest that at this point in time when Lucas thought of sabers being in the same room and a duel, he thought of all the nightmares revolving around getting sabers to not break and a giant clumsy Vader suit.



Again, not having this adjustment does NOT ruin the films. It is simply that it would be elegant and pretty if it were an added element in ANH.
In the OT, my list of things to change in each film is ROTJ, ESB, ANH in rank of most things to least, and ANH is the only OT film which I don't have cinematographic remarks regarding changes.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Leaving all the nostalgia behind...I probably had preferred a race much more interesting and not so "cute" like the Ewoks. Endor the planet of Wookies it was a much better ideia.
But I don't hate the ewoks.

 

Personally, I think if the ewoks weren't quite as... bumbly... they could've worked a little better. Like, the one that rides away on the speeder bike- don't get me wrong, it's hilarious, but it makes it harder to take them seriously if that's what we're going for.

I've never loved the idea of wookiees because they seem a little too much the opposite of the ewoks. Ewoks are kinda cool in how underdog they are. I get that wookiees are a persecuted people under the Empire, but they're also famous for ripping off arms. If anything, a race like Twi'leks might've been neat- showing an oppressed civilized planet under Imperial rule would've been unique, at least at the time.