Monday, August 24, 2015

Thoughts on "Star Wars: the Original Trilogy"

Since I forgot to do a post when I first saw "Star Wars: Episode IV" earlier this year, I decided that I might as well do a post covering the whole trilogy after I saw all three movies.  So, thanks to a couple movie, popcorn and homemade brownie nights with a couple of friends, one who loves Star Wars and the other who had never even seen the first one before, here are brief synopses of them, along with some random thoughts that popped into my head as I was watching them (which sometimes made the movies even more entertaining).  :)




Episode IV: A New Hope

Synopsis:  Young Luke Skywalker finds himself caught up in the middle of the Rebellion against the Empire (which, like the American Revolution, is a good, needed rebellion) when he becomes the owner of two droids that have vital information that the Empire and it's primary general, Darth Vader, will do anything to get back.  So Luke, along with the droids, R2D2 and C3PO, a forced-into-retirement Jedi knight named Obi-Wan Kenobi, and a smuggler named Han Solo and his partner, a Wookie named Chewbacca, head out to deliver the information to the Rebels.  What they don't plan on is Han's spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, getting sucked in by the Empire's great Death Star's gravity field, and then learning that the Empire is holding Rebel leader Princess Leia captive on the Death Star, and then...well, let's just say it's more than Luke ever imagined.

Thoughts: #1 - I want an R2D2!!!!!!!
#2 -  Han Solo is an "almost-bad boy", meaning that he has that devil-may-care attitude but when the chips are down he'll come through and do the right thing.  That makes him even more irresistible.  (I actually cheered out loud when Darth Vader's ship got blasted from behind Luke and you find out it was Han).
#3 - Why did we have to loose Obi-Wan Kenobi as a physical character right as we were getting to know him??????  :(
#4 - Han and Leia have very similar temperaments.  That could either be a bad thing or a good thing.
#5 - I still don't understand why in a sword fight you would spin around before reengaging your opponent.  But you see it all the time!


That really seems like opening up your defenses to me, especially when you don't move as fast as you used to...
#6 - For all the complaining he does, C3PO really is attached to R2, which is really, really sweet (but you do sometimes wish that C3PO would shut up).


Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Synopsis:  Luke, Han, Leia and all the other Rebels are hiding out on a frozen planet, hoping that Darth Vader won't find them (as if!)  One night when Luke gets caught out in the snow he has a vision of Obi-Wan telling him to go to another planet and find Jedi master Yoda to help him finish his training.  After an attack on their base by Vader, Luke heads out to find Yoda while Han and Leia go to hopefully find safety with Han's old buddy Lando.  Unfortunately, somebody has reached Lando first and has forced him into a compromising situation...


#1 - I still want an R2D2!  (Sidenote: I've learned that I can imitate a couple of the squeals and squeaks he makes)
#2 - Never say "I'd rather kiss a Wookie!" to a guy who's best buddy is a Wookie.  He has an immediate killer comeback.
#3 - Never call the aforementioned friend of a Wookie a "scoundrel", not if you're wanting to annoy him, anyway.  If you're wanting to do that, call him "scruffy".  (Of course, if you're wanting to see him smirk in a swoon-worthy way and repeat what you said with relish.......)



Sorry, where was I?  Oh, yeah...other things I noticed -

#4 - Yoda might be a very good teacher, but he'd sure be an annoying neighbor.
#5 - You do not want Darth Vader to promote you to Admiral.  That is almost like promoting you to Death Row.  I do have to say though that the second one he killed did have guts.  Too bad he was on the Dark Side.
#6 - Why was Lando surprised that Darth Vader kept changing the terms of their agreement? I mean, c'mon, he's the BAD GUY.  Bad guys do that.  (I am glad that Lando wound up being a good guy.  As he said, he didn't really have any choice but to go along with Vader).
#7 - The only time that hyper-speed worked on the Millennium Falcon during the whole movie was when Lando was driving it.  How could Han have let it get into such bad condition?  It was his baby!

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Synopsis:  The movie starts up with the gang trying to rescue Han from Jaba the Hut, the guy that Han owed money to and who wasn't too keen on forgiving the debt.  After finally being successful, Luke heads back to join Yoda while Han and the others join the rest of the Rebels for what will hopefully be their final offensive.  The Empire has been building another Death Star that needs to be blown up...and Vader and the Emperor have to be dealt  with once and for all.

#1 - I STILL want an R2D2!!!!!!!  Please, can somebody make that happen?????
#2 - I also want an Ewok.  Or, better yet, a whole family of Ewoks.  Those babies are PRECIOUS!!!!!!!  <3

See what I mean?!?!?!  I NEED one!!!!!!

#3 - If the previous movie had the most dark moments of the trilogy, then this one had the most cute moments...
            #3A - When Chewie is so happy to be reunited with Han (awwwww!!!!!!)
            #3B - When Leia coaxes the first Ewok into being her friend (and then when he keeps hugging both Han and R2 throughout the rest of the movie)
            #3C - And then THIS, which has to be one of the sweetest, cutest love scenes ever caught on film.


             Here Han was willing to put his feelings for Leia aside so she could be happy.  And then you can read on his face the exact thoughts that are running through his head: "Her...brother?  He's her brother???  He's - oh!  He's her BROTHER!!!!!!"  :)
#4 - Will somebody please shoot that little rat thing that's always hanging out with Jabba the Hut?  PLEASE?????   (Thank you, R2!)
#5 - How in the world did Luke go from running out on Yoda before he could pull his own plane out of the swamp with the Force to being a full-fledged Jedi knight??????  We know he didn't go back to Yoda during that time, so what the heck happened?
#6 - The only reason bounty-hunter Boba Fett dies during the fight with Jabba the Hut is because Han accidentally whacks him as he's trying to see what's going on (and did we ever even hear his name mentioned in the movie???)
#7 - Somebody in with George Lucas & Co. must have loved the phrase "false delusions of grandeur".  I think I've heard it at least once in each movie... 
#8 - Luke was right!!!!!!!  There was some good left in his father!  Yay!  :)


Overall, I enjoyed the trilogy.  I kind of wish I could have seen the original versions instead of the remastered ones so that I could have appreciated the advances in special effects since the '80s, but in the long run it doesn't matter.  I guess I would have to say that the final movie was probably my favorite out of the three, despite the grossness of Jabba the Hut and the few unexplained things that happened between it and the previous movie.  One thing that struck me about all of them, though: here they have all this amazing technology with droids and all kinds of aircraft and weaponry, yet they don't have one single piece of hand-held...anything, really, except for whatever it is they use to contact 3PO and R2.  No terrain readers, no room scanners, no device that when you speak into it it translates what you said into a different language and then does the same for the person you're speaking with...I know the movies were written in the '80s, but surely even back then such things could have been imagined up for sci-fi.  I mean, it's so inefficient, having to constantly wait for a slow, jerky-moving droid to come over to do anything that requires technology.  Makes me wonder what Tony Stark would think if he ever wound up in that world...

He'd probably call them archaic.  Just sayin'.  Goes to show how much things can change in three decades.

*Update: I've now seen a few episodes of the original Star Trek series, which was made before the Star Wars movies.  Since Star Trek has a bunch of hand-held devices, why the heck didn't the Star Wars movies???

Either way, the movies were fun to watch, even if they did cause me to loose my heart to an unattainable loved one.  

;)

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