"ARRrrrr we doing enough to protect children?"

Seriously, this remembrance is a nice idea, I suppose. Star Wars. It was good for a while, then shit for quite a bit longer. Just like The Ramones. And being like The Ramones can't be bad, can it?

Hooray, I have successfully wrestled my Ramones analogy back on track!

LOTR RULES! Whip-tash!

Where are the Whedon freaks when you need them? BUFFY WAS LAME, FIREFLY BOMBED...

lmao...

being a Croatian, this is funny as hell... :p

btw, nice little article Merrick, makes me wanna go and see Teh Original Trilogy again.

George...it's not too let to let it go. Just let it go, buddy.

Can anyone tell me roughly at what point in Solo's Revenge the wookie puts on his special War Mask? Is it like halfway through? At the thirty minute mark? Thanks in advance...

And to Gwai Lo, yeah right you got it at a convenence store... I had to order my copy on Japanese laserdisk, good luck finding one these days, you're full of sh*t!!

Check Spyguy for rules of conduct.

I was 13. I maybe saw the movie in July and August when the 'rents reluctantly drove me and buddy to a slightly hipper 'burb.

Happy birthday STAR WARS!

...would have been better if they had atually been able to snag Ford for the role. Tom Selleck just didn't quite cut it.

I've heard they're talking to Nathan Fillion about Han Solo At Star's End, though. That could be cool.

Happy Birthday, Star Wars!

I’ve been reading this talkback squirming in my seat as the absurdly uncritical, geeked-out geyser-gush of adulation for STAR WARS gummed up my screen.

I won’t say that I love SW as much as the next guy, because, gauging from the messages here, clearly I don’t. I saw the Star Wars movies when I was young, and I liked them. I’ve seen them recently and I still like them. They’re very good movies. But ultimately these are very good moves made infinitely better by the provenance of their source material (HIDDEN FORTRESS by Akira Kurosawa and THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES by Joseph Campbell). Lucas was able to assimilate the storytelling techniques of a Japanese director and the insights of a comparative mythologist into what is basically a pulpy, woodenly acted, pedantically written sci-fi film. And that’s cool. It’s admirable, even. I don’t know if I could do it. But for Christ’s sake folks, we’re essentially talking about Hollywood blockbuster fluff before we had a label for it. (The argument can even go we have Hollywood blockbuster fluff now because of STAR WARS. But whatever.)

There’s certainly no denying the enormous influence that SW has had on the industry and the role it played shaping a new generation of filmmakers. Personally, I’m not 100% sure that the influence it generated was entirely positive, but that’s a completely subjective opinion that I expect no one else to share with me, and which I’ll admit might be a false accusation.

ANNIE HALL, on the other hand, is a timeless masterpiece that parses the human psyche and reveals things about the fragility of love and the nature of emotional self-deception, all while being funny as hell. And it’s not even Woody Allen’s best movie! (That would be CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS.)

Can anyone here honestly say that Lucas has ever done anything better than STAR WARS? Maybe a person could argue that AMERICAN GRAFFITI is better. I’ll leave that to Lucasphiles.

It’s certainly not my intent to throw caltraps on the road in front of the Lucas parade. I don’t think he deserves it. But I also don’t think die-hard STAR WARS fans can be given carte blanche freedom to shit on other movies (or people) because someone suggests that SW isn’t the greatest thing since the cure for polio.

So what if someone believes the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy is better? That someone believes it doesn’t make it true or untrue. But Jesus, people react to such an opinion like it’s a personal affront. The funny (or depressingly sad) thing about rabid SW fans is that they are very much like fundamentalists and dogmatists. Any whiff of dissent is pounced on and the dissenter is ridiculed or branded a heretic. But the thing about people who accuse others of heresy is that no one who is comfortable with their own belief (in a movie, in a guru, in a religion) attacks another person for believing something different than them. Only people who don’t have confidence in their own belief savage someone else because they have a differing opinion.

Whew! End rant.

I love you Star Wars!

So that's twice we got screwed out of a Spielberg directed SW film, because the 'berg was Lucas' first choice to direct ROTJ. But since Lucas dropped out of the DGA following the Empire fiasco, he was not able to hire Spielberg.

It wanted me to say 'you're welcome' to everyone. I asked it about Hayden's work as Anakin and the bulb burned out. I looked over and Jar Jar was laughing, so I guess it was pretty good.

It's still in the original wrapping, and according to the Sansweet index it's worth between $220 and $350... depending on the condition of the packaging.

The OT was the greatest movie experience ever and nothing will ever match it. I thank god for being born at the right time to be able to experience it how it changed the world forewer.

It changed the cinema forewer too. It is unfortunately also partly responsible for the eventual destruction of cinema.

Everyone who is comparing anything to it, Lotr=ok, but come on guys, and especially POTC, i mean POTC!!!??? (its fun, but that`s it) including people who made/work for this site should be fired or stop writing on film forewer. Or at least noone should believe what they write anymore.

Christ.

Glods bless you, Woody. Not only for winning, but for not even showing up to collect the Oscar Lucas would have LOVED to have won. Woody played his clarinet instead!

Although people felt that was copying the OT too much - the OT wasn't a real love triangle, and there would've been nothing wrong with Vader being a mirror of Luke with the two taking completely different paths as that's how they played it anyway.

For Vader to hate Obi-Wan he had to do something personally to him and that his response to this was the trigger for his downfall. As it stands, Obi-Wan did nothing to him but simply opposed him for murdering Jedi (including children) and objected to him getting married too young. Amidala marries him knowing he slaughtered sandpeople (including women and children) for revenge and doesn't blink an eye. Are all of these people retarded? That's what I thought when it was all said and done. It also completely ruins Vader's redemption in part 3.

Vader is portrayed in the OT as far too calculating and clever to be as emotionally unstable as Lucas portrayed him in the prequels. It would've been better to make him stoney and judgmental who turns on everyone thinking he is intellectually superior and have his heart changed by Luke at the end. That would've felt appropriate.

Ultimately he should've been smarter, stronger, and more calculating than Obi-Wan, the kind of guy you want on your side but if he turns - whoah, you better watch out. The kind of guy the other Jedis were actually jealous of, not just Ani imagining it.

Simply put, Lucas blew it. As a filmmaker, even he is vastly underrated, but as a writer he's hopeless. To go all fan fic/script doctor, if we consider a love triangle, we can consider other changes (not the least of which would have been starting with Anakin about eight years older,etc). Forget the sandpeople slaughter and Anakin's mother. We never even needed to see Anakin's mother in any of the films. Could have never happened. Lucas sent the wrong characters to the wrong places.

It should have been Anakin and Amidala on Geoneisis, investigating the clone army. That could have set Anakin up to battle Jango Fett, so we see the greatest Jedi in single combat (although Jango would have been accidentally blown up by Boba, leading to the ESB line:"No disentegrations."). At that point, they received a distress call from Obi Wan, and realize the trap the entire Jedi order is walking into. So what does this Jedi apprentice do? He conscripts the illegal clone army, leads them into battle, saves the Jedi order...only to be fucking court marshalled for it. Yoda, who told Luke in ESB that he should let Han and Leia die if he honored what they fought for, would have been to wise to unleash the clone scourge on the galaxy. But Anakin...it would have satisfied both the good and evil in the character. This would have given Palpatine/Sidious an opportunity to pardon and protect Anakin/Vader and been a clear catalyst for a conversion to the dark side.