Star Wars: No Hope

Originally Posted by Enuf3

And that is where I stop listening to anything you say. It's ridiculous and you clearly have no respect for film if you can't appreciate what Lucas and Star Wars has done. It's one thing to say you just don't like Star Wars.. it's another to call them bad films that cinema would be better off without.

The only thing I can accredit Lucas for in Star Wars is the fact that he did create a world full of life. Every single alien, every single droid, every single tiny piece of technology has its own history behind it. This effect was in only one film, and this is why the Star Wars universe has expanded and gained so much interest. I not only acknowledge that, but I will gladly praise the production crew for being able to do that. I also liked the Death Star Trench Run at the end, but that's probably because I'm a fan of the Rogue Squadron games.

As a self-contained movie however, it is nothing more than a mindless entertainment flick. Sequences lead from one to the next with no real connection other than moving the protagonists from one troubling situation to another, just like the original 1986 Transformers movie (which drew heavily from Star Wars to begin with). The Force is a very bad plot device, and though it could and has been used reasonably well in certain situations (such as Darth Vader's physical use of it and in games such as KOTOR), it was used mainly as a plot device as far as the benevolent characters are concerned, and a bad one at that - sensing this, sensing that, sensing the other, rather too conveniently. Any Force user might as well be omniscient. Not only that, but Force users live on after their death, which makes one wonder why we think it sad in the later films.

There was an almost childish depiction of morality as being absolutely black and white, with no room for compromise and hardly any neutrality - you're either an evil Imperial or a benevolent Rebel. Expanding on that point, for at least half an hour, you're given no reason to actually consider the Empire evil other than the fact that the opening scroll calls them evil, and the fact that Darth Vader is faceless and wearing black. The first instance is the slaughter of Luke's family, a relatively minor atrocity that could hardly be said to make a galaxy-spanning Empire evil, only those who committed it. Before that, as far as the viewer's concerned, without the opening crawl just spelling it out for the viewer instead of letting them find out through the use of good storytelling, Leia could legitimately be a criminal. No history is given behind the Galactic Civil War mentioned in the opening crawl, and the only evidence you see of such a war taking place on any scale is the base on Yavin IV, which is more of a tiny cell of freedom fighters opposing the regime than anything you can call a "civil war" without actually studying the expanded universe.

He created an interesting universe, and there was some good use of special effects, but he didn't tell his story particularly well, which really is the core of a good film, and so he cannot be said to have made one. This is why I wonder how the hell the film itself got so popular, and the fact that other films tried to emulate its success is what caused the high-concept film to become popular. All I grant you is that if we didn't have it, we would never have had The Empire Strikes Back, which is an excellent film.


This arose in a discussion as to why Transformers, while perfectly good entertainment, can hardly be hailed as a good example of a film. Direct all Transformers-related comments there, here, I want your views on what I've said about Star Wars: A New Hope. Please note that I am specifically referring to "A New Hope" here, and not the rest of the series.

Star Wars is awesome no matter what!!

Lord Zero I have lost all potential respect I may have had for you, agree with the quoted text.

Without actually criticising my arguments, your words are just the words of a butthurt fanboy, to put it bluntly. I did not start this thread just to see a stream of "OMG UR SO WRONG!", I started it to see if anyone could convince me to actually like this film by making an argument as to why it actually has any cinematic merit, because either I'm missing something that everyone else isn't, or everyone else really does have a lower standard when it comes to films than I do.

The original three star wars films are good.

The prequels suck my nads.

Star Wars is a good franchize, especially for those who like to submerge themselves into the world. However, some of the movies were lacking...

Hell, The Empire Strikes Back is considered the best, or amongst the best, of Star Wars films. It was directed by Irvin Kershner.

Lucas, while a good director and storyteller, I feel should have had less to do with directing the films... For his style is geared towards the storytelling rather then the film.

Though, my biggest piss with the series is the Storm Troopers, in all but in 'Empire; the troopers, the great troops of the Empire, never seemed quite the quality one would expect.

Originally Posted by BEHIND THE MASK

Star Wars is a good franchize, especially for those who like to submerge themselves into the world. However, some of the movies were lacking...

Hell, The Empire Strikes Back is considered the best, or amongst the best, of Star Wars films. It was directed by Irvin Kershner.

Lucas, while a good director and storyteller, I feel should have had less to do with directing the films... For his style is geared towards the storytelling rather then the film.

Though, my biggest piss with the series is the Storm Troopers, in all but in 'Empire; the troopers, the great troops of the Empire, never seemed quite the quality one would expect.

I would heavily dispute that Lucas' style is more towards the storytelling than the film, since that's precisely my problem with A New Hope: it's just not very good storytelling, as I highlighted in my original post. It has the crawl explain to us who the good guys and the bad guys are, and then we just accept it from then on, rather than use the technique of actually presenting the story to us as the film goes along, along the viewer to piece it together himself (one of the best examples of this I've seen is Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, where the opening scene has no exposition, only two people who let the audience in on what's going on between them through their dialogue), not to mention the entire "Civil War? What Civil War?" If you take the opening crawl out altogether, as far as the viewer is concerned Vader could just be a particularly heavy-handed law enforcement official and Leia a beautiful yet deceitful criminal until about half an hour in.

I also wasn't a fan of the original Indiana Jones, which was written by Lucas I believe, because again, it's just some bad storytelling.

I agree that The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best Star Wars film, probably because Lucas or Spielberg weren't directing it.

And you've clearly never heard of the Imperial Academy of Marksmanship

>.> fine I'll read the whole thing, **** man.

sensing this, sensing that, sensing the other, rather too conveniently. Any Force user might as well be omniscient

they can only sense what you are feeling and thinking at that moment,they cant just read you mind

Not only that, but Force users live on after their death, which makes one wonder why we think it sad in the later films.

incorrect only a few do, if they have learned the requisite powers.

There was an almost childish depiction of morality as being absolutely black and white, with no room for compromise and hardly any neutrality - you're either an evil Imperial or a benevolent Rebel. Expanding on that point, for at least half an hour, you're given no reason to actually consider the Empire evil other than the fact that the opening scroll calls them evil, and the fact that Darth Vader is faceless and wearing black. The first instance is the slaughter of Luke's family, a relatively minor atrocity that could hardly be said to make a galaxy-spanning Empire evil, only those who committed it. Before that, as far as the viewer's concerned, without the opening crawl just spelling it out for the viewer instead of letting them find out through the use of good storytelling, Leia could legitimately be a criminal. No history is given behind the Galactic Civil War mentioned in the opening crawl, and the only evidence you see of such a war taking place on any scale is the base on Yavin IV, which is more of a tiny cell of freedom fighters opposing the regime than anything you can call a "civil war" without actually studying the expanded universe.

that is a good argument for the movies by themselves.

he didn't tell his story particularly well

you are focusing on one movie you need to see the series as a whole to know all of what is going on

all 6 live action films by them selves are ok, not great, but together they are more awesome then any other movie series put together!

Quite an interesting post. It really made me think about why I like the movie so much. I don't have much to say, except an additional reason as to why the Empire is evil:

Don't you remember them blowing up Alderaan?

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

And you've clearly never heard of the Imperial Academy of Marksmanship

I'd rather find where they make that stormtrooper body armor; its just so effective at protectign them from nothing!!!

Originally Posted by Sailboat

Quite an interesting post. It really made me think about why I like the movie so much. I don't have much to say, except an additional reason as to why the Empire is evil:

Don't you remember them blowing up Alderaan?

That's why I said you can't see them as evil for the first half-hour. The first atrocity they commit is murdering Luke's family. It's pretty bad, I will grant, but that could have been a heavy-handed group of stormtroopers, and not the sort of atrocity I could see justifying a Galactic Civil War. That's small fry if we're talking about a government that spans an entire galaxy.

Darth Vader himself tries to torture Leia, which again is pretty bad but that could just be him being the evil official that he is, showing that maybe the Empire itself isn't based on evil ideals, but that this one figure, who clearly has great influence within its hierarchy, will stop at nothing to achieve his goals, which could easily be seen as malicious.

When they blow up Alderaan, that's the first clear and public sign that individuals such as Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader, who are the representatives of the Empire in the first film, are malicious. But since that was the first use of the Death Star, this is the first example of such a large scale atrocity altogether, and you don't see the effect this has on the wider scale (such as the Imperial public), only on those characters present in that scene. Not once in the movies set during the "Galactic Civil War" do I see any evidence that there was anything beyond a relatively small cell of rebels fighting against the juggernaut that was the Empire.

Originally Posted by BEHIND THE MASK

I'd rather find where they make that stormtrooper body armor; its just so effective at protectign them from nothing!!!

Well they are made from polythene or something, bloody hell

Originally Posted by candc32

they can only sense what you are feeling and thinking at that moment,they cant just read you mind

In the first film I suppose you're right here, but in later films the Force is granted near omnipotent qualities in that Luke was able to figure out because of it that Leia was his sister (a poor plot development itself but what the hell), and yet somehow Darth Vader wasn't able to find him in the dark when he was at most a few metres away (again in ROTJ). The fact that it's not really expanded upon other than giving Luke faith-based powers is incredibly cheap as far as plot-devices go.

incorrect only a few do, if they have learned the requisite powers.

Going off the first three films alone, the dark-side users don't, but every Jedi who died in the course of those three films, even Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, is seen at the end of ROTJ, shiny and well other than their physical forms being destroyed. In the first film alone, Obi-Wan spoke to Luke from beyond the grave to encourage him, so his death isn't particularly as impacting when you find out it isn't that bad.

that is a good argument for the movies by themselves.

Which is what I'm talking about, specifically the first movie. In my post I explain that I do like the franchise as a whole, and that I do especially like The Empire Strikes Back, but in that first post I'm just detailing why the first film made was not that good, in my view, and simultaneously wondering how the franchise became so popular if that was the first taste they got of it.

you are focusing on one movie you need to see the series as a whole to know all of what is going on

Even seeing all six doesn't show us the scale of the so-called "Galactic Civil War", you need to actually look at the expanded universe stuff (or Wookiepedia) to really understand it beyond the story of those few adventurers and that one rebel group.

*Slaps Lord Zero in the face*

Start Wars is awesome! Not only is everything well thought out (which is the BEST part of it) But it made Magic and Sci-fi come together PERFECTLY

^Read Lord Zero's posts, Prince.

Yeah, I don't really have anything to add about that, I do have something to say about your thoughts on the force:

Any Force user might as well be omniscient.

First of all, force sense is pretty limited. One can only sense certain things, such as what emotions another person is feeling, any nearby death or trouble, (though specifics are unknown), small glimpses of the future (usually clouded by the Dark Side if something's important, which I admit is ridiculous) and finally, the ability to sense when other force adepts enter your general vicinity. That said, force sense is a very useful asset, but it has many limitations that prevent it from giving its user omniscience.

Not only that, but Force users live on after their death, which makes one wonder why we think it sad in the later films.

This only occurs when someone "submits" himself or herself into the force. In other words, they have to know death is imminent, and they have to prepare themselves for it. Sometimes, force submission itself is what kills its user. Here are some examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjCyZ2P9bCA
As you can see, at the end of this battle, Obi-Wan closes his eyes and holds his lightsaber up to his face, preforming the force submission, and allowing him to live on. He even hints to his submission in the midst of the battle. However, if death comes as a surprise, like the Emperor dying at the end of Jedi, Force submission is all but impossible.

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

In the first film alone, Obi-Wan spoke to Luke from beyond the grave to encourage him, so his death isn't particularly as impacting when you find out it isn't that bad.

Also, I love how Leia consoles Luke for Obi-Wan's (semi)death when the planet Leia calls home, plus every structure and living thing on it, has been completely destroyed.
Shouldn't Leia be the one being consoled?

It also doesn't help that Luke had only personally known Obi-Wan for about two days.

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

Well they are made from polythene or something, bloody hell

Actually, it's Plasteel (light as plastic/hard as steel) but nobody really cares, because they go down in one normal blaster shot anyway.

That, and they're easily killed by Ewoks. EWOKS.

Originally Posted by Prince Deity

*Slaps Lord Zero in the face*

Start Wars is awesome! Not only is everything well thought out (which is the BEST part of it) But it made Magic and Sci-fi come together PERFECTLY

That's actually one of my main problems - it's space fantasy, not even remotely sci-fi

Originally Posted by Sailboat

First of all, force sense is pretty limited. One can only sense certain things, such as what emotions another person is feeling, any nearby death or trouble, (though specifics are unknown), small glimpses of the future (usually clouded by the Dark Side if something's important, which I admit is ridiculous) and finally, the ability to sense when other force adepts enter your general vicinity. That said, force sense is a very useful asset, but it has many limitations that prevent it from giving its user omniscience.

It's just so hilariously artificial, though - as I pointed out for an explicit example, this idea that Obi Wan can sense millions of people dying many lightyears away, but Darth Vader can't sense Luke Skywalker within a few feet of him. All of the abilities are as the plot requires them at that particular point in time, and the same with the limitations.

This only occurs when someone "submits" himself or herself into the force. In other words, they have to know death is imminent, and they have to prepare themselves for it. Sometimes, force submission itself is what kills its user. Here are some examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjCyZ2P9bCA
As you can see, at the end of this battle, Obi-Wan closes his eyes and holds his lightsaber up to his face, preforming the force submission, and allowing him to live on. He even hints to his submission in the midst of the battle. However, if death comes as a surprise, like the Emperor dying at the end of Jedi, Force submission is all but impossible.

Surely the Emperor could mentally prepare himself on the way down, given he's such a master with the Force. Again, that's the sort of thing you wouldn't be able to tell just from the movies.

Also, I love how Leia consoles Luke for Obi-Wan's (semi)death when the planet Leia calls home, plus every structure and living thing on it, has been completely destroyed.
Shouldn't Leia be the one being consoled?

It also doesn't help that Luke had only personally known Obi-Wan for about two days.

This, too, although apparently Obi-Wan and Luke had met before they met again on that one day with the Tusken Raiders. Leia didn't seem THAT troubled by the people of Alderaan being destroyed though, and hardly ever mentions it again after that scene.

Actually, it's Plasteel (light as plastic/hard as steel) but nobody really cares, because they go down in one normal blaster shot anyway.

That, and they're easily killed by Ewoks. EWOKS.

The worst thing about ROTJ right there mate.

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

It's just so hilariously artificial, though - as I pointed out for an explicit example, this idea that Obi Wan can sense millions of people dying many lightyears away, but Darth Vader can't sense Luke Skywalker within a few feet of him.

Well, when Obi-Wan sensed the deaths at Alderaan, you have to understand that such an enormous loss of life would cause an enormous ripple in the force. If Obi-Wan was near Alderaan when it happened, he would have been nearly blown off his feet.

As for the Vader vs. Luke situation, the only explanation I can give is that at the Light Side of the force has the same type of "clouding" effect that the Dark Side has on the opposite type of force users. As you can see in this video, about 3 minutes in, Luke reveals himself by speaking, and Vader begins to sense his thoughts rather than fighting him.

All of the abilities are as the plot requires them at that particular point in time, and the same with the limitations.

Yeah. As soon as something important pops up in the future, the dark side clouds it. How convenient.

Surely the Emperor could mentally prepare himself on the way down, given he's such a master with the Force. Again, that's the sort of thing you wouldn't be able to tell just from the movies.

Well, in the aforementioned video (the Emperor's death is at about 7:15), it doesn't take long for The Emperor to be burned by the Death Star's core. And as for whether or not he was preparing himself for death, look at his facial/bodily expressions when he is picked up and thrown by Vader, and compare them to Obi-Wan's affect displays when he was struck down. Palpatine hardly shows the calmness that Obi-Wan did bofore his death.

So yes, the Emperor could have prepared himself for death, but as you can see from the video, he didn't.

This, too, although apparently Obi-Wan and Luke had met before they met again on that one day with the Tusken Raiders.

Well, Luke knew of Obi-Wan, but he didn't really know him.

It's like the way that you know the old man that lives across the street. He didn't even know his name until the events of Star Wars.

Leia didn't seem THAT troubled by the people of Alderaan being destroyed though, and hardly ever mentions it again after that scene.

That's the problem. She should have been absolutely devastated.

The worst thing about ROTJ right there mate.

At least they were adorable.

#1 - You seem to have a problem with it as a story, and yet for thousands of years previous, the human race has not only lived on stories such as this, but cherished them. The characters in the film are all INTENTIONALLY the most Jungian Archetypical characters from The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and their inherent universality is evident in the film's practically-universal popularity. George Lucas was making a film which appealed to the subconscious mind (and even to the primal 'collective subconscious'), not the conscious. Being in touch with one's subconscious mind does not stem from rational thinking, and therefore the rational mind will, alone, not understand it fully.

#2 - Very few will dispute that A New Hope is the weakest of the original trilogy (I myself prefer ROTJ to ESB, but that's just me - I enjoyed the moral of the story and the Ewoks didn't bug me). Pointing out that it's not as good as ESB is akin to 'praise by faint condemnation'. As a general rule, the first act of a play is where the creator lays the foundation of what will come, not where he blows his wad - so logically, the first part of a trilogy would follow the same idea.

#3 - As for the 'Empire has no evidence of being evil for the first 30 minutes, aside from the opening crawl', Tarkin proudly comments to his officers on how the Emperor has swept away the last remnants of democracy and how fear will keep the local systems in line, Stormtroopers kill the Jawas, Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru for even having come into contact with the droids, and Vader tortures Leia for information. Oh, and Vader crushes the throat of an unarmed prisoner in the first scene. One could come up with arguments about how these don't explain a Galactic Civil War, but then, every film has a backstory that is not spelled out in detail for your satisfaction. This is why cryptic references are made to previous events, such as Vader's lines: 'a presence I have not felt since...' and 'we meet again at last'. Lucas went on record as saying that the audience is MEANT to wonder what is being alluded to: he wanted an homage to old serials, and in those days, a new fan of a serial rarely got to see reruns of the old episodes and had to just 'catch up' on what the story is. The original idea was that the audience is left with a desire to have seen what happened in the previous episode - the studio kept the title to 'Star Wars' for fear of confusing cinemagoers about whether there were other films, but two years later in 1979, during a re-release in cinemas, Lucas managed to insert the subtitle 'Episode IV - A New Hope' to the opening crawl to be more in keeping with this vision.

people are going to yell at me for this but.... im 15 and i FINALLY watched all the starwars films. im an american that went 14 long years without seeing the whole saga.

The only thing I can respond to now (because I haven't watched the film in a long time, and because I'm just short on time right now) is the idea that you can't tell that Vader/The Empire are the 'bad guys' for the first half hour or so if you eliminate the crawl.

I'd have to disagree with that. True, if you just had someone impartially telling you what was happening on screen with no deep detail, that might be true, but when you visual and auditory cues that just doesn't hold. You don't hear the Vader theme or the Imperial March (or whatever piece of music they use when you first see Vader, I don't remember) and hear his mechanical breathing and see a giant black robot-looking monster juxtaposed with a little girl dressed in white and think, "I bet she's really like Bonnie, and he's just a hard-nosed sheriff, Wyatt Earp style."

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

As a self-contained movie however, it is nothing more than a mindless entertainment flick.

And?

A movie is not good because it makes you think.
A movie is not bad because it's entertaining.

Sequences lead from one to the next with no real connection other than moving the protagonists from one troubling situation to another, just like the original 1986 Transformers movie (which drew heavily from Star Wars to begin with).

What now? Every progression is logical. There are two plots, Leia's and Luke's, and they move forward in a perfectly logical manner, even after joining together.

The Force is a very bad plot device, and though it could and has been used reasonably well in certain situations (such as Darth Vader's physical use of it and in games such as KOTOR), it was used mainly as a plot device as far as the benevolent characters are concerned, and a bad one at that - sensing this, sensing that, sensing the other, rather too conveniently. Any Force user might as well be omniscient. Not only that, but Force users live on after their death, which makes one wonder why we think it sad in the later films.

Few things here.

First off, you've forgotten one of the most famous quotes from the movie: "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes..."

Force users are anything but omniscient. They are superhuman, and in the original movie the force is shown solely to allow alteration of senses (heightened senses for users, the ability to mislead the senses of others) but that hardly makes it a silly plot device. I mean, your avatar has the amazing ability to stare people into submission, which sounds just as silly and potentially all-powerful.

In addition, at only one point does the ability to sense force users do more than heighten tension, Obi-Wan would not have met Darth Vader if they had not sensed each other. But once instance in the entire movie does not omniscience make.

Expanding on that point, for at least half an hour, you're given no reason to actually consider the Empire evil other than the fact that the opening scroll calls them evil, and the fact that Darth Vader is faceless and wearing black. The first instance is the slaughter of Luke's family, a relatively minor atrocity that could hardly be said to make a galaxy-spanning Empire evil, only those who committed it.

Let's see, attacking a diplomatic ship, dissolving the democratic council, murdering ambassadors in cold blood, murdering sand people, murdering Luke's family...

Oh sure, we don't see them setting up gulags or anything, but that would have utterly wrecked the pacing of the movie. As-is we get plenty of small things that indicate the modus operandi of the empire.

You can't have it both ways, you complain that the plot and pacing are off, then complain that there isn't enough exposition. The two are mutually incompatible.

Before that, as far as the viewer's concerned, without the opening crawl just spelling it out for the viewer instead of letting them find out through the use of good storytelling, Leia could legitimately be a criminal. No history is given behind the Galactic Civil War mentioned in the opening crawl, and the only evidence you see of such a war taking place on any scale is the base on Yavin IV, which is more of a tiny cell of freedom fighters opposing the regime than anything you can call a "civil war" without actually studying the expanded universe.

That's because the civil war hasn't started yet. It's still the rebellion, a small faction operating out of a single base on a backwater moon, trying desperately to gain some sort of leverage.

He created an interesting universe, and there was some good use of special effects, but he didn't tell his story particularly well, which really is the core of a good film, and so he cannot be said to have made one. This is why I wonder how the hell the film itself got so popular, and the fact that other films tried to emulate its success is what caused the high-concept film to become popular. All I grant you is that if we didn't have it, we would never have had The Empire Strikes Back, which is an excellent film.

It isn't a nuanced story, but that's not the same as a bad story.

Star Wars is an epic. Both in the modern sense of the word and (more importantly) in the traditional sense. It is an epic like Beowulf is an epic, like the Odyssey is an epic.

It's a simple story, with a pretty clear good and evil.
It has heroes with fantastic abilities fighting unstoppable foes for the good of all.

It's a...distillation of the heroic archetype and journey. Intentionally so, and it works quite well as that.

Plus, movies need not have any story at all to be good. Movies are simply a visual medium. You can do what you like with them, and it can be good or bad.

Star Wars is much like, say, the original Star Trek, or Cowboy Bebop, or Firefly, or Tokyo Godfathers, or The Seven Samurai in that plot takes a backseat to characters. Indeed, Star Wars has a stronger plot than any of those, while keeping characters that are on-par with them.

Your problem is that you're trying to shoehorn it into the wrong genre (2001-esque hard science fiction, rather than the Space Opera (emphasis on that last word) that it is.) and that you define movies far too narrowly.

You also seem to expect TV-show levels of detail, background, and characterization, which you just can't get in a movie. There just isn't time.

Finally, I link to Roger Ebert's view of the film, which he has declared repeatedly will be seen as a classic for decades, if not centuries: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...701010315/1023

Roger Ebert can go a bit easy on movies at times, but when he ranks Star Wars with his personal favourites, it's safe to see that he sees something there, and I whole-heartedly agree with pretty much everything in his review. (And his mini-essay on it in The Great Movies" book.)

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

#1 - You seem to have a problem with it as a story, and yet for thousands of years previous, the human race has not only lived on stories such as this, but cherished them. The characters in the film are all INTENTIONALLY the most Jungian Archetypical characters from The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and their inherent universality is evident in the film's practically-universal popularity. George Lucas was making a film which appealed to the subconscious mind (and even to the primal 'collective subconscious'), not the conscious. Being in touch with one's subconscious mind does not stem from rational thinking, and therefore the rational mind will, alone, not understand it fully.

Which demostrates that actually liking the film is irrational.

#2 - Very few will dispute that A New Hope is the weakest of the original trilogy (I myself prefer ROTJ to ESB, but that's just me - I enjoyed the moral of the story and the Ewoks didn't bug me). Pointing out that it's not as good as ESB is akin to 'praise by faint condemnation'. As a general rule, the first act of a play is where the creator lays the foundation of what will come, not where he blows his wad - so logically, the first part of a trilogy would follow the same idea.

But when making a film that is to be released by itself, if you're intending to make a series, surely you should make one that will make people want to come back for more (and I would have anyway granted), and capable of standing alone since it could be several years before you make another one, or if it's unsuccessful, never.

#3 - As for the 'Empire has no evidence of being evil for the first 30 minutes, aside from the opening crawl', Tarkin proudly comments to his officers on how the Emperor has swept away the last remnants of democracy and how fear will keep the local systems in line

Because of Lucas' black and white morality we don't get any impression that maybe this is what Tarkin believes is right - as far as Lucas is concerned, he wanted to do this because he's just an evil person who wants to commit evil for the sake of evil. Because evil!

Also was that in the first half hour?

Stormtroopers kill the Jawas, Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru for even having come into contact with the droids

As I detailed above, firstly it could be a particularly heavy-handed set of Stormtroopers or just acting on the orders of Vader, either way not something to condemn the entire Empire for and not something justifying a Galactic Civil War.

and Vader tortures Leia for information.

Again, could be Vader acting as a ruthless agent for a more benevolent leader. Like how the Grand Vizier in stereotypical fantasies can exist despite the benevolent King.

Oh, and Vader crushes the throat of an unarmed prisoner in the first scene.

Heavy-handed and, without the black/white distinction, may not have been perceived as all that bad.

One could come up with arguments about how these don't explain a Galactic Civil War, but then, every film has a backstory that is not spelled out in detail for your satisfaction. This is why cryptic references are made to previous events, such as Vader's lines: 'a presence I have not felt since...' and 'we meet again at last'. Lucas went on record as saying that the audience is MEANT to wonder what is being alluded to: he wanted an homage to old serials, and in those days, a new fan of a serial rarely got to see reruns of the old episodes and had to just 'catch up' on what the story is. The original idea was that the audience is left with a desire to have seen what happened in the previous episode - the studio kept the title to 'Star Wars' for fear of confusing cinemagoers about whether there were other films, but two years later in 1979, during a re-release in cinemas, Lucas managed to insert the subtitle 'Episode IV - A New Hope' to the opening crawl to be more in keeping with this vision.

This post-release editting stuff really bugs me, to be honest. I see it as cheating in a way. The edit so that Han no longer shoots first was pretty annoying, the adding in of so many scenes, changing so many appearances and voices, adding in certain effects, means I essentially never got to see the original.

Having a backstory that isn't spelt out for your satisfaction is different to having certain details revealed as part of the film's storytelling, as I demonstrated with the Psycho example.

A lot of your defences seem to be "it was INTENTIONAL", but I don't see how intentionally aspiring to take an example from poor storytellers doesn't make it a poor storytelling. If I intentionally set out to make a bad movie for purposes other than comedy, it's still a bad movie.

Originally Posted by Sailboat

Well, when Obi-Wan sensed the deaths at Alderaan, you have to understand that such an enormous loss of life would cause an enormous ripple in the force. If Obi-Wan was near Alderaan when it happened, he would have been nearly blown off his feet.

As for the Vader vs. Luke situation, the only explanation I can give is that at the Light Side of the force has the same type of "clouding" effect that the Dark Side has on the opposite type of force users. As you can see in this video, about 3 minutes in, Luke reveals himself by speaking, and Vader begins to sense his thoughts rather than fighting him.

But again, Vader doesn't seem to be able to tell where he is, which is pretty contradictory to being able to feel people dying.

Well, in the aforementioned video (the Emperor's death is at about 7:15), it doesn't take long for The Emperor to be burned by the Death Star's core. And as for whether or not he was preparing himself for death, look at his facial/bodily expressions when he is picked up and thrown by Vader, and compare them to Obi-Wan's affect displays when he was struck down. Palpatine hardly shows the calmness that Obi-Wan did bofore his death.

So yes, the Emperor could have prepared himself for death, but as you can see from the video, he didn't.

To the film-viewer who knows nothing of the EU, this isn't really gotten across, and just appears as "good guys die and enter the Force, bad people don't", which again makes their deaths less traumatic.

Well, Luke knew of Obi-Wan, but he didn't really know him.

It's like the way that you know the old man that lives across the street. He didn't even know his name until the events of Star Wars.

He did know him as Ben Kenobi though.