Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

I introduced Star Wars to my girlfriend beginning with Phantom Menace and then went in Episode order. I have to admit, I found her reaction to the movies completely fascinating. She had no baggage, no nostalgia - she was just watching the movies for the first time. Now remember, this is from the point of view of someone who knew very little about Star Wars other than "Luke, I am your father." So she already knew that "twist" and never saw the OT.

In short, she thought TPM was okay, nothing Earth shattering, and she was annoyed by Jar-Jar (apparently this is consistent with non-fans). She did not pick up on any of the foreshadowing of Palpatine.

She liked AOTC and was indeed thrown off by Anakin's behavior especially when he killed the Sand People.

She really liked ROTS. Anakin becoming Darth Vader, actually getting put into the suit, blew her mind! She simply did not know this is where the story was going. She wanted to immediately watch ANH!

She was bored by ANH. In her words, "It went from this incredibly personal duel between [Anakin and Obi-Wan] and an emotional 'I HATE YOU!!' to "You should not have come back." She thought their re-duel was terribly weak. Something that WAS interesting though was her reaction to Obi-Wan telling Luke what happened to his father - "Why is he lying to him??"

She thought ESB was a HUGE improvement over ANH. I got a good laugh at her reaction to Leia kissing Luke. "Woah...wait...aren't they brother and sister??" She enjoyed seeing Yoda return. She wasn't surprised by Vader's revelation to Luke (obviously). She did think that Luke's mechanical arm was foreshadowing that Palpatine would want to turn Luke to the Dark Side.

Okay...ROTJ...here's where her reactions got interesting...overall she liked it. She thought the rescue of Han dragged on especially R2 and C3PO being shown around the palace and the droid torture scene. She couldn't have cared less about how Boba Fett's demise because in her view, he was never an "important character." In her view, Fett never even captured Han. "He followed Han to Cloud City, Vader captured him and then turned him over to Fett. When I told her that Fett is considered the "greatest bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe" she replied, "Why? He never did anything." And realistically, based solely on the movies, she's right. She was confused by Obi-Wan's "from a certain point of view" speech and didn't understand why he didn't just tell Luke the truth up front. I had to remind her they were made out of order and that Lucas didn't know originally that he would have a chance to make sequels. She thought Yoda dying was weak, but sad. She loved seeing the Emperor return. She thought Carrie Fisher looked like she didn't want to be in the movie.

Now...and I found this to be very interesting...at the end, when Luke looks off and sees Obi-Wan, Yoda and then Anakin...are you sitting?...she LOVED seeing Anakin brought back in the form of Hayden Christiansen! I showed her the original version and she said she didn't like it. Her reason was that she had come to know Christiansen as Anakin, and felt that he had truly redeemed himself. She said she had no connection whatsoever to the older actor since she had never seen him before and therefore wouldn't have had the same sense of redemption. She was also disappointed that when Luke took Vader's mask off that it wasn't Christiansen made to look older.

Again, remember this is coming from someone without pre-conceived ideas or history of seeing the movies. Overall, her favorite was ROTS.

I can see all of this. In fact, it is exactly what I was eluding to when I said you could start someone off with Menace. It is also the reason why I don't see all the hate for the PT. They really are good Star Wars films. Again, all things considered, I find ESB & RotS to be the real standouts.

I too never really understood why Boba Fett was considered such a feared bounty hunter either, I just loved the character.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

I can see all of this. In fact, it is exactly what I was eluding to when I said you could start someone off with Menace. It is also the reason why I don't see all the hate for the PT. They really are good Star Wars films. Again, all things considered, I find ESB & RotS to be the real standouts.

V
III
VI
I
IV
II
My rankings right now and since it's been so long since they came out, I doubt that will change. Hoping we get these in June or July, don't want to wait almost a year to pick them up. Not expecting the OT to look that good in HD, of course.

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

V
III
VI
I
IV
II
My rankings right now and since it's been so long since they came out, I doubt that will change. Hoping we get these in June or July, don't want to wait almost a year to pick them up. Not expecting the OT to look that good in HD, of course.

Here's my rankings...

Empire/Sith (tie)
New Hope
Clones
Jedi/Menace (tie)

My guess is they're going to do a lot more cleaning up of the OT for the BD. Knowing G.L., they're making more changes as well. Not that it's OT, but I know G.L. said they're adding Grevous to Clones, though I don't know if this will be in the "initial" BD release.

[supersonic395]

@Dotpattern

Pretty interesting account.

If I have kids in the future, I plan to show them the films in the 1-6 order to see what their reactions are.

Also the way Alec Guiness tells Luke in ANH about his father (when he gives him the lightsaber), the faces Alec Guiness pulls is pretty telling that he is troubled to give a proper response. Very good imo.

I definately prefer Hayden Anakin in ROTJ as opposed to Shaw also. (In fact I like all the 2004 changes, except the Greedo scene. I think Lucas will change it back. (Maybe remove the Jaba scene from ANH too). All the other stuff is fine.

Lastly I don't get the complaints Cinematography wise for II. I was flicking through it the other day (for the awesome 5.1 track), and there's some really good shots in there. (Obviously in III it's at it's best. Some superb music in III too).

Can't wait to hear the lossless tracks, and I can't wait to see the packaging and new transfers.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

Here's my rankings...

Empire/Sith (tie)
New Hope
Clones
Jedi/Menace (tie)

My guess is they're going to do a lot more cleaning up of the OT for the BD. Knowing G.L., they're making more changes as well. Not that it's OT, but I know G.L. said they're adding Grevous to Clones, though I don't know if this will be in the "initial" BD release.

I just don't see how they can add General Grievous to Clones and not have it be disjointed unless it's previously filmed material that didn't make the final cut of II for whatever reason.

[supersonic395]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

My guess is they're going to do a lot more cleaning up of the OT for the BD. Knowing G.L., they're making more changes as well. Not that it's OT, but I know G.L. said they're adding Grevous to Clones.

I think more will probably be done on the PT. (I guess like the 2004 versions, the OT will probably have improved CGI, but in terms of new alterations, I don't think there will be that many, if any. I'd bet the Han/Greedo scene will be restored to the original version and that will probably be the biggest change for the OT. They definately need to fix the Lightsabers though).

In the PT, some CGI should be redone (plenty of stuff in II). Also in III the one scene that always looked "off" was in the early fight scene with Dooku. When Dooku force throws Kenobi into the side of the room and then drops some metal thing on his legs, it always looks really off/bad. They should fix it.

[STARKILLER--1138]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

I introduced Star Wars to my girlfriend beginning with Phantom Menace and then went in Episode order. I have to admit, I found her reaction to the movies completely fascinating. She had no baggage, no nostalgia - she was just watching the movies for the first time. Now remember, this is from the point of view of someone who knew very little about Star Wars other than "Luke, I am your father." So she already knew that "twist" and never saw the OT.

In short, she thought TPM was okay, nothing Earth shattering, and she was annoyed by Jar-Jar (apparently this is consistent with non-fans). She did not pick up on any of the foreshadowing of Palpatine.

She liked AOTC and was indeed thrown off by Anakin's behavior especially when he killed the Sand People.

She really liked ROTS. Anakin becoming Darth Vader, actually getting put into the suit, blew her mind! She simply did not know this is where the story was going. She wanted to immediately watch ANH!

She was bored by ANH. In her words, "It went from this incredibly personal duel between [Anakin and Obi-Wan] and an emotional 'I HATE YOU!!' to "You should not have come back." She thought their re-duel was terribly weak. Something that WAS interesting though was her reaction to Obi-Wan telling Luke what happened to his father - "Why is he lying to him??"

She thought ESB was a HUGE improvement over ANH. I got a good laugh at her reaction to Leia kissing Luke. "Woah...wait...aren't they brother and sister??" She enjoyed seeing Yoda return. She wasn't surprised by Vader's revelation to Luke (obviously). She did think that Luke's mechanical arm was foreshadowing that Palpatine would want to turn Luke to the Dark Side.

Okay...ROTJ...here's where her reactions got interesting...overall she liked it. She thought the rescue of Han dragged on especially R2 and C3PO being shown around the palace and the droid torture scene. She couldn't have cared less about how Boba Fett's demise because in her view, he was never an "important character." In her view, Fett never even captured Han. "He followed Han to Cloud City, Vader captured him and then turned him over to Fett. When I told her that Fett is considered the "greatest bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe" she replied, "Why? He never did anything." And realistically, based solely on the movies, she's right. She was confused by Obi-Wan's "from a certain point of view" speech and didn't understand why he didn't just tell Luke the truth up front. I had to remind her they were made out of order and that Lucas didn't know originally that he would have a chance to make sequels. She thought Yoda dying was weak, but sad. She loved seeing the Emperor return. She thought Carrie Fisher looked like she didn't want to be in the movie.

Now...and I found this to be very interesting...at the end, when Luke looks off and sees Obi-Wan, Yoda and then Anakin...are you sitting?...she LOVED seeing Anakin brought back in the form of Hayden Christiansen! I showed her the original version and she said she didn't like it. Her reason was that she had come to know Christiansen as Anakin, and felt that he had truly redeemed himself. She said she had no connection whatsoever to the older actor since she had never seen him before and therefore wouldn't have had the same sense of redemption. She was also disappointed that when Luke took Vader's mask off that it wasn't Christiansen made to look older.

Again, remember this is coming from someone without pre-conceived ideas or history of seeing the movies. Overall, her favorite was ROTS.

She's a keeper!

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by supersonic395

@Dotpattern

Pretty interesting account.

If I have kids in the future, I plan to show them the films in the 1-6 order to see what their reactions are.

Also the way Alec Guiness tells Luke in ANH about his father (when he gives him the lightsaber), the faces Alec Guiness pulls is pretty telling that he is troubled to give a proper response. Very good imo.

I definately prefer Hayden Anakin in ROTJ as opposed to Shaw also. (In fact I like all the 2004 changes, except the Greedo scene. I think Lucas will change it back. (Maybe remove the Jaba scene from ANH too). All the other stuff is fine.

Lastly I don't get the complaints Cinematography wise for II. I was flicking through it the other day (for the awesome 5.1 track), and there's some really good shots in there. (Obviously in III it's at it's best. Some superb music in III too).

Can't wait to hear the lossless tracks, and I can't wait to see the packaging and new transfers.

Oh you just reminded me - Greedo shooting first...didn't phase her at all. She had absolutely no reaction to the scene. She didn't notice the bad effects. I showed her the original and she didn't care. In her words, "Whatever. Either way Han Solo is the better shot."

[the sordid sentinel]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

I introduced Star Wars to my girlfriend beginning with Phantom Menace and then went in Episode order. I have to admit, I found her reaction to the movies completely fascinating. She had no baggage, no nostalgia - she was just watching the movies for the first time. Now remember, this is from the point of view of someone who knew very little about Star Wars other than "Luke, I am your father." So she already knew that "twist" and never saw the OT.

In short, she thought TPM was okay, nothing Earth shattering, and she was annoyed by Jar-Jar (apparently this is consistent with non-fans). She did not pick up on any of the foreshadowing of Palpatine.

She liked AOTC and was indeed thrown off by Anakin's behavior especially when he killed the Sand People.

She really liked ROTS. Anakin becoming Darth Vader, actually getting put into the suit, blew her mind! She simply did not know this is where the story was going. She wanted to immediately watch ANH!

She was bored by ANH. In her words, "It went from this incredibly personal duel between [Anakin and Obi-Wan] and an emotional 'I HATE YOU!!' to "You should not have come back." She thought their re-duel was terribly weak. Something that WAS interesting though was her reaction to Obi-Wan telling Luke what happened to his father - "Why is he lying to him??"

She thought ESB was a HUGE improvement over ANH. I got a good laugh at her reaction to Leia kissing Luke. "Woah...wait...aren't they brother and sister??" She enjoyed seeing Yoda return. She wasn't surprised by Vader's revelation to Luke (obviously). She did think that Luke's mechanical arm was foreshadowing that Palpatine would want to turn Luke to the Dark Side.

Okay...ROTJ...here's where her reactions got interesting...overall she liked it. She thought the rescue of Han dragged on especially R2 and C3PO being shown around the palace and the droid torture scene. She couldn't have cared less about how Boba Fett's demise because in her view, he was never an "important character." In her view, Fett never even captured Han. "He followed Han to Cloud City, Vader captured him and then turned him over to Fett. When I told her that Fett is considered the "greatest bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe" she replied, "Why? He never did anything." And realistically, based solely on the movies, she's right. She was confused by Obi-Wan's "from a certain point of view" speech and didn't understand why he didn't just tell Luke the truth up front. I had to remind her they were made out of order and that Lucas didn't know originally that he would have a chance to make sequels. She thought Yoda dying was weak, but sad. She loved seeing the Emperor return. She thought Carrie Fisher looked like she didn't want to be in the movie.

Now...and I found this to be very interesting...at the end, when Luke looks off and sees Obi-Wan, Yoda and then Anakin...are you sitting?...she LOVED seeing Anakin brought back in the form of Hayden Christiansen! I showed her the original version and she said she didn't like it. Her reason was that she had come to know Christiansen as Anakin, and felt that he had truly redeemed himself. She said she had no connection whatsoever to the older actor since she had never seen him before and therefore wouldn't have had the same sense of redemption. She was also disappointed that when Luke took Vader's mask off that it wasn't Christiansen made to look older.

Again, remember this is coming from someone without pre-conceived ideas or history of seeing the movies. Overall, her favorite was ROTS.

Really interesting post..thanks for sharing.

About Boba Fett..Lucas states somewhere (I think on the ROTJ commentary track..can't remember exactly where I heard it) that they briefly considered having Boba climb out of the Sarlac pit when doing the special ed. revisions. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Word should start leaking out about the blu ray versions in the coming months. This thread will REALLY start jumping then.

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

Oh you just reminded me - Greedo shooting first...didn't phase her at all. She had absolutely no reaction to the scene. She didn't notice the bad effects. I showed her the original and she didn't care. In her words, "Whatever. Either way Han Solo is the better shot."

The problem I have with Greedo shooting first is that it was done because G.L. wanted to go back & change the way Han's character originally started out... As a rogue. He wanted ANH Han to be the Han of RotJ, effectively erasing the character developement.

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

The problem I have with Greedo shooting first is that it was done because G.L. wanted to go back & change the way Han's character originally started out... As a rogue. He wanted ANH Han to be the Han of RotJ, effectively erasing the character developement.

I'm in agreement with you. The pacing of the scene is also thrown off. But in the eyes of someone who wasn't familiar with the original, it didn't seem to make a difference.

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

I'm in agreement with you. The pacing of the scene is also thrown off. But in the eyes of someone who wasn't familiar with the original, it didn't seem to make a difference.

Personally, I'd prefer he stayed a rogue. At least a little shady. What I find even worse is what became of the Lando character from Empire to Jedi.

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

Personally, I'd prefer he stayed a rogue. At least a little shady. What I find even worse is what became of the Lando character from Empire to Jedi.

Right! My girlfriend actually commented on Lando saying that he AND Jar-Jar were both set up to be some major characters and ended up not doing much.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

Right! My girlfriend actually commented on Lando saying that he AND Jar-Jar were both set up to be some major characters and ended up not doing much.

Jar Jar IS a major character, what was it, in the span of about 15 minutes he undoes the years of hard work Senator Amidala put in trying to make the galaxy a better place. One could argue that he is one of the most integral characters to the PT, even if he is so hated by many.

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

Right! My girlfriend actually commented on Lando saying that he AND Jar-Jar were both set up to be some major characters and ended up not doing much.

I don't know if they didn't do much... Their roles were important. Lando blew up the second Death Star & Jar-Jar basically gave Palpatine his power.

Lando just went from a really shady kind of a scumy guy to... How can I even describe it? A bubble-gum, goody-good (I really hate to say this) token that spent most of his screen time with Nien Nunb.

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Jar Jar IS a major character, what was it, in the span of about 15 minutes he undoes the years of hard work Senator Amidala put in trying to make the galaxy a better place. One could argue that he is one of the most integral characters to the PT, even if he is so hated by many.

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

I don't know if they didn't do much... Their roles were important. Lando blew up the second Death Star & Jar-Jar basically gave Palpatine his power.

Lando just went from a really shady kind of a scumy guy to... How can I even describe it? A bubble-gum, goddy-good (I really hate to say this) token.

I think what she was saying was that she expected them to *do* more (maybe even develop more), if that makes any sense. I'm in total agreement with both of you though.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

I think what she was saying was that she expected them to *do* more (maybe even develop more), if that makes any sense. I'm in total agreement with both of you though.

Well as someone else said, the truth is Jar Jar and Lando are integral characters but all they really do is further the plot. I never thought Lando was scum, I saw him as a parallel to Han, basically a good guy who doesn't always make the right decisions. Will say if the Empire threatened me, my business and the city I live in, I'd probably do what it took to get them to leave with minimal damage done.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Yup I never understood why ANH is so beloved but the PT is so hated, ANH is the weakest of the OT by far.

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

I think what she was saying was that she expected them to *do* more (maybe even develop more), if that makes any sense. I'm in total agreement with both of you though.

I figured that's what she meant. They ended up (albiet important) background characters with little screen-time. I agree. Although with Jar-Jar, I'm gald.

[Uxi]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

I don't know if they didn't do much... Their roles were important. Lando blew up the second Death Star & Jar-Jar basically gave Palpatine his power.

Lando just went from a really shady kind of a scumy guy to... How can I even describe it? A bubble-gum, goody-good (I really hate to say this) token that spent most of his screen time with Nien Nunb.

uh? Lando was attempting to redeem himself from scumery before TESB was even over. Did you miss Han's mocking him for becoming respectable? His character in RotJ is perfectly consistent with the end of RotJ. In fact, more likely that he remains more than a little rogue-ish in wanting to give a little payback to the Empire by blowing up a Death Star (with Vader and/or the Emperor himself on it).

He was the straight man to the co-pilots comedy relief. The Han to Nunb's Chewie, if you will...