Star Wars (A New Hope) Thoughts

[Brian]

I always like reading everyone's opinions of the individual movies, and since the original Star Wars' birthday was this past weekend - it got me to thinking about Star Wars/ANH.  I was too young to have seen this originally in theatres (I was born a month after release), so my first experience was on VHS (and later, the SE in theatres).  It was amazing then, and still is now to me.  Its kind of nice how it is really the most "self contained" movie of the Saga, since at the time they didn't know how it would do.  I was re-watching "Empire of Dreams" on the History Channel over the weekend, and its really neat seeing the "hoopla" that went on after it hit.  It must have been a fun time to have lived through that.  Anyways, I'll post more about the actual movie later - but I just wanted to see what everyone's opinions (or memories) of Star Wars (or A New Hope, if you prefer) are these days.

[Matt_Fury]

A lot of great memories.  I was six years old when this movie hit theaters and I remember my dad taking me and my brother to see it.  Dad had to read the opening crawl to me because my reading skills weren't good enough to keep up at the time.  I originally thought the Stormtroopers were the good guys (because they were wearing white), until Darth Vader came onscreen for the first time!

I think we saw that movie 50 times in the theater or drive-in over the next two years.  It was playing forever it seemed compared to other movies!  There was no VHS really at the time, so it's not like we could rent or purchase it.

Lots of fun childhood memories attached to that film.   

[Darth_Anton]

The original is a perfect example of how to make a movie that doesn't dumb down to it's audience and grows with them. Lightning in a bottle, though I think it happened by accident. And the best part is, my oldest girl is the same age I was when this movie came out and having seen all six movies, she thinks the OT is way better than the PT. That's because of the quality of the material whether she realizes it or not.

[Nicklab]

This thread seemed like the most appropriate for this one interesting anecdote...

I was watching the Spielberg documentary on HBO recently.  And a fair amount of the film dealt with Stephen Spielberg's relationships with other young filmmakers in the 1970's.  These were some of his formative relationships as he was coming up in the film industry and really establishing himself as a director.  Among these peers?  Brian DePalma, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas.  And it seems that when these guys were young they were tremendous sounding boards for one another on their projects.  George Lucas took a great deal of interest in Spielberg's career early on, making a point of seeing Spielberg's movie of the week, "Duel" when it premiered on tv.  And he recognized something significant in Stephen at that time.

What's also interesting was the impact that these peers, Spielberg included, had upon Lucas.  They served as sounding boards as George Lucas was working on STAR WARS as it was known at the time.  George had screened an early cut of the film for these young directors.  Spielberg recognized some of the universal themes at work.  But interestingly enough, Brian DePalma came forward and talked about how George had established this tremendous world without giving the audience any basis for understanding that world.  And what it led to was.... THE CRAWL.

Read more about it in this article.  And if you have HBO?  See this documentary!

[Nicklab]

I was watching ANH on my iPhone while I was on the treadmill at the gym (watching movies keeps me from getting bored during cardio).  Notably, the Falcon's escape from the Death Star and arriving on Yavin IV.  That's when I heard a bit of dialogue that *KIND OF* qualifies as an Easter Egg.

At time stamp 1:38:36 there's a PA announcement in the hangar:  "Phoenix squad...{unintelligible}"

....and I was just taken aback that the sourcing for Phoenix squad in the Rebels animated series came from some background dialogue from A New Hope!  These little details really are the threads that tie the whole universe together.

[P-Siddy]

At time stamp 1:38:36 there's a PA announcement in the hangar:  "Phoenix squad...{unintelligible}"

....and I was just taken aback that the sourcing for Phoenix squad in the Rebels animated series came from some background dialogue from A New Hope!  These little details really are the threads that tie the whole universe together.

I'm just curious which version you were watching.  Didn't Lucas/Disney change some things recently to the movies?  Maybe they added that with the new changes?  No idea, but I'm going to have to throw in my originals on DVD and catch that... time stamp will likely be different on those though without the added scenes. 

[Nicklab]

It was on Disney+.  I have the theatrical version on DVD, so I can compare to that.

[P-Siddy]

It was on Disney+. 

I have to laugh at my asking now since you're watching it on a treadmill... Can't imagine running with a DVD player strapped to the back. 

[Jesse James]

Never noticed this before.  Never even heard anyone mention this before. 🤔