Laspector
Master Member
Yeah yeah I know, first thoughts are "good characters, great script" etc. I agree with all that, but that is not what I am talking about here. There were several incredibly cool things and/or certain character triaits in the first Star Wars movie that just totally disappeared after that film. How about:
--Gravity wells.. Remember the very first time you saw the Tie fighter attack during the Escape from the Death Star sequence? Luke and Han go up/down that ladder and all of a sudden up and down completely change direction!! Seeing that in 1977 was just so feaking cool (and unexpected)! Why was this never used again? The perfect place would 've been during the DS attack in Jedi...but nope...totally cool thing just disregarded....Is the Falcon the only ship in the galaxy that has this?
--Split wings..I don't think that after ANH we ever saw an X-wing actually open its wings again, did we? They were either open or closed, period. Never saw the actual opening again. This was one of the shots in the original cut that I liked much better than the Special Editions. In the original the shot itself was specifically designed it emphasize nothing but the wings splitting apart. Not only that, but they split in sequence so if your mind didn't catch it on the first time, it was repeated (all within just a second or two, granted) 3 or 4 more times so it really sunk in!! In the SE shot your eyes are more focused of just the grandeur of the ships flying through space--the wing split is secondary.
--Radio Talk.. In ANH radio talk is presented better. In the DS attack whenever the shot was of a pilot in his own cockpit ,yet you were hearing another pilot talk, the communication was augmented. This never happens again throughout the entire trilogy. It really felt like a WW2 documentary, because thats the way communications really sound--slightly garbled over your own headset. A real touch of realism lost during the rest of the saga.
--Droid prejudice.. This is shown the most in the Cantina sequence--"we don't serve their kind here!" At this point it seems like such an everyday thing Luke doesn't even think much about it. He simply complies and tells 3P0 to go on back outside..Why is there prejudice against droids? This could have been a great story point, yet it is totally forgotten. The only hints we see from that point on is that we get the idea that Han doesn't care for C3P0 very much. But this just seems to be a personal thing and not a wide discrimination against droids in general.
There are two more I have, but they really don't fit into the parameters I defined...
Unknown Aliens.. We never find out what Jawas or Sandpeople look like. What we see of Sandpeople is not their faces, it is a wrapping of cloth of some kind augmented with some kind of metal pipes or whatever. Jawas, are those yellow lights their real eyes? What would you actually see if one took his hood off?
And lastly--Suspense.. The trench run.. This entire sequence is geared and edited for suspense. That is what made is so incredibly great!!...Can you think of any other time in the entire saga where there is any actual suspense? The only two others I can think of is maybe in Empire as Luke is hanging upside down in the ice cave and maybe a touch of suspense when he is inside the tree/cave on Dagobah. But both of those are only seconds long, no comparison to the 15 minutes of the trench run.
Anyway, these were just a few thoughts I had the other day as I was watching ANH for the umpteenth zillion time. Your thoughts? Any other things you can think of that were completely disregarded after the first movie?
--Gravity wells.. Remember the very first time you saw the Tie fighter attack during the Escape from the Death Star sequence? Luke and Han go up/down that ladder and all of a sudden up and down completely change direction!! Seeing that in 1977 was just so feaking cool (and unexpected)! Why was this never used again? The perfect place would 've been during the DS attack in Jedi...but nope...totally cool thing just disregarded....Is the Falcon the only ship in the galaxy that has this?
--Split wings..I don't think that after ANH we ever saw an X-wing actually open its wings again, did we? They were either open or closed, period. Never saw the actual opening again. This was one of the shots in the original cut that I liked much better than the Special Editions. In the original the shot itself was specifically designed it emphasize nothing but the wings splitting apart. Not only that, but they split in sequence so if your mind didn't catch it on the first time, it was repeated (all within just a second or two, granted) 3 or 4 more times so it really sunk in!! In the SE shot your eyes are more focused of just the grandeur of the ships flying through space--the wing split is secondary.
--Radio Talk.. In ANH radio talk is presented better. In the DS attack whenever the shot was of a pilot in his own cockpit ,yet you were hearing another pilot talk, the communication was augmented. This never happens again throughout the entire trilogy. It really felt like a WW2 documentary, because thats the way communications really sound--slightly garbled over your own headset. A real touch of realism lost during the rest of the saga.
--Droid prejudice.. This is shown the most in the Cantina sequence--"we don't serve their kind here!" At this point it seems like such an everyday thing Luke doesn't even think much about it. He simply complies and tells 3P0 to go on back outside..Why is there prejudice against droids? This could have been a great story point, yet it is totally forgotten. The only hints we see from that point on is that we get the idea that Han doesn't care for C3P0 very much. But this just seems to be a personal thing and not a wide discrimination against droids in general.
There are two more I have, but they really don't fit into the parameters I defined...
Unknown Aliens.. We never find out what Jawas or Sandpeople look like. What we see of Sandpeople is not their faces, it is a wrapping of cloth of some kind augmented with some kind of metal pipes or whatever. Jawas, are those yellow lights their real eyes? What would you actually see if one took his hood off?
And lastly--Suspense.. The trench run.. This entire sequence is geared and edited for suspense. That is what made is so incredibly great!!...Can you think of any other time in the entire saga where there is any actual suspense? The only two others I can think of is maybe in Empire as Luke is hanging upside down in the ice cave and maybe a touch of suspense when he is inside the tree/cave on Dagobah. But both of those are only seconds long, no comparison to the 15 minutes of the trench run.
Anyway, these were just a few thoughts I had the other day as I was watching ANH for the umpteenth zillion time. Your thoughts? Any other things you can think of that were completely disregarded after the first movie?
