Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

In after Baud. Damn.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Democrats are back in array!

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

T R E 4 5 O N

In my day, never was longer.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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Open Thread: May the Fourth…

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Okay, I loathed the first movie, and have never paid much attention to the Star Wars multiverse since. But I’m old enough now to take pleasure in seeing other people enjoy sharing what they love, so: May the Fourth Be with Us All!

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138Comments

  2. 2.

    TBone

    Dad took me and little bro to see the original.  Fun!  Had a big crush on Han Solo (still love Harrison Ford). As well, we saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind together that year, which was suspenseful for kids.  We were very lucky to have parents who believed we should see everything important, regardless of how “adult” the content.  Books, travel, movies, magazines, live shows, museums, government, age was no barrier.  We did not do horror though.  Real life scary enough!

    Mama Duck just made another big ruckus – back yard this time.  Those darn neighborhood cats!

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”

  4. 4.

    Jay

    @Parfigliano:

    Sadly, for many people you had to see Star Wars in the theatre when it opened,

    It was so much more than anything else ever.

    Many of “us” started to go meh,……… later on.

  8. 8.

    TBone

    The Force sequel: The Reckoning 😆

    A local Pennsylvania GOP organizer named Milo Morris told Antonia Hitchens of the New Yorker that he was confronted with a lot of suspicion and distrust from his own voters who say to him “this whole game is just ridiculous and I’m not going to participate anymore.” He said, “the skepticism is hurting us. A lot of people are disenfranchised by the fraud allegations.”

    https://digbysblog.net/2024/05/03/how-trump-sabotaged-himself/

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The first one was good, but I think that was mostly it’s originality. The next 2 were such let downs to me that I never felt any need to go see any of the others.

  10. 10.

    Brachiator

    @Jay:

    Sadly, for many people you had to see Star Wars in the theatre when it opened

    Yeah, it was big fun. I saw it on opening night in Hollywood. From some of the buzz while waiting for the film to begin, I figured out that a good chunk of the audience had seen an afternoon or mid-day screening and came back to see it again.

  11. 11.

    Princess

    Gather round, children, and I’ll tell you how Star Wars was in theatres for over a year.  I saw the first one almost a year after it first came out. I was just a kid and it wasn’t my normal thing but I *loved* it.  It was magical. The next two were meh and after that I didn’t bother.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    The second highest grossing film in 1977 was Smokey and the Bandit, followed by Close Encounters and Saturday Night Fever.

  13. 13.

    Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride

    Since we have a silly thread here, it seems like the right time to share something I came across on YouTube — not a video, but an ad that I wasn’t quick enough to zap before I’d heard the first sentence.  That sentence went as follows (capitalization and punctuation intended to match the intensity of the speaker’s delivery):

    “CHRISTIANS!! DID YOU KNOW THERE’S A BIBLICAL SOLUTION TO TOENAIL FUNGUS???”

    Not being a great biblical scholar, I could think of only one passage that seemed relevant — the one that starts “And if thy right hand offend thee. . .”  That probably wasn’t what they had in mind, though.

  14. 14.

    Jay

    @Princess:

    Yeah, the opening, Dolby loud enough to vibrate the chairs, space ship filling the screen, laser strikes, then the Destroyer,……..

  15. 15.

    Narya

    Though the movies were never really my thing, I am pleased to note that the virtual running series I do is giving May the Fourth Be With You tshirts to any of us who run 5k today, AND my meatspace beer running series has a 5k scheduled for today. I think it says something like “Run and drink beer we will” on it.

  16. 16.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    The second highest grossing film in 1977 was Smokey and the Bandit, followed by Close Encounters and Saturday Night Fever.

    Good variety of movies. And later on, Annie Hall won the Oscar for Best Picture.

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    From the original NYT review of STAR WARS, 1977:

    When the film opens, dark times have fallen upon the galactal empire once ruled, we are given to believe, from a kind of space-age Camelot. Against these evil tyrants there is, in progress, a rebellion led by a certain Princess Leia Organa, a pretty round-faced young woman of old-fashioned pluck who, before you can catch your breath, has been captured by the guardians of the empire. Their object is to retrieve some secret plans that can be the empire’s undoing.

    That’s about all the plot that anyone of voting age should be required to keep track of. The story of “Star Wars” could be written on the head of a pin and still leave room for the Bible. It is, rather, a breathless succession of escapes, pursuits, dangerous missions, unexpected encounters, with each one ending in some kind of defeat until the final one.

    …there’s also a very funny sequence in a low-life bar on a remote planet, a frontierlike establishment where they serve customers who look like turtles, apes, pythons and various amalgams of same, but draw the line at robots. Says the bartender piously: “We don’t serve their kind here.”

    It’s difficult to judge the performances in a film like this. I suspect that much of the time the actors had to perform with special effects that were later added in the laboratory. Yet everyone treats his material with the proper combination of solemnity and good humor that avoids condescension. One of Mr. Lucas’s particular achievements is the manner in which he is able to recall the tackiness of the old comic strips and serials he loves without making a movie that is, itself, tacky. “Star Wars” is good enough to convince the most skeptical 8-year-old sci-fi buff, who is the toughest critic.

    In addition to today being May the Fourth (be with you), it’s also…FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!  (The first Saturday in May is always Free Comic Book Day).  So if you are a fan, or know one, or want to tip off friends and family who have kids, teens, whomever that might be interested, tell ’em to get down to their local comic book shop for a double handful of free issues (and great sales!)

    PS: oddly enough, it was STAR WARS that (temporarily) killed my youthful interest in comics!  I have a bunch of them from that year that I bought all across that spring & early summer and then suddenly stopped…because my allowance started going to movie tickets and SW action figures.  =)

  19. 19.

    Sprox

    As one who was under 10 sitting in the theater in 1977, I have learned I always have to ask this to youngs that say they hate the “first movie”:  When you say “first movie”… can you clarify which movie you mean?

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    @Brachiator: Same. There are some crap plot lines and characters and entire films in the series, but overall, I’m a fan.

  21. 21.

    Ken

    @Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: Maybe Leviticus 13, the laws for skin diseases. The “treatment” is to make the person ritually unclean and have them live outside the camp, which doesn’t sound like something you could sell on YouTube.

  22. 22.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    Not many trucker movies these days. It’s probably why they hate us.so much.

    I’m sure there will soon be a reboot of the Cannonball Run movies.

  23. 23.

    Ken

    My first viewing of Star Wars wasn’t until 1981, at a college movie night. They started the double feature with Hardware Wars, so my experience of the real movie wasn’t typical.

    If you want to get something of the feel, try watching Airplane! followed by Zero Hour.

  25. 25.

    Leto

    @Sprox: they always mean A New Hope. This is the annual harp on Star Wars thread that the curmudgeons have been waiting for. You can go back, year by year, and basically find the same people saying the same thing. If we can go under a hundred comments without the parsec discussion, it’ll be an early Festivus miracle.

  26. 26.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good mornin’, y’all!

    Yardwork in my near future today, then business travel. Lotsa to get done before I leave.

    As for Star Wars, I was around 12 years old when the first Star Wars movie came out and I saw it, twice, at our local theater.  I was absolutely amazed and I have to admit for a while I was quite the fanatic.  Now that I’m an adult, I will watch the original three movies occasionally, knowing how cheesy they were … but they still have a special place in my heart.

    As for Episodes 1 -3, they were okay but Episodes 7-9? Meh. Disney ruined the magic for me.

    EDIT:  One more thing – Mark Hamill is a national treasure.

  27. 27.

    Ken

    @Leto: If we can go under a hundred comments without the parsec discussion

    Well, now we can’t.

    Is there a word or phrase for this? “Self-defeating prophecy” is close.

  30. 30.

    sab

    I mostly love John Williams’ music, but I hate the Star Wars theme. It worked fine in the movie, but I wish it wasn’t played so much elsewhere.

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    I like the original trilogy, but after that…. meh. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher are/were a total blast. But the actors, for the most part…. big bore, no fun.

    I am gonna run a half-marathon tomorrow, and it is raining, so I am happy! Cool this shit off!

  32. 32.

    NotMax

    Believe it or not, kiddies, there weren’t a lot of movie theaters equipped to show movies in 70mm in 1977 so going to see the original Star Wars could be an adventure in itself.

    Danish National Symphony tackles the theme.

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    I saw A New Hope at the drive in.  My sister and I were lying on the hood of our car and the sky was clear and full of stars so the screen melded with the sky and it was magical.  That year the only thing I wanted for Christmas was a Millenial Falcon with all the characters that fit inside.  Still love Star Wars.  In one of the new movies I cheered when the Millenial Falcon rose out of the sand.  I think I’m still a big kid at heart.

    May the fourth be with us!

  34. 34.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Princess: Yup. I saw it later in the summer it came out. I was 8 years old and it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Yes there are major plot improbabilities but I still think it’s a fun romp to this day, despite those. Maybe it’s just the residual nostalgia.

    I liked all the first three though even as a middle schooler the Eewoks were… implausible. They were the first warning sign that cute merchandising was influencing things. And it was dumb…the rumor is Lucas originally envisioned the moon of Endor as the Wookie home world and Chewy was THE most popular non-human character in the franchise. The merchandising would have been better with Wookies.

    It was pigeon holed as science fiction but is more a mashup of fantasy and kung fu and western action adventure set in space. The rest of the movies haven’t done much for me but I have enjoyed The Mandalorian.

  37. 37.

    Marmot

    Let’s get this going!

    I don’t grasp disliking Star Wars A New Hope. Is it the timing? Like, “Finally—finally!—they were making Harlan Ellison stories into movies, and along comes the brash foot-stomp of this slick, high-budget space opera into our perfect garden!”

    First, that gripe is stolen from people griping about Jaws.

    Second, sci-fi movies from that pre-Star Wars period really generally suck! I’m talking A Boy and His Dog, Silent Running, Omega Man. (I know those aren’t all Ellison.) Soylent Green is so-so.

  39. 39.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I’m going to join with the curmudgeon Star Wars-haters. Though in itself it is not what I’d call sci-fi, it did create a taste for sci-fi and special effects in Hollywood and in audiences, and for that I’m grateful. And there’s no question that it was a major leap forward in effects.

    Edit: It also gave us Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.

  44. 44.

    TBone

    Oooh just remembered when I saw the ZZ Top Eliminator show at the Spectrum and the whole stage turned into the dashboard of a spaceship right in the middle of a song.  It was very, very cool. Some stage magic!

  45. 45.

    sab

    @NotMax: That’s great. I just dislike the Imperial Storm Trooper theme. It reminds me too much of Imperial Storm Troopers.

  48. 48.

    sab

    I saw read an interview with the late, great Iain M Banks who said that Star Wars gave him the courage to really pack his own space operas with lots of action. Before the movie he was afraid that he might be overdoing it.

  49. 49.

    Suzanne

    Might I note that the birds seem to be especially happy, hungry, and horny this morning? Damn, they are loud.

  53. 53.

    TBone

    @Suzanne: 👍 we have one who sits near the outdoors sitting room and sings one note. All. Damned. Day.  Must be really horny, he won’t STFU.

  57. 57.

    Spanky

    @Ken: White Christmas. Not exactly a novelty song, but it was written for the movie Holiday Inn. So noveltyish.

  60. 60.

    kalakal

    I remember being wowed by the opening scene of the first, espescially the way the cinema rumbled as the enormous Star Destroyer fills the screen. Enjoyed the first 2 a lot, the rest were alright except episode 1 which was a huge let down.

    I enjoyed reading an interview with Lucas where he was asked if he took the Death Star attack from The Dambusters – there’s a load of bits on youtube where they swap the audio and video between the 2 films and they not only work, they practically lip sync – and he cheerfully said he could see why people thought that but no, he took it from 633 Squadron 

  61. 61.

    MagdaInBlack

    @TBone: My boss drives a red Silverado, and every day a cardinal comes to serenade/romance it.  Same time every day, so I’m quite sure its some sort of courting going on. At least that’s my take of the situation 😉

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    @kalakal

    There was a remake of Dambusters announced and (I think) at least partially made and shelved. The name of the canine mascot is an insoluble bridge too far, methinks.

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    @TBone: There was one right outside my window yesterday….. it was so loud and repetitive that I thought Mr. Suzanne had selected a new alert sound for his alarm.

    He slept through it….. how, I have no idea.

  67. 67.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I was twelve and my brother was six when the first movie came out. I think we may have bracketed the perfect ages to see it. It was incredible. I think some things have to be experienced with the eyes of child.*

    *Whatever your actual age.

  68. 68.

    TBone

    @Suzanne: loud and proud and irritating as hell – your man can sleep through anything!  Mine does too, had to wake him up in the middle of a tornado!

  73. 73.

    mrmoshpotato

    @TBone:

    Mine does too, had to wake him up in the middle of a tornado! 

    With the words, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”?

  75. 75.

    Suzanne

    @TBone: They’re loud, but I love them. The animals here are really entertaining.

    Did I tell y’all about the incident we had last year? SuzMom is the one who feeds the birds, and she keeps the seed in a container on the front porch. She had it in one of those heavy-duty plastic totes from Costco. Well, squirrels chewed through the lid. And they were amusing and I enjoyed watching them dive into the little hole they made. Until, one night, I was sitting out on the front porch, and I heard a rustling sound….. and this time, it wasn’t squirrels. It was two, big, beautiful, well-fed, healthy R A T S.

    SuzMom ordered a metal container with a locking lid the next day.

  77. 77.

    RevRick

    @Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: I suspect that the biblical solution to toenail fungus would be to never wear shoes and socks, but, call me corny, that would be rather callous.
    There is a biblical solution to jealous husbands, however. It’s found in Numbers 5:11-31, and involves the priests concocting a (supposed) abortifacient which the woman must take. The text hints this might be an elaborate goof, but then again, it might not be.

  78. 78.

    TBone

    @Suzanne: we had a huge bear take down our first bird feeder here. A welcome party of one in the driveway. My hubby was a bit startled when I got close up photos.  Rats are not as fun for pictures 🤣 I had a friend with a pet rat.  He was really cute in a very ugly way and very smart!

    I too cherish the parade of animals and birds we have here!

  83. 83.

    RevRick

    @Brachiator: My wife and I are unreconstructed Star Wars fans, having seen the movies and the Disney spinoffs, Andor, Ashoka, Boba Fett, The Mandalorian, and Obi Wan.
    Our son got addicted as a kid when we got stuck in a motel room, because he got sick the day we were supposed to visit Disney World, and Star Wars happened to be on TV. He’s read all the backstory novels that were then being generated. He decided he wanted to be an aerospace engineer, but gave up that ambition when he discovered engineering was “anal.”

  84. 84.

    kalakal

    @TBone: Pet rats are very cute and very smart. I knew a lot of psychology students who kept their lab rat and Leeds being Goth City in the 80’s meant pet rats were common. Ferrets make wonderful pets except for one thing – the smell. You can often tell a ferret owner before they walk into the room

  85. 85.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @TBone: We have at least one red fox in our very suburban neighborhood, and he’s been here for years so there must be enough wildlife around for him to survive on.

    The dog and I now run into him practically every night and he’s been getting more curious. Both the dog and the fox seem interested in making friends though the fox is still a little wary. I think that’s not a great idea much as I think it would be cool to befriend a fox, so I start making threatening noises when he gets too close.

  88. 88.

    Suzanne

    @TBone: The rats were cute, but they still freaked me out. I have zero interest in having them come visit me on my porch. But since she got that metal container, no more rat visits.

  90. 90.

    JML

    I still love some Star Wars. When it’s good, it’s a delight and even when it’s not it can be very very fun. I had to beg to go see Empire when it came out (Mom thought it would be too scary for young me), but I made it. They’ve made some mistakes with later films, but the first two are just outstanding space opera and there’s stuff to love in most of the rest. (I’m sure I loved the Ewoks as a kid, but they haven’t aged well; otherwise Jedi is pretty elite too.)

    Laser swords, space battles, snappy one-liners, memorable spaceships, great villains…it’s still great fun for me.

  93. 93.

    sab

    @Suzanne: We take in all the pets that the stepkids want to give up, so we of course got a pet rat. She was a real sweetie, very bright and very friendly, and always busy. I used to cut up blankets for her to build disposable nests.

  94. 94.

    Lyrebird

    @Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: Wasn’t aware of toenail fungus, but knew about the concerns with mildew in Leviticus.  Useful when stuck in a debate with a homophobe who wants you to get worked up about neighboring passages.  Betcha the bigot has mixed fiber clothing on at that moment and likely some mildew in their bathroom.

  95. 95.

    Layer8Problem

    I saw that first one at a gorgeous old theater in Clarksburg, West by God Virginia, when my family was visiting the maternal grandparents. My dad was enthralled, comparing it to the old serials of his youth. I being an overly critical Asimov/Heinlein-reading early teen thought “Cool, they finally put decent looking spaceships on screen and some of them are actually messy like you’d expect and it’s got excellent special effects (yeah, it was a simpler time) and I like Solo’s attitude and I saw that guy in /Bridge on the River Kwai/ on the 4:30 Movie, but what’s with the magic stuff and light sword things?”

    I’m given to understand that Mr. Lucas “improved” the special effects?

    @kalakal: The dog’s name has been an impediment to my watching The Dam Busters, not even for the small uncredited Patrick McGoohan bit. Glad to know the trench run was actually 633 Squadron.

  99. 99.

    Leto

    @Layer8Problem:

    I’m given to understand that Mr. Lucas “improved” the special effects?

    “Improved” is debatable. When he re-released the original three as the “Special Editions”, he, and his ILM team, basically went in and digitally cleaned up a lot of the special effects. Yes the visuals were better now, but it also lost some of it’s original charm. Ofc that was the least of the problems with the “Special Editions”. Hell, that was at least an official compilation of all the changes he’d continued to make since at least 1978. But ofc there’s still been more so it doesn’t really matter. I remember reading that people had finally found 1 og first theater run copy of the movie a few years ago, but haven’t really followed it/heard anything since.

  100. 100.

    Layer8Problem

    @Leto: Actually, the grandkids are up from the D of C and my partner had the brainstorm to take them out to see the first one of these things, cleverly named Episode 3, which an Art House in the next county up is showing. The kids are totally into it even though they’ve already seen it, because Big Screen. I myself am a Star Trek person with strong Original Series tendencies, but grandkids will get what they want because I love ’em and I want to see their reactions.

  101. 101.

    Tony Jay

    Peter Cushing was in Star Wars, and at no point did anyone involved in the production insist that he act out a gratuitous sexual assault on a co-star.

    QED – All is good.

  103. 103.

    Layer8Problem

    @Tony Jay:  My understanding is Ms. Fisher said he was totally a nice, gentlemanly guy when not acting eee-vil.

  104. 104.

    RevRick

    @Lyrebird: It’s interesting that the walls of a house can be described in the same way (mold), and the deeper issue is about healthy boundaries and how to keep them.

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    @Leto

    Statute of limitation having expired can say I still own a fuzzy pirated copy of the original version – from 1977. On a Betamax tape.

  108. 108.

    Tony Jay

    @Layer8Problem:

    He was. Genuinely and comprehensively one of the nicest people ever to grace a screen. Which is why that awful scene in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (which Hammer’s then producers insisted be shoehorned in for a bit of 70s-style ‘titillation’) so horrified Cushing that he insisted on taking Veronica Carlson out for dinner to properly apologise.

    Apparently Cushing, Chris Lee and Vincent Price were good friends and used to go out for meals together. Imagine walking into that restaurant.

  110. 110.

    kalakal

    @Tony Jay: I’ve always heard that Cushing was a really nice guy.

    I’ve always liked this one of a group of horror actors having a larf

    Price, Karloff, Rathbone, Lorre

    Imagine walking into that restaurant.

    Heh. Like the scene in Good Omens 2 where Beelzebub and Gabriel are having a drink in a pub. I’d hate to knocked over one of their pints

  111. 111.

    rikyrah

    I am a Star Wars fan

    Love the original 3.

     

    The first three Lucas made were awful, but had good moments. Never liked the pile on of hate towards Hayden Christensen. So glad he stayed in the acting game long enough for the kids who lived those three movies to grow up and show him their love. Great TikTok from last year, when he was doing press for the Obi -Won show on Disney Plus, and he came out to an ovation and an outpouring of love from the fans

    He was overwhelmed and moved to tears. 🥺🥺

  114. 114.

    rikyrah

    @rikyrah:

    New three?

     

    I was following them. Enjoyed the first two and just think the third one fell apart.

    Rogue One was the best new Star Wars movie that completely fit with the original 3

  115. 115.

    MomSense

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    We never forget in my family.  The campus ministry group my dad started when he went to his first church in Kent Ohio morphed into the anti-war movement there.  He was the CO advisor for Kent State. SDS met in our basement.  They were consensus based so the meetings lasted hours and hours.  My mom worked in the student affairs office and that is why the protests were peaceful until we moved to Texas and the administration went fucking nuts.

    My parents knew the students involved, knew the students who were killed, and we went back every summer.

  117. 117.

    H.E.Wolf

    *Millennium* Falcon.

    The other spelling is for bird owners who were born between 1981-1996. :)

  118. 118.

    Hamlet of Melnibone

    Loved the 1st three movies.  They will always be one of the best parts of my childhood.

    Didn’t like the prequels much.  Some of it was bad directing/writing, some of it was not being a kid, and some of it was that they were by definition dramatically sterile.  You know how it ends from the beginning.

    The recent trilogy was super frustrating.  The Force Awakens hit all the right notes.  They played it safe by essentially remaking A New Hope, trying to introduce a new group of characters to audiences.  I can’t blame them, and I think it got the job done.  The 2nd movie had some problems, but I was interested in where they were going with it.  Not my favorite, but hey, let’s see where this goes.  They got such hate about the 2nd movie that they completely changed direction and tacked on a final movie that absolutely made no sense after the 2nd movie.  It was “forgot all that, here’s a different stories ending.”  That last movie was just absolute garbage from a story standpoint.  It had a few cool scenes, but the plot was so bad and so not connected to the previous movies that it had to be miserable to have been involved in making it.  I feel bad for everyone involved.  They should have just gone ahead with what they had planned when they made the 2nd movie, whatever it was.  It couldn’t have been worse.

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Layer8Problem: The original effects from the 1977 cut of Star Wars largely still hold up. Sure, there are some places where you can see the seams.

    Samantha and I saw the Special Editions of the original trilogy when they first came out in 1997. I think the new effects Lucas added to Star Wars were the most jarring because they simply didn’t visually match the existing footage–too clean. They put in the famous deleted scene in which Han Solo meets Jabba the Hutt face to face, pasting in a really badly done CGI Jabba over the stand-in actor from the shoot–and frankly the scene never needed to be there in the first place. He’s gone back and tweaked the film some more in the years since then.

    Of the three, The Empire Strikes Back probably was damaged the least by the “Special Edition” treatment–I thought the changes there were subtler and largely constructive. They changed the whole ending of Return of the Jedi, replacing the little Ewok party with scenes of celebration across the galaxy, with a different score–and, again, I don’t think it was really necessary.

  120. 120.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Hamlet of Melnibone: I think that if they’d continued the story they were clearly setting up in The Last Jedi, that movie would be better-regarded today, much as The Empire Strikes Back only really seems like the crucial keystone of the original trilogy once you’ve seen the whole story. It’s a fine example of how you shouldn’t just pander to fan reactions–you’ll make worse art.

  121. 121.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: I think Christensen (and poor Jake Lloyd!) were ill-served by the directing and the dialogue. Lucas was able to make Samuel L. Jackson seem wooden on screen, which to me is a sign that you can’t really blame anything there on the actors.

  122. 122.

    kindness

    Loathed the first Star Wars movie?  Seems rather strong a reaction, eh?  I came in from the other side.  I thought it was fantastic.  A typical George Lucas fairytale set in some distant dystopian future that now sounds more and more like the 2020’s (than 1977, that’s for sure).

  123. 123.

    Hamlet of Melnibone

    @Matt McIrvin:

    They would have at least had the chance.  To me, the best part of the 2nd movie was after Kylo and Rey killed Snoke-

    You know who your parents were.  Say it..

    They threw that all away for a cheesy The Emperor is Back ending.  Just pointless.  It actually makes the original movies worse if you buy into it.

  124. 124.

    frosty

    Saw the first movie in theaters seven times. My take: it was brilliant. It was the first SF I can remember that successfully combined military hard SF (space and starfighters) and sword and sorcery (light sabers and The Force). Plus, all the hardware looked used and worn out instead of shiny and polished.

    Not bad for George Lucas’s third movie!

  125. 125.

    Matt McIrvin

    @kindness: When it came out it seemed like a breath of fresh air, a movie that intentionally looked back to old adventure serials in a genre whose big movies in the 1970s were mostly deadly serious in a bid for social relevance.

    And that kind of hides the fact of how dark the Star Wars universe is, seemingly locked in an endless cycle of rule by the power-mad and devastating war. Lucas was telling his fairy tale in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, and it shows. Scientific, technological and social progress all seem to have hit some kind of plateau thousands of years in the past of the films, and everything since then is just turning the crank. One thing I kind of hoped about the sequel trilogy was that it’d conclude by building on the angle of “the Force belongs to everyone” from The Last Jedi, leading to a true break in the status quo. But we didn’t really get that.

  129. 129.

    Marc

    There were four memorable first run movie events in my life: the initial Cinerama run of 2001 (my father was an actual rocket scientist and space nerd, he pointedly took the family to two lesser Cinerama movies to get us in practice to see 2001), the much anticipated first Star Wars movie with my college buddies, Blade Runner multiple times (and in all versions)  with those same buddies, and Godzilla Minus One both in color and minus color. [Actually five, now that I think of it, got to include She’s Gotta Have It]

    30 years ago I lived/worked in Marin County; it was not unusual to go to a random first run movie and see George Lucas sitting down by himself in the front row.  The man clearly loves movies. Our daughter works for Industrial Light & Magic (the special effects part of LucasFilm), I’ll admit that I totally geeked out when she invited us to a summer employee picnic at Skywalker Ranch.  And later geeked out again when she invited us to a screening of Godzilla Minus One (which I’d already seen) at the LucasFilm private theater in the SF Presidio, with the director Takashi Yamazaki doing a Q+A in Japanese afterwards (complete with his Godzilla boots and two Godzilla action toys).

  130. 130.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Marmot: A lot of literary science-fiction fans hated Star Wars because the story seemed so unsophisticated and retrograde, good-versus-evil derring-do stuff that they thought the genre had left behind in the 1930s. The film genre seemed to be trying its ham-fisted way to keep up with where print SF was going at the time, and here was a movie that just blatantly ignored that, and it was the hit of the century.

    They eventually made their peace with it because what followed was a huge science-fiction boom, and some of that wasn’t bad. Without Star Wars we don’t get Alien, or at least not with the budget it had. We don’t get the Star Trek movies or the TV revival either. But it was a shock.

  132. 132.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @kalakal: I loved The Dambusters movie when I was a kid. I had a major crush on Richard Todd. I have to say the dog’s name didn’t register with me as a kid. Now … (sigh). My future husband was astonished when we met in college (early 70s) and he discovered I was a fan.

    Saw the first Star Wars movie in my 20s with my future husband and we went back the next weekend and saw it again. Liked all the movies until Jar-jar Binks.

  133. 133.

    Soprano2

    I saw the original the second day it was in town when I was 16. I think that was the second day of the national release. We waited 2 hours in line to see it, and the theater was full at the 10 pm show. They stuck in an intermission, it was awkward. That first time was amazing because it was new and no one knew anything about it except some buzz in fanzines. In 1977 there was no internet to spoil everything. I don’t think anyone could have that experience with these movies now because it’s permeated the culture. It’s funny to see the horrified looks on kid’s faces when I tell them I had to wait two whole years between “Empire” and “Return of the Jedi”. 😅😅

    I bet I’ve seen the original over 100 times.

  134. 134.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tony Jay: Christopher Lee and Vincent Price both share my birthday (in different years of course)–and Cushing’s is the previous day.

    Price and Lee are the ones I mention. And Harlan Ellison, if I’m in the mood. We can ignore Henry Kissinger having the same birthday.

  136. 136.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: I felt like I was the last person on the continent to see Star Wars, since I didn’t go until late in the summer of ’77. Now I can brag about seeing it on original release.

    I remember the effect when the Millennium Falcon first jumped to hyperspace feeling so overwhelming I closed my eyes for a moment.

  137. 137.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: I think people today don’t understand how truly revolutionary the effects in the original were. Most sci-fi movies before it  looked cheesy and fake. Star Wars looked real, and that was a big change. That opening scene the first time…chills.

  138. 138.

    Tehanu

    My favorite story of seeing A New Hope is when it was re-released in theaters in, um, 1997 I think. Our son was a UCLA student and he and his friends actually had a rota for waiting in line at the Fox Westwood for tickets during almost a whole month. So when the big night came, the audience was us & our son and 1600 more cheering UCLA students, all of whom considered Star Wars as practically a religion — when I say “cheering,” I mean they cheered at practically everything, and recited the dialogue along with the actors. It was one of the most fun experiences we ever had at the movies.

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