[NGTM-1R]

You do realise that a major reason why the OT characters and plot seem so clichéd is cause everyone has been copying them for the last 35 years, right?

By those standards they should have been cliched at first blush, considering they were basically ripping 15 years of Japanese cinema.

[Phantom Hoover]

Romeo and Juliet was a direct adaptation of an existing poem and the archetypical myth is millennia old. A New Hope's characters aren't 'cliched' in the implied sense that they're lazy and uninteresting, they are explicit and deliberate invocations of archetypes. It was a better film than TFA, and both are far better than the prequels, because it played out the myth better: it made better use of those 'cliches' and the emotional hooks they represent.

[Luis Dias]

ANH is slow-paced. It suffers a first half an hour of boringnessness that we only get through because we still recall those first 30 seconds of the movie in our eyes and want to see more of that. Then it slowly picks up in Mos Eisley. The imperial dialogue (at the table) between the officers are great, they balance exposure of character, world building and intent with timing, and well paced. After the rescue of Leia, it's Yavin's battle, which was something never seen beforehand. So it's a slow-pacing crescendo. Great movie, no doubt. "Better" than TFA? Probably. It also has less threads to pick up, it builds upon a tabula rasa, so in the writing it was easier to do. TFA has to deal with a lot of baggage and get it right, while introducing new characters and their arcs. That's a lot harder.

[StarSlayer]

I dunno, I think the early part of ANH has some great scenes and serves an important purpose in the Hero's Journey^tm.  For one thing Binary Sunset is one of the most iconic scenes in film, but even just the segment where the Jawas sell the droids is really well put together.  The Jawas running around making last minute adjustments to the crap they've salvaged, coaxing the droids into line and haggling with Uncle Owen.  It's a just a way to transition the droids to Luke but its so much more naturally shot and composed than most scenes in the prequels.   None of "downtime" shots in the prequels did the same.  Instead of taking the opportunity to let the viewer connect to the setting they just serve as CGI backdrop for walking and talking.

This segment of ANH establishes the "Ordinary World," the place where Luke starts his journey from, a living breathing world the viewer can connect to.  I think it does a great job of it, and the film would have been lesser without, the prequels certainly were.  I never gave a **** about the setting in them.

[Luis Dias]

I didn't say those scenes were unnecessary, only that they are boring, slow paced as hell. The slow-pacedness was even bigger before some scenes were cut (Luke hanging out with a friend of his who joins him later at Yavin), but even still we have to endure all these 30 minutes before anything exciting happens at all. When Lucas previewed his film to some of his colleagues, they pointed this as a major flaw of the movie and why it wouldn't fare well in the tickets. Spielberg had a different opinion, he thought this movie was going to rock the entire world, and he was right of course.

[Phantom Hoover]

And that latter fact should probably be a hint to you that you're missing the point by calling that material 'boring'.

[Luis Dias]

It would be if my "point" was that ANH was a "bad movie" that would fare badly at theaters. Where did I say that, Hoover? My point was merely to say that ANH is far from perfect and justify it with an example. That it still rocked the world despite its flaws is besides the point, or rather, it is my other point: Star Wars movies don't need to be perfect to be appreciated. Thus, TFA also does not need to be perfect in every sense to be perfect.

Do you understand?

[Akalabeth Angel]

I didn't say those scenes were unnecessary, only that they are boring, slow paced as hell. The slow-pacedness was even bigger before some scenes were cut (Luke hanging out with a friend of his who joins him later at Yavin), but even still we have to endure all these 30 minutes before anything exciting happens at all. When Lucas previewed his film to some of his colleagues, they pointed this as a major flaw of the movie and why it wouldn't fare well in the tickets. Spielberg had a different opinion, he thought this movie was going to rock the entire world, and he was right of course.

Older movies were typically slower paced then the ADD-style media of today. I recall the plinkett reviews playing a documentary clip saying that the original Star Wars edit was a "disaster" and the movie was recut to the theatrical release.  Maybe this is what you're thinking of when you say his colleagues didn't like it.

[Luis Dias]

The editing process was hellish, for sure. I was specifically talking about the "boringnessness" of the first act, which was even worse in the first few edits.

Lucas was terrible at many things. There's a Google Talk with someone who spoke about some peculiarities in the process of making ANH, and just the editing of the very first seconds (even the FOX fanfare), were themes of enormous discussion and rewriting.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Mmmm. Well saying a movie is "boring" is ultimately subjective.
I've never found the first half of ANH boring. What I have found boring is the middle hour of TESB. But that movie is most people's favorite.

I think one's attachment to any particular movie is as much a result of when that person experienced it as it is the movie's quality.

[StarSlayer]

I certainly agree the original trilogy wasn't perfect, but I really never considered the the Tattoine arc boring or overlong.  The starting point for Luke's journey was established and there was a lot of visual interest along the way, be it the world encompassing desert with its massive skeletons, the binary sunset, the sand people and the jawas.  Tattoine felt like a real place because of the pacing. 

They could have had the escape pod crashing in the middle of the moisture farm chased by Imperial dropships and Luke having some wild escape on his landspeeder but that would have been some Michael Bay ****.  A film needs room to breathe, real life isn't one action set piece after another.  Each world was given enough time to establish itself, Hoth would not have had the frigid impact it did if Luke and Han didn't have the Wompa Attack/Taun Taun Sleeping bag segment.

[Luis Dias]

I agree with that "room to breathe" comment. The movie paces itself in a crescendo. That's fine, it's an artistic choice. But what it means is that the first act is veery slow for a SPACE ADVENTURE! movie. You look at those droids going around in the desert and sighing... It wouldn't survive 2016's audiences.

Mind you, I am judging "boringnessness" by the standards of the overall SW movies. I'm a big fan of other "boring" movies (like, ah, ST: The Motion Picture, 2001, etc.). I've also seen this comment about the second act of ESB also being "Boring". I have to review the movie again. I've seen the first one just two weeks ago to show it to my kid (who just had seen TFA on the theaters), so I could go like "This is the guy who appears at the very end", and "This is Han Solo" "Waaaaaa, that young man is Solo?", ahaha, that was hilarious. Now tomorrow night we'll do ESB and I'll test its boringness.

[Droid803]

It wouldn't survive 2016's audiences.

That's a problem with 2016 audiences, who are completely willing to stomach shoddy plot and pacing for MoreExplosions™.
If the only way to keep these audiences not-Bored is to not even tell a story and present an uninterrupted chain of pyrotechnics and special effects, does that actually make a good movie?

I posit it does not, from an artistic standpoint at least. It conveys no meaning, it becomes merely something to be consumed.

[StarSlayer]

That's more an indictment of 2016 audiences than a problem with A New Hope, as a kid I did not find the arc boring and heck I had ADHD at the time.  I pop on ANH VHS format every summer at the cottage on a 40 year old CRT, I appreciate all the little nuances of the sets and how well it was put together even more as an adult.  Really watch the whole Jawa sales scene; its better shot, composed and believable than the majority of the scenes in the prequels.

Besides Tatoonie isn't meant to be a rollicking fun place, its the start of the Hero's Journey.  They farm moisture and Luke's big thrill is to go get power converters at Toshi Station.  Its supposed to portray a desolate farmboy existence that gets swept up when greater events fall from orbit.

Plus Star Wars' roots are in older materiel now set in space ie Hidden Fortress.

[karajorma]

I agree with that "room to breathe" comment. The movie paces itself in a crescendo. That's fine, it's an artistic choice. But what it means is that the first act is veery slow for a SPACE ADVENTURE! movie. You look at those droids going around in the desert and sighing... It wouldn't survive 2016's audiences.

And as I pointed out earlier, TFA wouldn't survive a 1977 audience either. They'd find it horribly confusing because there's no exposition and the entire film moves at a breakneck speed that we can only stand because of decades of conditioning.

I've continually pointed out that comparing them in the way you are doing is horribly unfair and the only way to make a fair comparison on those grounds is to either look at them as products of their time or to wait another 30 years.


But in the end, I'm going to say that I've never once found the stuff with Luke on Tatooine boring. And if modern audiences do, I'm quite happy to retire to the rocking chair on my porch and complain about how kids today don't understand a good film.

You do realise that a major reason why the OT characters and plot seem so clichéd is cause everyone has been copying them for the last 35 years, right?

By those standards they should have been cliched at first blush, considering they were basically ripping 15 years of Japanese cinema.

Cause Japanese cinema was hugely popular and well known outside Japan at the time.

I'd actually love to know what percentage of people who have watched Hidden Fortress are actually Star Wars fans who only watched after hearing it's the film ANH is based on. I suspect it's actually a huge percentage of the non-Japanese viewers.

[StarSlayer]

I mean c'mon

Rey in her pilot helm was super cute but Luke's got double sunset all the way across the sky! So intense!

[NGTM-1R]

Cause Japanese cinema was hugely popular and well known outside Japan at the time.

Kurosawa was actually pretty popular and well-known in America, considering everyone was knocking him off for eternity.

[Luis Dias]

Confusing a criticism of "boringnessness" with a push for Michael Bay's X-plosion "void horror" is a terrible strawman that I'm not chewing up, sorry. If you personally didn't mind it, fine. To say that a 5 second scene saves 20-30 minutes of slow-paced "where is this going" desert story is a damned stretch.

Of course I liked that scene. Another powerful musical scene that I happen to adore is the very last 20 seconds of ESB. Gives me goosegumps even today.

[Phantom Hoover]

It's at the stage where it seems like you're being almost wilfully ignorant of the monomyth structure that Star Wars was built around. How do you have the hero awakened from his mundane existence if your audience don't have the patience to watch thirty ****ing minutes depicting that process? I guess your ideal version of New Hope just has Luke find the droids and immediately start shooting?

[Luis Dias]

There goes the Michael Bay strawman I was complaining about. It's like I'm talking chinese.