Immediately struck by the way just looking like a movie made in the mid-70s kind of transforms this? The grain, the seams, no modern polish.

"There's no life-forms. It must've short-circuited."

I feel like these guys should know about droids.

"Darth Vader. Only you could be so bold."

Trying not to let my knowledge of the future paint all this too much. Vader here is a cool asshole in black. They have an existing dynamic, but he's not her dad, he's not Anakin Skywalker.

No stupid CGI rock for R2 to hide behind in a bit. (This is the one bit I do agree is braindead.)
Maybe it's just that it's been a while, but fuck, this rules.
Fucking love a Gonk droid. Gonk.
Hey, it's the voice of the Joker as a farm boy.
Threepio gets dipped.

"Well, if there's a bright centre of the universe, you're on the planet it's farthest from."

i dunno, pretty bright outside

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."

you might want a fresh hope

There's clearly /something/ going on with Artoo and Threepio's memories. That Threepio got reset and Artoo didn't does feel real here.

"Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him."
"That's what I'm afraid of."

earnestly catching myself wondering who his dad was

Fuzzy under the speeder where they're covering up the wheels. Lovely to see.

"Hello there."

oh it's just old ben the local wizard

"Obi-Wan Kenobi? Obi-Wan. Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time."

a long time ago before this long time ago

"I haven't gone by the name Obi-Wan since, oh, before you were born."

*considers* I don't think that adds up.

But the way Alec Guiness says it, what a life implied.

"I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid."

droid rights activist Obi-Wan doesn't believe in owning people

"No, my father didn't fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a spice freighter."
"That's what your uncle told you. He didn't hold with your father's ideals. Thought he should've stayed here and not gotten involved."

Luke's dad was a hero who stood for something, fought for something. Ran away from Tatooine to do it.

"You fought in the Clone Wars?"
"Yes. I was once a Jedi knight, the same as your father."
"I wish I'd known him."
"He was the best starpilot in the galaxy... and a cunning warrior."

a rich fucking text

the words "the Clone Wars" alone

"Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damn-fool idealistic crusade, like your father did."

Luke's dad was friends with Obi-Wan. They stood for something together. Ran away together.

"A more elegant weapon, for a more civilized age."

*points at the podcast*

"How did my father die?"
"A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force."
"The Force?"

it's all telling instead of showing and still it rules

"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together."

that's so truly all you need

The princess in her time of need sending a message to the brave old knight she knows will come and save her from the dragon.
Love all these 1970s-ass British actors in the Empire. If you were making this today Jared Harris would be one of them.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

this Darth Vader guy has been reading the wrong kinds of manager advice books

The first massacre in Star Wars is of the Jawas, but their plight is only a cue to Luke to hurry back home to find the massacre we care about.

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's deaths are really just so horrible. Completely incinerated. Nothing left of them but bones. Total overkill.

Luke, I think this guy Vader your dad used to hang with might be bad fuckin' news.

"There's nothing here for me now."

honestly there barely was anything here for Luke when Owen and Beru /were/ alive.

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."

it's just a little town with a bar. you see that meeting room on the Star Destroyer?

This does so much more with a dozen concrete domes in Tunisia than anything made today ever does.
Love me some jizz. Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes' "Mad About Me," a great jizz classic.
The Cantina is, of course, great stuff. A pile-up of 70s-looking dudes and also there's a Satan and a Wolfman.
*points at Bossk* look, it's a space suit from Doctor Who story "The Tenth Planet."
Obi-Wan immediately hacks a man's whole arm off over very little. He's a paranoid, touchy type of guy.

"Han Solo. I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to the Alderaan system."
"Yes. If it's a fast ship."
"Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?"

lmao han is so full of shit

"It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs."

the fullest of the shittest

hey, it's my good friend Greedo
and that's a wrap on Greedo
Han was right to shoot him. Greedo would absolutely have killed him if he hadn't.

*rewinds* oh huh

no actual frames of Han shooting, say, first here huh

Not even any frames of Greedo shooting at all — Han doesn't shoot first, he's only one to shoot!!
whole "Han shot first" thing blown wide fuckin open

"The door's locked. Move on to the next one."

well if the door is locked there's clearly no way the droids we're looking for are behind it

and that's a wrap on the people of Alderaan

"Our position's correct, except no Alderaan."

crushing

The closest equivalent to what Vader feels like here in the later movies is, like, Captain Phasma. An armour, a voice, a threat. All implication.

"Your destiny lies along a different path from mine."

Obi-Wan knows which one of them is the face of the franchise and which one of them is here to pay for their new house.

"She's rich."
"Rich?"

yeah, Leia's got a lot of cash in the First Bank of Alderaan, you can see it float by now

"I can't see a thing in this helmet."

you know, he really is a little short for a stormtrooper

just a good ol' goofy sci-fi laser gun fight

"I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you!"

wahoo

"The Jedi are extinct. Their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that's left of their religion."

always loved the idea, see also Qui-Gonn in Phantom Menace, with his silly fringe ideas about midichlorians, of the Jedi not as this great galactic peacekeeping force but just a weird, if influential, cult

"Escape is not his plan. I must face him alone."

Obi-Wan's plan is clearly to die so as to be Luke's, well, uh, Uncle Ben, making him the hero of the story

you'd think they'd go further down this tunnel but they can't because it's a matte painting
all three of them are idiots on their own, but together, Luke, Han, and Lei have just enough brain cells to be the scrappy heroes this story needs

"If you hurry, you might catch them!"

you barely need a jedi mind trick to mind trick a stormtrooper

Artoo hacking da computer wall with his droid penis.

"Listen to them, they're dying, R2!"

Threepio is so funny.

"If we can just avoid any more female advice, we ought to be able to get outta here."

han shut the fuck up

"I don't know who you are or where you came from..."

because none of that matters, because what matters is that he's here, right now, doing the right thing even though he doesn't want to

@Alexis why would you type this
@The_T To accurately describe the motion picture I'm watching?
@Alexis it always struck me how A New Hope does feel like an incomplete story. It is an origin story for Luke in every conceivable way. And then it ends.
@Alexis THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN MY RESPONSE TO THE "HAN SHOT FIRST" FOOLS!
@SKleefeld THE WHOLE ARGUMENT TURNS OUT TO BE BOGUS FOR BOZOS, WHAT A CROCK!