Star Wars IV: A New Hope compared to Star Wars I: Phantom Menace

[rah]

It was your typical western just set in space.

[DaShi]

You mean your typical samurai movie set in space.

[Hauldren Collider]

Yeah. Especially lines like these:

Actually I thought the strongest lines were in the little imperial meetings like on the death star and pretty much any scene with Darth Vader.

[Lorizael]

I was being sarcastic. But if we want to go that route:

LEIA: Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding
Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on
board.

TARKIN: Charming to the last. You don't know how hard I found it
signing the order to terminate your life!

LEIA: I'm surprised you had the courage to take the responsibility
yourself!

TARKIN: Princess Leia, before your execution I would like you to be my
guest at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No
star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.

LEIA: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems
will slip through your fingers.


Ugggggghhhh. I like Tarkin, but this witty banter is anything but. I'm an unabashed Star Wars fans, but there's some pretty ****ing cheesy dialogue in the originals.

[Lorizael]

You mean your typical samurai movie set in space.

That's the great thing about Star Wars. It invented a new genre: the samurai space western.

[DaShi]

[MikeH]

The original is a classic fairy tale/western set in space filled with classic character archetypes which genuinely broke new ground in special effects.

Ep 1 is a bizarre almost nonsensical story that doesn't fit with the established story, with a lot of CGI.

They both have cheesy dialogue and wooden acting, but Episode 1 doesn't have charismatic scene stealers of the calibre of Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing.

[Hauldren Collider]

In episode 2 they threw in ****ing Samuel L. Jackson and STILL managed to make it suck. That is an accomplishment.

[Lorizael]

...and Peter Cushing.

You Brits are really okay with having an entire island full of villains?

[Kuciwalker]

The British have always been villains. That's why they raped Africa and Asia and started both World Wars.

[Hauldren Collider]

[Imran Siddiqui]

To be honest, in the original "Star Wars" (Ep 4), Darth Vader wasn't nearly as scary as in "Empire Strikes Back". Both him and Obi-Won were ridiculously wooden in their lightsaber battle. Though the choking was kickass, it wasn't until "Empire" until Vader really lived up to his frightening villain-ness.

[Ben Kenobi]

Wow, Plomp. Ben Kenobi was just plain amazing.

[Wiglaf]

Even Obi Wan hated A New Hope.

Guinness's role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, beginning in 1977, brought him worldwide recognition by a new generation, as well as Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. In letters to his friends, Guinness described the film as "fairy tale rubbish," but the movie's sense of moral good – and the studio's doubling of his initial salary offer – appealed to him, and he signed on.[16] He was one of the few cast members who believed that the film would be a box office hit; he negotiated a deal for 2% of the gross royalties paid to the director, George Lucas, who received one fifth of the box office takings. This made him very wealthy in his later life, and he agreed to take the part of Kenobi on the condition that he would not have to do any publicity to promote the film. Upon his first viewing of the film, Guinness wrote in his diary that "It's a pretty staggering film as spectacle and technically brilliant. Exciting, very noisy and warm-hearted. The battle scenes at the end go on for five minutes too long, I feel, and some of the dialogue is excruciating and much of it is lost in noise, but it remains a vivid experience."[17]

Despite these rewards, Guinness soon became unhappy with being identified with the part, and expressed dismay at the fan-following that the Star Wars trilogy attracted. In the DVD commentary of the original Star Wars, director George Lucas says that Guinness was not happy with the script re-write in which Obi-Wan is killed. However, Guinness said in a 1999 interview that it was actually his idea to kill off Obi-Wan, persuading Lucas that it would make him a stronger character, and that Lucas agreed to the idea. Guinness stated in the interview, "What I didn't tell Lucas was that I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo." He went on to say that he "shrivelled up" every time Star Wars was mentioned to him.[18]

In the final volume of the book A Positively Final Appearance (1997), Guinness recounts grudgingly giving an autograph to a young fan who claimed to have watched Star Wars over 100 times, on the condition that the boy promise to stop watching the film, because, as Guinness told him, "this is going to be an ill effect on your life." The fan was stunned at first, but later thanked him (though some sources say it went differently). Guinness is quoted as saying: "'Well,' I said, 'do you think you could promise never to see Star Wars again?' He burst into tears. His mother drew herself up to an immense height. 'What a dreadful thing to say to a child!' she barked, and dragged the poor kid away. Maybe she was right but I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities."

[Docfeelgood]