6 Dumb Aspects Of The Original Star Wars Trilogy You Forgot

If you're a human being living in the year 2015, you're probably as excited as we are about Star Wars: The Force Awakens -- or as we call it, Star Wars 4: George Lucas Was Doing His Dishes Thousands Of Miles Away. As fans, we demand that Disney give us the same fuzzy-feeling, space operatic awesomeness of the original trilogy, and less of the brain-numbing, toy-shilling, candy-colored fever dream that was the prequels. Give us art, not a lollipop that forces you to French-kiss Jar Jar Binks.

The weird thing about this is that George Lucas' beloved OT was never meant to be seen as a great artistic achievement. Not until our collective nostalgic hive mind decided it had to be, anyway. In all of our fervor and excitement over Episode VII, we've forgotten that ...

#6. Star Wars Has Always Chosen Children Over Plot

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Almost everyone agrees that booting Lucas from the new movies is a good thing, because the guy who created Star Wars no longer knows what Star Wars is all about. He sold out, man.

With the prequels, he traded the integrity of the original trilogy for lowest-common-denominator crap that the kidlets would clap their Popsicle-stained mitts for. When the guy in charge says shit like "Jar Jar is the key to all of this," you can sadly conclude that the visionary has lost his vision, like so many other kindly old grandpas.

Except he didn't lose it, because that vision was always "keep children happy above all else."

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Except the ones who got this empty box for Christmas. They can go to hell.

Remember: The first (fourth) film wasn't intended as the opening (middle) of a grand epic. It was simply Not Flash Gordon, Wink Wink, a straight-ahead, good-over-evil standalone sci-fi flick meant to "give kids a sense of values." Lucas couldn't give less of a shit if 40-year-olds considered Yoda a great philosopher of the ages. And speaking of Yoda: He was never supposed to be in Return Of The Jedi. The only reason Lucas wrote him in was because he thought of the goddamn children. He regularly consulted child psychologists, one of whom strongly advised that an outside character confirm to Luke, "Yes, that dickhead who Lannister'd your hand really did sire you. Have fun at the reunion." Why? Because without the thumbs-up from a character they trust, kids under 12 would very likely have dismissed the plot twist as the bad guy being a lying asshole to the good guy.

Then there are these furry fucks:

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Do not Google "these furry fucks." You might get more Ewoks.

Go on, stare. Stare some more. MORE. AND REMEMBER FOREVER. Also, remember that Lucas had those guys close out his epic saga with a silly dance party because kids would like it. See, Jedi once had a much darker and more bittersweet finale. The Rebels win a pyrrhic victory, with the war destroying them almost beyond recognition. Leia's their new queen and barely knows what she's doing. Luke skulks off alone into the sunset, like Mad Max, if Max whined about everything. Han Solo gets off easy, because he's dead.

Then Lucas realized that kids hate death, love Han, love happy endings, and love fluffy things. So he gave them all those things, even going so far as to decree that no main characters bite it, because kids would be happier that way. And remember that even Empire, the darkest of the series, had a robotic Laurel and Hardy getting into hijinks, a groaning bear-man who pilots a spaceship, and Leia's ridiculous hairdo. If the new movies don't have something for your 10-year-old nephew to go nuts about, then you'll know Star Wars has truly sold out.

#5. The Original Trilogy Had More Blue Screens And Tricky Effects Than You Realize

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One of the biggest promises of the new movies is that they'll return Star Wars to the practical effects greatness of the original trilogy, as opposed to the lazy CGI dumps that were the prequels. The behind-the-scenes video makes it crystal clear that CGI shortcuts will be minimal, while practical, human artistry will rule the land with an iron fist (one made from real iron, probably). We mean, look at all the hard work they're putting into it:

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They were using a real Harrison Ford, too, but it got damaged and had to be retired.

Oh, those pics are all from the prequels, by the way.

Yep, those abominations featured way more models and practical sets than the OT. Revenge Of The Sith, for example, spent more money on miniature props than A New Hope spent on A New Hope. Conversely, the old movies had way more special effects, blue-screen character insertion, and disco-era computer manipulation than people tend to remember. Basically, if puppets and miniature models were best for the scene, Lucas used them ... but if they needed to paint a picture of the goddamn Death Star and later superimpose Alec Guinness so he could pull off the greatest performance he ever hated, he would do that. It was never a grand statement on the power of practicality -- it was always about getting the damn film done.

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Yes, they didn't even shoot this in the real Endor.

Just look at the Millennium Falcon. As the original trilogy progressed, the Falcon became less and less of a practical set, and more of a hodgepodge of unpractical bullshit. After destroying the first Falcon (a half-finished prop built into a wall, by the way), they made a second one, which ultimately cost too damn much to move around. So for many scenes (especially in Return Of The Jedi), what we saw was a matte painting of the Falcon, blue-screened into whatever scene they needed her to fly around in. If they had to choose between building a spaceship or going home early, home won.

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J.J. Abrams probably feels silly as shit for inventing warp travel just for the teaser.

Finally, we'll leave you with this: You know that story about how Ian McKellen cried while making The Hobbit because he was the only human actor on set? Mark Hamill felt similarly while stuck on a swamp set for Empire Strikes Back -- a movie he described as "nine months of torture." Turns out working with Muppets is about as soul-killing as working with digital dwarves.

#4. Lucas Was Changing These Films From The Very Start

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Further proof that Lucas hast lost all respect for his all creation is that, since the special editions in 1997, he's been tinkering with perfection. He added superfluous droids everywhere, slapped a goddamn CGI Jabba into the first movie for no reason, and turned Han Solo into a shot-second dinkus. The old Lucas would have never done any dramatic changes like that to his own creation ... except for changing the name of the whole movie four years after it came out. Behold, the original 1977 crawl your parents saw when not necking one another in the dark:

The first Star Wars was (bafflingly) called Star Wars until 1981, when Lucas realized this was a damn saga and retconned the title crawl to signify as such. And since he was re-releasing the movie and all, he took the opportunity to give give Chewbacca more growls and the stormtroopers more lines, and to make some changes to the dialogue -- something he started messing with as soon as the movie came out, when he changed Luke's essential line "Blast it, Biggs, where are you?" to "Blast it, Wedge, where are you?" for the mono release in 1977. Yes, this was the original "Han Shot First." Never forget.

Jamie Benning
The answer, of course, is "in our hearts."

But at least those changes added unimportant stuff, instead of doing the opposite. The Super 8 versions, on the other hand, were shamelessly edited down to 15 minutes or so to fit onto one reel. If your ideal version of Empire Strikes Back involves no Hoth, no carbonite, no explanation of Yoda, and no "I am your father," then sit back and enjoy the shitshow:

If we listed every moment of Lucasian micromanagement magic, you'd be reading this article until Episode IX: Psych, Anakin Drank Blue Milk And Hallucinated All This Shit. So if Abrams suddenly decides that the cross-shaped lightsaber was dumb and changes it on the Blu-ray, it'll be tradition.