20 Movies: Star Wars

After the Death Star plans are stolen by rebel spies, Imperial forces—under the command of Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith—arrest Aldaraanian Princess and Galactic Senator Leia Organa on suspicion of being part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Having hidden the plans in a pair of droids, C-3PO and R2-D2, then launching them off her ship in an escape pod just before she was overtaken, Leia draws the former Republic General and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi out of hiding with her plea for help. Obi-Wan enlists a local moisture farmer, Luke Skywalker, and hires Han Solo, pilot, smuggler, and captain of the Millennium Falcon, along with his Wookie First Mate, Chewbacca, to help him save the princess, deliver the plans to the Rebel Alliance, and restore freedom and justice to the Galaxy.

Just fyi, this is not my first time seeing this movie...

I'm posting this because there’s this thing happening on Bluesky–which, if you're not familiar because you're not terminally online, it’s one of the Nazi-free replacements for Twitter–and the thing happening is just a basic social media trend-game. The idea is you choose 20 movies that greatly influenced you, and then you post the poster of each one, one per day, for 20 days. No reviews, no explanations, just posters.

So, I’m doing that.

I was just going to leave it at that, but a lot of filmheads are doing it too, and one thing I’ve noticed–and this shouldn’t surprise me, as I've worked in theatres, video stores, and comic shops forever–is that a lot of the movie-head lists seem… a little suspect. A lot of these lists seem to be filled with the most prestigious films by the most esteemed filmmakers, the most obscure and the artiest, the ones that are the hardest to have seen (at least, before streaming). It’s just the usual scenester-nerd bullshit, and it's nothing new. Whether we're talking about movies, comics, music, whatever, this is just another version of that same old, common-as-the-rising-sun, hipster-collector game of name-dropping one-upmanship, where instead of maybe spending some time considering the actual question, they were all too busy trying to craft what they assume will be the most impressive list they cold possibly pull out of their ass, a carefully cultivated collection of the "coolest" films, all for some imaginary "cool" reader to see, who will read it and then go "this guy is cool" or something. The pursuit of "Nerd Cred” is the nerdiest fucking thing an uber-nerd can do. “Ooooooh, was your love of film inspired by Au hasard Balthazar? Was it a chance viewing of The Holy Mountain that originally lead to your love of film? Was it Un Chien Andalou that greatly influenced you the most? Was it? That's so cool.”

Fucking nerds.

So, being that I'm a spite-filled contrarian nerd with very little love for my fellow nerds and their stupid bullshit, I decided to expound on my choices. And why not? I have this blog-thingy after all, and it's a free country... at least for now. Besides, I’m pretty sure I actually know everyone who might actually read this thing, and I’m pretty sure they know how cool I really am…

Anyway… with my list, I was deliberately trying to make it a list of films that opened my mind, the first ones of a particular group/style, the ones that greatly impacted my tastes, the ones that fostered my love of movies in general, and the ones that ultimately led to me seeking out a lot of those same obscure, arty, and highly regarded films that these other fucking asshats are all putting on their lists in the vain, silly, and stupid hope of impressing… someone?

...so dumb.

Anyway, my own list is very basic, and I wanted to rewatch them all, then talk about them, even though every single one of them is a stone cold classic that you’re all probably very familiar with, and also probably not all that surprising either, if you know me. And really, if you do know me, then what other film could possibly occupy the first spot, the number one place out of twenty, than the one film that started it all for me?

Technically, the full title is now Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope, but fuck that, it'll always just be Star Wars to me.

And like a lot of nerds out there, Star Wars has always been a big part of my life. I first saw it in the theatre when I was maybe three or four. I even saw it at a Drive-in once back then. At least once. After that, that was it. I was all in. Honestly, if you were to bore deep, deep down (or maybe not all that deep, maybe it's obvious), but whatever, if you bore deep down in me and the things I like, when you finally hit the foundation of my tastes, as cliche as it may be, Star Wars will be there waiting for you, because this is the movie that first blew open the doors in my head.

I’ve written about this before.

Star Wars is a fairy tale in space, a raygun fantasy, a story of myth and legend. A space opera inspired by pulp fiction novels, comic books, and matinee serial films, by westerns and samurai epics and 1950s hot rods, by the Nazis in World War 2, as well as the Viet Cong in Vietnam. It’s pure entertainment, direct, simple, thrilling, and exhilarating, but in 1977, it wasn’t an easy sell, even for the wunderkind of the New Hollywood scene, its early versions finding little support even among Lucas's famous group of Young Turk director friends and filmmakers. Now, of course, it’s a mega-brand, a money-making machine, a ubiquitous part of our culture, the kind of thing where even if you don’t know it, you still know it. Much like The Force, it surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

So, yeah, I'm sure you know the story, just like you know the main players too, so I’ll try to make this quick.

Luke Skywalker

Hidden away on the desert planet Tatooine as an infant, and raised by simple moisture farmers to protect him from his family’s legacy, Luke is a whiny little small town brat. He chafes at the bonds his Uncle Owen has put on him by tying him down to the family farm, because he can clearly see the dead-end future lying before him in this backwater small town he was raised in, on this backwater planet he's stuck on. Even though he's a gifted pilot, who dreams of seeing the galaxy, it's becoming more and more clear to Luke that... he's going nowhere. Originally called “Starkiller” in early versions of the story, it was changed to "Skywalker" after the Manson gang became known as “star killers" in the press, and there's no reason to taint your hero right out of the gate, right? Luke is that hero, the main guy, not just the one who destroys the Death Star, but the one who is destined to cause balance to be restored to the Force, to be the last Jedi. His mistakes, his fear, his anger, and his rash actions, as well as his strength and wisdom, not to mention his willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of others, will come to reshape the galaxy multiple times. He is THE Hero. Despite this, he’s mostly known for once making out with his sister, and then being real smug about it.

Princess Leia Organa

Speaking of incest… Leia Organa is a princess of the planet Alderaan, a member of the Imperial Senate, and an agent of the Rebel Alliance. Due to her quick thinking, Darth Vader is unable to find the stolen Death Star plans, which allows the Rebels to destroy the Empire’s vaunted new super weapon, and thus, turn the tide in their fight against the iron fist of the Emperor. It’s said that Leia never misses any time she takes a shot in the Star Wars films, but that’s not true. What is true is that she is sass personified, as cold as ice, as hard as stone, and as warm as the sun. Leia watched her home, her family, her people, and her entire world be obliterated right in front of her. She watched as everything and everyone that she's ever known and loved scream out in sudden terror and then be suddenly silenced, so she fights the Empire's oppressive boot, and also... she dares to love. In the earliest versions, she first appeared as Luke’s cousin, the daughter of Luke’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, which probably meant there was a lot more making out going on between her and Luke originally than we ended up seeing in the final version. Either way, that gold bikini left a very large impression on an entire generation.

Han Solo and Chewbacca

There is no love quiet like the love between a man and his faithful dog, especially when that man is a sauve Corellian pirate, and that dog is a 7 1/2 foot Wookie who doesn’t wear pants, and has a reputation for severely maiming his opponents when he loses at a board game, a reputation he is clearly very proud of. Wookies speak in a series of barks and growls. Han Solo can also speak this language, but he doesn’t because he thinks that it makes him sound stupid, which is… really mean, and very disrespectful, right? Wookies are sentient creatures. They have feelings. They have a whole culture. They celebrate Life Day, for god’s sake. Luckily, Chewbacca is Wookie of his word. Because Han saved his life, Chewbacca is sworn to be Han’s slave forever, so he puts up with the disrespect, even though it means leaving his family behind on his home planet of Kashyyyk, dooming his young son to grow up without a father. And why? So he can hang out with a smuggler who isn’t very good at his job, and as a result, has not only saddled them both with a huge debt owed to some pretty shady characters, but a Death Mark too, which is not an easy thing to live with. Chewbacca was originally bug-eyed, bald, and purple before they settled on being a walking carpet, and Han, meanwhile, was intended to appear as a green skinned alien with gills and no nose. I assume that Lucas changed his mind when he saw how incredibly handsome and charismatic Harrison Ford was.

C-3P0 and R2-D2

Based off the female robot from Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis, and originally intended to sound like an oily New York City used-car salesman before they finally landed on a neurotic English butler, C-3PO (or See-Threepio) is a protocol droid designed to specialize in diplomacy, etiquette, and translation. He is fluent in over six million forms of communication. A prissy, irritating, and somewhat cowardly know-it-all, he never misses a chance to share a snide little aside or a pessimistic observation. R2-D2 is an astromech unit, a versatile utility droid generally used for maintenance and repair, and possessing a variety of tools and appendages for that purpose. R2 units also often act as the navigational system for smaller starships, calculating the jump to lightspeed, and even assisting in piloting. His name having originated from some film editing shorthand for Reel 2, Dialog Track 2, R2-D2 is a loudmouth little son of a bitch who says exactly what’s on his mind, usually with a fuckton of swearing, which is why everything he says is beeped out. Appearing in every single Star Wars movie, and most of the shows, it quickly becomes clear that these two are the real stars of the Skywalker Saga, the real heroes of the story, and I can only assume they were denied this role at the 11th hour, because Hollywood simply wasn’t willing to feature a long-time gay couple in a committed relationship so prominently.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi is a hermit with a deep love of cutting off limbs with his laser sword, something that he considers to be very elegant and civilized, and also for not quite lying, at least from a certain point of view, but more… stretching the truth a bit. He lives alone out on the edge of the Dune Sea on the planet Tatooine, so he hasn’t heard his own name in a very long time. With the exception of one trip to save a toddler from Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea, an adventure that really should have turned out better than it did, he hasn't left Tatooine in nearly twenty years. For a long time, Young Luke probably thought of Old Ben as as weird pervert or something, always lurking around, trying to give Luke random little trinkets, or models of T-16 Skyhoppers, candy too, most likely, always saying weird shit like "You want me to show you The Force, kid?" or something like that, Luke was probably running away in little kid terror by that point, so he never quite heard what the old man said clearly. His Uncle Owen always told Luke that he needed to stay away from that crazy old man, because he's dangerous, so he did. But as the years passed, Luke stopped caring about that shit. After all, he’s a big boy now, ready to join the Imperial Academy, and besides, he’s busy, he’s got places to be, those Tosche Station power converters aren't going to pick themselves up. Not to mention the fact that those dirty little Jawas probably stole these new droids that his Uncle Owen just bought from Ben, because that’s what they do, y’know, these Jawas, they come to town, no respect for the people who already live there, taking jobs from the locals, stealing anything that isn’t nailed down, they’re nothing but smelly little dessert rats, drains on society and the good people of Tatooine, and that’s why you vote Palpatine, because the Empire knows how to deal with aliens. BUT… it turns out, as a few others had also learned over the years, that Uncle Owen was lying to Luke. Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn't just some old creepy desert hermit, he was a Jedi Master, a man whose mistakes doomed the galaxy to horror and bloodshed. And to atone for his failures, he hadn't been in hiding, he had been on active guard duty, a self-imposed exile on the ass-end of the galaxy, protecting the most important thing in the entire galaxy, the chosen one, the one who will cause balance to return to the Force, the one who will save the entire galaxy on multiple occasions. This is his sacred duty, something that Obi-Wan Kenobi is willing to sacrifice everything for.

Darth Vader

An inspiration to asthmatics everywhere, Darth Vader loves two things... murdering large groups of people, and choking people from a distance. Once known as Anakin Skywalker, he is Luke's father (spoiler), and once you know that, you can clearly the likeness as Luke is a whiny bitch too sometimes. Having been a slave on the planet Tatooine, a planet that claims to be an unimportant backwater on the Outer Rim of the Galaxy, but in actuality seems to be the center of the god damn universe, Anakin grew up with a deep hatred for sand and the way it gets everywhere. He was also a real shitty boyfriend to Padme, who honestly deserved better. Obi-Wan was supposed to train him to be a Jedi, and for the most part, he completely failed, but for a time, Anakin truly was the greatest Jedi of all, a hero of the Clone Wars–which was a war fought with clones, not over the act of cloning, as older fans were long led to believe. And while Anakin did do a lot of bad shit, like his various hairdos, he did train the awesome Ahsoka Tano as his padawan, so that's a pretty big plus. But yeah, he was definitely a bit of an edgelord incel little fuckboi too, not to mention a dumbass, as he was manipulated by the most obvious bad guy ever (the Star Wars version of Trump) into becoming even more of a huge D-bag, and as a result, he and Obi-Wan had a bit of a falling out, during which Anakin lost his right leg, his left leg, his right arm, and was also burnt to a crisp, all of which he was understandably a little salty about, even though it was totally his own fault, so he became the scourge of the galaxy, the man in black, the big helmet himself, the fearsome Dark Lord of the Sith himself... Darth Vader.

So...

While it's true that the destruction of the Empire can be traced directly to the actions of both Kravas Drezzer and Verlo Skiff, two crooked asshole rent-a-cops in the employ of the Consolidated Holdings of the Preox-Morlana Corporation, who were stationed on Morlana One, located in the Morlani System of the Free Trade Sector, when they drunkenly decided to shake down a complete nobody by the name of Cassian Andor, forcing him to kill both of them. This was the moment that set Cassian on the path to becoming an Intelligence Officer, spy, commando, and assassin in the Rebel Alliance, where he would eventually lead the raid that successfully steals the Death Star plans, an action that not only resulted in the first victory for the Rebel Alliance in the battle above the planet Skariff, but also to the destruction of the Death Star, the moment that marked the beginning of the end of the Galactic Empire...

...This film also shows us that there were three specific people who could have saved the Empire, breaking the Rebellion completely, if not for their monumental incompetence, as well as their all-around terrible job performance.

The first of course is Gunnery Captain Bolvan. Bolvan was stationed aboard Vader's personal Imperial Star Destroyer, Devastator, when it captured Senator Organa's CR90 corvette, Tantive IV, and when an escape pod was jettisoned from the ship, carrying R2-D2, C-3PO, and Death Star plans down to Tatooine–where they would eventually enlist the main people largely responsible for destroying the Empire–Captain Bolvan ordered Lieutenant Hija not to fire on the escape pod, assuring the young Lieutenant that, since there were no life signs aboard it, it must have launched as a result of a glitch.

Despite living in a galaxy that is chock full of sentient robots, for some reason it never occured to Captain Bolvan that there might be some droids in that escape pod who are just… holding the Death Star plans. It also apparently never occured to him that the Death Star plans could have maybe just been... placed inside of the escape pod, which was then launched with the idea that it would be collected later. I mean, pull it in on a tractor beam at least, just to be sure! These plans are very important, Captain! It's not a very good commentary on the general quality of the command cadre in the Empire. Anyway, it's safe to assume both Bolvan and Hija died years later in the fiery explosion that resulted when the Devastator crashed into the surface of the half completed, and yet fully operational, Death Star 2.

Then there are the two unnamed stormtroopers stationed in Mos Esiley--a city on Tatooine with a rather well-known reputation for being popular with riff-raff and those of low moral turpitude–both of whom probably thank their lucky stars every day for the anonimity of their helmets, allowing them to escape eternal infamy for their screw-ups. The first stormtrooper was the one who was confused by Obi-Wan at a Mos Eisley checkpoint into believing the droids he was looking at, were in fact not the droids he was specifically looking for, despite the fact that they clearly were the droids he was looking for. The reason he was so easily confused was because he was "weak-minded" which is Obi-Wan's way of politely saying that he's stupid, and that really makes you wonder why that guy was even in charge of the checkpoint in the first place. The other stormtrooper was the one who, while conducting a house-to-house search for the Death Star plans in Mos Eisely, something they know for a fact are somewhere in the city, he advises his squad to: “Check every door, if it’s locked... move on to the next one.”

I guess "fuck up/move up" is true in every branch of the service.

So anyway, picking up mere moments after the end of Rogue One… the original Star Wars is iconic from beginning to end.

It begins with the opening crawl... "It is a period of civil war." Then we meet the bickering droids, the Jawas, and their Sandcrawler. There's Luke and his petulant whining over not being able to go hang out with his friends down at the gas and sip, so he throws a tantrum by standing outside and staring at the binary suns of Tatooine, but no one notices. There's the fact that when C-3PO says "Thank the Maker" as he takes a much needed oil bath, he is implying that droids have religion and a God-figure. There's the Blue Milk of course, which I assume probably tastes like strawberry quik, except blueberry. Also, lets never forget the horrific beast whose pendulous bosom produces the Blue Milk...

There's the fact that Tuskan Raiders–or more commonly, Sandpeople, although both sound vaguely racist–always move in single file to hide their numbers, and that, even if they might be easily startled, they will eventually come back with a bunch of their friends to fuck you up. Then there's the way that Krayt Dragons sound real weird, while lightsabers sound super awesome.

“Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

And of course, there's Admiral Motti, that bold son of a bitch, the one Imperial officer with the balls to tell Darth Vader to his face that his religion is dumb.

There’s also crispy-fried Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, and the way that Luke was really only briefly kinda glum about their fate.

Also, I'm not sure whose idea it was to make a heap of the dead Jawas and then light them on fire, but C-3PO is gathering up all those little corpses and casually dropping them onto the burning pile while eavesdropping on Luke and Obi-Wan.

Then it's off to Mos Eisley, a poor and under-resourced community at the edge of the Dune Sea with a bad reputation amongst the old gentrifiers who moved there in their twilight years. This is where Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes totally rock out on the Mos Eisley cantina's main stage, playing a style of music that some huge nerd decided was called "jizz" because it was "space jazz" and that was canon for quite some time until someone at Disney finally noticed and was like "Oh yeah, no, we need to change that," and now it's called "jatz" which is somehow even more nerdy, but hey... at least it isn't called "jizz" anymore.

The Mos Eisley cantina is also where poor Ponda Baba gets his arm chopped off by serial limb-hacker Obi-Wan Kenobi, even though it kind of looks like he was just trying to get his asshole buddy Dr. Evazan, a guy that seems to have a hair-trigger temper and possibly a drinking problem, to leave Luke alone.

This is also where Han shoots first.

Then it’s back to the Death Star, where Leia tells Grand Moff Tarkin to his face, in his own Death Star control room, that he smells like shit… Which is probably why he blew up Alderaan, if we're being honest here. "Oh, I stink? Really? Well then, fuck your planet, lady."

There's Han calling The Force a bunch of religious nonsense, all while advocating for personal gun ownership. There's the time our heroes all think they're looking at a moon, but they're actually looking at a Space Station. There's the way they set out to rescue Leia, only for Leia to rescue them, even though that means everyone has to splash around in some poop water for a bit, and probably end up with a bad case of Pink Eye too. Also, soon after this is the first time that Leia kisses her brother... "for luck."

And then the circle is complete, and two old man lumber about in a slow sword fight that ends with what is supposed to be a noble sacrifice, but maybe Obi-Wan was just tired. He's old, right? All that leaving his house and going places and also having to talk to a bunch of people after twenty years of being by yourself? It must have been exhausting. I’m tired just thinking about it. I‘m saying, if he just didn't want to have to run all the way across the hanger, like: "Ugh... Y’know what? The Falcon is all way over there... I'm cool. You guys just go one without me."

Then there's new rebel pilot recruit Luke Skywalker casually bragging about shooting small animals from the cockpit of his crop-duster back home, and clearly not realizing that it's kind of creepy. But in his defense, he's probably just nervous being around so many new people, joining the cause as the new guy, daring to take Pedrin Gaul's place–who just died over Skariff, and who everybody loved, because he was such a "great guy" and made the best Bantha Milkshakes—and how could he possibly live up to something like that, so he's probably just worried nobody is going to like him, and is having trouble reading social cues.

And then, finally, there's Death Star run, which culminates in Han Solo sneaking up on the best fighter pilot in the galaxy in a modified tractor-trailer. Then, after that victory, for reasons that were never very clear, everyone gets a medal except for Chewbacca, which the wookie very clearly complains about, but nobody cares, and all while Luke is wearing what is quiet possibly the nerdiest jacket of all time.

And with that… the saga truly begins.

This was, of course, not the original theatrical release that I watched, because Lucas is doing his damnedest to wipe them out of existnece, because he's a weird asshole like that, so instead I watched the rereleased versions, the one with all the new scenes and touched-up effects, all of which are ridiculously shitty, but whatta ya gonna do?

I really do love the genius of starting this story at the point where it has already long been in progress, especially as originally there was never any real intent to tell the story of what happened previously. This somehow made it seem like everything was taking place in a huge galaxy, something that the later films all seemed intent on undoing by making everything smaller at every opportunity, but at the time, the lack of explanation, the in media res feel seemed to provide context to everything, and all while not doing that at all. It was very well done. It very much reminded me of the feeling you get whenever you jump onto a long-running comic book series, or you pick up the third book in some fantasy series and start reading. It's like... here's a bunch of weird names, buddy, try to keep up, and watch for context clues. And while sure, maybe–MAYBE–it would've have been better if the franchised had just stayed this way, there's nothing we can do about it now, that milk was spilled long ago, and here we are.

Besides, while sure, there's been a few stumbles and flops and failures along the way when it comes to the many different movies, tv shows, and books, more than a few really, there's been some great stuff too. And now, at the far end of it all, as I'm watching this movie again with all that extra knowledge and context crammed into my head–the good and the bad–it really does make this movie, a film that's always been great on its own, even better. I mean, knowing about Rogue One really brings some extra gravitas to this story.

At least, I think so.

So yeah, Star Wars is not only one of the most famous films ever made, its classic pulp serial roots worn clearly on it sleeve, as well as one of the most influential, it is also a movie that rewrote Hollywood, creating the idea of the Blockbuster Movie out of thin air simply by the fact of its existence. It changed tie-in merchandizing to the behemoth we know today. It spawned generations of creators, innovators, and imitators. It created the machine that is modern Hollywood, and yeah, there's some downsides there, sure, but still... this is where so much shit started.

That's kind of neat.

Anyway, still great after all this time, the film still works, despite the fact I've probably seen it more than any other film in existence. And while rewatching it, over everything else, the thing I noticed most is how it takes its time. We don’t meet Luke until a good half hour in. We meet Han 20 minutes later. Our heroes leave Tatooine at the hour mark in a two hour run time. And by the time the rebels finally launch the Death Star attack, there’s only twenty-ish minutes left. Basically this film takes its time in a way modern movies would never dare to contemplate. It truly is a film from a different era, and a lot of the good things it had, that its myriad bastard children have since lost, is still clear to see.

It's still just a hell of a good time at the movies.

But wait, Jon, I'm sure some of you are asking…

Why doesn’t Obi-Wan recognize R2-D2 and C-3PO when he saves Luke from the Sandpeople? After all, he has met them both before, many, many times. During the Clone Wars, R2-D2 was Anakin's Astromech. Anakin, of course, was not only Obi-Wan's padawan apprentice, he was Luke's father too. Obi-Wan and R2-D2 served together in the Clone Wars. Also, C-3PO was actually built by Anakin when he was a boy, not long before Obi-Wan and his master, Qui-Gon Jinn, freed Anakin from slavery, a moment that not only eventually led to Qui-Gon’s death, but also to Obi-Wan accepting Anakin as his padawan. Obi-Wan’s resulting failure as a teacher, friend, and mentor to Anikan defined not just Obi-Wan’s life, but the entire galaxy, as Anakin went on to betray not just the Jedi Order, but the Galactic Republic, as he was not only directly involved in the rise of the Empire, but in the deaths of potentially billions in the myriad conflicts that followed. Plus, when Obi-Wan attempted to fix his mistakes by killing Anakin, Anakin ended up becoming Darth Vader, a monster who personally murdered possibly hundreds of Jedi, all while leading the largely successful effort to purge the galaxy of the entire Jedi Order. And this is all on top of the fact that when Obi-Wan finally does see this distinctive and particular pair of droids again—Anakin’s droids—for the first time in two-ish decades, having last seen them right before he went into exile, they’re with Luke Skywalker–Anakin’s son–the specific person Obi-wan has been standing watch over this whole fucking time, the entire focus of his life now, which is specifically to protect this boy from discovery by his father, Anakin Skywalker, the specific guy who owned these specific droids for the entire time Obi-Wan knew him, up until the moment he cut Anakin to pieces, which led to Anakin becoming Darth Vader, the reason he is hiding both himself and Luke, so… Why the hell doesn't Obi-Wan recognize R2-D2 and C-3PO?

Hmmm… that’s a good question... I don't know.

How about you just shut the fuck up about it? How 'bout that?