What Do You Think are the Greatest Strengths and Weakness of the Original Star War Trilogy ?

[BAYLOR]

Considering that we don't know how any Star Wars tech works, I'm not sure how you decided it is unrealistic. What does FTL actually look like?

Lucas never seems to go into details as to how any of the tech in Star Wars works . For example the Hyperdrive which doesn't sound like one. Han Solo taking his ship to make the jump to light speed mean to me tha the Millennium falcon is going to speed up to 186000 miles per second , which is not FLT. So it can't go to Hyperspace which. The only thing that makes sense its that maybe the falcon and ships like can great a wormhole and go into hyperspace. Thats a bit more workable.

And for recorded, My understanding of Physics laws and how and the universe works is very shaky at best.

 

[Rodders]

As a child of the seventies, I absolutely adore Star Wars, so my list is somewhat subjective.

I'm not going to pick holes in the physics of it. It's space fantasy and I think it's simplicity helped. It was a kids movies, after all.

Personally, there are several pros for me.

Timing is probably Star Wars greatest strength and the main reason for it's overwhelming popularity. At the time, there wasn't really much happening with cinema, so it really captured the imagination. I have read that cinema was in decline at the time.

John Williams's musical score is superb and still has to be one of the most memorable and best soundtracks ever released.

The spaceship designs really captured the imagination and the special effects were incredible.

Princess Leia was my first proper crush.

Darth Vader was scary and evil.

The cantina scene was brilliant and well executed at the time.

I think that the merchandising of Star Wars helped a lot as well. Once we finished watching the movie, we were able to play out the scenes we saw. It sort of prolonged the experience and is perhaps one of the reasons that Star Wars remained so popular?

The Empire Strikes Back. Brilliant movies and showed that not all sequels degraded in quality.

 

[Foxbat]

For me, the original Star Wars biggest strength was that it felt like you'd walked into the cinema in the middle of an old-style serial run. This also became its biggest weakness when Lucas started filling in the blanks. The prequels are a good example of why its often better to leave most of the backstory to the imagination of viewers/readers.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Considering that we don't know how any Star Wars tech works, I'm not sure how you decided it is unrealistic. What does FTL actually look like?

The Star Wars extended universe goes into loving detail on how most things work, believe me. Still none of the explanations, even if some individual things do make sense do not make the whole thing not work holistically if we assume it's the same universe as ours. If we have FTL, no matter how lovingly the concept of hyperspace is discussed and explained in other material, why aren't there the unavoidable time paradoxes? That makes it unrealistic from that particular perspective. Space craft fly in the vacuum as if they are WW2 aircraft flying in an atmosphere...cause it's cool, not realism. etc.

I did add in the original post that there are some elements of the films that do give it a semblence of realism - it has always felt like an organic vibrant universe with complexity that seems close to our own world. That was the thing that struck me as 6 year old watching it the first time. It wasn't a film with a small band of heroes in a sterile universe of space nazis. Sure it was cool what they could do: space-lasers! space ships! but everything felt lived-in, a bit broken...everything felt a bit real. Of course you scratch a little below the surface and things go awry with regards to this. I was a very rational six year old. I had worked out Santa Claus by then and had also dismissed religion.

One must stake your position on realism somewhere. If humans ever become a proper space faring race, the reality I think will be vastly different to the Star Wars universe. And that's using technologies that I think will be made but I don't know how they will actually work.


However this perspective is one we tend to ditch when coming into this franchise, because as @The Big Peat states, 'They're fun'! They are pantomine based on Flash Gordon, muscle cars and age old stories. Set in deep space. Realism ain't its thing; escapism, entertainment and spectacle are.


There is one explanation that makes it 'realistic' and still work in our universe. The whole Star Wars universe could be a simulation, so that the rules of it's worlds are re-written to allow space magic and all your cool tech. That'd work.

 

[Venusian Broon]

For me, the original Star Wars biggest strength was that it felt like you'd walked into the cinema in the middle of an old-style serial run. This also became its biggest weakness when Lucas started filling in the blanks. The prequels are a good example of why its often better to leave most of the backstory to the imagination of viewers/readers.

Honestly, I have to admit to quite like Revenge of the Sith. I felt there was definitely something there that could justify a trilogy of prequels. And the prequels were quite clever in recasting all six movies from the original set of three. They weren't really about Luke and rebel chums defeating the Empire, but instead we were seeing the rise, fall then rise again of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.

 

[Danny McG]

I had worked out Santa Claus by then

I'm confused

 

[Star-child]

. Space craft fly in the vacuum as if they are WW2 aircraft flying in an atmosphere...cause it's cool, not realism. etc.

Why would the reactionless drives of SW ships not make them maneuver like aircraft? What's the principle of the drive that makes this internally inconsistent?

Star Wars isnt special - it gets the same pass all non-hard SF does: As long as it is consistently used and discussed, it is as "real" as any other SF.

 

[BAYLOR]

When I first saw Star Wars in 1977 I didn't think about scientific inaccuracies or plot holes. I was dazzled by the films special effects and over the tope action . It was flat out fun to watch , tha'ts what remember most about seeing it. Simply enjoyment.

 

[BAYLOR]

The trouble with being a groundbreaking film like Star Wars is that it suffers the inevitable comparison to the films that come afterward.

 

[beccabear67]

To me the strongest thing by far would be the visuals! Those designs by Ralph McQuarrie, and whomever else contributed (Ron Cobb for one), were so often amazingly interesting. It was a total visual overload compared to what films I'd seen before it like Damnation Alley, Silent Running, or Logan's Run even (I was late to the first Star Wars, 1978, but had been pretty interested in all the imagery you could see around). Planet Of The Apes had been pretty amazing visually, and of course 2001, but Star Wars was a cornucopia of the exotic and plain cool looking!

Basically I still see a bigger budget Flash Gordon someone couldn't afford or get the rights to (Vader for Ming), but wow, what a first class looking space opera serial! I'd say that carries it around 80%. As with the superhero comics, these fans who became professionals put a ton of loving thought behind a pretty old and simple framework. The whole thing with 'the force' is more from Japanese samurai material, zen Buddhism... but WWII dogfights in space has been an apt metaphor. The "long time ago, far far away" was also a wise choice to, so that the viewer doesn't have to compare anything to our present reality. Who knows, maybe there even used be sounds in outer space way back then and way over there...

 

[Rodders]

I think that character development was great. Luke went through a journey from a whiney kid to an adult, Han Solo went from a selfish rogue to a lovable general. We also saw Leia and Han fall in love. This was handled much better in the OT than the PT and i think that different directors and new writing helped with.

We didn't see too much developement in the ST and i think they suffered greatly because of it.