True...but that's preeety bad...I mean, the music carries it perfectly, no dialogue is needed--especially not an over-the-top "No...NOOOOOO!"

Kinda sad...Star Wars was a big part of my childhood, it's part of the reason I got interested in reading King Arthur and Homer, and after that...

The rest, as they say, is pretentious-referencing history. ;)

Star Wars seemed like the perfect 3-part epic adventure back then...ah, the simple times of youth, when there were 3 Star Wars films, Clinton was in office, and the biggest controversy you had to worry about was Mario vs. Sonic and just WHO shot Mr. Burns...

I miss the 90s. :)

All humans are Star Wars fans whether they like it or not!

Whether the latest additions are good or not, they do at least keep the original films alive for new generations of young punks.

and I do think the "nooooo" does clarify what is happening there. I remember watching this as an 8 year old (or something like), and being confused at what was happening.

And who could watch the binary sunset scene and not love Star Wars forever? Hitler, that's who.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKCsCKgY6Lo&NR=1

But there doesn't NEED to be any clarification there...

There is such a thing as being too heavy-handed, too obvious with one's message.

You mentioned the binary sunset scene, and yES--GREAT SCENE...

NO DIALOGUE...just the setting, the look on his face, and the music says EVERYTHING.



Adding the "Noooo!" is like attempting to remix Mozart in the middle of a classical symphony:

You can do it, update it...but that doesn't make it better, and it doesn't keep with what once made it special...it wAS Mozart who famously said:

"A masterpiece is perfect as is--add anything, or take anything away, and it would cease to be a masterpiece."

Star Wars, sadly, has become a modern case-in-point; rather than what was essentially a sort of 20th century merging of Greek Legend, Beowulf, King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Star Trek and other great works of sci-fi...

It's just become a kiddie cash cow.

@Obi - That's all it ever was. But that particular scene still isn't as bad as Greedo and Han (Han shot first, DAMN IT!) or Spielberg's changing the rifles into walkie talkie's in ET.

I still think the most egregious edit job of 20th century pop culture history is Brown Eyed Girl. "I found religion, so now they're not making love anymore."

Had to google that to discover what you meant. I have the original, so didn't know about the edit. Nobody plays that edit though anymore. All the classic rock stations play the original.

The one I hate musically is the altering of "Money for Nothing" to remove the references to "That little faggot". Mind, I'm no proponent for stereotype slurs, but I hate PCing up songs. They did it with "Rich Girl" too. I heard an edit the other day that didn't once say "bitch."

And yet, while I've heard plenty of editing out of fuck, at least they haven't screwed with "Who Are You?" Or at least I haven't heard an edit that alters "Tell me who the fuck are you?" into something else.

Only recently have I heard "Mama Kin" edited to remove "sheeeeeit," which I thought was the other "untouchable" one. Product placement edits are interesting too...the BBC had issue with it, which has impacted (among other things) "Lola" by the Kinks (Coca-Cola became cherry cola), "All the Young Dudes" (Marks and Sparks became "unlocked cars"), and Primus' "Winona's Big Brown Beaver." That last one is the most hilarious, because all the sex references are still there, and pretty clear, but the implication that the beaver eats Taco Bell is gone. I think Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" was unable to be released on BBC radio.

The interesting part is that I'm pretty sure none of those acts intended the reference to be an endorsement. Especially Primus.

Really? The BBC doesn't like product placement? Bet they have a fit with "Money for Nothing"

I want my... I want my... I want my MTV!

Look at them yo-yos. That's the way you do it.
You play the guitar on the MTV!

I know they cut the intro off. Not sure on the later part of it.

It has the phrase repeated several times throughout as well, like just before the guitar solo and at the end where Sting is singing "Money for nothing! Chicks for free!"

I wonder if the fact that the UK has government control of tv might make MTV sort of exempt, since it would sort of be a BBC product. Dunno. Don't recall hearing it when I was "in the UK" (in Hong Kong when it was still a colony).

"All The Young Dudes" had a chance to be played either way, since the Hoople made two singles of it just in case, and sometimes the BBC figured that "Marks and Sparks" wasn't the OFFICIAL name (Marks and Spencer's) so it was okay, and sometimes it was "close enough."

Interesting! I had no idea of the BBC acting that way.

As for the original subject of the thread, I do recollect also being a bit puzzled by the turn of events in that sequence when I was a young lad. I think the "Nooooooo" thing would have helped me get it, but then we're just saying that Star Wars should be edited for kids under 12. Given that they seem to be Lucas' target audience in the last instalments, I'm not too surprised to see that kind of editing happen.
Was silence that much better? I don't know... I've always found that the whole sequence doesn't set up Vader's turn to the good side properly. I'd need to see it again to point out just why exactly I think so, but I guess the overall feeling was that you didn't really get to "feel" Vader's torment during those important minutes leading up to Sidius being thrown into the death hole.

From a logical point of view, silence makes more sense. In the time Vader takes to scream an anguished "Nooo", the emperor would have spotted Vader's conflict and not have been caught by surprise.

Star Wars? Meh...

http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/129131089237200488.jpg

But the sequence provided *tension*. Will he save Luke? Or will he let the Emperor kill him?

^
Very true.

And while Star Wars--especially NOW--is really a kiddie thing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWHfgBxNfGo

Pretty cool documentary, at least for me, since I love all that literature and mythology stuff...some of their connections are pretty big stretches, but it's still cool to hear folks talking about that stuff, and the couple parts, especially, when they're mostly talking about the Old films in the vein of the Hero's Quest motif of Beowulf, King Arthur, Hercules, Odysseus...

I was 11 when Star Wars came out, 14 for Empire, and 17 when Jedi premiered.

To an 11 year old, Star Wars was simply it. There had never been anything like it. But it was a much simpler film than Empire or Jedi.

Empire had a dark theme (the Empire essentially won in it) and played well into the maturing 14 year old. The "Luke discovers himself and the truth" played well for one trying to discover himself.

And the Jedi had moemnts that were simply brilliant for a 17 year old (and some not so brilliant ones). The Luke vs. Vader and the Emperor, Luke's nearly turning when he takes Vader's hand but that lost hand becoming a reality check as to why he was there, and then Vader's internal conflict at the end when the Emperor is killing Luke. These were much more mature themes that played well for a 17 year old. I *was* the target audience for all three of the original trilogy and they were perfect for me and my friends at the time.

The second trilogy had enjoyable set pieces. Phantom had the pod race and the fight with Darth Maul.The chase through Coruscant, the fight in the arena, and the fight with Dooku once Yoda shows up (Don't *fuck* with Yoda!) in Clones. And the final showdown between Anakin and Obiwan in parallel with the Emperor and Yoda in Sith. These were great moments. But it's the in between stuff that was lacking. The novelization for Attack of the Clones, for instance, shows Anakin killing the Tuskan Raiders. This should have been on screen. Instead we get a "I killed them all" in retrospect which mutes what was clearly the start of Anakin's fall. The in-between stuff is what made the original trilogy so good. Little things like Han's one liners (I'ts not my fault!) and the mentoring aspects of Luke and Obiwan and Luke and Yoda. These were what was missing in the original trilogy. Ewoks were cute, but served one hell of a purpose (even if we have to wonder how they had all these great traps set in such little time). Jar jar serves little purpose until he gets the Senate to grant power to the Chancellor thereby making Palpatine Emperor. But we didn't need him in all three movies just to do that. 3P0 is plenty of comic relief. We didn't need more.

IV: Classic film based off a classic motif, The Everyman Hero's Journey
V: EASILY the best one...the darkest, the most adult, the most EPIC in scale and feeling
VI: Good cap to the story...three climaxes go on at once, and each one resolves well
I: One of the biggest gaffes in film history, dozens of holes, and just a terrible "start"
II: A dragging political plot mixed with an unconvincing love story...not much better...
III: A flawed, but still effective, tragic story; bad dialogue+good scope=a decent end

Where the first movies are concerned, it's interesting to contrast their story lines and characters with those developed in this other Lucas film (a pretty good one at that), American Graffiti.

Fanboy?!!!!!!!

Fanboy = Waylon Smithers = great big homo = obi

Cachimbo: I don't see Vader's killing the emperor as a turn to the good side. I think of it more as the culmination of a lifetime of guilt and fear, paired with witnessing the emperor once again destroying the only hope of love or redemption that Vader has.

Maybe you have to see them in the context of 1-3 first to see that, I'm not sure.