The Original Era: Still The Best Star Wars Era?

Subscribe to help me reach 200K!

Star Wars, for a lot of people, began here. For I’d say most of the world, and with good reason. Obviously, these were the first films released, the first thing anyone ever knew about Star Wars was what later became episode 4: A New Hope, and these are still the highest-rated films from fans and critics alike. But with all the new Star Wars content we’ve gotten over the years, the question becomes: Is the Original Era still the Golden Era, or are we all blinded by nostalgia?

0:00 - 1:36 - Intro
1:37 - 7:16 - A New Hope
7:17 - 14:48 - Empire Strikes Back
14:49 - 19:57 - Return of the Jedi
19:58 - 24:25 - Star Wars: Rebels
24:26 - 29:36 - Rogue One
29:37 - 33:57 - The Hypocrisy of Star Wars Fans
33:58 - 38:10 - Still The Golden Era?

Become a member of the Channel!

Join My Discord!

Outro:
Late Night Driving - Broke In Summer

[Hero_Of_Old]

The Jabba thing was a weird point, because that was a deleted scene originally. Was never in the films originally.

[donovangomez]

Luke didn't have "No Training". They specifically say in the film that the T-16 Skyhopper is very similar to an X-Wing

[danieldosso]

So... if you watched A New Hope, you'd have heard Luke mention in the "this is how we're going to attack the Death Star" scene, that Luke says "I used to bullseye wamprats back home, they're not much bigger than two meters." Luke has practice making the shot on the Death Star, and is either likely channeling the Force, or Obi-Wan is guiding him.

[ThatGuyJamo]

One thing that always surprises me is how accepted the differences between prequel and original yoda are. Side by side they dont even feel like the same character. Empire yoda feels more like a goofy old man who knows more than he lets on to someone so much more serious. I dont see Yoda from the prequels beating r2 with the stick over something

[king_supreme]

I must point out, the human version of Jabba the Hutt was not in episode 4. It was a deleted scene.

[graboidfan]

I'm tired of people saying "oh the ewoks ruin this movie they were only in there to sell toys they're so dumb"
when you think about how Luke's interaction with the Ewoks shows how much his character has grown from when he first met Yoda (another diminutive being) in the prior episode you see how it added to the story.

[MrBigGeorgeo]

Luke was already regarded as a great pilot before the Death Star he was trained

[ZKP]

“Relax in your X-Wing.”

*shows footage of a Y-Wing pilot*

Not nitpicking, I just thought it was kinda funny.

[roderick]

It's still amazing to me how much lore and world building George Lucas and the rest of the crew put into A New Hope which would of course get expanded more in The Empire Strikes Back and subsequent entries in the franchise, like everytime I go back and watch A New Hope I'm always like how did they know to set this up knowing X Y and Z would happen in the future even though obviously they didn't know it would become a franchise that would last close to 50 years they just did great lore and world building in the first movie.

[benstock]

Still a prequel guy forever, but the OT is legendary. Still super happy the prequels finally got respect.

[jimmyboy]

The throne room interaction between the Emperor and Luke is one of the most memorable scenes in all of cinema, for me. The emperor's pure evil and hubris is on display, and Luke really struggles against the temptation of the dark side. Plus Ian McDiarmid absolutely nailed the role of a cackling, evil villain who truly enjoys being evil. He even met or exceeded that performance in the prequels, which made Palpatine/Sidious one of the best movie villains ever.

[tomasjasiunas]

Great video overall, the only thing I'd say is there is a difference between Luke and Rey. Luke mentions blasting womprats and depending on the version Biggs also says Luke is "the best bush pilot in the outer rim", I think these can be sorta missed in the excitement, but we also get the Obi wan training scene, which I think is ultimately what lets him succeed, he is told to not trust his eyes, not trust the targeting computer, but instead the force. His victory in that moment and his abilities are pretty well set up, for example he is never mentioned as being a great duelist, we don't see him training to duel and he then loses to Vader. Ray on the other hand had actually 0 training pretty much, I think it's a problem even before the kylo ren fight. Luke is a farmer at the start, he gets ambushed by tusken raider and gets knocked out, Ray is beating people up with her stick from pretty much the start of the movie. In the Kylo Ren fight she holds out and injures Kylo and gets away, now sure Kylo isn't as powerful as Vader probably but still. I think in the end it's how much they rely on the force to win, Luke with little training gets a nudge from the force to hit a lucky shot, maybe improves his reflexes to fly better, Ray with no training gets a random powerup and beats a trained duelist and force user.

[Bilbobaggins]

luke was always a skilled pilot and was given the job due to his record of skill, he tapped in the force to make the shot....ray used infinit force glitch to channel power to not just block 1 or 2 attacks and get away but match if not out match a sesoned sith who was a skilled lightsaber fighter when ray had never fought with one ever...even luke had basic training with the lightsaber and force before been used AND luke is meant to be one the strongest natural force users there has been

[plo]

Boy oh boy.

Okay, first thing's first. That Jabba scene (with the human Jabba) is a deleted scene that was only put in the ANH retroactively in the special edition, using the Jabba they ended up actually going with in ROTJ. So your argument really holds no water there.

As for Luke blowing up the Death Star. The film set up that Luke was a good pilot, like his father. It is mentioned that the X-Wing was similar to the ship that Luke flew on Tatooine. He said that he used to fly through Beggers Canyon (a small narrow trench) and bullseye womprats that were about the size of the exhaust port of the Deathstar. So the film set up that he had unknowingly developed the skills that he needed in that trench run. And even with all of that set up, Luke made a bunch of mistakes during the death star battle.

1. Luke flew too close to the surface of the Deathstar in his very first act in the battle and almost dies right away.
2. He fails to shake a Tie fighter off, after getting hit and has to be saved by Wedge.
3. Failed to prevent Biggs (his childhood friend) from dying.
4. Vader had a lock on Luke and the only reason why Luke didn't die was because Han came from out of nowhere and saved him, which is what allowed Luke to be able to take the shot; his trust in the force did the rest.

Was this anything similar to what happened in TFA? Not at all. For it to have been similar, Luke would've had to single-handedly taken Vader out in a 1v1 aerial battle, in which Luke had never flown a ship before. You probably need to watch the OT again. It may have its flaws, but it was still competently written. Especially compared to anything in the ST.

[danieldosso]

The green lightsaber during filming was specifically because the blue one didn't show up great against the tatooine sunlight. They wanted a bigger contrast.

[troyami]

Didn’t Luke have pilot training thought?

[jefferysterner]

A couple observations about Empire: there was only one flaw, and it's a nitpick I know, but of the entire planet of Dagobah, Luke just happened to crash right into the place where Yoda was living; there was no implication that he found the exact spot due to a Force influence or whatever, which is what I think they should have done to eliminate the need for suspension of disbelief on that one little flaw in the otherwise perfect movie. On another Empire note, as a kid I always wondered what the deal was with Lobot on Cloud City, ever-present like an assistant yet creepily never saying a word, with the odd name and that weird head gadget, in the background of almost every scene with Lando in it. Was he just there so there'd be another action figure to sell? I don't think Lucas ever said anything about it, but when I rewatched the OT in preparation for the release of the prequels, it hit me. In the scene after they put Han in the carbonite, Vader alters the deal and says he will take Chewy and Leia with him instead of leave them in Cloud City like he first agreed, Lando looks at Lobot who looks back with a side-eye. That's when I realized that Lobot probably was meant to represent Lando's conscience, watching him, silently prodding him to have the change of heart that defined his arc. If that truly was the purpose of Lobot, it was so thematically clever and cinematographically perfect.
Finally, regarding your statement that Jabba was "just a man" in Episode IV, the scene you showed with the big guy in the scruffy suit talking to Han never appeared in the original theatrical release; prior to RotJ, we only knew Jabba by name mentioned in the first two films. Lucas took that 1977 cut scene and CGI-d slug-Jabba in and added it to the Special Edition release in the 1990s, which I feel like that was a colossal mistake; it diminished the despicable mystique of Jabba to see him outside his lair moving around around like everybody else.

[Zach_of_all_Trades]

It is mentioned that Luke is a good pilot in episode four and fly the real version of the toy that he was holding in a garage seen though trench's on Tatooine shooting animals. So I don't think that it is undeliverable for Luke to blow up the death star. You could also say the Ray had training with her stick thing on Jakko but i still think that it is more unrealistic that ray could defeat Kylo-ren.

[TurokRevolution]

There is foreshadowing of Vader being Luke's father in Episode 4.
Luke's uncle doesn't wan't to talk about Luke's father and when Beru says that there is just too much of his father in him, Owen says "That's what I'm afraid of."
While I don't know if Obi-Wan told them that Anakin became Vader, they know how Anakin got in Episode 2 after his mother died.

[dylanmorgan]

It is still without a doubt the golden era.. it set the standard. Truly legendary