The Nitpick Express - Star Wars

*Gasp*

What?! Oh that's right. The Nitpicker must finish his plate! He cannot eat only three bits of food and then leave the rest to be fed to the dog. (I don't really know if that analogy makes sense, but let's go with it). Star Wars, later retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope by the powers-that-be defined the summer blockbuster. Jaws invented it, Star Wars made it better. When a young filmmaker named George Lucas wanted to make a Flash Gordon adaptation, he couldn't get the rights, so this is what he made instead. How fucking insane is that?

Well, I already shit on the poor soul during the nitpicking of the Star Wars prequels, but it'd be foolish not to goad him any more. You see, all of the Star Wars movies are silly and cheesy in their own way. The originals just have an unfair right to be held above the rest, because they were made back when nobody gave a shit and expectations were so low, they rivaled Nixon's approval rating following Watergate. This is the only one that didn't have to prove anything, it was made for the sheer joy of making movies.

So without further ado, we can move forward. Let the nitpicking commence! Also George, you're the man and I love you. But dammit, I hate you sometimes.

THE NITPICK EXPRESS

presents

STAR WARS

1. The Opening Crawl: No movie had ever opened like this. The idea of the "opening crawl" from 1930's Flash Gordon serials were popularized in this movie. So much so that many movies afterwards began using text scrolls at their beginnings to catch user up on a story. None were as as epic as this.
2. Episode What?: There's no episode #. I know that means you're just absolutely butt-humping confused on where it fits in the timeline and that you feel like you can't go on, but I'll hold your hand if you promise to continue.
3. Drop Right Into Action: Star Wars rolls out the red carpet by throwing you right into a space battle the instant the opening is over.
4. "Shut down the Main Reactor": For a movie franchise hell-bent on advancing plots based on 'the destruction of main reactors', the rebel's star cruiser is literally the only ship that could have it's main reactor shut down and still have lights and...well, exist really.
5. Rebel trooper outfits: The Rebel trooper outfits had to have been conceived while George was stuck on the freeway on his way to a casting call. Snow shovel helmets, dinky blaster pistols and an ensemble of sky-blue and tan clothing. Dynamite.
6. Darth Prowse: Perhaps the most cinematic badass villain in history. All hail. He almost wasn't to be as menacing, if David Prowse got his way. Prowse's Welsh-Scottish-British accent coupled with his high-pitch voice that sounds like a four-cylinder Honda Civic low on steering fluid would've made Vader sound like a nasally wimp.
7. Breaking some Dude's Neck: In Vader's first 60-seconds of screentime, he breaks a dude's neck with his bare hand. That is some sick shit, even forty years later.
8. "I Want the Passengers Alive!": ...then why did you kill the captain? Or fire on their ship?
9. Separated, then Reunited: The first we see of C-3PO and R2-D2, they're together in a hallway. Then, for reasons totally lost on me, they break up so Leia can shove a card in R2's face to download data into his brain, then they reunite to escape. 
10. Clumsy Robotic Props: I get that in '77, building droids for a movie was a pain in the nutsack. Watching R2 roll toward the camera only to start listing to his left toward a wall due to a bum front leg assembly checks me out of movie entirely and makes me want to read up on robotic mechanics.
11. "I'm Not Getting in There!": I've only known C-3PO for two minutes and already he's on my nerves. Where's the farm boy I saw in the trailer? Does he even show up? Are we stuck with this Joan Rivers-and-her-trashcan comedy show for a couple hours?
12. "Set for Stun": A stormtrooper sees Leia, turns to his cohorts and tells them to set for stun. Leia kills one, with one shot, then runs off. They still decide to stun her, even after losing one of their own. Police officers shoot unarmed people all the time and yet the Stormtroopers are like "better stun her, just so bossman doesn't kill us".
13. "Hold Your Fire. No Lifeforms Aboard": This Imperial dickhead didn't even bother graduating from trooper-school because it doesn't cross his mind that the inanimate objects carrying the Death Star plans could've stowed away on that very escape pod...the one with no lifeforms aboard.
14. Political Jargon: George really had a hard-on for political banter in his movies. Imagine people in '77 coming into a movie and being laid out with haymaker-after-gut-punch of "Imperial-Senate-this" and "Sympathy-for-the-Rebellion-that". I get that, with an near-9000 article wiki detailing everything down to a background shrub on Endor when it comes to Star Wars existing on the web, that it makes more sense now.
15. Splitting Up: C-3PO and R2 just escaped the Empire and what's the first thing they're gonna do? Split up on the surface of an alien world they know nothing about. Who programmed these clowns?
16. C-3PO's Voicebox: C-3PO spots the Jawa sandcrawler a bajillion miles away and yells at max volume for it to rescue him. I'm no sound-ologist but I think that he'd have to yell to the point his voicebox would collapse onto itself for the Jawas to even think they heard something.
17. R2's Capture: The Jawa's decide to stun R2, capture him and turn around and sell him for money. George must've paid a little too much attention to 1800's US history.
18. "Look sir, droids!": One stormtrooper finds a penny-sized piece of the droids in the sand. I would say this is ridiculous, but when your entire planet is sand, sand of one color, anything could stick out.
19. "Wake up!": Could C-3PO really wake R2 by hitting him? Wouldn't his being-off not detect that?
20. Luke Skywhiner: Mark Hamill's performance as Luke Skywalker is...meh, at best. You get the sense that he knows what he's doing when he acts with his face, then when he starts talking and whining you realize that casting Hayden Christensen wasn't that bad after all.
21. Luke's Last Name: Question: if the point of splitting Luke and Leia up was to hide them from Vader and the Emperor, why does Luke still carry his evil father's last name? Did no one think that that might be a little bit of a giveaway? Owen and Beru didn't think "Oh gee, this kid's got the same last name as his father that killed all those people and will most likely kill him if he finds out. Let's change his name to prevent that."?
    
    It's like adopting Adolf Hitler's kid and mentoring him to overthrow and fight against his father, but still leaving his last name "Hitler".
22. Owen's Memory: Owen doesn't recognize the protocol droid that worked on his farm twenty years prior to then when purchasing him. This wouldn't piss me off so bad if it weren't for Episode II. In fact, it wouldn't even count if it weren't for Episode II. You know what? Scratch it. Fuck Episode II.
23. "But Uncle Oweeeeeeen...": Luke's belly-aching about going to Tosche Station makes me want to reach through the screen and punch him in the nose.
24. Jawas = Cons: Jawas apparently are well-known for conning people out of their money by selling them defective droids they find lying around. It's a wonder Owen even comes out to greet these fucking things without a blaster when they roll their giant house onto his property.
25. Whine, Whine, Whine: While C-3PO is taking an oil bath, Luke continues vocally playing the violin about how he can't leave the planet and go to the Imperial academy to learn to kill people. If I lived on Tatooine, a planet that's fairly hot, with no women that I can see, where all I did was farm moisture out of sand and play with toys of starfighters and service my uncle's droids for no money, drinking milk of questionable fortitude, I'd wanna kill something, too.
26. "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi": Luke starts mentally masturbating to the hologram of a girl he doesn't know is his sister. Again, this scene is cute if you consider just this one movie, and again, George retroactively fucks himself by changing the story with later sequels.
27. C-3PO and Military Intel: You'd think something as important as blabbing about the Rebellion would be frowned upon and that there would be programming in C-3PO's databanks that would prevent him from spilling the beans about his mission and his past endeavors. Not so.
28. Blue milk: The milk that Beru serves to Luke and Owen is blue. I don't know what's in it. I don't want to know what's in it.
29. Owen the Asshole: Owen, who seemed like a cool cat in the prequels, became a grumpy old fart between trilogies. He quickly dismisses Obi-Wan Kenobi as a 'crazy old man', blows Luke off when he asks about his father and tells him he has to stay on another season, prolonging his suffering.
30. Beru and Valium: I don't know, it just feels like the actress who played Beru did the whole movie high on valium. It's just one of those gut feelings you get you know?
31. Twin Sunset: There's a scene where Luke walks up to a hill and looks at the twin sunset on Tatooine. This scene is nothing more than a masterpiece.
32. Runaway R2: R2 decides to go traversing the deserts of Tatooine to find Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, without knowing what he looks like, where he's at, or how to even speak to him when he finds him. Hell, how does he just assume that the Jawas won't pick him up again and sell him to somebody else? That'd really put a dent in his mission.
33. Sand people: Sand people are scary motherfuckers. I don't know what bad day caused George to dream up these things, but could he have not rested on that day?
34. Sir Ewan Alec McGuinness: So we leave behind Ewan McGregor, who loved playing Obi-Wan Kenobi, and metamorph into Alec Guinness, who detested playing Obi-Wan. In fact, watching Star Wars now, knowing full-well how much Alec Guinness hated the dialogue and the movie's effect on his career after it came out, is tragically hilarious in a way.
35. Obi-Wan's call: I don't care how you explain it to me, how you act it out, or what expanded universe backstory bullshit you cite; it still won't explain how Obi-Wan makes a whining monster-wail sound with just his mouth and waving his arms.
36. Obi-Wan Talks About Anakin: Alright, there's a ton of stuff Obi-Wan says about Luke's then-unnamed father that then gets twisted, misconstrued, or proven-false with future sequels/prequels/in-betweenquels:
    
    "He was the best star-pilot in the galaxy" (Maybe so, but other pilots could do what he could do. You're telling me they all played second-fiddle to him?)
    "...and a cunning warrior" (I can buy that, but you left out the part about the whining, the backstabbing, the nerdy pickup-lines, the arrogance and the possible bipolar disorder.)
    "Your father wanted you to have this..." (No he didn't. You took it from him after you mutilated him and left him for dead.)
    "Vader killed your father." (Vader is his father, you dimwit.)
    "...and he was a good friend." (Did you even watch your own prequels, Obi-Wan? That's just simply wrong. Twenty points off for that remark.)
    "Vader helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights" (Not unless you count the expanded universe. In Revenge of the Sith, there was barely any hunting down).
37. Luke Refusing to Go on a Quest: Luke wanted nothing more than to leave Tatooine behind and go off on an adventure. The type of an adventure he refuses to go on with Obi-Wan because 'he has work to do there'. Pick an angst and go with it.
38. Peter Cushing's Fuzzy Slippers: Peter Cushing, one of cinema's most underrated badasses, did his entire Grand Moff Tarkin role wearing bed slippers. I am dead serious.
39. Sammy Silpperyjaw: The guy who plays the Imperial officer that questions the Force in front of Vader mouths his lines like his jaw is falling off.
40. Tarkin > Vader: In what universe would a shriveled prune like Tarkin rule over and boss around a magical-wizard-Nazi like Vader? Vader has the Force and a lightsaber. Tarkin just has fuzzy slippers.
41. "Nobody Can Blow up the Death Star!": Says the guy who dies when the Death Star is blown up.
42. Peter Cushing and his R's: Peter Cushing can't stop rolling his 'R' sounds when he talks, It's that cool British acting he did in the Hammer Horror films, I'm telling you.
43. "Planet Destruction > Force": Darth Vader tells the Imperial officers not to be so impressed with the Death Star, as "the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force". That is just an incorrect statement. Very incorrect. When, in the bluest of Hell's, have you seen the Force destroy a planet? Never. That's when.
44. "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise": Obi-Wan spouts this winning number telling Luke that Stormtroopers were the ones who attacked the Jawas, not sand people. This movie, the next movie, the movie after that, the trilogy after that, and the trilogy after that...will teach you the opposite; that the Stormtroopers couldn't hit sand if they tripped and fell in a desert.
45. Luke's Burning Aunt & Uncle: The Empire literally torches Luke's home. That is some evil shit. George doesn't even relent showing you their smoldering corpses. Powerful scene. Fun fact! This is the scene that raised Star Wars's rating from G to PG.
46. Chicago Eisley: Obi-Wan's spiel about how Mos Eisley is a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" is something I paraphrase every time I go to Chicago.
47. Mind trick: Obi-Wan introduces the audience to the Jedi mind trick. My question is how long does the mind trick last? A few seconds? Forever? Is there ever a point where the stormtroopers snap out of it, realize Obi-Wan screwed with their noodles, and chase them down the street, guns blazing?
48. "We Don't Sell to Droids": I can't tell if it's prejudice or not. I mean, it makes sense. It's like serving a drink to your iPhone. I wouldn't want to waste my inventory on inanimate objects that aren't going to drink it anyway, either.
49. "He Doesn't Like You. I Don't Like You Either.": Two goons come up and hassle Luke at the bar for no other reason than 'they don't like him'. Yep. This is Chicago. Definitely Chicago.
50. Harrison Motherfucking Ford: It may have just been a joke, but Peter Griffin was right. He's literally the only actor in the entire movie who's career didn't take a downward spiral after this movie came out. You can make the argument that Hamill and Earl Jones been went on to have great voice acting careers and Carrie Fisher went on to become Carrie Fisher, but you also can't argue against this success story.
51. Parsecs: Yes, yes. It's a measure of distance, not time. George actually tried later to use science to explain this gaff. I don't really care.
52. Obi-Wan's haggling: So...where did Obi-Wan learn to haggle? Seriously? Han offers to fly them to Alderaan for 'ten thousand'. Obi-Wan then offers 'two thousand', but 'fifteen thousand more when we we reach Alderaan' which is seven thousand more than what he would've had to pay had he agreed to Han's initial price. Dipshit.
53. Han Shot First: I can't believe there are people in the world who are allowed to breathe the same air that I am who adamantly believe that Han didn't shoot first. How did something so trivial and meaningless get blown this out of proportion?! It's shouldn't even be up for debate. The version of the film from '77, that existed well into the 90's, showed Han not only shooting first, but being the only one who shoots. It couldn't be any clearer than that. Jesus, people.
54. "Sorry about the mess": After gunning down Greedo in cold-blood (like a badass) Han flips some kind of currency to the bartender and says "sorry about the mess" like the certified wrecker-of-your-shit that he is.
55. The Millennium Falcon: The single greatest space ship in the history of pop-culture. Moving on.
56. Banana Nose: You never see or hear from the Imperial spy with a dick for a nose after this movie. You see him twice, watch him sell-out the heroes' positions, then he disappears forever. Where's the Expanded Universe novel or unnecessary Disney anthology film based on that guy's life?
57. "I know some of maneuvers": Han tells Luke and Obi-Wan that he "knows some maneuvers" and can get away from the Star Destroyers. Han then begins driving directly to the left while the Star Destroyers pummel the Millennium Falcon with blaster fire. Those are some maneuvers.
58. Grand Moff's Short Fuse: Princess Leia is brought to the Death Star and in front of Peter Cushing, where he tells her she's going to blow up her home planet if she doesn't tell him where the secret Rebel base is, which is a tad extreme.
59. Kinda British: When she's trying to belittle Tarkin for apparently smelling bad, Carrie Fisher decides to go "kinda British" on him. Fisher has noted this in interviews with a humorous touch, so it's not really anything more than mildly amusing.
60. "Wookies are known to do that": When Chewbacca goes apeshit after R2 makes a move that kills one of Chewbacca's chess-things, C-3PO argues that it was a fair move. Han then says "it's not wise to upset a wookie, because they rip people's arms out of their sockets when they lose" as "Wookies are known to do that". Not only does this make Chewbacca look like a sore loser, but it's also false. There's no point in any film where you see Chewie, or any Wookie, tear a person's arms out.
61. "Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them": How do eyes deceive people? I know if I see something in my peripherals, only to jerk my head around, do a double-take and realize what I saw wasn't really there, I know that's just basic human nature. That's no excuse to blindfold your trainee while a remote probe shoots at them. Are Jedi stupid or something?
62. "Stretch Out with Your Feelings": Alright, Jedi are stupid. Their methods of training people are even stupider. How the hell do students of the Jedi Order (us nerds know them as Padawans) not go ballistic-insane when given this command? This way of training someone, to "stretch out with their feelings" is the equivalent of entering '14' on an online math problem with the answer of '14', and still getting the problem marked wrong. There's no possible way this makes any sense. "Stretching out with my feelings" while something is shooting at me is just a blatantly poor training method to get your Padawan killed. Period.
63. Lightsaber > Blaster: After Luke gets shot by the remote probe, Han says "Hokey religions ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." The lightsaber would cut Han's blaster in half and the Force would crush his bones into dust. Han doesn't get out as much as we are led to believe he does.
64. Not believing in the Force: Luke questions Han's inability to believe in the Force, despite the fact Luke didn't even know the Force existed two hours ago.
65. Arriving at Alderaan: This entire scene, from exiting hyperspace to getting captured by the Death Star, is pure greatness. Every line is classic. The emotion in the scene is felt very much. The tension is great. The conversation feels natural and alarming. The acting is superb. Literally everything about this scene is perfect. I could watch it on repeat.
66. "Send a scanning crew aboard": Vader demands a scanning crew be sent aboard the Falcon to find anyone who may be on board, which is something that using the Force would easily tell him.
67. The scanner: The "scanner" that the scanning crew takes aboard is the size of a college dorm-room footlocker and looks like it weighs about a hundred pounds.
68. Gullible Stormtroopers: The stormtroopers get pranked by the heroes when they beat up the scanning crew. The only thing missing was them taking a pie in the face.
69. Obi-Wants to Die: Obi-Wan goes running off into the Death Star to disable the tractor beam holding the Falcon in the Death Star without any kind of costume. The hallways are all grey and sterile, and somewhere there's a blatantly obvious, elderly space-monk sneaking around in brown, one color the bad guys don't wear. It's like he wants to die.
70. Conning the Adventure: When R2 discovers the location of Princess Leia in the Death Star, Luke cons, literally cons Han and Chewbacca into coming along with him to save her, by promising them HER money. Luke would sell his own mother just to have an adventure.
71. Mouse droid: I was told by my dad that the little mouse droid rolling on the ground in the Death Star was a Lost in Space electronic chariot toy spray-painted all black. Not only that, but it's scared by Wookie roars, as Chewbacca demonstrates for us.
72. Cell Block 1138: Ahh, a reference to THX 1138, George's one movie no one ever saw. In American Graffiti, John Milner had a  license plate that said "THX 138" and now Star Wars has cell-block 1138. While it's nothing more than a reference, you also have to take it seriously. Just what in the hell is the Death Star doing with that many cell blocks?
73. Stormtrooper hitting his head: There's a well-known movie goof when the Stormtroopers come in to search for the captives. One of them that does so conks his head on the door. He does so so audibly that it's ridiculously difficult not to notice. For a guy who's so hell-bent on updating these movies to wipe-out any errors, mistakes, goofs, bloopers and everything in between, why the shit does Lucas leave this one intact?
74. Princess Bitchface: Luke, Han and Chewie bust their asses and risk their lives to save the Princess in the cell block. A Princess whose first question to Luke degrades him for his diminuitive stature. Then she chastises Han for "cutting off their only escape route". They should've just left her in her cell. Nuts to being a good samaritan. Hell, the prequels would prove she's not even a real princess anyhow, so who's bullshitting who?
75. Chewbacca's Costume: Chewbacca spends the entire trash compactor scene standing on a platform in the corner since the production could only afford one yak-hair body costume and couldn't let this one get tarnished by the dirty water....just in case you were wondering.
76. The Only One Left: When Vader tells Grand Moff Tarkin that Obi-Wan Kenobi is on the Death Star, Tarkin scoffs saying "You, my friend, are all that's left of <the Jedi's> religion". It's acceptable that Tarkin didn't know about Kenobi, or Yoda, or any of the other Jedi that the EU saved...but he sure as hell forgot about the Emperor. 
77. Chewie the coward: Chewbacca hears a noise after they escape the trash compactor and runs off in fright. Something that'll rip people's arms out of sockets if they they lose a game of space-chess is terrified of a minor growl he heard in a trash compactor.
78. Deactivating the Tractor beam: Obi-Wan just goes to show us how disgustingly easy it is to deactivate a tractor beam.
79. Slapstick routine: The very instant the heroes run into a squad of Stormtroopers, Han shoots one dead. The others don't gun him and his friends down, but turn around and run off. Han and Chewie give chase, only to get scared and run off their other direction. This whole thing is like a comedy routine.
80. Luke and Leia and the Chasm: This scene is also a motion-picture classic. The music while Luke's shooting at stormtroopers is superb. The only thing is Luke shooting the bridge controls before he and Leia can escape...like a dumbass.
81. Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Vader: Yes, yes, we know; the lightsaber duel, the first for the franchise, is the dullest and most mundane one of them all. Instead of it being the epic Mustafar rematch, it devolves into two old men poking each other with sticks. Alec Guinness didn't get the idea of doing a swordfight and the lenses in David Prowse's Vader helmet practically made him blind.
82. Hamill Squeal: When Obi-Wan gets struck down, Hamill's lets out a cackling squeal that could be misconstrued as a "No!"
83. Stormtroopers Are Blind: Luke stands there as Stormtroopers fire at him. Each one missing more gloriously than the last. They're a mere sixty feet away and can't even come close to injuring him.
84. TIE Fighter Attack: There's a scene just after our heroes escape where four TIE Fighters attack the Falcon, leaving Han and Luke to defend the ship in ventral and dorsal gunner positions. Again, nothing short of a masterpiece of classic cinema. Absolutely captivating, even forty years later. Downright genius.
85. Cardboard Starfighters: When the heroes arrive at the rebel base on Yavin IV, many of the starfighters you see are cardboard cutouts. Makes you wonder what the budget for the rebellion either is or how they even manage to pull these battles off.
86. Luke's One-Up: There's nothing I hate more than a one-upper. Somebody who just has to have the last laugh in every conversation topic. Luke Skywalker dissing this pilot's honest statement by one-upping him is no exception.
87. Han the Force be With You: Luke tries to coax Han to join the Death Star battle. Han blows him off, but also tries to smooth things over with Luke by saying "May the Force be with You". It's like if a religious individual invited me to church, then I said "no, fuck church" but then said "but peace be with you."
88. Rebel Innuendo: The first thing after introducing all the wings, Wedge Antilles takes one look at the Death Star and says "look at the size of that thing". Because I'm ungodly immature, that is probably the funniest thing to say just as you're going to fight the biggest weapon the Empire has to offer.
89. Porkins: There's a morbidly obese Rebel pilot, complete with a double-chin, and the Star Wars lexicon calls him "Porkins". That is just fucking hilarious.
90. Vader Does it Himself: As soon as he sends the "crews to their fighters", he then turns to two other pilots and says "come with me" and proceeds to leave the Death Star and go to fight the rebel fleet. Vader, one of the most powerful beings in the universe, humbles himself and leaves himself open for easy annihilation by jumping into a vulnerable starfighter and flying around the vacuum of space.
91. Death Star in-Range: The Death Star first says it's going to be in range in about thirty minutes. Six minutes later, Yavin IV is in range and ready to be destroyed. This isn't even the worst time-related sin in movies, but it's certainly the worst one in Star Wars.
92. Luke's One Lucky Motherfucker: The entire final scene where Luke's two co-pilots ditch him and leave him to the jaws of Vader, Luke has literally everything go right for him. Obi-Wan talks to him through his brain, so he turns off his targeting computer because Kenobi tells him to trust himself to use the Force. So Vader is left several moments to fire one shot and blow up Luke's X-Wing. The first shot just destroys R2. Vader then doesn't fire again for several more seconds. Just as he's getting ready to get another lock and fire, Han shows up and blows up one of Vader's buddies. Vader's other buddy freaks out and flies into Vader's TIE Fighter, sending him hurtling through space at an uncontrollable spin. Luke, then on a complete fucking whim, fires a proton torpedo and manages to sink one directly into the exhaust port. Sure enough, the entire station goes up in a giant explosion and Luke flies off not admitting that he's the luckiest dude in the whole freakin' galaxy.
93. Miscounted Pilots: When Luke blows up the Death Star, only he, Wedge and Han/Chewie make it away from the battle. Yet, for some reason, there's a Y-Wing that flies away from battle that none of them piloted. Who the hell is that guy?!
94. Vader in the middle of nowhere: Vader eventually gets control of his PIE Fighter and flies off into space. He's literally eons away from anywhere in the galaxy. I sure hope he brought a bag of chips or something.
95. "Carrie!": When Luke lands in the Rebel base, Leia runs up to him and they embrace. Leia calls out "Luke!". Luke calls out "Carrie!" Props to Carrie Fisher for not breaking character and punching Hamill in the gut for being such a yutz.
96. Matte painting rebels: As Han, Chewbacca and Luke approach the stage for their medals, a majority of the rebels are nothing more than a part of the background; painted in to seemlessly blend in with the live actors.
97. No Medal for Chewbacca: Then there's the big one. Chewbacca doesn't get a medal for co-piloting Han in the twelve seconds they were in the Death Star battle. No, it doesn't seem fair. At least Chewie got to stick it to them by getting the last word in the movie; a long, gutteral roar.

Well, that was fun. Only 97 nitpicks. Star Wars is truly an American classic, but you can't ignore the fact that it's got some pretty hilarious parts in it, whether intentionally funny or ironically funny. Whether you laugh at it or with it...or mostly at it...you still have to marvel at it. It's a great flick to sit and watch whenever you want to escape from the crummy world you live in. I mean, hey! At least it didn't get any stupider.

PSYCHE. There's special edition changes we have to nitpick! Quit your back-tabbing in your browser! We've got more to cover!

THE NITPICK EXPRESS

presents

STAR WARS, Episode IV - A New Hope: Special Edition

1. Episode #: Yes, yes. Never fear, my OCD-ridden followers. It has it's episode # now.
2. Title: That's right. It also has a title. "A New Hope". Remember that this is a title George had to come up with on the fly in 1981 after Empire came out. Vague, but mysterious. I dig it.
3. Additional Forces: George went back and thought that there weren't enough stormtroopers that went down to retrieve the droids. Adding in a few more, plus a mobile Dewback, plus a transport taking off in the distance made it plenty clear how imperative finding the droids were. Not that the new stormtroopers don't say anything rather. The point is still verbally made by the two that existed in the first place.
4. New Sandcrawler: I'll buy that this was a necessary shot. The new sandcrawler looks great. Better than the Tyco R/C one that was used in '77.
5. Approaching Mos Eisley: Why the fuck does George cram so much shit on screen. It's like a kid who's just found his dad's gun and wants to wield it in front of his friends. Plus, now all he can ever talk about are guns. Everytime you want to look elsewhere at something else? There he is spinning his gun and play-firing it at you. Lucas shoves so much attention-stealing-shit in your face and down your throat. He must not even understand that using these new CGI-special effects for a movie made in '77 would contrast terribly. It sucks you right out of the movie when you go "Oh that's a change", "that's a change", "that's different".
6. Greedo Shooting First: This one just pissed so many people off. You take the edge off of Star Wars and Han Solo by doing this. Han goes from a ruthless smuggler that you didn't mess with to a polite smuggler that only defends himself. This is another change I'm sure George really didn't even think about. In a manner of speaking, it can be argued acceptable to have Greedo shoot first (though you destroy a character's previously established personality by doing so), but there's two problems that arise from this change.
1. Greedo Misses at Point-Blank-Range: Greedo is sitting not two feet from Han Solo and misses way to the left of his head. How are you going to send a bounty hunter to confront the man who owes you a ton of money and pick one that can't shoot straight, or is legally blind...or both?
2. Han's Other Ruthless Characteristics: How can you make the change to have Han be a good guy by not shooting first, but still just ignore the fact that Han and Chewie run illegal substances underneath everyone's noses across the galaxy. Smuggling is also illegal. Are you trying to make him a smuggler with a heart of gold? Hey, if becoming a Rebel general in the next two films don't prove that he has a heart of gold after all, I don't know what the fuck will.
7. Jabba the Hutt: Including the Jabba scene was entirely redundant. Anyone who knows the filmmaking history behind Star Wars knows that, because the special effects couldn't do the Jabba scene justice at the time, they decided to dump it, take all the exposition in that scene and stick it in the Greedo scene. So in the original movie, you get the point across that Han owes Jabba money, and Jabba wants it back, all from Greedo's confrontation. Then, they decide to just stick the original Jabba scene back into the movie. So now you have two scenes telling you the exact same stuff: Han owes Jabba money and Jabba's looking to collect. PLUS, Greedo is in the background of the Jabba scene. After Han supposedly shot him. What the shit?!
8. Boba Fett: In that same scene, they insert Boba Fett. I have no problem with this one. I just know it was fan-service and nothing else.
9. Falcon Takes Flight: At least the Millennium Falcon looks cool during take-off now.
10. Biggs: There's a scene inserted late in the movie where Luke runs into his friend Biggs, who apparently is now a rebel and ready to launch an assault on the Death Star. This is actually a good change, considering how it adds depth to the line "it'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home" the Death Star assault. I mean, in the original cut, you didn't have a clue what Luke was even referring to or who Biggs even was.
11. Still No Medal for Chewie: All that tampering, changing, aligning, connecting, editing, splicing, re-doing and still no medal for Chewie. You know what? Fuck you, George.

...but thanks for these movies, by the way.

Okay. Now I'm done.