# The greatness of the original Star Wars **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 23, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354 "2015-11-23T14:23:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354/121 "2015-12-02T15:07:47Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > Oh yeah, that reminds me of another thing that made Star Wars great. Lucas just happened to know that–and this is freaking genius–there is no underwear in space! 😃[One of the best stories that Carrie Fisher tells in her latest book](http://www.thegeektwins.com/2010/08/why-princess-leia-went-commando-in-star.html#.Vl6HMry350w) and memoir _Wishful Drinking_ is her explanation for why Princess Leia was so, er, bouncy in the original _Star Wars_.[INDENT] Remember the white dress I wore all through that film [Star Wars]? George [Lucas] came up to me the first day of filming, took one look at the dress and said: “You can’t wear a bra under that dress.” > > “OK, I’ll bite,” I said. “Why?” And he said: "Because… there’s no underwear in space."While that is a ridiculous statement in itself, it gets better. Recently, after Carrie Fisher told this anecdote in her one-woman show in San Francisco, Lucas came backstage to expand on his reasoning. He explained that in space you get weightless, and so your flesh expands. What? But your bra doesn’t, so you get strangled by your bra. That’s why I couldn’t wear a bra in the first Star Wars.[/INDENT]That you, George. You might be a little fuzzy on whether or not Han shot first/only but you got this one right! As a wiser fella than myself (whose handle I can’t recall) once said: Whenever a Star Wars movie is being made, George Lucas needs to be given a Star Wars coloring book and told to go sit in the corner. Although yes, he did get that one right. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354/122 "2015-12-02T15:11:24Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I thought she was hottest in her Endor get up. Who doesn’t love a good poncho? The poncho was nice. Know what was even nicer? Her Boushh drag. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354/123 "2015-12-02T15:30:28Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The poncho was nice. Know what was even nicer? Her Boushh drag. Ahhh, yes…who doesn’t love a _throaty_ voice… ---
**Author:** ![Paxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/50afbb/32.png) [@Paxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paxx)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354/124 "2015-12-02T19:25:34Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > Although yes, he did get that one right. Do you mean “right” as in he got Carrie Fisher to go braless, or right that “there’s no underwear in space”?? ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354/125 "2015-12-02T20:16:57Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Second, Star Wars was the first movie which worked which assumed we knew all this stuff. […]Star Trek also dumped us into the future without a lot of explanation, but they had hours and hours of show to build a universe. Star Wars did it in minutes. > [@msmith537](#): > > Lucas made places like Tatooine, Hoth, Dagobah, Endor, Cloud City and the Death Stars feel like real tangible places. Unlike Star Trek, every character isn’t an astrophysicist space marine diplomat. This was a universe run by an Empire with space stations the size of a small moon which also had dipshit farm boys living in it’s backwaters. […]The Millennium Falcon felt like the sort of hunk of junk someone like Han and Chewie would live/work in. One thing that these kind of get at is that the original three Star Wars assumed some level of intelligence on the audience’s part, at least a level of intelligence above the brain-damaged squirrel that most movies and TV are aimed at. Think of that fantastic opening scene, with the slight curve of the planet across the bottom of the screen. Sure, the glowing atmosphere was a revolutionary special effect, but just as important was that the movie didn’t start with a wide shot of a ball in space with a nice slow zoom in – the equivalent of saying "Look, here’s a planet in space. Did everybody get that? Again, this is a planet, and you all know it’s a planet because it’s a round ball in space, and every movie in the history of time has let you know something is a planet by showing a round ball in space, right? OK, I’m going to let the planet sit there for a minute so you all can understand it’s a planet Got it yet? Well, maybe just another minute for the slow folks. " It just jumped right in, and let you figure it out. Likewise, it didn’t have much if any characters explaining things that they both knew to each other for the audience’s benefit, etc. There was a huge amount of world-building, but it was all done very deftly and subtlely – for instance the announcement that the Senate has been dissolved gives a huge insight into the politics of the world(s), but the viewer barely notices because it’s camouflaged as an explanation of the Death Star. The movie isn’t worried about whether some people are confused by a reference to the Clone Wars that’s never followed up on. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354/126 "2015-12-02T20:52:36Z")
> [@Paxx](#): > > Do you mean “right” as in he got Carrie Fisher to go braless, or right that “there’s no underwear in space”?? Well, I don’t work at NASA, soooo…😛 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354/127 "2015-12-02T21:52:23Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > One thing that these kind of get at is that the original three Star Wars assumed some level of intelligence on the audience’s part, at least a level of intelligence above the brain-damaged squirrel that most movies and TV are aimed at. > > Think of that fantastic opening scene, with the slight curve of the planet across the bottom of the screen. Sure, the glowing atmosphere was a revolutionary special effect, but just as important was that the movie didn’t start with a wide shot of a ball in space with a nice slow zoom in – the equivalent of saying "Look, here’s a planet in space. Did everybody get that? Again, this is a planet, and you all know it’s a planet because it’s a round ball in space, and every movie in the history of time has let you know something is a planet by showing a round ball in space, right? OK, I’m going to let the planet sit there for a minute so you all can understand it’s a planet Got it yet? Well, maybe just another minute for the slow folks. " It just jumped right in, and let you figure it out. Likewise, it didn’t have much if any characters explaining things that they both knew to each other for the audience’s benefit, etc. There was a huge amount of world-building, but it was all done very deftly and subtlely – for instance the announcement that the Senate has been dissolved gives a huge insight into the politics of the world(s), but the viewer barely notices because it’s camouflaged as an explanation of the Death Star. The movie isn’t worried about whether some people are confused by a reference to the Clone Wars that’s never followed up on. I saw an interview with Lucas once, where he talked about the influence of Kurosawa on his own work. One of the things he mentioned that he wanted to capture was the feeling he had, when watching Japanese cinema, of seeing an “alien” world that wasn’t created to facilitate the understanding of an outsider: Japanese films, obviously enough, didn’t feel the need to explain Japanese culture to Japanese people. They’d drop a line like, “The Shogunate has broken the power of the daimyos,” and would bother to explain what “Shogunate” or “daimyo” means, any more than an American film wouldn’t feel the need to explain, “The Thirteen Colonies have broken away from the British Empire.” Lines like, “The Emperor has dissolved the Senate,” or throw-away mentions of the Clone Wars, were his attempt to capture that feeling. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_Urquhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354/128 "2015-12-03T16:02:08Z")
In the buildup to the release of _The Force Awakens_, the website io9 has been running retrospective columns about the first six movies. [Today’s column](http://io9.com/the-original-star-wars-is-a-great-movie-because-it-asks-1745802421) on the original _Star Wars_ is pretty good. As some of the comments note, the writer gets a couple of things wrong (most notably that Obi-Wan knew on Tatooine that Luke and Leia were Vader’s children, and other plot developments that Lucas hadn’t yet formulated). Overall, though, I agree with the main point – \*Star Wars \*was great because it brought up so many questions that it didn’t answer. Some of the answers that came later, especially in the prequels (I’m looking at you, midichlorians), haven’t done the 1977 film any favors, but regarded _in situ_, _Star Wars_ is a really great movie that challenged the viewers’ imaginations to fill in its blanks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatness-of-the-original-star-wars/738354.md?page=6)