Discussion Film / ANewHope

Shouldn't it say, "These are not the tropes you are looking for:"?

Removed this entry:

• Always Save the Girl: Luke, Ben, and the droids put the plans to the Death Star at risk by taking them on a mission to save Leia from the Empire instead of heading to the Rebel base.

It's a gross mischaracterization of what actually happens in the movie. (Luke and Ben do exactly what Leia said to - take the plans to Alderaan - but are captured by the Death Star. Since Alderaan is destroyed, they have no idea where the Rebel base is without her.)

• Old Shame: You wouldn't think it today, but many of the principal actors just loathe this movie.
  • Especially true of Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi), who actually talked the filmmakers into killing off his character so he wouldn't have to reprise his role. When asked by a young Star Wars fan for his autograph, he (in)famously said he would only give it if the boy promised to never watch Star Wars again (in his defense, the boy claimed to have seen Star Wars over 100 times).
    • Actually, the bad feelings towards this movie from not only the actors, but much of the crew, probably have more to do with the fact that the film had a very hectic and borderline horrible production. Guiness was notably one of the few people who thought that the movie would even do good, but his hatred is more a case of I Am Not Spock than Old Shame.

This trope is being argued. Rather than come down on one side, I'm cutting it so it can be properly discussed. If they disliked the difficulty of the production, it is NOT this trope. Same goes if they were afraid to be typecast as these characters - that's I Am Not Spock. So which is it?

Personally, I don't care if Greedo shot first. Han got him, that's all that matters to me.

I just made an edit that got deleted, so I'll discuss it here. I don't know why the Death Star plans can't count as a Macguffin. It is a common misconception that a MacGuffin can't have any additional characteristics than desirability. Even if one or more characters' desire to posess the object (and thus driving the plot) is the main defining characteristic of a MacGuffin, the very reason for its desirability may play an important role at the end, e.g. through some direct practical application. It is this sort of MacGuffin that tends to appear in George Lucas films. While Hitchcock's Mac Guffins tended to be genuinely vague, this definition is not universal. See this article for a little clarification from George Lucas himself...

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/02/indianajones200802?currentPage=4

For comparison, the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail are also Mac Guffins in the same way as the Death Star plans: Their main function, at least in the first act, is to set the plot in motion by being desirable to more than one character. In the finale, however, they play an important role in resolving the plot as well.

[edited for spelling and clarification]

Umm - surely the Hilarious in Hindsight trope is averted slightly? Leia, having more of a combat awareness, could have been monitoring longer-range instruments that would give more of a view as to where those TIE vessels were than the gunsights would.

Just a thought..