What happens when Star Wars gets the Honest Trailers treatment?

By Rick Marshall November 18, 2015

Honest Trailers - Star Wars

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens hits theaters a month from today, so it’s no surprise that the Honest Trailers crew have finally decided to turn their attention to the movie that started it all: George Lucas’ 1977 masterpiece, Star Wars.

From Luke Skywalker’s whiny attitude to the title change and “special edition” edits, this installment of the hit video series doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the sci-fi classic.

Refusing to call the movie by its officially changed title, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, the video goes on to offer a pretty spot-on critique of the film and provide a preview that’s more in line with what you’d really see if you watched the 1977 film today. While hardcore fans might be horrified by some of the insults tossed at Lucas’ genre-defining movie, it’s difficult not to find some truth in some of the assessments of Star Wars.

Juxtaposing scenes of Mark Hamill’s complaining Luke Skywalker in Star Wars with scenes of Hayden Christensen’s similarly pouty (and much-maligned) portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in the prequel films, the narrator has a revelation of sorts and remarks, “Wait, so Hayden Christensen’s acting choices were intentional? Whoa.”

Later, the video’s Star Wars commentary gets derailed a bit when discussing Lucas’ controversial edits to the film that saw him adding various CG creatures and other elements to the original film. As with much of the Honest Trailers commentary, many of the rants are as funny as they are valid.

Oh, and the Honest Trailers team gets bonus points for including the famous — or possibly infamous — scene in which a stormtrooper hits his head against the blast door in the background of a scene midway through the film.

Given how far off the premiere of The Force Awakens is at this point, we can probably expect to see similar video commentaries for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi between now and December 18 when The Force Awakens arrives in theaters.

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