Okay, that title is misleading. Episode IV is not literally the worst ever (it is quite good, actually), but beneath the layers of movie magic and childlike wonder lies a despicable, rotten core. A malicious cancer that threatens to spread and retroactively make A New Hope a piece of unwatchable garbage. If you have even a slice of humanity in your soul then you will agree.
First things first, a lot of people hate the Special Editions of the original trilogy; Greedo shooting first, CGI Jabba, and replacing the cheesy 80s Muppet song with a somehow even more cheesy space jazz number with photorealistic dangling uvulas. Personally? I wish they would release the original versions but, being a gnarly gnineties kid who is hella from the nineties, I grew up on the Special Editions and I’ve grown accustomed to most of the changes. That being said, I’m not here to talk about the Special Editions. I’m here to talk about the Blu-ray releases. There is one alteration that was made in this version of the film that fundamentally changes and undermines the logic of the entire Star Wars universe. I am, of course, talking about this:
THIS FUCKING ROCK!
THIS FUCKING ROCK RIGHT HERE!
What’s the problem with this rock? Well, this rock makes every second of the Star Wars saga from 30 minutes into A New Hope on entirely invalid. None of it could have happened. R2D2 should have been captured by Tusken Raiders and carted off to god knows where or destroyed, meaning that Obi Wan should never had gotten Princess Leia’s message and both he and Luke would’ve just stayed on Tatooine. Because R2D2 being able to hide in this little alcove is physically impossible.
For 30 someodd years, this is how Artoo hid from the Tuskens.
He tucked himself into this indentation in the rocks. Now, this isn’t the most effective hiding spot, but it is one that he would be able to enter on his own, with no outside assistance, that would provide some manner of ducking out of sight of the Sandpeople. Nobody complained about this for decades, they just assumed that the Tuskens didn’t see Artoo hiding over there because they were focused on knocking out Luke. But that wasn’t good enough for George Lucas aka Ben Ghazi aka Literally Hitler, oh no. He had to add the fucking rock. It is plain to see with simple rough measurements why the addition of that rock makes the cave inaccessible to Artoo.
We can see that its widest the opening is about 50% wider than Artoo and at its tallest it is almost exactly his height. The opening would be large enough for Artoo if it was perfectly Artoo shaped, but Artoo shaped it certainly is not.
The point at which the opening is wide enough to fit Artoo’s head is considerably lower than the highest point, which was already barely taller than Artoo.
Here we can see, even compensating for the slightly shorter posture of the Artoo in motion vs the stationary Artoo in the cave shot, there is absolutely no way that Artoo could’ve rolled into the alcove to hide from the Tuskens. That means that, without outside assistance, Artoo could not have made it into the cave. Luke would have had to turn him on his side and slide him into the cave headfirst, which is kinda hard to do when you are unconscious. Artoo could only have made it through on his own if he phased through the rock. While a universe full of space wizards and and 4 armed diner chefs is anything but grounded in reality, there are still a set of rules that the Star Wars galaxy is bound by, which are largely similar to those of our world besides the presence of the force and maybe the feasibility of FTL travel. It is a universe where the laws of physics dictate that a droid cannot phase through matter.
That is why this is the most offensive change made to the Star Wars films. CG dewbacks may look like garbage, Lupti Nek may be objectively better than Jedi Rocks, and blinking Ewoks may be asinine, but at least none of them require characters to ignore the physical properties of matter. So please, George “Ben Ghazi” “Literally Hitler” Lucas, please fix this. Take a break from making the next Star War, go to the Star War vault, and erase that little rock thingy from the film reel. If you don’t, I will never watch the Star War again and you will go bankrupt. You have been warned.
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