Empire Strikes Back vs. Ben Kenobi, Jar-Jar, Anakin, Ewoks

[jcb193]

Dr. Sylvan and i began a polite debate about the merits of Empire Stikes back versus the other Star Wars movies.  I didn't want to hijack an otherwise awesome and useful thread (favorite movies), so i thought i would continue it here, instead of in PM.  Obviously most people on this site have some opinion about Star Wars (we Magic players aren't as unique as we think, many of our interests intersect on some dorky interval), so here's the place to share Star Wars related ones.

I think that Empie Strikes Back is perhaps the strongest of the movies at first viewing, but my interest slowly deteriorates with multiple viewings. I'm not saying it gets worse, just simply that i lose interest in watching it.  (kind of like Blade Runner- great movie, though be careful of the painfully slow middle, if watching late at night).

Things we need to keep in mind:
1.) Acting quality in the franchise is irrelevent.  The actors in the Star Wars mythos are closer to Razzies than Oscars.  
2.) I don't think TPM has any redeeming qualities, and AOTC was marginally better.  The fact that it has me panting for episode three barely overshadows the fact that it was still a sub-standard movie.  
3.) How can one factor in nostalgic, childhood fondness for the early trilogy?  Read: if ANH came out today, would it be as well received or would it be considered at cheesy as Starship Troopers?
4.) Though I too have written many college level term papers on the Star Wars mythos, it is no Citizen Kane either, so let's not get too serious.

That said, i think these movies need to be classified as smart action movies (a la Raiders of the Lost Ark).  Movies that are based on action, can have an intelligent design, innovative techniques and thoughts, but are still action movies: hence a need for fast pacing.  (and if you think this is untrue, keep in mind that nobody was cheering Palpatine's politcal movements, but everyone went nuts when Yoda busted out some kung-fu lightsaber techniques (which i personally found exciting, but cheesy).


So what is your favorite Star Wars movie, and why?


I personally enjoy Return of the Jedi the best. After spending hundreds of hours watching the movies, memorizing the dialogue, traveling through Tunisia, and debating the mythos for countless hours, i still can pop in Jedi and not get bored.

[Machinus]

In this order:

5
2
6
4
1

Hopefully 3 will not suck.

[Dr. Sylvan]

I'm curious, Machinus, why you picked II over VI and IV. Is it strictly because the action is that much more impressive? Is there something you especially don't like about IV and VI? I know that I find II to be more rewatchable than IV, but that's mainly because I've seen it three hundred fewer times.

[Kowal]

I'm all about

5
6
4
2
1

I used to watch the flicks all the frigging time, but after seeing eps 1 and 2, I can't feel comfortable with myself watching the others anymore.  The new series of movies has really ruined it for me.

[Machinus]

I know that I find II to be more rewatchable than IV, but that's mainly because I've seen it three hundred fewer times.

I actually don't really like a new hope that much, but I think you are right. I have seen a new hope enough times that I don't really like watching it now. Perhaps 6 and 2 could be switched on my list, but 4 stays where it is.

I had some serious gripes with attack of the clones but the improvement over the phantom menace was subsantial. I really like the character of Obi-Wan, and actually I really really like the score for attack of the clones. I didn't think the yoda battle was as awesome as a lot of other people did, but I was impressed with a lot of the new effects. Stuff like the solar sailer, the stasis field that obiwan is in when he talks to dooku, exploding federation starships on geonosis, etc. I am a sucker for a big fireball.

Kowal expresses a sentiment that I think most star wars fans feel, but I am still hoping for the best.

[cssamerican]

V
IV
I
VI
II

Empire Strikes Back was superior to all the other in every aspect of film making, except for the special effects of the newer films.

I think most people have seen A New Hope so many times they forget how good this film is. While it is no Citizen Cane it is one of the better Sci-Fi movie ever made, and I think if the first Star Wars movie came out tomorrow and this was it would do pretty damn good at the box office.

I know every one hates the Phantom Menace. The first time I watched it I felt a little disappointed; however, it actually gets better over time for me. I not sure why, maybe because Jar-Jar gets easier to understand or maybe because I have learned to tune him out. Either way this movie has grown on me. Natalie Portman is the only one who comes of stiff in this movie, and I really like how they did the character of Wato.

Return of the Jedi seems much cheesier than any of the other ones to me. I am not sure if it is the Ewoks (Beating Stormtroopers with rocks is cheesy) or if it’s the how they handled Lea, Han, Luke triangle. You know the "I always knew" line and the scene where where Han learns Luke an Lea are brother and sister. The thing I did like about this one though was the Jabba Palace scenes and pretty much any scene that involved Vader or the Emperor.

Attack of the Clones was the worst acting (From Natalie, Hayden, and Pernilla AKA Shimi Skywalker) I have ever seen in a movie. Even the opening scene with the Queen and her security detail was awful acting.  Natalie Portman and Hayden Christian seem so stiff together it isn't even funny. The best parts of this movie were the Dex scenes in the 50s style dinner, the Kamino scenes, and scenes revolving aroud Palpatine. Ian McDiarmid and Ewan McGregor are both excellent actors, and are the reason why I have faith that Return of the Sith could be better than this was.

[Bram]

I like Return of the Jedi the best.

This is for one reason and one reason alone. In movies 1 through 5, basically everything goes exactly according to the emperor's grand plan. Up to the finale, the guy is on top. He even has his pupil duke it out with his own son, who he wants him to succeed. And shit is working, too. Except that Luke proves to be the biggest hero in the entire saga. Sure, he throws away his light saber and says: 'I'll never turn to the dark side' but he just as well could have flipped him the bird and said 'kill me NOW, you ugly mother fucker!'.

"Ah, yes, a Jedi's weapon. Much like your father's. By now you must know can never be turned from the dark side. So will it be with you.

"You're wrong. Soon I'll be dead...and you with me."

That whole scene. The dawning realisation that, uh, IT'S A TRAP. The fight between father and son when Luke can no longer stand the emperor's taunts.

"You want this, don't you? The hate is swelling in you now. Take your Jedi weapon. Use it. I am unarmed. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger. With each passing moment, you make yourself more my servant."

"I will not fight you, father."

"You are unwise to lower your defenses."

The taking-off-of-the-helmet scene.

"You're coming with me. I can't leave you here. I've got to save you."

"You already have, Luke. You were right about me. Tell your sister...you were right."

This elevates the movie beyond all the others. Overacted? Yep. Overemotional lines that could have originated from a random B-movie? Check. But Star Wars movies are not now, nor have never been about cinematographic quality. They have been about coolness, and oneliners. About characters that people love. 4, 5 and 6 had that. 1 and to a lesser extent 2, did not. And from what I've seen in the trailer maybe 3 will have it, after all.

[LizardKING]

With the release (only a few months to wait) of Revenge of the Sith, I was expecting a topic like this. In my opinion :

5
2
4
6
1

Concerning Empire Strikes Back, I just notice that this is just everyone's favorite movie, for obvious reasons.

Attack of the Clones is underestimated I think. The keys of Anakyn's face-off are suggested (mostly in the Tusken Raiders scene, with the slaughter, the music, the colors of sky at dusk,...), fighting scenes are among the most intense of the 5 movies (especially in the arena) and the origins of Bounty Hunter Boba Fett are revealed. That said, the love affair between Anakyn and Padmé was very boring.

Return of the Jedi would have been the best, without all the Ewoks cream pie.

[Toad]

5
4
6
1
2

I really like the *first* movies (that is, 4, 5 and 6) because they were full of flavour and the scenarii were strong.

1 and 2 were dumb. I found 1 to be quite boring, but the race part makes me rank it higher than Ep2. Ep2 was ridiculous. Seeing Yoda fightning made me sad. They totally destroyed the Yoda myth by making him fight like a clown. And the final scene with bazillions of Jedis fighting in the arena was dumb. Jar-Jar Binks is SO annoying I want to cut off the sound whenever he starts talking.

[VGB]

Actually, the Yoda fight scene at the end of II strengthened the mythos, for me.

Obviously a squat troll like Yoda would not inherently possess such agility, thus he apparently draws it from the Force.  The fact that he is the only Jedi in the whole series thus far capable of such feats confirms that his strength in the Light side is unparalleled.

[Matt]

5*
4*
2
6
1


*(I actually haven't seen these in a long time so the top two slots are kind of up in the air)

The racing 'scene' (which was really like eight scenes and SHOULD have been only one) was a godawful drain on the Ep1, on par with Jar-Jar.

Also, that little kid just could not act. I mean I can't blame him, he's like five and shouldn't be expected to stand toe-to-toe with Ewan Macgregor and Liam Neeson (both fine actors). I blame whoever cast him, and whoever decided to fill the role with the single most annoying little squirt since the kid in Last Action Hero.

Was there any reason they couldn't have written the role for an older kid? Also his piloting skills really seemed like a total deus ex machina. It honestly just wasn't believable that some slave child living on Buttfuck Gulch managed to pick up both robotics and piloting by that age, and to a degree surpassing people 30-40 years his senior, force or no. I can believe that some Jedi Knight that spent 20+ years studying under strict supervision of some masters could do that, but not some little kid learning on his own.

Also, the dialogue was beyond atrocious. "Patience, my blue friend." An actor of Liam Neeson's caliber shouldn't be forced to spew this drivel. Also, lest we forget, Jamaicans weren't the only people stereotyped into a race. Witness the aliens-whose-accents-and-mispronounciations-only-appear-Chinese-really-you-guys-it's-just-a-coincidence. Horrible.


II pissed me off in far fewer places, but one of the worst was the big jedi fight scene. It turns out that hokey religions and ancient weapons really are no match for a good blaster at your side.

I thought these guys were supposed to be awesome ninjas or something, instead I find out that any schmo can buy a jedi-killing machine for $100? Fuck that. I always thought (and espeically from the opening scenes in Ep1) that when someone sicced a Jedi on you, it meant serious business.

Remember at the end of LotR when Gandalf says something to the effect of "They may outnumber us but we have names among our ranks that are worth a thousand men each"? That's what I thought a Jedi was. A figured a Jedi was worth, like, a Star Destroyer. Instead we find assassins killing them, random bounty hunters, mindless droids, even barbarian insects. Being a Jedi seems to offer less protection than grabbing a small child and using it as a human shield.

Also, it sure looked like 90% of the Jedi died right there in that rocky pit. What's left for Vader to hunt down in III?

The other problem is that it sets up the overtheme as "Well Obi-Wan lived 'cause he's the best!," which is crap message that people outgrow by the time they read books without pictures. A far better message would have been that the few Jedi who lived through these wars did so not because they were the best, that the killing was absolutely indiscriminate, and they simply got lucky. That's a much, much more powerful narrative, to see your betters fall around you despite their prowess.

II's biggest problem was the importance they placed on stuff like Yoda fighting, and the whole Fett thing (especially the kid watching his dad's head get cut off). There's a small coiterie of the audience that just creamed their jeans at this shit, but most people just didn't care. Basically, what could have been a great movie was sacrificed on the altar of fan service.

[jpmeyer]

The pod racing scene screamed LICENSING TIE-INS more than probably anything that I can think of in any of the movies.  Even more than the Ewoks.

[Matt]

The pod racing scene screamed LICENSING TIE-INS more than probably anything that I can think of in any of the movies.  Even more than the Ewoks.

So true. On a related note, I remember reading in an article about the relative lack of marketing that went on for Episode II, that Pepsi (or Coke or whoever had the official Episode I cola) was stuck with over one billion unsold cans with Liam Neeson's face on them. Try and think about that. You can't. It's just too much sugar water to even contemplate.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Was there any reason they couldn't have written the role for an older kid? Also his piloting skills really seemed like a total deus ex machina. It honestly just wasn't believable that some slave child living on Buttfuck Gulch managed to pick up both robotics and piloting by that age, and to a degree surpassing people 30-40 years his senior, force or no. I can believe that some Jedi Knight that spent 20+ years studying under strict supervision of some masters could do that, but not some little kid learning on his own.

I agree with this 100%. His age also totally ruined the legitimacy of his crush on Padme. When you were nine, did you lust after post-adolescents? Did you remember their name ten years later? Did you think about her "every day" during that gap?

II pissed me off in far fewer places, but one of the worst was the big jedi fight scene. It turns out that hokey religions and ancient weapons really are no match for a good blaster at your side.

I thought these guys were supposed to be awesome ninjas or something, instead I find out that any schmo can buy a jedi-killing machine for $100? Fuck that. I always thought (and espeically from the opening scenes in Ep1) that when someone sicced a Jedi on you, it meant serious business.

I definitely agree that the fight hurt the mythos of ninjaness. I felt it would have been better if they had started out with just a few dozen Jedi (rather than the hundred or two that we saw), and had a few die to basically overwhelming firepower. As it was, they seemed very mortal. The worst was Jango Fett killing the Jedi that leapt up to the balcony. Weak.

Also, it sure looked like 90% of the Jedi died right there in that rocky pit. What's left for Vader to hunt down in III?

That contingent wasn't the whole Jedi Order. Not even close. That's just the bunch that they could assemble from Coruscant on virtually no notice. The rest are scattered throughout the galaxy---waiting for Anakin to find them in III.

The other problem is that it sets up the overtheme as "Well Obi-Wan lived 'cause he's the best!," which is crap message that people outgrow by the time they read books without pictures. A far better message would have been that the few Jedi who lived through these wars did so not because they were the best, that the killing was absolutely indiscriminate, and they simply got lucky. That's a much, much more powerful narrative, to see your betters fall around you despite their prowess.

I never got the impression that Obi-Wan was the best at all. He and Anakin were each quickly subdued by Dooku. He's supposed to be pretty good, yes. But not, like, surviving the slaughter simply because of his skill.

[Machinus]

Well, I wasn't going to detail my complaints, but since everyone else is, here we go. I am not going to touch the phantom menace right now since the issues that film has are pretty serious, and have been addresed for like six years now.

The first and most major complaint I had was the EXTREME whinyness of teenage anakin. It was so unbearable that at one point I thought Lucas did it on purpose to explain the later whinyness of Luke. Luke bitches about everything in a new hope, and it would make sense for this immature discontent to pass from father to son. But it does ruin the romance with Padme, and makes the scenes that should be important movitation for his path to the dark side very trivial and unwatchable (seeing his mother die, that was the worst death in a movie EVER).

The second complaint I had was with the storyline. None of the other Jedi are really involved in this movie. It is about windu and yoda meditating while obiwan is busting his ass all over the galaxy investigating the beginnings of the empire. Did this story have to revolve around Obi-Wan? I like his character a lot, and stuff like the starfighter and the jedi archives is cool, but the plot seemed weak, especially at the end when yoda ends up summoning the entire clone army and jedi minutemen to some remote manufacturing planet for a war. Isn't there any better way to do this?

The third thing is stuff Matt talked about. The low level of the dialogue and the return of crappy characters like Jar Jar is really ridiculous. We have people like Bail Organa and fucking Palpatine fighting over the future of the galaxy, and then jar jar is there wasting our time.

[Smmenen]

Palpatine is the sole reason I even like Star Wars.

When I was a child I hated Star Wars.  It was impenetrable and weird.

When I was eleven or twelve, Dark Horse Comics put out a series called "Dark Empire."  

I read it and I fell in love with Star Wars almost exclusively because Palpatine was so fascinating.  I had an early penchant of politics and I quickly learned the backstory by reading A New Hope and all the RPG Source book information (I don't play RPGS).

Before Episode I came out I wanted to know three things:

1) Where did Palpatine come from
2) WHo trianed him
3) Why was he doing what he was doing

When I  read the terry brooks novelization I got the answer to the third question and possibly the first (although in the Novelization, the Senator from Naboo actually represents multiple star systems).

Now I'm going to get to learn 2.  And I couldn't be happier.

The only thing that really interests me about Star Wars is the politics.  War, Revolution, Empire, Rebllion, Republic, the taxation of trade routes.

That's what I love about it.  Power, the Fall, the Redemption.  That's what I care about.  And this is going to have it in spades.

[Matt]

We have people like Bail Organa and fucking Palpatine fighting over the future of the galaxy, and then jar jar is there wasting our time.

Actually, the thing is: Jar-Jar was really popular with little kids. I mean REALLY popular - almost as popular with the youngins as he was reviled but the older crowd. So even thought Lucas wanted to please the diehard fans he'd pissed off with Ep1, he knew he couldn't drop the character completely. So he compromised and included him in several scenes but only gave him like 3 sentences of dialogue. I expect he'll have even less to do in the III - possibly he won't appear at all.

None of the other Jedi are really involved in this movie. It is about windu and yoda meditating while obiwan is busting his ass all over the galaxy investigating the beginnings of the empire.

Oh yeah, that too. It's the fucking Sith rising up again, and the council already knew it from Maul in Ep1. You would think they could spare more than one knight to investigate this.

I never got the impression that Obi-Wan was the best at all. He and Anakin were each quickly subdued by Dooku. He's supposed to be pretty good, yes. But not, like, surviving the slaughter simply because of his skill.

The problem is that you totally get a sense of "Okay, there's this huge battle, hundreds of Jedi are dead...and these guys survived...why? Because they're main characters." It should be the other way around - building your main characters out of the pool of survivors. That's much more convincing, much more 'real'.

Imagine if they'd killed someone with a speaking role like Windu*. After the battle, the Jedi council is in disarray following the loss of their leader. From here a number of possible scenarios present themselves:

-Yoda steps up to the plate but assuming these new duties leaves him less time and effort to focus on investigating the Sith menace, which gives them opportunity to enact some other dastardly plan.

or:

-Some new guy takes over, but is obviously not ready for the job and begins fumbling operations. His incompetance gets more Jedi killed, maybe he reveals to Anakin some list of undercover Jedi that compromises their positions. But there's some sympathy for him too, because he's taking over in an extremely chaotic, trying time. But he still goes down in history as the Henri-Philippe Petain of the Republic.

As it is, they didn't seem to have lost anyone important. They all died pretty easily, how much help were they really going to be?


*of course Jackson probably had it in his contract that his character not die, but bear with me here.

[Roxas]

The second post of this thread is a very worthwhile read.  

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=399933

[Machinus]

People act like Lucas somewhere along the line lost his mind and went CRAZY with visuals....but remember that as tame as Empire and Jedi seem today, in the day they were MIND-BLOWING...I don't believe Lucas sacrificed story for "another cool cgi shot..." Lucas's methodology and approach hasn't changed.

I agree that people are too harsh on Lucas, since he is obviously trying to appeal to a much younger crowd than we all are (closer to how old we were when we first saw the trilogy).

However, I have a problem with any director who takes his own films off the market after 20 years and only sells the obviously worse "redone" versions. If I CANT buy the originals anywhere except ebay, then there is something really wrong.

[Anusien]

I enjoy Star Wars on my own terms.  I have the Laserdisc rips of the original, which is almost DVD quality.  And you know what?  Han shoots first!
I have The Phantom Edit, where I trade quality for a much better movie.  It's a cohesive story and much better that way.
I basically watch Attack of the Clones for Natalie Portman (<3) and the fight scenes, which are pretty bad-ass.  And they imply that the survivors are the only ones left because they're the most powerful in the force.

For me, I used to like Jedi the most, but now it's empire, now that I'm old enough to appreciate the whole, "Vader is Luke's father, this is fucking amazing" bit.  If only we could get Jedi without Ewoks...  The rest of it, it's incredible, but sometimes I root for the bad guys and tell the Emperor to shut up.  If he doesn't remind Luke that he's losing himself to the Dark Side, he would turn completely.  It's just that good of a movie.

Episode III looks like it could redeem the trilogy, with the politics of the Jedi Council, the good fight scenes, and the incredibleness of Anakin hunting down and killing all the Jedi.  Plus, JAMES EARL JONES.  Star Wars fans autoscoop to the voice of Vader.

Lord Vader.
Yes, my master.
Arise!

At the end of the first trailer, that sent chills up and down my spine.

http://www.sequentialpictures.com/moviestarwarsepisode3.html

[Peter_Rotten]

One of my favorite aspects of the SW movies were the dialogues between the Light and Dark side of the force.  These dialogues begin in ANH between Vader and Ben, rise in intensity in ESB between Vader and Luke, and then reach a climax with Vader, Luke, and the Emporer.    Bram said it best with

That whole scene. The dawning realization that, uh, IT'S A TRAP. The fight between father and son when Luke can no longer stand the emperor's taunts.

 That is what I like so much about the original movies - this oversimplified version of good and evil.  Evil taunts and tricks you.  You must be smart and brave to avoid its traps.  Those dialogues were almost biblical in nature - like Satan tempting JC to abuse his God given powers.

Ultimately this leads to my biggest complaint about EP1.  It is not the shallow annoying racial stereotypes.  It is not the horrific acting.  It is not that Lucas made Liam deliver lines as atrocious as "you have a high mitochondria count" (or whatever the fuck it is called).  It is not Jar Jar Binks - ok, maybe it is JJBinks...  It is the fact that there was so much wasted potential in the Darth Maul/Jedi fight at the end of the movie.  Where was the dialogue?  Where was the evil taunting?  Where was the gloating?  Where was the personality?  Darth Maul was a wasted character - plain and simple.  With just the right lines, he could have easily been one that we loathed instead of being just a cool bad guy like Dengar or Bib Fortuna.

Side note:  I swear that in the trailer for EP1, I could have heard Darth Maul speak some sort of lines about revenge.  These lines were not in the movie.  Does anyone have any idea what I am talking about or should I crawl back under my dorky rock?

[Matt]

Oh, you make a great point about Maul being wasted. I agree 100%. And yeah, I think he had about one speaking line in the whole movie - he and Sidious are on some balcony and the dialogue goes something to the effect of:

"Is now the time we'll take our revenge against the Jedi?"
"No, my apprentice. We must be patient."

[Machinus]

Oh, you make a great point about Maul being wasted. I agree 100%. And yeah, I think he had about one speaking line in the whole movie - he and Sidious are on some balcony and the dialogue goes something to the effect of:

"Is now the time we'll take our revenge against the Jedi?"
"No, my apprentice. We must be patient."

"At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have our revenge."

I didn't go into TPM in my post but the loss of Darth Maul is likely the second biggest issue I have with this film. I was honestly really surprised when Obi-Wan killed him. He was very well developed, he was THE EMPEROR'S apprentice, and he killed Qui-Gonn, and he had all this awesome new technology like those 1337 probe droids, the scooter, double saber, etc. Discussion about this was somewhat overshadowed by everyones favorite retarded gungan.

It really seems like a waste of original character development, but perhaps this was the kind of intended effect. How many sith were there for the jedi to kill?

[Smmenen]

I like the characters, but there is simply no time to develop characters.

Star Wars is a space opera.  That means huge ideas, large battles, and a plot on a grand scale.  That does not mean that we should get to know the 2nd tier characters very well in 8 hours of film.  If we got to know anyone but the first 4-5 characters in 8 hours of film anymore than we already did, then Star Wars would not be a space opera.

Star Wars is about big mad ideas and huge wars and galatic struggle.  The development of Darth Maul and Mace Windu doesnt' factor in in under 8 hours.

[combo_dude]

Also, they'd better have some sort of excuse for something that annoyed me: Why is the technology so much better in the early films? I mean, they've got double-ended sabres 50 years before the Sith are using single-ended ones instead, and they've got those fairly awesome destroyer droids (which aren't on either of the Death Stars ANYWHERE even though they are a lot better at...well, anything really) in the first films. I don't think that a war would be enough to destroy the technology from then, but not the technology for the death star.

[Ephraim]

I agree with your complaint about the droids, but the double light sabre issue is pretty easy to address. I'm sure that constructing a double light sabre is a trivial matter involving two regular light sabres and some duct tape. On the other hand, wielding a double light sabre is an incredible feat. Maul appears to be the most athletically inclined of the Force-wielders I've seen in the films -- it's entirely possible that he really is the only being who's actually had the physical prowess as well as the control over the Force to accomplish such a task.

[cssamerican]

Also, they'd better have some sort of excuse for something that annoyed me: Why is the technology so much better in the early films? I mean, they've got double-ended sabres 50 years before the Sith are using single-ended ones instead, and they've got those fairly awesome destroyer droids (which aren't on either of the Death Stars ANYWHERE even though they are a lot better at...well, anything really) in the first films. I don't think that a war would be enough to destroy the technology from then, but not the technology for the death star.

I thought Lucas has done a good job in the first two films showing that droid armies are not all they are cracked up to be, and in this third film you will probably see strong indications of how superior a clone army is, due to the obvious outcome. Why would you want to adopt your enemies equipment when the equipment you have has been proven superior?

Lucas did the best job he could possible do in hiding the weaknesses of the technology gap between both trilogies. Most of the scenes where you can see the advancements in special effects in the newer episodes where scenes involving civilizations centers, such as Courscant, Kamino, and Naboo; however, he went out his way in the old movies to show that the action was tacking place far away from heavy populated areas in the galaxy.

Tantooine: Has been portrayed as the galaxy’s worst neighborhood, home to the worst kind of people, and so far away from civilization it is outside the Republic.

The Moon a Yavin: Judging by the amount of time it took the Empire to find the first rebel base, and considering that the planet shots we see show no other life than the rebels you could infer that there wasn’t anyone around.

A planet in the Hoth system: I believe when Vader discusses the picture taken by the Imperial Droid it is actually mention that they had no records of any type of civilization in that system. So once again Lucas avoids showing anything really futuristic.

Dagaboh: Luke even says while flying there that he is picking up lots of life on the planet, but no forms of civilization.

Cloud City: Is represented like a modern day oilrig. And if you have ever been on an oilrig that is an extremely modern vision of what one would look like in the future.

Forest Moon of Endor: Once again he completely avoids having to worry about an advance civilization, and it makes sense in the story arc due to the nature of trying build another Death Star in secret.

My only complaint is some of the special effects look to clean; whereas, in films like LotR the effects blend really well because they have been dirtied up a bit. I think if Lucas would have done this, especially the Genosian shots it would have melded better withe the older movies.