0:12 remastered version of Star Wars, the original, the OG, released in 1977. 9:03 As for the remastered edition ... When you said "original" it wasn't clear which version you meant, until you said "Greedo shot first" so you watched the Special Edition, not the original cut that won an Oscar for Editing. All the small differences add up, if ever you get a chance to see a fan remastered versions (such as from Harmy or Project 4k77) you might even notice the subtle differences. I sincerely believe the original *_Star Wars_* does hold up (and later changes did more harm than good) but the Special Edition has made it difficult for people to actually see the original theatrically released cut.
@@alanhorkan Ah, good point. Yes, when I said OG "original," just meant the story that started the Star Wars universe. I really appreciate your mentioning how hard it is to find the original cut of the film. I love that the film has been technologically updated because the effects are likely (?... maybe??) to be more appealing to younger audiences who care about films needing to meet a certain aesthetic visually. However, there were lots of odd little moments when I kept asking myself "was that in the original?" It got a bit exhausting to keep noting those things down and started destroying the story experience for me. So, I had to let it go... but Greedo... Nope. I just can't let a character changing moment like that go. Sigh. I agree that the original (as in the 1977 cut) as well as the digitally remastered version of the 1977 film with the add-ons both stand up today, even with the little bumps that might be there. I think it's probably one of the best films to stand the test of time as well. Just looking at the opening 10 minutes and how it set up every character, every motivation, every choice, and every inevitable outcome is masterful. I also think that Disney needs to stop hiring writers who do not understand the Star Wars universe. If I ever hear another interview with cast, writers, or creators who say they "were never really into Star Wars" or "never watched the film," I will lose my mind. Thanks for your comment, Alan.
Your point about optimism "Hope" is key, you got it so right, to leave that out is to misunderstand Star Wars and the fun fairytales and adventure seriels that influenced it. On hiring the right filmmakers or writers, it is saddening when anyone celebrates their own ignorance as virtue, especially a so called professional "creative". Ignorance is is not an insurmountable obstacle if people are willing to learn, write what you know, but do the research for what you don't know! Star Trek often serves as a useful contrast to Star Wars, and people smarter than me have frequently pointed out that Nicholas Meyer who directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan didn't know anything about Star Trek, but when he got the job he did the research and learned about the quintessence that made Star Trek what it is. Meyer had breadth and depth of knowledge too, he understood the classics of literature and storytelling and was further influenced by Horatio Hornblower, Moby Dick, and more. George Lucas was influenced by The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Flash Gordon, Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, Dambusters, and many more and distilled those influences into something new, but was also surrounded himself with a team of many talented people who helped make it happen and friends and competitors (Stephen Spielberg, Brian De Palma) to spur him on. If such creatives still exists Disney either cannot find them or cannot enable them to to achieve their best results. We're in a time of Hollywood stagnation, I want to believe that a new generation of rebel filmmakers might emerge again like it did in the 70's but that seems unlikely to happen under the shadow of the Disney corporate machine.
@@alanhorkan Excellent points!! You bring up so many things that I have been wanting to talk about! I think one of the biggest problems that Hollywood has right now is that the up and coming writers don't have the time and experience needed to really grasp the entirety of big franchises that have spread out across film, books, comics, audio, and games. So, if I were in charge (which I am not), I would have something like "Star Wars School" for my incoming creatives that required them to watch the original trilogy and a few other key series episodes, comics, books etc. as well as to read through the franchise bible just to ensure they have a wide enough understanding that they can competently create a new story within the universe. However, I know a lot of younger screenwriters primarily "watch movies" as their resource for learning and educating themselves on cinema, but I think they only go back about 10 years. They aren't going back to the 1950s, 1970s, 1990s, etc.... they are sticking to films that are only about 15 years old and they are starting from there. Worse, they aren't reading books. They aren't experiencing story in all of its forms so that when they try to adapt it into a film or write a film that exists within an established shared universe they simply do not have the storytelling tools needed as a creative to do the job right. I actually don't think it's Disney to blame in this case. I think it's a generational thing and the executives who are in charge of content creation for Star Wars have lost sight of how they fit in the wider science fiction field and the skills that their creatives need to bring with them.
Erin I was 13 Years old when I saw Star Wars in 1977. The Special Effects were ahead of its time. George Lucas did not know if he would be able to make more Star Wars Movies. The movie was just called Star Wars and was not renumbered until Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980. Han Solo shot Greedo and Jabba the Hut was a man in the original version of Star Wars. In the Movie Han Solo improvised in the scene where he was on the Intercom in the Detention area. Harrison Ford did not get the Script in time so he improvised. George Lucas liked it and kept it in. The changes in the remastered one made the Film worse. The Story of Star Wars in the Original Trilogy still holds up.
"Episode IV A New Hope" - so, yeah, that's not the 1977 version - but to be fair, adding that was definitely the least obnoxious change made to the film.
Hi Dave, sorry for the delay. I completely missed seeing your comment come in. :-) Yeah the technicalities on identifying the version are kind of annoying too! Star Wars 1977 is the original story, but even that edition had some slight alterations made to it during the theatrical release ... which is just weird. Maybe that's just legend. I should dig into it. Then it got digitally remastered, retitled, and scenes added in.... but even still, it's still Star Wars - the "original" story that kicked off the entire franchise. And even the remastered version of the original holds up really well, despite that annoying additions.
@@mattp6089 I totally get your point on this bit about Jabba. I've thought a lot about it over the years. I loved reading up on the "clipped" scenes like that one withe Jabba and seeing photos and even clips of the version with Jabba as a human. So, there is a part of me that is fascinated by this scene that was in there and then taken out either right before the film's release or as one of the edits that was done while the film was in it's theatrical release period in 1977. I would really love to get the inside scoop on that story!
@@ErinUnderwood The cutting room floor is where good movies become great movies. And Star Wars was only 'as' great as it was when released in '77 because Marcia Lucas edited George's brilliant but rambling storytelling so well. There's a reason she won the Best Film Editing Oscar for it... As to Jabba, I believe the scene with a human was meant to be a stand in while they figured out what sort of creature Jabba was going to be and they decided it was unnecessary to the movie at the time for them to complete and insert a monster shot and they just cut the stand in (but don't quote me on that one as I am not certain!)
@@mattp6089 absolutely true. A good editor makes stories better. The same is true in fiction. And there is zero doubt that the original version from 1977 is the definitive story and the best edition. It would be interesting to do a comparison of the 1997 and the 1977 versions...in addition to a "does it stand up today" review of the original story's remastered cut. Ugh just talking it through is annoyingly circular. Why did Lucas have to change the story!
I love love love that you picked up on that part of my review. I have been thinking about this for a long time now. I think there is a much larger conversation about Star Wars and AI that can and should be had because it gives us a doorway into understanding the kinds of AI that we could build and the kind we want to build as well as the kinds that maybe we don't want to build ... and our canon or robots within cinema is a great place to start since it's a common starting point for so many people, allowing us to all begin the conversation on the same page. Thanks for the comment!! I really could have spent the whole video on this topics. 🙂
The original trilogy, and the prequels still hold up today (in my opinion anyway). They are far superior to the garbage that was the Disney trilogy, that had no continuity between those three movies.
I completely agree. They are GREAT examples of GREAT storytelling, and it's a mystery why Disney is deviating from them. It's a frustrating mystery. What's so sad is that they had a decent shot at pulling those three movies into the master timeline for Han, Luke, and Leia.... but then they got all "fancy" and wanted to keep people guessing when all we wanted was the conclusion to a great story. I think it's a classic example of the studio putting it's financial strategy about the story and the audience. (That's just my jaded take.) Thanks for the comment.
@@kunserndsittizen2655 I'll admit to mostly enjoying the prequels, but they do have some serious issues that require me to actively force myself to be okay with certain issues. To this day, I am frustrated by the fact that Lucas decided that Anakin had to be a little boy and Padmé had to be a grown woman in the first film. It just feels weird. I know that there are lots of relationships in which the man is 10+ years older than the woman, but it's weird to see that relationship start with a little child.... especially when it's a relationship that we all anticipated seeing on screen and seeing how Anakin and Padmé fell in love. I still have trouble getting past this. They should have had Padmé be a child or a MUCH younger girl and it would have been better. That's just one of my issues. Sigh....
I know! 🤣😆🤣 Sometimes film pull of sound really well; sometimes they don't. Modern audiences get a bit more critical about this fact, but I think anyone who watches that opening scene of Star Wars will agree that whether or not you can "hear" in space the sound design helps to convey the immensity and scope of the Empire, their power, and their reach. Thanks for the comment. You made me laugh. I loved it.
@@kunserndsittizen2655 I didn't mind Jedi so much... but the Ewoks always kind of annoyed me. I often wonder if I would have felt differently about them if they didn't look like kids inside of furry suits.
People like to talk about the "science" behind Star Wars but they miss the point -- Star Wars isn't science fiction. It's a fairy tale, an epic fantasy, that wears a space opera suit. Lucas was writing a modern mythology to teach preteens that all life is in symbiotic harmony and that greed, anger, and hatred threaten that delicate balance. So of course there's sound in space in Star Wars. The laws of physics don't apply in fairy tales and myths.
Yes, you are absolutely right. I actually laughed at myself for including that bit in my review, but I decided to do it since I cannot tell you how many times I hear that complaint from reviewers who talk about new space movies that are released today. Star Wars uses sound as a way to immediately tell us scope and scale of the Empires' resources and how terrifying they are....it's an amazing combination of spectacle + story. It's one of the reasons that Star Wars has one of the best, smartest, and most iconic opening gambits in cinematic history. I agree that Star Wars is space opera, with more focus on the opera than the science. Even Gary Kurtz admits as much. However, George Lucas and his team didn't cut corners on what the technology "might" be like in the future. They really embraced the "what if?" component of science fiction in this film, and because of that everything from the settings, scenery, characters, and ships actually does a great job of remaining relevant nearly 50 years later. I know I am biased in saying this, but I don't think I am wrong, Star Wars is a genius example of filmmaking. Thanks for the comment! 🙂
@@ErinUnderwood I can totally dig it. I've lately become fascinated by Lucas's intentions of creating a modern mythological cycle for pre-teens, knowing that the message he intended stemmed from his interests in anthropology, mythology, '60s ecological concerns and post-WWII Baby Boomer anti-authoritarianism. If you understand his backstory and intentions it really changes how you look at the saga and the way that he told it beyond his obsessive love of and use of the language of cinema (little things, like his referencing Triumph of the Will in many images in the prequels to show that this corrupted democracy is becoming fascist, for instance, or his homage to the Ben Hur chariot races to show slaveboy Anakin is destined for greater things). If you haven't read The Star Wars Archives books, I highly recommend doing so. tl;dnr -- Star Wars is a lot more layered and deep than people give it credit for.
@@LeChaunce I love your comment. Yes, I get the preteen focus and actually think that was a good choice. I just wished that Anakin and Padmé were closer in age so that we could avoid any weird modern social issues that we brought into the film from the "real world" ... but your comment actually makes me care a little less about that. One of the reasons that I enjoy the story so much is, as you say, the examination of how a society falls into darkness. You can see it happening, but sometimes you can't depending on where you feel you fit into society. In some cases you see you final have an opportunity to make something of your life and you go after it, without really understanding that you are part of the rise of darkness (and I think that the Andor series exemplifies how easy it is to unexpectedly find yourself in that situation). I think Anakin is a good example of a hero who gets twisted by a rising demagogue / Sith, and he still sees himself fighting for the good even as he does evil. It is fascinating. I hadn't really thought about "The Triumph of Will" specifically, but I can see your point. With the Emperor and his cronies embedded throughout the government, when they finally get enough people in place they essentially coopted a political party and then slowly began changing laws, issuing rules, expanding or enforcing borders, issuing taxes and tariffs, etc that upset everyone from the border planets to the inner worlds who were paying attention like Padme and some of the Jedi. I think that if The Acolyte had done more to follow those early story threads and how insidious the rise of the sith was in how they embed themselves within society, the show would have been much more successful...but that's a different conversation. I haven't actually gotten around to reading The Star Wars Archives books yet, but I will check them out. Thanks for the recommendation. I love thinking about and talking about Star Wars on this level because it really is a great example of how we are essentially on the same side, and how easy it is for someone new to come in who rises in popularity, using their charm and charisma to blind people to what we are doing and seeing, and to establish themselves as a new power that is "helping" the people. It's fascinating and George Lucas was genius in the construction of the original story line.
Is it just a happy memory for you? Or does the story still hold up for you today? What do you think?
0:12 remastered version of Star Wars, the original, the OG, released in 1977.
9:03 As for the remastered edition ...
When you said "original" it wasn't clear which version you meant, until you said "Greedo shot first" so you watched the Special Edition, not the original cut that won an Oscar for Editing. All the small differences add up, if ever you get a chance to see a fan remastered versions (such as from Harmy or Project 4k77) you might even notice the subtle differences.
I sincerely believe the original *_Star Wars_* does hold up (and later changes did more harm than good) but the Special Edition has made it difficult for people to actually see the original theatrically released cut.
@@alanhorkan Ah, good point. Yes, when I said OG "original," just meant the story that started the Star Wars universe.
I really appreciate your mentioning how hard it is to find the original cut of the film. I love that the film has been technologically updated because the effects are likely (?... maybe??) to be more appealing to younger audiences who care about films needing to meet a certain aesthetic visually. However, there were lots of odd little moments when I kept asking myself "was that in the original?" It got a bit exhausting to keep noting those things down and started destroying the story experience for me. So, I had to let it go... but Greedo... Nope. I just can't let a character changing moment like that go. Sigh.
I agree that the original (as in the 1977 cut) as well as the digitally remastered version of the 1977 film with the add-ons both stand up today, even with the little bumps that might be there. I think it's probably one of the best films to stand the test of time as well. Just looking at the opening 10 minutes and how it set up every character, every motivation, every choice, and every inevitable outcome is masterful.
I also think that Disney needs to stop hiring writers who do not understand the Star Wars universe. If I ever hear another interview with cast, writers, or creators who say they "were never really into Star Wars" or "never watched the film," I will lose my mind.
Thanks for your comment, Alan.
Your point about optimism "Hope" is key, you got it so right, to leave that out is to misunderstand Star Wars and the fun fairytales and adventure seriels that influenced it.
On hiring the right filmmakers or writers, it is saddening when anyone celebrates their own ignorance as virtue, especially a so called professional "creative". Ignorance is is not an insurmountable obstacle if people are willing to learn, write what you know, but do the research for what you don't know! Star Trek often serves as a useful contrast to Star Wars, and people smarter than me have frequently pointed out that Nicholas Meyer who directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan didn't know anything about Star Trek, but when he got the job he did the research and learned about the quintessence that made Star Trek what it is. Meyer had breadth and depth of knowledge too, he understood the classics of literature and storytelling and was further influenced by Horatio Hornblower, Moby Dick, and more. George Lucas was influenced by The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Flash Gordon, Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, Dambusters, and many more and distilled those influences into something new, but was also surrounded himself with a team of many talented people who helped make it happen and friends and competitors (Stephen Spielberg, Brian De Palma) to spur him on. If such creatives still exists Disney either cannot find them or cannot enable them to to achieve their best results. We're in a time of Hollywood stagnation, I want to believe that a new generation of rebel filmmakers might emerge again like it did in the 70's but that seems unlikely to happen under the shadow of the Disney corporate machine.
@@alanhorkan Excellent points!! You bring up so many things that I have been wanting to talk about! I think one of the biggest problems that Hollywood has right now is that the up and coming writers don't have the time and experience needed to really grasp the entirety of big franchises that have spread out across film, books, comics, audio, and games. So, if I were in charge (which I am not), I would have something like "Star Wars School" for my incoming creatives that required them to watch the original trilogy and a few other key series episodes, comics, books etc. as well as to read through the franchise bible just to ensure they have a wide enough understanding that they can competently create a new story within the universe.
However, I know a lot of younger screenwriters primarily "watch movies" as their resource for learning and educating themselves on cinema, but I think they only go back about 10 years. They aren't going back to the 1950s, 1970s, 1990s, etc.... they are sticking to films that are only about 15 years old and they are starting from there. Worse, they aren't reading books. They aren't experiencing story in all of its forms so that when they try to adapt it into a film or write a film that exists within an established shared universe they simply do not have the storytelling tools needed as a creative to do the job right.
I actually don't think it's Disney to blame in this case. I think it's a generational thing and the executives who are in charge of content creation for Star Wars have lost sight of how they fit in the wider science fiction field and the skills that their creatives need to bring with them.
Erin I was 13 Years old when I saw Star Wars in 1977. The Special Effects were ahead of its time. George Lucas did not know if he would be able to make more Star Wars Movies. The movie was just called Star Wars and was not renumbered until Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980. Han Solo shot Greedo and Jabba the Hut was a man in the original version of Star Wars. In the Movie Han Solo improvised in the scene where he was on the Intercom in the Detention area. Harrison Ford did not get the Script in time so he improvised. George Lucas liked it and kept it in. The changes in the remastered one made the Film worse.
The Story of Star Wars in the Original Trilogy still holds up.
This was the best Star Wars movie. This was a classic.
💯!! I agree completely. I love this film. Thanks, Brent!
@@ErinUnderwoodeveryone loves EMPIRE but this one is the best
@@kunserndsittizen2655 Yup. I feel that way, too. It's the story that set everything in motion. I love it.
"Episode IV A New Hope" - so, yeah, that's not the 1977 version - but to be fair, adding that was definitely the least obnoxious change made to the film.
No, that was poorly jamming Jabba back in early, thereby ruining his proper reveal later in the saga.
Hi Dave, sorry for the delay. I completely missed seeing your comment come in. :-) Yeah the technicalities on identifying the version are kind of annoying too! Star Wars 1977 is the original story, but even that edition had some slight alterations made to it during the theatrical release ... which is just weird. Maybe that's just legend. I should dig into it.
Then it got digitally remastered, retitled, and scenes added in.... but even still, it's still Star Wars - the "original" story that kicked off the entire franchise. And even the remastered version of the original holds up really well, despite that annoying additions.
@@mattp6089 I totally get your point on this bit about Jabba. I've thought a lot about it over the years. I loved reading up on the "clipped" scenes like that one withe Jabba and seeing photos and even clips of the version with Jabba as a human. So, there is a part of me that is fascinated by this scene that was in there and then taken out either right before the film's release or as one of the edits that was done while the film was in it's theatrical release period in 1977. I would really love to get the inside scoop on that story!
@@ErinUnderwood The cutting room floor is where good movies become great movies. And Star Wars was only 'as' great as it was when released in '77 because Marcia Lucas edited George's brilliant but rambling storytelling so well. There's a reason she won the Best Film Editing Oscar for it...
As to Jabba, I believe the scene with a human was meant to be a stand in while they figured out what sort of creature Jabba was going to be and they decided it was unnecessary to the movie at the time for them to complete and insert a monster shot and they just cut the stand in (but don't quote me on that one as I am not certain!)
@@mattp6089 absolutely true. A good editor makes stories better. The same is true in fiction. And there is zero doubt that the original version from 1977 is the definitive story and the best edition. It would be interesting to do a comparison of the 1997 and the 1977 versions...in addition to a "does it stand up today" review of the original story's remastered cut.
Ugh just talking it through is annoyingly circular. Why did Lucas have to change the story!
Star Wars helps frame the debate over AI today, as an example of humans and AI coexisting and AI not being the feared monster of today.
I love love love that you picked up on that part of my review. I have been thinking about this for a long time now. I think there is a much larger conversation about Star Wars and AI that can and should be had because it gives us a doorway into understanding the kinds of AI that we could build and the kind we want to build as well as the kinds that maybe we don't want to build ... and our canon or robots within cinema is a great place to start since it's a common starting point for so many people, allowing us to all begin the conversation on the same page.
Thanks for the comment!! I really could have spent the whole video on this topics. 🙂
The original trilogy, and the prequels still hold up today (in my opinion anyway). They are far superior to the garbage that was the Disney trilogy, that had no continuity between those three movies.
I completely agree. They are GREAT examples of GREAT storytelling, and it's a mystery why Disney is deviating from them. It's a frustrating mystery. What's so sad is that they had a decent shot at pulling those three movies into the master timeline for Han, Luke, and Leia.... but then they got all "fancy" and wanted to keep people guessing when all we wanted was the conclusion to a great story. I think it's a classic example of the studio putting it's financial strategy about the story and the audience. (That's just my jaded take.)
Thanks for the comment.
The prequels don’t hold up
@@kunserndsittizen2655 I'll admit to mostly enjoying the prequels, but they do have some serious issues that require me to actively force myself to be okay with certain issues. To this day, I am frustrated by the fact that Lucas decided that Anakin had to be a little boy and Padmé had to be a grown woman in the first film. It just feels weird. I know that there are lots of relationships in which the man is 10+ years older than the woman, but it's weird to see that relationship start with a little child.... especially when it's a relationship that we all anticipated seeing on screen and seeing how Anakin and Padmé fell in love. I still have trouble getting past this. They should have had Padmé be a child or a MUCH younger girl and it would have been better.
That's just one of my issues. Sigh....
Space has never been silent in movies.
I know! 🤣😆🤣 Sometimes film pull of sound really well; sometimes they don't. Modern audiences get a bit more critical about this fact, but I think anyone who watches that opening scene of Star Wars will agree that whether or not you can "hear" in space the sound design helps to convey the immensity and scope of the Empire, their power, and their reach.
Thanks for the comment. You made me laugh. I loved it.
The best Star Wars movie. Yeah, better than The Empire Strikes Back.
💯!!!! I agree totally!
Thanks for the comment.
Because EMPIRE ends on a cliffhanger that was an eternity to be resolved in the disappointing JEDI
@@kunserndsittizen2655 I didn't mind Jedi so much... but the Ewoks always kind of annoyed me. I often wonder if I would have felt differently about them if they didn't look like kids inside of furry suits.
People like to talk about the "science" behind Star Wars but they miss the point -- Star Wars isn't science fiction. It's a fairy tale, an epic fantasy, that wears a space opera suit. Lucas was writing a modern mythology to teach preteens that all life is in symbiotic harmony and that greed, anger, and hatred threaten that delicate balance.
So of course there's sound in space in Star Wars. The laws of physics don't apply in fairy tales and myths.
Yes, you are absolutely right. I actually laughed at myself for including that bit in my review, but I decided to do it since I cannot tell you how many times I hear that complaint from reviewers who talk about new space movies that are released today. Star Wars uses sound as a way to immediately tell us scope and scale of the Empires' resources and how terrifying they are....it's an amazing combination of spectacle + story. It's one of the reasons that Star Wars has one of the best, smartest, and most iconic opening gambits in cinematic history.
I agree that Star Wars is space opera, with more focus on the opera than the science. Even Gary Kurtz admits as much. However, George Lucas and his team didn't cut corners on what the technology "might" be like in the future. They really embraced the "what if?" component of science fiction in this film, and because of that everything from the settings, scenery, characters, and ships actually does a great job of remaining relevant nearly 50 years later. I know I am biased in saying this, but I don't think I am wrong, Star Wars is a genius example of filmmaking.
Thanks for the comment! 🙂
@@ErinUnderwood I can totally dig it. I've lately become fascinated by Lucas's intentions of creating a modern mythological cycle for pre-teens, knowing that the message he intended stemmed from his interests in anthropology, mythology, '60s ecological concerns and post-WWII Baby Boomer anti-authoritarianism. If you understand his backstory and intentions it really changes how you look at the saga and the way that he told it beyond his obsessive love of and use of the language of cinema (little things, like his referencing Triumph of the Will in many images in the prequels to show that this corrupted democracy is becoming fascist, for instance, or his homage to the Ben Hur chariot races to show slaveboy Anakin is destined for greater things). If you haven't read The Star Wars Archives books, I highly recommend doing so.
tl;dnr -- Star Wars is a lot more layered and deep than people give it credit for.
@@LeChaunce I love your comment. Yes, I get the preteen focus and actually think that was a good choice. I just wished that Anakin and Padmé were closer in age so that we could avoid any weird modern social issues that we brought into the film from the "real world" ... but your comment actually makes me care a little less about that.
One of the reasons that I enjoy the story so much is, as you say, the examination of how a society falls into darkness. You can see it happening, but sometimes you can't depending on where you feel you fit into society. In some cases you see you final have an opportunity to make something of your life and you go after it, without really understanding that you are part of the rise of darkness (and I think that the Andor series exemplifies how easy it is to unexpectedly find yourself in that situation). I think Anakin is a good example of a hero who gets twisted by a rising demagogue / Sith, and he still sees himself fighting for the good even as he does evil. It is fascinating.
I hadn't really thought about "The Triumph of Will" specifically, but I can see your point. With the Emperor and his cronies embedded throughout the government, when they finally get enough people in place they essentially coopted a political party and then slowly began changing laws, issuing rules, expanding or enforcing borders, issuing taxes and tariffs, etc that upset everyone from the border planets to the inner worlds who were paying attention like Padme and some of the Jedi. I think that if The Acolyte had done more to follow those early story threads and how insidious the rise of the sith was in how they embed themselves within society, the show would have been much more successful...but that's a different conversation.
I haven't actually gotten around to reading The Star Wars Archives books yet, but I will check them out. Thanks for the recommendation. I love thinking about and talking about Star Wars on this level because it really is a great example of how we are essentially on the same side, and how easy it is for someone new to come in who rises in popularity, using their charm and charisma to blind people to what we are doing and seeing, and to establish themselves as a new power that is "helping" the people. It's fascinating and George Lucas was genius in the construction of the original story line.