If you've seen the original, raw footage of the first Star Wars movie, you know that the film looked, well, rough. Certainly all the special effects and filmmaking tricks made it one of the most groundbreaking movies of all time, but many of those things were added later. At its core, the film was just a bunch of then-unproven actors running around in tin cans and dog suits. Even Mark Hamill still gets shit for his whiney line about the power converters. As we know, Star Wars was over-budget and plagued by a difficult shoot. It was even late when it was first delivered to the editing room.
So, there are theories out there that Star Wars: A New Hope was just a bad movie that was saved by good editing. But is this a fair assessment? Isn't every movie—especially special effects-heavy sci-fi films—basically made in the editing room?
As this video from the Solomon Society concludes, this isn't a fair assessment. All movies are made better with good editing, and it's impossible to judge a movie by a few bad clips of B-roll. That said, here's how good editing truly made Star Wars what it is today.
