No Hope for the Curmudgeon

Nitpicking A New Hope from 16:50 to 26:30
So the droids are in the Jawa hold and about to arrive at a certain moisture farm (they cultivate damp), but first Stormtroopers patrolling the desert. This is the first true addition to the Special Edition release, with CG troopers awkwardly riding CG lizards - sorry, "Dewbacks". They must be real slippery. Here is what the scene looks like compared to that of the original release:

They find the pod, and tracks leading from it, and... the One Ring?!

No, just a bit of a droid they instantly recognize as such, probably while thinking of whatever poor idiot is going to get his throat telekinetically crushed for letting the pod go because it had no life-forms in it. While also living in a universe filled with robots! Cut to the Jawa Sandcrawler, which has also been replaced in the Special Edition. Compare:

This is a good change, I think. Not sure it was necessary, but it does look better and cooler. Inside, the droids are waking up, and for the life of me, I can't stop staring at C-3PO's bleeding nipples.

He's also got a similar gunshot wound to the back of the head if you want to add to the category of things that once seen can't be unseen. Hey, maybe their new master will give them a nice bath in CLR. Their old master, however, shows what happens when the Jawa actors can't get their Lite Brite eyes straight.

They call him Rudolph and were often cruel with him until Jabba noticed he had a nose for the salvage business. At 18:45, our hero finally appears: Luke Skywalker.

Because nothing says pre-Earth past and other galaxy like the name "Luke". But you know he's our hero because the Star Wars theme starts to play. Right now, he doesn't know he has such a destiny. He's just a farm boy getting bossed around by his vaguely racist uncle (I'm just going by his attitude talking to the Jawas) and his aunt who lives in a pit.

It's harsh living on Tatooine, but she's made it homey, at least. Uncle Owen is a real grump who doesn't really want what the Jawas are selling, or at least acts like it so he can get a good deal. He picks an R2 unit - not the one we like - and after telling C-3PO he has no interest in protocol and etiquette (clearly), still buys him for his ability to program farming equipment and the fact that "Botchi" is "like a second language" to him (a better selling point would be if it were like a FIRST language, but perpetually depressed C-3PO is probably not great at pitching himself). Cue Luke's whiny "but uncle Oweennnnnnn, I was gonna go into town to indulge in my nerdy hobbyyyyyyy", but he's told to clean the new droids instead. And one of these really needs to be cleaned.

The red R2 unit blows because he's got a "bad motivator" (hey, Luke too), so good thing R2-D2 is quite motivated. Not to work on a farm, of course, but that's besides the point. Maybe this is a good time to talk about slavery. Obviously, an evil Empire is in charge, so it's not outlawed, even if droids weren't fabricated and thus, property. But they've been given feelings, and here we have Luke and his family buying them and putting them to work. They'll become his friends eventually, but I don't know how I feel about our hero treating them as objects. As they all enter the building, we fade to black, breaking with the wipe aesthetic. (End of reel? I'm surprised Lucas didn't change this when he frigged with the movies in the digital era.)

So he washes them, even though it's clear he'd rather be playing with this Star Wars collectibles. Luke and C-3PO share exposition (the idea that Tatooine is the farthest planet from the shining center of the universe is a good bit) and the former gets excited when he finds out the droids have been tangentially involved in the rebellion (but not for long, he's mercurial this one). Trying get something jammed in R2, he activates Leia's message however and his adventure really begins.

R2's imaging powers are pretty incredible, catching Leia's backside from the front, but Luke's too infatuated with the image to care. Those incestuous stirrings, you know. Tatooine? More like Tabooine. R2 reveals the message is for his ACTUAL master Obi-Wan Kenobi, who Luke thinks might be related to an old hermit called Ben Kenobi. Hey, could be, doesn't sound like a common name. Not that we have any way to know that. Then R2 tricks Luke into removing the widget that makes him a slave (the "restraining bolt") so he might play the whole message, and haha, nope, message won't play. The fact they CAN be unshackled makes me even more apprehensive as to their status as slaves.

Called in for dinner, which looks like gray soup and a glass of water, Luke discusses Obi-Wan with his uncle who dismisses the whole thing and tells him to go wipe R2's memory in town on the morrow. He also says old Ben Kenobi died same time as Luke's father, which is an outrageous claim if Luke was adopted by them as a baby and nevertheless has heard of the old hermit! Then there's some nagging about wanting to join the "Academy" and become a pilot (presumably, in the Imperial fleet), and Uncle Owen shuts it down in an effort to protect him from himself, since apparently, his father was a pilot too and being like his father is a bad thing. Aunt Beru is more forgiving, but Lucas has changed the intonation of the word "father" when she says it to make it sound slightly more worried even if it doesn't match her expression, because he can't leave well enough alone. Bah!

When next we speak, Luke disobeys, lets that thief run off with the money, and Uncle Ben dies! No wait, I'm getting my hero origins confused.