They Don't Serve the Curmudgeon Here

Nitpicking A New Hope from 42:48 to 47:52
We finally get to Mos Eisley's spaceport. You'll never find such a wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must find our two remaining heroes there. Also, CGI rat things, one of several additions and fixes from the original print of the film:

I don't agree with a lot of the additions, but this is obviously better. The port is bigger, the ugly shadow softer, R2 isn't falling off, and C-3PO doesn't have his arms in a completely impossible position for him. The chittering rats, well, what are you gonna do? Still better than the stupid squeaky "nyah nyah" robot comedy routine that comes next:

Or the glide into the city apparently designed to make it look like a video game cut scene. Or the fact that they cloned (haha "cloned") Stormtroopers who exactly mirror each other on the street:

For a guy obsessed with "fixing" his masterpiece, that is a pretty terrible additional error! And then we have ANOTHER slapstick comedy bit for who knows who, with a conehead almost hitting a dinosaur, throwing some Jawas off. Hilarious!

Scum and villainy and pratfalls! Am I right?! And then George Lucas decides his perfectly good shot of the landspeeder coming to a stop in an area patrolled by Stormtroopers would look better if a dinosaur walked into frame.

It's not like the original wasn't already very busy with people and droids going past the camera all the time. Stepping into dino-dung now, I guess. It's really annoying given it leads us into one of the most rightfully famous scenes in the film, where Obi-Wan performs the Jedi mind trick and makes the troopers go away.

Now of course, when you cut to the lead trooper, you've got an annoying CG Skeets looking for Booster Gold in the background. It's very distracting. They move along through more video game terrain and finally come to a stop in front of the Cantina in time for C-3PO to utter a racial slur against Jawas. And only then does Luke ask about the mind trick. It seems even more delayed than before now that Lucas has added an entire digital road trip in between scenes. Ok, fess up, Star Wars fans: Who else really wants Luke to repeat what Obi-Wan says when he's told the Force has an effect on the weak-minded?

Cue Cantina interior and all those crazy aliens that will become action figures and Dark Horse Comics specials. I want to talk about the Wolfman, okay? Because he was in the original film, and was cut out of the Special Edition onward, replaced first by this froggy guy:

And then by this elephantine thing:

So if he's been cut out, if Lucas has apparently decided he has no business being in his movie, that they filled the Cantina will all sorts of crappy monsters they found in Pinewood Studios' storage, then what is he doing in the very shot of the Cantina's interior?

The Wolfman LIVES!!! Wolfman no, but Satan yes? I'm not gonna make fun of this sequence except to say it's where it's really established that Tatooine's two native peoples (and R2) aren't the only ones who speak in noise. The aliens here are a sound designer's wet dream. It's a wonder anyone understands anybody in this universe. At least Obi-Wan understands Wookie because we see him talk to Chewbacca at the bar. Now we know who he is, but in the film, he could be any alien, really. (Wolfman no, Big Foot yes.) So it's perhaps a surprise when he turns out to be important.

"Hey, we don't serve their kind here." Meaning the droids. Well, no, you don't. They're unlikely to consume alcohol or peanuts. Why the ban? More of that accidental and awkward slave/black person symbolism, or does the establishment hate non-drinking droids for taking up room? Sending the droids out to the landspeeder doesn't seem like a good idea with Stormtroopers walking around. They won't have their Jedi mind trickster there if another patrol comes around. Maybe Obi-Wan could tell the barman these aren't the droids he wants to kick out. Anyway, Luke buys a drink (it's not like they're carding) and we get several more shots of aliens including my favorite, Hammerhead. Then some bullies decide to pick a fight with him.

That's the Walrus-Man in the back, and whoever this badly dubbed jerk with the half-assed vampire bat makeup is supposed to be. Obi-Wan intervenes and shows he also has the accuracy of a Stormtrooper:

That is to say, it's bat-face who goes for a weapon in one frame, but it's Walrus who gets his arm cut off in the next. Is it possible the weapon changed hands in between shots? Here's where bat-face makes a move for the weapon. See how Walrus is just standing there like a doofus?

We cut to Obi-Wan getting his lightsaber out, and when we pan back to the villains, the gun is in Walrus' hand!

Whatever. Either way, you know what this means: OBI-WAN CUT FIRST! Of course, what's really cool is that as soon as the skirmish is over, the music starts up again and all these badasses go back to what they were doing. They see this all the time. Meanwhile, outside, looks like I was right.

Stormtroopers are getting off a Giant Gila Monster (now there's a science fiction film classic) and C-3PO says "I don't like the look of this." It's a CG addition. Neither do I, Threepio, neither do I.

Oh man, we haven't even met Han Solo yet at the 47½ minute mark?! Well, you'll just have to come back next time, eh? (Can you believe that was just 5 minutes of film?)