Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. A film that made cinematic history since its release almost 40 years ago. (Wow, that's insane.) When George Lucas decided to make a space fantasy film, he ended up writing several drafts of this story, eventually realizing that his biggest idea was much too large for one movie. Considering how much trouble he'd had with getting a studio to distribute the film before 20th Century Fox finally agreed, Lucas wasn't sure he could make more than one movie, and settled on the simplest portion of his overlarge idea that could be seen as a stand-alone film if it ended up being all he did.
The result of all this was Star Wars. It was Flash Gordon for a new generation, it revolutionized science-fiction space adventures, and it has a reputation as one of the best films ever made. I was introduced to Star Wars in 2004 with this film. I was nine years old, and I remember getting absolutely hooked on the characters, the ships, the droids, and the lightsabers. A New Hope was the film that let me take my first step into a larger world, the film that made me a Star Wars fan, and the film that led to me learning as much as I could about this galaxy far, far away. This film had such a huge impact on me that it feels a little... wrong to type the following paragraph.
Because now, quite honestly, this is my least favorite episode in the saga. (that I've seen)
Don't get me wrong. I love A New Hope. I think it well deserves the praise it's received, and it's a great way to introduce the Star Wars universe. I just love its two sequels and its three prequels even more.
A New Hope, while quite sizable on its own, feels a lot more closed and small-scale than the other five films. While this is understandable, given that Lucas wasn't sure he'd be able to make any more films at the time, it still does leave me a bit underwhelmed compared to the other five.
Still, there's a lot for me to love in the movie that started it all. The opening shot of Princess Leia's blockade runner being chased but the Imperial Star Destroyer is really iconic, and C-3PO and R2-D2 never fail to make me laugh with their back-and-forths throughout the film, even though I can only understand one half of their arguments. Luke Skywalker's aspirations for a greater life than moisture farming are well conveyed, and the famous shot of him staring at Tatooine's twin suns is one of my favorites in the saga. I'm echoing several others when I say that Alec Guinness was brilliant as Obi-Wan Kenobi; he delivers my favorite performance in this film. His patience with Luke when he believes he has no chance of becoming a Jedi and his never-ending encouragement towards the young Jedi are traits that make him one of the most ideal mentors in this galaxy far, far away. Han Solo's sarcastic remarks are quite entertaining, and Princess Leia's counter remarks are just as entertaining. Darth Vader, from the black suit to the menacing breathing to James Earl Jones's awesome voice, steals every scene he's in.
As for the effects, well... even on Blu-Ray their age does show, but they still hold up quite well. A few aliens in the Mos Eisley Cantina are obviously models, and some of the blaster shots look out of place compared to the others, but I still have no problems believing everything I see in A New Hope. Even the added CG effects blend in pretty well by my reckoning. Han's conversation with Jabba the Hutt in Docking Bay 94 is quite impressive when you consider that when that scene was filmed, Lucas's vision for Jabba's look was nowhere near the giant slug we know him as today. The CG Jabba makes good eye contact with Han and follows his gestures quite well that I don't even care that he looks a little out of place compared to the rest of the scene.
Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I don't care who shoots first. Whether Han shot Greedo first or not, the intentions of both characters in the scene are quite clear. I like the scene best in its latest Blu-Ray incarnation, where the smoke makes it really hard to tell who shot first.
In the action field, Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca's shootouts with stormtroopers throughout their Death Star adventure are quite amusing and still fun to watch 13 years later, but the real action stealer is the Battle of Yavin at the end of the film. It's sequenced very well, showing multiple failed trench runs before Luke finally uses the Force and pulls off that lucky shot to destroy the station. John Williams's score is a classic, even if it's missing several of the iconic Star Wars leitmotivs that were introduced in later films.
As Lucas himself said in 1977, the key word for this movie is "fun." 40 years later, that statement holds true. The sarcastic and silly dialogue, the ridiculously clumsy stormtroopers, and all the cool alien and vehicle designs all contribute to making A New Hope a very fun and highly memorable science-fiction classic. It may be my least favorite Star Wars film, but I love it immensely.
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