Chad’s Grade: A
“Star Wars” is one of those rare movie miracles that we hardly get anymore. Where all the forces of filmmaking perfectly align to transport an audience to another time and place. A film that breaks the boundaries of its art form, becoming part of the vernacular pop culture. Think Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Sound of Music, and The Godfather.
There’s a strong dose of nostalgia for George Lucas’s 1977 space opera. I was four years during “Star Wars” original theatrical run, and I have dim memories of cowering in the darkness as those pesky jawas terrorized my beloved RD-D2. I’m a lifelong fan through good and bad, so what else could I bring to the conversation?
With Disney’s acquisition of Lucas Film and the aggressive expansion through all manners of media, “Star Wars” still dominates the pop culture landscape. So now would be an excellent time to take a collective breath and look back at the original film that started it all.
I don’t think I need to describe the film’s plot, but here’s a quick primer. “Star Wars” is the first chapter of Luke Skywalker becoming a Jedi Knight and bringing freedom to a galaxy oppressed by a mighty empire. Along the way, we meet Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, and the lovable droid duo of R2-D2 & C3P0. The first film is a perfect blend of Flash Gordon and King Arthur with a dash of Akira Kurosawa and Wizard of Oz.
What struck me on a recent re-watch is how this first chapter is a pitch-perfect exercise in world-building. Our hero, Luke Skywalker, doesn’t make an appearance until 20 minutes into the film. Instead, we get an extended prologue, with Princess Leia handing off the stolen Death Star plans to the droids C-3PO & R2-D2 before they escape to the barren planet of Tattoine.
In this opening, Lucas’s strength as a director shine. From that now-iconic opening shot of the Star Destroyer chasing the blockade runner (thank you, Rogue One, for that backstory) to Darth Vader emerging from the smoke like a demon samurai warlord. Lucas throws so much wild imagery that we become accustomed to the rhythms of this heightened universe. We get from the faceless stormtroopers, names like Darth Vader and the Death Star, to the clipped dialogue of the imperial officers that this empire is evocative of the Third Reich.
Once the droids are captured by those creepy jawas and sold to the Skywalker family, our hero, Luke, finally gets his introduction. As played by Mark Hamill, Luke is a bored, frustrated teenager with ambitions of flying among the stars. He’s our Dorothy stuck in Kansas, who dreams of living somewhere over the rainbow as he stares somberly at Tattoine’s twin suns.
The movie kicks into gear when Luke meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by the great Alec Guinness. As the last of the Jedi Order, Guinness plays Obi-Wan with many different flavors: playful, mysterious, and filled with a deep melancholy. There is a swashbuckling twinkle in his eye, watching Leia’s haunting hologram message. Guinness is so good that when he describes the fall of the Jedi order under Darth Vader, it sounds like an elegant bedtime story. Of course, he leaves out the big twist, saved for the next movie.
The other standout performance is Harrison Ford as smuggler Han Solo. He’s the brash, brogue spirit of the movie, with his trusted partner Chewbacca and the iconic “bucket of bolts” ship, the Millennium Falcon. Solo’s arrogant and impatient nature contrasts the rest of the film’s earnest fairy tale nature. It’s clear why Harrison Ford was the breakout star of the franchise.
One of the film’s few faults is its lack of women characters. Princess Leia is the only prominent female, besides a few short scenes with Aunt Beru on Tatooine. A young Carrie Fisher gives a feisty and spirited performance ahead of its time for the boy’s club of 70’s sci-fi. It’s great fun to watch Leia grab Solo’s blaster and salvage her pathetic rescue operation, a nice feminist twist on the damsel in distress. Leia is a powerful presence, but she’s still relegated to supporting our heroes. One of the most horrific moments in the film is Leia watching her home planet, her entire history, destroyed by the Death Star. The film never gives her a moment of mourning or reflection on this loss, yet she comforts Luke after Obi-Wan Kenobi’s sacrifice. Sadly, this oversight would be repeated with Natalie Portman’s Padme in the prequel trilogy.
Star Wars largely succeeded due to its groundbreaking visual effects and sound design. There are no slow, lumbering ships floating in space, as seen in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001.” Lucas and his special effects team used motion control cameras and highly detailed models, creating a truly immersive experience. You see close-ups of large Star Destroyers filling the frame and follow the X-Wing fighters diving into the Death Star’s trench run. And from Chewbacca’s growls to the zooming Tie Fighters, Ben Burt’s revolutionary sound work enhanced the visual wizardry on screen. Add the one-two punch of John Williams’s rousing score, featuring some of his most iconic themes, making for a rich viewing experience.
Despite the visual effects advances of Star Wars, this is Lucas’s least polished film. This was Lucas’s third directing job after “THX 1138” and “American Graffiti.” The heavily stylized and Kubrick-inspired “THX 1138” was a massive box office bomb in 1971, almost bankrupting Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope studio. Lucas made a rebound with 1973’s “American Graffiti,” a box office smash that was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture.
Even with that cache of Oscar love, Lucas had a hard time getting the project financed, and it was a challenging shoot. The aloof director is known not to work well with actors, so producer Gary Kurtz had to step in and direct a few key scenes. Some reports state that his wife Marcia Lucas, a highly regarded editor, saved the film by heavily re-editing the movie many times over, papering over the seams of Lucas’s loose directing style. This may explain the sudden POV shift from the droids in the first 20 minutes to Luke Skywalker for the remainder of the film.
The cultural impact of Star Wars is still enormous. Lucas was able to take many classic myths and fairy tales, mold them through Joseph Campbell’s “Hero of a Thousand Faces,” and then fuse them with the popular medium of the 20thCentury: The motion picture. The influence on the late ’70s and early 80’s Sci-Fi can’t be overstated. Paramount Pictures greenlighted the “Star Trek” film franchise in 1979. Universal moved forward with “Battlestar Galactica” on television. Other movies like “Alien” aped the Star Wars films’ gritty, lived-in, and weathered look. And Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects company sprung from “Star Wars” success, transformed the nascent model & visual effects industry.
George Lucas would produce and guide the following two entries in the original trilogy. He would then write, produce and direct the Prequel Trilogy before selling Lucas Film in 2012, where they made the sequel trilogy and its many Disney + spin-offs. Despite this glut of new content, nothing can approach the grandeur and magic of the 1977 original.
1997 SPECIAL EDITIONS:
To celebrate “Star Wars” 20th anniversary, Lucas released all three “Star Wars” films with cleaned-up pictures & sound and new visual effects to spruce specific sequences. Lucas was never happy with the completed original trilogy, mainly due to the financial and technical restraints of the time. Thanks to “Jurassic Park” in 1993, computer-generated effects had matured to a point where Lucas could tinker with his “abandoned” films. And did he ever tinker. And tinker. And tinker. There are so many alterations to the original “Star Wars” that it would take another few articles to cover.
The most glaring changes are the Mos Eisley sequence, where Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids enter the wretched hive of “Scum & Villainy.” The spaceport now looks crowded, with people, creatures, and spaceships filling the frame. There’s also a deleted scene from the original film with Han confronting Jabba the Hut and Boba Fett. It’s a pointless scene that should have remained cut, and the new CGI inserting the slug Jabba over the original actor looks horribly dated. In fact, all the many snips and additions sprinkled throughout the movie look out of place.
And let’s not forget the most infuriating change: Han doesn’t shoot Greedo first anymore. Dear God, what was Lucas thinking?
The 1997 special editions opened huge and made Lucas a small fortune. It helped prime the pump for the 1999 prequel trilogy and gave ILM a head start on the visual effects. In which Lucas would take his “galaxy, far, far away” into the computer-generated realm.
As a fourteen year old seeing Star Wars in the theatre in 1977 I like some many movie goers was hooked by the first note of John Williams’ mesmerizing score. And then that opening shot! I still feel the adrenaline 45 years later!!