Nineteen years after the formation of the Empire, Luke Skywalker (Hamill) is thrust into the struggle of the Rebel Alliance when he meets Obi-Wan Kenobi (Guinness), who has lived for years in seclusion on the desert planet of Tatooine. Obi-Wan begins Luke’s Jedi training as Luke joins him on a daring mission to rescue the beautiful Rebel leader Princess Leia (Fisher) from the clutches of Darth Vader and the evil Empire.
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With 9 episodes now in this series of films, I ran into a dilemma when deciding which one to watch first. Should I start with the prequel trilogy (which obviously occur first) or do I review them in theatrical release order, with Star Wars (now retconned to be Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) releasing first? Since I grew up on the original trilogy, I decided to review them in order of their theatrical releases. With that decided, I eagerly started watching, hoping that this classic has withstood the test of time (not to mention the George Lucas more recent updates).
Mark Hamill takes the lead as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, and much has been said about his performance. While he does get a bit whiny at times, he manages to overcome that and it actually helps contribute to his character arc in this film. Harrison Ford was barely even an actor when he started shooting Star Wars, but he still manages to play the mercenary Han Solo to a tee, turning a rather unflattering role (a smuggler who seems to be more into serving his own self interests than anything else) into one that viewers root for. Carrie Fisher has a bit of a smaller part as Princess Leia, but she manages to give her damsel in distress some backbone.
And, of course, James Earl Jones lends his voice to bring villain Darth Vader to life. While later films (and TV shows) would unearth more of this villain, Star Wars provides a good start. Most of the rest of the named cast is nearly as iconic, including Kenny Baker, David Prowse and Anthony Daniels, like Jones, are heard rather than seen, providing the form and the voice, rather than their visages, to these now classic characters.
The story is simple enough, with an evil empire unleashing a devastating new weapon, and a rebel alliance desperately trying to find a way to defeat it. Star Wars does an excellent job introducing the story by focusing on a few characters, and telling most of the story through them. They also manage to do a lot of universe building in this first film, setting up hints of previous battles (which the prequel trilogy expands on), and setting the stage for the many battles yet to come. While further “episodes” expand on this a whole lot more, this film creates a solid foundation for them to build on.
The special effects in the original version are still pretty darn good, and Lucas has only enhanced the explosions and the like in the years since the original release. The extra scenes he added, however, do detract somewhat from the film. While it’s nice to have a scene with Jabba and Han – and it does make for one less plot hole – the special effects in this scene are a real distraction. Just like the newly added larger animals seen at Mos Eisley (also added later), these effects just look sloppy in comparison (especially watching Han try to walk over Jabba’s …um… tail) to how impressive the rest of the effects continue to be.
With a mostly likeable cast leading the viewer on this sci-fi adventure that lays the groundwork for a franchise that is still continuing to this day, Star Wars has a lot still going for it. Definitely not a bad start to the theatrical releases of this series. Sure it’s not a perfect film, and some of the things that happen have still not yet been explained (how did Obi-Wan do that, and why has no one else ever been able to duplicate it). In spite of that (and even in spite of Lucas’ more recent “upgrades”), this is still enjoyable to revisit even now, nearly 50 years after its release.
