Franchise Reviews: Star Wars - A New Hope

Well, I figured I might as well start with the first movie. And by that I mean A New Hope, or just Star Wars for the those purists out there.

I think everything about this movie has been said. There's a war between a Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, the Empire has a WMD called the Death Star, and the rebels have managed to steal the data tapes for it. Did I mention this was the Seventies?

Anyway, Princess Leia (played by Carrie Fisher) is about to get captured by the sinister Darth Vader and entrusts the plans to C3P0 and R2D2, a pair of bickering robots who end up in the possession of Luke Skywalker, a young farmer played by Mark Hamill. Luke embarks on a quest to bring the plans to the Alliance with the help of the old mentor figure Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), cynical smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and his co-pilot Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew).

Despite the relatively simple plot, this film came out at a time when Hollywood's creative classes had the most creative control, yet it stood out amongst the rest. The Escapist's film critic Bob Chipman described this film as 'a bizarre dream project which combined mythic fantasy, samurai melodrama and pulp sci-fi". But does it hold up? I think so, despite a couple of flaws, most of which is nitpicking, but I'll try and go for the most glaring issues. Luke does get a bit whiny at times and Leia's British accent seems a bit off (definitely Liverpool). Plus, she does seem to take that whole "planet being destroyed" business rather well (which was satirised in Robot Chicken). Not to mention that C3P0 seems to make a couple of stupid choices, but I suppose he's out of his element. George Lucas is both writing and directing this one, so the acting and dialogue is wooden at times, but there are still plenty of notable quotables.

Then again, I love the imagination, with the ship designs and the aliens in Mos Eisley, and the main characters are suitably heroic to keep me interested. Not to mention there is some great action scenes, whether it's Luke and Han blundering their way through the Death Star to rescue Leia, or the climactic space battle at the end. That trench run scene always feels tense every time I watch it.

I suppose I'm letting nostalgia take up too much of this. Then again, the fact that such an experimental film with a cast of virtual unknowns (with the exception of Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing) was able to do so well is an impressive feat. Although I suppose the merchandising had something to with that. 

"Where the real money is made".

Overall, it's a fun sci-fi adventure that's a great little time-waster.