Young people don’t remember a time when Star Wars was not a part of the cultural zeitgeist. Even I, who is just a few months shy of my fiftieth birthday, do not remember a time when Star Wars was not a thing, even though I predate the release of the first film in what has become a multi-billion-dollar franchise. It didn’t start out that way, though. Long before it became known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, it was simply Star Wars, a low-budget science fiction film made in England and Tunisia starring some relatively unknown actors and actresses.
The Brits working on the visuals and operating the cameras didn’t take it seriously, viewing it as pure kids’ stuff at the time. But writer/director George Lucas had faith in his project and, revisionist history aside, had bigger plans than just this sole science fiction opera set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I doubt that even he could have predicted just how big this project would become, spawning eight prequels and sequels, side-quels, and spin-offs. Not to mention the many animated series, live-action shows, and television specials, including what many consider the worst movie tie-in of all time: The Star Wars Holiday Special.
Lucas claims that he had the whole trilogy mapped out ahead of time and had to cull from that grand plan to pick the story that would best introduce this concept in a single film. That may or may not be accurate, but it really doesn’t matter. In the years since Star Wars hit theaters, he has returned to the well, not just for follow-up films but to retool and alter these films, as well. While those who didn’t grow up seeing Star Wars in its original raw and unedited version enjoy the altered form, most of us who saw this in our childhood when it was new like to remember it as it was, warts and all. So strong is that nostalgia that people have devoted years of their time trying to recreate the films as they originally were because George Lucas has made it all but impossible to ever see them that way again. The only official release on modern formats is through a bonus DVD taken from a laserdisc scan that isn’t even formatted for modern TVs. It’s a slap in the face to the lifelong fans who don’t appreciate their childhoods being altered.
But enough ranting about what is, and let’s look at what has sparked such fandom in the first place. Star Wars began a renaissance of the science fiction space opera, a relic of a time when Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon flew around in a spaceship and fought off the bad guys with laser pistols and robotic sidekicks. George Lucas was looking back at the old science fiction serials and wanting to recreate that feeling of excitement he felt as a child, along with the idea that you had to come back later to get more of the story. Serialized drama was something that was big in the old days of cinema when a short like those mentioned above would play before the feature, and you had to return week after week to get the next chapter. Lucas wanted to recreate this on a bigger scale, and Star Wars was just that.
The story is very reminiscent of those Flash Gordon serials, too. Civil war has broken out. The Rebel Alliance has stolen the blueprints to the Death Star, a massive spherical space station capable of destroying planets with a single shot. This space station, built and controlled by the Galactic Empire, is a key weapon for the empire in its pursuit of the rebels, and these blueprints may provide a way for the rebels to locate weaknesses and destroy it. But the rebels are being pursued by Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones). Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), knowing they cannot outrun Vader’s ship, hides the blueprints in the memory of one of her droids, R2D2 (Kenny Baker), who, alongside fellow droid C3PO (Anthony Daniels), evacuates in an escape pod to the surface of a nearby desert planet, Tatooine. Leia is taken prisoner by Vader, who tries to force her via chemical torture to reveal the locations of the other rebels.
Meanwhile, R2D2 and C3PO are captured by desert nomads called Jawas on Tatooine and sold to a family of moisture farmers that includes the youthful Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and his guardians, his aunt and uncle. When Vader’s soldiers, the Stormtroopers, track the droids back to the farm and kill his guardians, Luke has nothing to go back to. R2D2, acting on instructions given him from Leia, leads them to Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), a former knight of the Jedi Order now in hiding. Knowing the importance of the information in R2D2’s memory, Kenobi charters passage from a team of smugglers, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and they all set out to find the princess. Space battles ensue, the lore of the Jedi Order is explored, and an important attack takes place that will seriously cripple, but not defeat, the Galactic Empire. There is no To Be Continued at the end of the film, and had it not turned a hefty profit, it would have worked perfectly fine as a stand-alone film. But it also works great as an introductory chapter to a much larger saga.
For three years, this was all that we had. There was no The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. There was no prequel trilogy or sequel trilogy, just Star Wars. I was still too young in 1980 when Empirecame out, but I remember my parents taking me to a big theater in Billings, Montana, to see Return of the Jedi. That theater was one of the last grand theaters I remember still being in business, complete with a balcony, and that’s where I saw the conclusion to the trilogy, the last Star Wars live-action theatrical feature film for sixteen years. It was also the last time the fandom was mostly in harmony about their franchise.
As with all major franchises with devout followers, nostalgia tints our views and alters our receptions of newer entries. Ask any James Bond 007 fan, and you’ll hear all about how Sean Connery is the best 007, and nothing will change their minds no matter how well made . Or maybe they love Roger Moore because they grew up in the 70s never mind that both of those actors churned out films that are less than stellar in that franchise. Star Wars is much the same. There are people who hate anything that came out after Return of the Jedi. There are those who practically worship the prequel trilogy. And there are those, albeit far less so, that love the sequel trilogy or all the various television spinoffs that have been releasing on Disney+ with no signs of slowing down. Fandom is subjective, yet people get worked up over anyone who doesn’t share their opinion on it. It has gotten toxic enough in recent years that it sours the experience of watching anything coming out anymore, including the Special Edition releases of the original three films, because whether you like them or not, someone will try and tear you down for your opinion. In this case, the term “fan” really does mean “fanatic.”
I, for one, will always be firmly on the middle ground when it comes to this whole franchise. I’ve seen everything released to theaters since Return of the Jedi but have never been frothing at the mouth for each new release. That falls back to how I first saw Star Wars. I experienced this original film on television. I doubt my parents would have taken the infant me to theaters to see it and I wouldn’t remember that anyway. I saw it broadcast complete with commercial breaks. To me it was an above average sci-fi film that also happened to star Harrison Ford, the actor who played Indiana Jones, the real movie I was obsessed with at the time. Harrison Ford was the draw for me. I had never seen Mark Hamill in anything before. Ditto Carrie Fisher. Even now, whenever I see either of them in something I’m seeing Luke and Leia. With Harrison, I’m seeing Dr. Jones, Archeologist.
And yet he was doing such a good job at playing Han Solo differently than he did Indiana Jones that my mother had to point out to me initially that they were the same actor. Harrison Ford may not care for this franchise— supposedly he kept insisting his character be killed off— but he gave it charisma and a roguish charm when he could have slept-walked through it. For much of the early scenes in Star Wars he is absent, entering the picture after about a half hour of plot set-up, and the film feels his absence. He was designed originally to be a bit of a scoundrel and a criminal smuggler but some of that has been smoothed out through alterations in the rereleases.
Mark Hamill was introduced to the world in Star Wars. From the early scenes, we feel like he is brash, callow, and sometimes petulant. It is his arc that we are here to explore as he experiences a world far harsher than the desert environment he is being raised on. It is fortunate, though, that he matures rather quickly because we need a hero who is likable, and we are confident that the one we meet in the beginning is not that. It takes losing his aunt and uncle to mature him quickly, although he never fully sheds his earlier immaturity. It also takes some patience and training from Kenobi to get him over some of his earlier callowness.
What is a film, though, without a great villain? Darth Vader is a complete mystery in this film. He wears a mask and never shows his face in this film, giving us nothing of his backstory. We learn nothing about him until later films, so there is the threat of him being a generic one-dimensional bad guy. Yet that is not what happens. Even without the foreknowledge of the future films, Vader is a fascinating character to examine. He’s menacing, able to move objects with a form of telepathy we later learn is called the Force, but he is also not the one in command. He answers to another, the commander of the Death Star, Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing). There may be another that Tarkin answers to, but that isn’t addressed in this film, but by giving Tarkin a face and masking Vader’s, it adds an element of mystery to his character that will go unresolved in this picture. Prowse gives him the menacing physicality, but James Earl Jones makes the performance with his bass heavy vocals.
A key element to the success of this picture is the amazing score provided by John Williams. Williams was recommended by Steven Spielberg because of his understanding of leitmotifs in music. This would become a signature of Star Wars music, and all chapters in the Skywalker Saga would bear a John Williams score over them. From the blasts of horns and percussion that open the film all the way through to the triumphant march that leads into the credits, this is a powerful and iconic score that holds its own even without the film. John Williams rightfully won the Oscar for it, as this film would not be nearly as successful without it. What’s even more impressive is that he would do the same thing for each of the eight other films in the saga, each feeling as a whole but also have their own themes that help them stand out from each other.
When you examine Star Wars the film as a whole, it is amazing that it fired up the imaginations of so many people the way that it did. Because I barely even remember a time before there were all three original films, I struggle to view it as just its own film without the baggage of the other two. Trying to imagine what it would be as a single film without any of the other stuff is fascinating because there are threads that are left dangling and things hinted at that get changed in later films to alter the narrative, things like the relationship between Luke and Leia, which had some romantic undertones in this film. It’s a complete film in its own right but is still just a piece of a bigger picture.
As a solo film, it’s a step above what science fiction action adventure was at the time. It also sparked renewed interest in the genre, which paved the way for Star Trek to make a comeback, and that, too, has become a genre juggernaut in its own right. Star Wars may have the most vocal fanbase, but it’s a fragmented fanbase. Still, most of those voices will agree that Star Wars the film, whether you remember it as Star Wars or Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, is a great starting point for getting into the greater Star Wars mythos. It’s a better film to begin with than the prequel trilogy, which assumes you already have seen the original and focuses more on expanding lore rather than introducing us to it. I will always prefer seeing the film as I originally saw it, but it is a good enough film that the altered version doesn’t ruin the experience either.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Gary Kurtz
Best Director: George Lucas
Best Supporting Actor: Alec Guinness
Best Original Screenplay: George Lucas
Best Art Direction: John Barry, Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, and Roger Christian (won)
Best Costume Design: John Mollo (won)
Best Film Editing: Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas, and Richard Crew (won)
Best Original Score: John Williams (won)
Best Sound: Don MacDougall, Ray West, Bob Minkler, and Derek Ball (won)
Best Visual Effects: John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune, and Robert Blalack (won)
Special Achievement Academy Award: Ben Burtt (won)
Scientific and Engineering Academy Award: John Dykstra, Alvah J. Miller, and Jerry Jeffress (won)
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Release Date: May 25, 1977
Running Time: 121 Minutes
Rated PG
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carry Fisher, Peter Cushing, and Alec Guinness
Directed By: George Lucas
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