"A long time ago" in our galaxy, George Lucas changed cinema and the world forever. Could I get a more cliched opening than that? But as cliched as it might be, the statement remains true today as pop culture has never been the same since Star Wars was released back in 1977 and so, I will play the 10 hour loop of the Mos Eisley Cantina song as I tell what you should already know, and maybe a few interesting facts you didn't.
A couple of months back I got caught up in a discussion about all things sci-fi, that eventually turned towards what are the best sci-fi movies. When Star Wars was inevitably brought up, the one hipster in the room of course tried to say that it was not the best, but my friends rebuttal has stayed with me ever since, waiting for the next time I watched Star Wars. What he said was simply this, "you do not have to be told that Star Wars is the best movie or even a good movie, anyone who watches it will automatically know themselves." I think this is so true, as there are many movies that you are told are great or "the best" and when you watch them you just kind of agree because that is what you've been told. But when you are a kid watching Star Wars for the first time you don't grasp the impact Star Wars has made, you just know that once you've watched it, it becomes your favourite and your Lego starts to make a lot more sense.
I'm not going to give you even the briefest of summaries because if you have not seen Star Wars that is really something you need to correct and not in that, "yah, you should really get around to watching that" way, but in the "here are my DVD's go home and watch them
now kind of way." You will not be disappointed.
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| There is no greater test of nerdy talent than Chewbacca's roar imitations. |
Everyone now knows Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope by that name, and knows that the entire saga consists of 6 movies divided into two trilogies. However, when A New Hope was originally released, it was simply known as Star Wars and stood very well as just a single movie. After watching A New Hope again you can clearly see that the movie could have stood alone, without any of it's two sequels. Unlike most movies, A New Hope didn't necessarily plan for sequels and so there aren't an abundance of loose ends or a cliffhanger ending. As a single installment, Star Wars would be able to stand just fine, but the world it introduces is just too amazing to leave unexplored.
A New Hope never gets boring, and that isn't necessarily because it had perfect pacing. Whenever the main story isn't capturing your attention any number of things in the background are, and the best scene for this is the Mos Eisley Spaceport Cantina. That is the scene where you realize just how big of a galaxy lies out there giving us glimpses of dozens of different aliens just hanging around in the background. Throughout the entire movie we hear and see references to so many different elements of the world that all you want to do is explore it, and to this day we still haven't stopped, with spin-off movies, books, games, and toys that make Star Wars probably the highest grossing franchise of all time.
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| Bun dun dun dun da da dun dun da dun. |
Now it is hard to determine exactly what makes Star Wars better than any other of the countless sci-fi B-movies, but I would say it is because every element is perfect and fits together perfectly. Sure you could craft an entire sci-fi world, but if you don't have the special effects to back it up, it is just going to look horribly cheesy, or even worse, just horribly horrible. Star Wars however feature amazing special effects on every level, and while CGI raised kids might make fun of the blaster effects, all of Star Wars practical effects still hold up to day. The costumes and wardrobe stand out particularly because from the simple outfits of Luke, Han and Leia to the full body makeup and costumes of Chewbacca, Greedo and countless other aliens is phenomenal. The sets and locale also look spectacular whether it is the real deserts of Tatooine or the constructed confines of the Death Star or Millennium Falcon everything looks real and lived in, although George Lucas had to fight with the cleaning crews to keep them from polishing the floors on him.
One of the bigger problems with the original Star Wars trilogy is that over the years it had been re-released a number of times. There is no problem with this normally, except that George Lucas likes to make changes here and there and touch up the special effects. Now, it doesn't bother me that he touches up some special effects, but the updates do take away from the classic feel of watching the movie, and what is worse is when he changes actually scenes and events in the movie. The most notable of these is also the slogan of those fans who are particularly offended by these changes; "Han Shot First" which refers to the fact that Han shot Greedo first originally but Lucas has since changed it to portray the hero in a more positive light. In the end however there are countless thousands of fans who have never noticed these changes, and it isn't something to get to riled up about. I just think of it as cheating since most directors don't get the chance to re-edit their work decades later.
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| As iconic as this scene seems it would be, I never remember it. |
Like everytime I watch Star Wars, I am always left satisfied and it is always a great time. While I will always choose the original trilogy, I don't completely hate the prequel trilogy as some fans do. Beside I can choose to watch whichever ones I want and I do plan to finish watching the original trilogy sometime in the next few months, but I do want to try and get copies of the original theatrical releases before I continue. This copy of A New Hope was the remastered special edition one with the updates and edits. Also next on my list are The Star Wars Holiday Special which was released in 1978, aired in full only once, and has never been released on VHS or DVD. While it is reportedly terrible, only dedicated fans have seen it, and I want to see what all the fuss is about. Also an interesting fan project is Star Wars Uncut, a fan project which cut A New Hope into 15 second slices and allowed any fan who wished to reserve a slice and reshoot it however they wished, be it Lego, animated or live action. As of now A New Hope has been released in full, while slices of The Empire Strikes Back are up for grabs. Maybe I'll bust out my Lego and reserve a piece. It may have happened a long time ago, but Star Wars is never very far away.
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