It's good, but it ruined a lot of things

Rating: Null/10 (5 October 2000)

MORD39 RATING: *** 0ut of ****
STAR WARS is a "good" sci-fi movie. There, I've said it.It's adventurous and exciting, a very Flash Gordon-esque zap-boom serial type of thrill ride.
But in 1977, I can never forgive it for totally changing everything. I am a huge fan of the PLANET OF THE APES franchise, which I believe is far more intelligent and even influenced the Chewbacca character (remember that Fox owns both series). The now-famous lettering for STAR WARS was also taken from the PLANET OF THE APES logo. What I'm saying is that when STAR WARS came, the APES were out.
But it wasn't just about that. There used to ge a great monster magazine called FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. In 1977, the influence of STAR WARS even ruined that magazine, as each cover would feature the silly C3PO or R2D2 (though Darth Vader was cool), and the magazine became a STAR WARS publication. Indeed, the magazine covers would feature a tremendously bold "STAR WARS" on the top, while underneath you would see a tiny "famous monsters of filmland".
Harrison Ford and Mark Hammill are not strong actors, and Carrie Fisher is far too average (but cute) to be a princess in my book. The silliness starts in this film with the robot characters (and gets worse in the special new version when you see more cartoonish ones) and got worse in the sequels (JAR JAR BINKS became the epitome of this nonsense).
Perhaps the best actor in STAR WARS is Peter Cushing, in a role that should have been bigger.
It's good fun, but I still am unable to fathom why people are so fanatical for the STAR WARS movies in general. The first one is worthy , the others just aren't. The fact that it inspired so many other science fiction ripoffs is REALLY incomprehensible.
Maybe I just need to remind myself that even STAR WARS (1977) is a rip-off of all those aforementioned serials. A good rip-off.