Star Wars Rules

Rating: 10/10 (7 January 2020)

This is not my favorite Star Wars Film. It isn't even the one I liked best, growing up. I grew up watching the original trilogy but "Empire" and "RotJ" were definitely the ones I gravitated to more. As I grew older, my appreciation for this film grew. I stopped seeing it as just the first installment in a greater story, that, in my opinion, failed to be as exciting, funny, or emotionally moving.
I began to see it for what it was always intended to be: a stand-alone film. In that light, I have grown to understand the film more as the classic legend it is, writ into the most fantastic of settings, Space.
It is hard to imagine a day when Star Wars was not synonymous with extended series of films, books, comic books, and toys. That's hard even for me since i grew up with the original trilogy and the glut had already happened but for a few moments here, I'm going to try to put myself in my dad's shoes, seeing "Star Wars" (no episode count) in the theater, with no clue what was about to unfold before me.
Star Wars!!! The words blazen across the screen in yellow on the black of space as the opening scrawl prepares me for the strange world I am about to enter. Where robots have personalities, fears, and sassy attitudes, a cruel tyrannical government seeks to control every planet in the galaxy, and a legendary sect of light wizards has all but lost their own fight for the galaxy.
I imagine how easily I would be swept up in the desert landscape of Tatooine, the streaking starlight of hyperdrive travel, and the fear of alien voices, faces, and worlds that I didn't understand... yet.
The action scenes would have thrilled me as we go from seeing stormtroopers capturing Princess Leia's (Carrie Fisher, "The Blues Brothers") vessel, to the power of the Death Star to destroy a planet, and the roller-coaster ride that is Luke (Mark Hamill, "The Last Jedi") and Han (Harrison Ford, "Blade Runner 2049") defending the Falcon from the TIE fighters pursuing them. Little do I know, or maybe I've heard a few rumors in school that give me some inkling hint, that the best is yet to come.
The Rebellion, now in possession of the plans for the Empire's new weapon of devastation, launches a last desperate attack on the massive base with barely any hope of success.
The Death Star Trench Run. A VFX masterpiece that would change the world of cinema as the world knew it. This sequence blew audiences away with its state of the art effects that all occurred within camera. Remember, computers were not capable of doing any visual effects beyond some simple wireframes.
Imagine the work that went into the painstaking planning, timing, filming, model building, explosion setting, matting, and multiple exposures that went into making an effects sequence such as the one in "A New Hope." You had to physically expose the same strip of film to light with different areas 'masked' off so that the film didn't "record" the stuff you didn't want to show (like arms holding models in place or not starfield backgrounds), then reverse the mask to film what you want in those areas with exactly the same camera movements and timing. On top of that, you had to do that for every element you film, so there are shots that took a dozen different 'passes' at the film stock before it got locked as a complete shot.
For a more detailed explanation of this process check out the Corridor Crew's breakdown of VFX within Star Wars. Pay attention to how amazed these VFX artists are with how this process had to be done in the pre-digital era.
There's no shortage of documentaries, videos, books, articles, and essays about the ways that "Star Wars" changed media forever but something I had lost sight of, until this most recent viewing reminded me, was how I watched this film as a child.
I know many people have pointed out the problems this film has, as most popular films of its era had, with underrepresentation, sexism, and white savior complex but as a kid, all of that was over my head.
In fact, as a kid I found the story to be remarkably inclusive. One of the most fascinating things to me about the world of Star Wars was that there were all these alien races and droids that seemed to be just as important as anyone else in the film when it came to having value. It wasn't a film that made me feel superior and it honestly makes me sad to think that this movie has made anyone feel inferior because they thought it wasn't 'for' them.
What I do know is that this film was made for me, a white male in the midwest and it, along with guidance from parents, communities, and other films, taught me to value people who may look or behave differently from me.
When I day-dreamed about blowing up the Death Star or attacking stormtroopers I wasn't recasting myself as Luke. I saw myself as another pilot in Red Squadron, or a fighter on Hoth ("Empire" I know). I saw myself not as a singular savior but as a piece of a resistance against evil.
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This is what I still hang on to as I watch this film. It's the spark in my heart that I feel fanned by this film. That I have a part to play in fighting for the unfought for, speak for the unspoken for, and in hoping, anew, that the battle is not over.
Luke says to Obi-Wan, in a spot on impression of me complaining about just about anything important going on in our country, my community, or my own life, "I can't get involved. I have work to do. It's not that I like the Empire. I hate it but there's nothing I can do about it right now."
Shame on you Luke (Michael). The rest of this movie will be all about how wrong you are at this moment.
May we learn sooner rather than later that standing against evil is the most important work we all have to do.