And so it begins

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 2000)

I thought we had all seen Star Wars. Turns out we haven't. My fiancée had never seen any of the series until she saw the Phantom Menace. So I rented the first three and sat down one fateful Saturday afternoon and watched them in succession. As always, another one was captivated and lured into the legend that starts out with those spinetingling words, " A long time ago in a galxy far far far away.... "
It doesn't matter if you are six or 36, Star Wars and it's sequels and prequels will hypnotize you, and even if you have seen the films 100's of times, it is always great to go back and pay homage to the film that entertained us and captured our imaginations. And even though this film is now more than 20 years old, it is still easy to marvel at the technology and Lucas' impressive vision. I remember hearing that George took this to many studios before 20th Century and they emphatically denied him any funds to make this film. But then someone at 20th Century told him that they liked what he did with American Graffiti and they told him to do it. Could you imagine what the guys at the other studios must have been saying to themselves after Star Wars went on to not only break box office records, but shatter them? Perhaps some execs lost their jobs for passing over Star Wars for the latest Al Pacino movie, but they shouldn't have. Star Wars was a gamble. It has far off worlds, another language(s), Wookies, the force, a man dressed in all black that moves things with his mind, princesses, old wizards, androids, farmers, space stations, bars with singing puppets, space cowboys, bad guys with British accents, landspeeders, tie fighters, X-Wing fighters, lightsabres and so on. Who in their right mind would want to gamble on this when in the previous six years of the decade the biggest films were that of a killer shark, a ruthless family of Italian mobsters and a boxer with a speech impediment that goes all the way? Star Wars clearly didn't fall into the category of box office gold. But then something unbelievable happened.
Other films have gone onto gross more money than Star Wars ( E.T. Jurassic Park, Titanic ) but I don't think any other film has ever done to an audience or to a society what the Legend that is Star Wars and it's sequels has done. And that is taken something that is a motion picture and turn it into something almost tangible, something that has a life of it's own. And it just makes it even more fun to look back on the films from 20 some years ago now that the second batch of films is in full bloom. We can now ask questions like, How does Anakin go from that darling little boy to the evil and mechanical monster that he is? How does Yoda end up in the Degabah System? What happened to all the other Jedi Masters? Why does Obi Wan end up on Tatooine? Why why why and how? Many answers are awaiting us in the coming episodes. But we can all look back to 1977 and a young man named George Lucas that had a vision, an epiphany perhaps, and we can thank the movie Gods that Star Wars was born. This is one of the true defining moments in motion picture history.
Star Wars- 10 out of 10. Can you give it any less?