The luckiest con artist in the galaxy

Rating: 5/10 (16 January 2014)

In almost four decades since it was made, "Star Wars" has spawned five cinematic sequels, a Christmas TV-special, an animated series, comic book adaptations and novelizations. It has sold millions of thematic toys and other related merchandising. It has spawned a multi-million following that slowly turns into an organized religion of its own. It has also inspired over 1300 reviews on IMDb. The reason I'm here, writing another one, is because I recently took another look at it, in its Blue-ray Cinemascope splendor, keeping in mind one thing: at the time it was made, this film was all there was meant to ever be of "Star Wars". No saga, no nine-part soap-opera. Just this.
That's right. Once upon a time it wasn't called "Episode IV". Once upon a time its "sequel" was "Holiday special" on CBS and CTV. It was at first thought the film would sink at the box office. It has had a proper closure at the end, with that drawn out military ceremony. It only had a feel of an episode of anything because Lucas, by his own admission, conceived it as an homage to early sci-fi television series format (all the way from scene transitions and goofy sound effects down to having a secondary villain escape at the end). The only other idea for a film Lucas did have at the time was about an archaeologist with a whip and a fedora hat. Nowadays fans believe his story of having the whole series written down from the outset, but he really only worked it out as he went along. That's one of the reasons why all the apocryphal stories, called sequels and prequels, tie only very badly to this film, baffling fans with their inconsistencies to this day - and for centuries to come.
The impact "Star Wars" had on the future of filmmaking is incontrovertible. Not even the biggest detractors can deny it. The mass frenzy it caused and success it had are well documented. The influence, not only in the genre of science fiction, but in entire business of making films and marketing them, is such that it can indeed be said that it changed the film industry forever. One can find numerous reasons why was that so, but the last of all would be the quality of this film - as a film.
Put together its pluses and minuses - "Star Wars" is a mediocre film. A couple of things are really, really good and were responsible for having it hold water. The overall idea of a young nobody becoming a somebody in a war taking place in space. The wonderful Williams' score. The cinematography. The voice of James Earl Jones. And the special effects. Not only were they excellent "for their time", they're excellent even now. Even today with all the CGI and money at hand, filmmakers often fail to make effects as convincing and "meaty" as they are in "Star Wars".
The bad things in the film are also really, really bad for a high end feature film. And it really stings the eyes... and ears. The key elements of the story are idiotic: the princess of nonexistent planet, the disposable rebels without a cause, the omnipresent yet unreliable force called "the Force", the villains with overly complicated plans to quell the rebellion, the plot twists. The inane dialog that wants to sound inspired: "I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16", "Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?". The cast is, well, atrocious: Alec Guiness, who's only brought on board to add a little aristocratic glamour, looks tired and almost embarrassed, Mark Hamill is juvenile and neurotic, Carrie Fisher lacks sex appeal and charisma and comes off more like an irritated cleaning lady than a person of vision and authority; and Harrison Ford, who profited the most out of this project, still had to learn about the movement and timing in front of the camera. Only the actors playing the villains did okay. Token supporting cast, clumsy extras and silly puppets need no further analysis beside that they were clumsy and silly. Perhaps, though, a lot could be said about "the droids" but to say that they were given far too much screen time is enough.
Hadn't there been for history making element, this film would have been one of the hundreds of those "cult" thingies from the Seventies, taken off of the shelf once in a while for nostalgia purposes (something that happened to its sci-fi peers "Logan's Run" and "Westworld", for instance). However, the odd combination of psycho-socio-economical factors made "Star Wars" stuff of legends and George Lucas one of the richest men in the industry. Nowadays it is a revered piece of film-making, a never ending source of inspiration and the motor behind a lucrative "Star Wars" franchise - for all the wrong reasons. And relentlessly spoofed, for the right reasons.
But strip away the aftermath of its creation, the sequels, the folklore and the pretentiousness that arose from it over the years, and you have what it was always meant to be, for better or for worse: a silly fun.