One of cinema's magical gems

Rating: Null/10 (3 May 2001)

Cinema is full of magic moments, and as a cinephile your mind drifts away just thinking about them. Thus all reflections over those moments will become purely subjective; who can say if the mirage sequence from "Lawrence of Arabia" is better than Dorothy opening the door to Oz. But in my book, the most magical moment is to see the Millennium Falcon coming towards the screen with the sun behind it, right after Han Solo hit one of Darth Vader's wingmen during the final assult on the death star.
"Star Wars" is far from original. The main plot is very close to Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress", the final assult on the death star brings up memories from "Dambusters", and Luke returning to see his family burned is a clear copy from "The Searchers". So its not wrong at all, to see "Star Wars" as a hypotext of classic iconographic scenes. But does that make a classic ? The answer to that is no.
To me the secret to "Star Wars" is its characters. Pure two dimensional, but so clearly drawn, that it gives them personality. The corrupted evilness of Darth Vader, the charming scroundelness of Han Solo, the humble power of Obi Wan and not to be forgotten C3PO and R2D2, who adds comic relief as well as function as indirect narrating linkers. Its the presence of these characters that drives the movie. Like the characters of Milne's "Winnie the Pooh", the characters of "Star Wars" represent a side of human nature. Crude, simple, but very effective.
To top it all off, Lucas chose to make it a modern faery tale. "Star Wars" opens with "In a galaxy, far, far away", which is the same as our childhood stories that opend "Once upon a time". To read the structure of "Star Wars" is as reading Propp's structures of faery tales.
All in all, "Star Wars" is a gem of cinema, and it is as valuable to our culture, as the stories collected by the Grimm Brothers. Its not just science fiction, its a collage of visual imagery and archtypes on which we build our own imagination.
May the force be with you...