First time viewer 2020

Rating: 10/10 (12 January 2020)

I am a 25 year old who had never seen a full Star wars movie in her life. I decided to start at the beginning only 43 years late. This review is as someone who's never seen the full movies.
Where to begin. I had seen so many parodies and clips and gifs from these movies, seeing it in real life in its entirety almost didn't seem real. In the context of the movie so many things were made so much better. I've heard all the quotes before, but seeing the scenes that they came from blowing my mind. it felt like every scene was an Easter egg.
Some of the CGI was a bit spotty, but for a film made in 1977 I can quite honestly say a lot of the CGI was better than some stuff we have today. The space explosions especially where my favorite to watch. Plus the practical effects are incredible, and I loved how much creativity they put into the hundreds of types alien monsters.
I love how quickly they bring you into the world and explain almost nothing. It really is a show don't tell kind of franchise. They don't feel a need to shove exposition down your throats oh, but you still enjoy and understand everything that's happening. Storytelling technique that is dead in a majority of modern film.
The biggest surprise I had, was not seeing plot points and characters that I knew existed in the universe. I found myself asking: "wait where's Yoda? Is Liam neeson in this one? Is jar jar Binks in this one? That's jabba, when does he take princess Leia as slave? Isn't Darth Vader going to have that famous scene with Luke?" I kept waiting for scenes that I thought would happen but didn't. It is cool however to see all of the setup they do for future sequels. It makes me wish I had never seen Spaceballs for the family Guy Star wars or any references at all.
Overall, I knew I would love this movie before I even put it on, and I enjoyed every second of it. I can't wait to watch the rest of this series and review all of the other movies.