A true landmark in science fiction and filmmaking.

Rating: 10/10 (15 June 2002)

The problem with reviewing a film like Star Wars is that it has been scrutinized and analyzed and poked and prodded for decades, which leaves little left to be said about it that has not been said already (and, consequently, probably means that virtually no one will read my review of it!). The thing that allows Star Wars to really get under your skin and have such a powerful and lasting effect on you lies in the combination of its simplicity and complexity. It is no secret that the vast majority of film plots revolve around some version of the ancient `good vs. evil' storytelling structure, and Episode IV is probably the most widely given example of this. The original Star Wars is a shockingly simple presentation of this structure, but it is also an immensely enlarged version of it. Lucas uses good vs. evil to structure his plot, but at the same time, he adds a story that entails such a level of complexity that it is impossible to reduce the film to a tired exercise of an age-old story structure.
George Lucas's superhuman visual imagination is one of the things that plays the largest role in making the original Star Wars film such a joy to watch. Every single scene is packed with visual curiosities that fascinate the viewer time after time, making the re-watch value nearly endless. Lucas is able to walk the fine line between using visual effects to carry his story and using them to enhance it, and this is an even stronger testament to the quality of the film, because the special effects, while obviously not the most technologically advanced in the world, are far superior to the complexity of the story, at least on a structural level. The thing that really counts against the newer Star Wars films - rather ironically, as it were - is that they replace the physically creative genius of these earlier films by simply creating everything through computer generated images, making the effects slightly more lifelike but immensely less realistic. A cartoon is more lifelike than a hand-puppet, but not more realistic by any stretch of the imagination.
The old Star Wars films are the happy home of Lucas' extinct belief that less is more, and we can see this in the tremendous amount of material that is discussed but never seen on screen, because it doesn't need to be. Lucas understood how powerful an effect he could create by having Obi Wan Kenobi give the young Luke Skywalker a brief description of what the Force is, and then use it to influence the weak mind of an Imperial Storm Trooper (`We don't need to see his identification. These aren't the droids we're looking for.'). This is great stuff, and there's not a single CGI effect in the film necessary to create it.
Consider, also, the extent of creativity involved in the making of the human portion of the film. We don't just see good guys and bad guys, but entire governments created with uniforms and even wildly elaborate outfits for their dark leaders (Darth Vader is, undoubtedly, one of the most recognizable figures in film history). This is an extremely well-presented hierarchy of characters, but it goes beyond just the leaders to include lower levels, all the way down to the scum of the run-down trade cities, as well as other characters such as the infantry-level Storm Troopers, who always seem to travel around in amusing little idiot packs, no doubt chanting `We are the moron brothers' to themselves and each other all the while. It's amazing that the Imperial Forces have managed to become so immensely powerful when their most basic watchmen are such boneheads. Didn't Lord Vader notice how pathetically weak-minded all of his troopers were? Obi Wan sure did!
Harrison Ford fits perfectly into the film as the greedy Han Solo, a character who is so one-sided that Ford has recently revealed that he has no interest in ever playing him again, which is too bad because there are sure to be a lot of interesting things that he could contribute to Episode III. Mark Hamill delivers a brilliant performance as Luke Skywalker, who has nearly as much charisma and charm as Norman Bates, without all that stuff about his mother. Carrie Fisher is spectacular as Princess Leah, although unfortunately so spectacular that her role in the early Star Wars films has immensely overshadowed the rest of her sadly dismissible career as an actor. She and Mark Hamill were both, in fact, horribly insulted by their roles in the latest idiot film from Kevin Smith, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The title makes it immediately clear that the movie is to be largely a parody of the Star Wars films (specifically the older ones), and the parody that is made in that film makes it very clear that some people (Kevin Smith) haven't sense enough to respect such tremendously successful and brilliant movies like the old Star Wars films, but rather know only to try to feed and capitalize off of them, regardless of how low they have to sink to do it.
It's sad that movies come out these days that are so insulting to old classics, and that this almost always happens in spoof films, which always have the potential to be tremendously hilarious and entertaining films, but they rarely do. I hope that someone with some power in Hollywood will notice that the spoof films that blatantly exploit the films they are parodying in order to get some cheap laughs are unequivocally the awful ones (Jay and Silent Bob, Scary Movie 1 and especially 2, etc.). I wish it wasn't so hard for them to see that films that poke fun respectably, like Spaceballs or even Wrongfully Accused, to some extent, are always the ones that generate the most satisfying laughs, and retain the most staying power.

Regardless of how the spoofs deliver moronic parodies of the original Star Wars films, however, they continue to stand as some of the greatest science fiction films of all time, and they remain that way even compared to their computer aided descendents. It is a testament to any kind of movie when it can stand up to nearly endless childish parodies as well as to theoretically improved versions of itself and extensions of its story, and still remain as powerful and moving as it was on the day it was released.