Star Wars - A Renewed Hope

Rating: 9/10 (2 February 2012)

I can't believe I've missed this all these years. This has got to be the movie phenomenon of perhaps, the century. From what I gather, almost every avid movie watcher is in some way or the other aware of the existence of something called Star Wars. Today, I took the plunge to experience it first hand courtesy the arrival of The Complete Saga on Blu-Ray.
What makes Star Wars powerful ??? Is it the characters ??? Not for me. I believe its the well fleshed out story, which looks like it has been adapted from an extremely detailed novel of sorts. What also worked according to me was the development of the movie's narrative - it just flows smooth as silk with no such points existing in the movie where the director has none of the universe's story to share and has just added fillers. There is never a dull moment in Star Wars - it all moves one sequence after the other and they all connect so wonderfully that you're left mesmerized. The characters and performances in my opinion are not bad but they're not as good as the aforementioned aspects. And I trust that these are only going to get better in the movies to follow now that they've been successfully introduced to the audience.
Needless to say, the film is a technical marvel. And any praise of the film's technical prowess has to be incomplete without a mention of the film's visual effects. That Lucas could even dream about filming these ambitious sequences three decades ago is remarkable. There's a behind the scenes documentary which shows the making of some of these sequences. Its a must watch for those wondering over how visual effects were done in the good olé' days. The shots are truly breathtaking and so is the editing - everything's wonderfully put into place. Its hard to believe that the first cut of this movie was considered to be a shoddily edited piece of work.
The first time I heard the Star Wars main theme, which in the movie was right at the beginning surrounding the opening crawl, my jaw almost dropped. This is because here was the tune that I had been perhaps hearing since my childhood at innumerable award functions, events, advertisements and other such situations but I never actually bothered to investigate its source. I used to believe that its a tune which must have been specially composed for the Oscars, then recycled into being used elsewhere. The theme can best be described as uplifting - and John Williams, a maestro.
Missing out this movie meant missing out on one of the most brilliant movie experiences of all without even being aware of it. No amount of talk related to this movie is enough until you've seen it for yourself. I won't get into plot and cast details here because I'm confident that with the presence of so many reviews out there, these must have been taken care of countless number of times. I just felt that I needed to write out the excitement that has gripped me after watching this film - an excitement and curiosity about what the other films hold in store. Its not a perfect film and its certainly going to have its share of detractors and bashers. But this is one film that should be bashed only after its been given a fair trial. And there's a fairly slim chance that you'd wanna do that once you've seen it. This movie has introduced and involved me into the Star Wars universe. And now, I'm off to The Empire Strikes Back the next week !!!
Score: 8.5 / 10