Star Wars EpisodeIV-A New Hope Review

Rating: 10/10 (11 December 2011)

Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker Harrison Ford as Han Solo Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa Alec Guinness as Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi Anthony Daniels as C-3PO Kenny Baker as R2-D2 Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca David Prowse as Darth Vader James Earl Jones as Darth Vader (voice) Phil Brown as Uncle Owen Shelagh Fraser as Aunt Peru
The Star Wars (1977) film by Director George Lucas is a galactic drama which was an orchestrated musical that started with episode IV. The studio insisted that the episode numeral not be added until later after the film's success. The main plot begins with droid robots named R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) that help a young man named Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and a cynical space pilot named Hans Solo (Harrison Ford I) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) a hairy bigfoot creature rescue a rebel princess, Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) that has been taken hostage by Darth Lord Vader (Dave Prowse and the voice of James Earl Jones' voice). The evil Emperor is determined to dissolve the Imperial Senate and crush the Republic Alliance. The Empire will then rule with fear of planet destruction by the Death Star Battle Station that will lead to intergalactic domination.
The theme is evil (dark side of The Force) versus good (The Force), with which human nature dictates the decision to do good or evil deeds. Luke is a young man that works on a farm and feels obligated to stay on the farm for another season to help his Uncle Owen (Phil Brown) and Aunt Peru (Shelagh Fraser). Luke is torn by this decision and is told by an old Jedi Knight, Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) that his father was betrayed and murdered by a pupil of Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). The Empire attacks the farm and kills his aunt and uncle, so Luke decides to avenge his family's death and learn The Force and train as a Jedi warrior like his father for the rebellion against the evil Empire. Eventually, Luke becomes familiar with the good side of The Force and saves the princess. He then uses his piloting skills to shoot a virtually impossible vent shaft, destroying the Death Star and becomes the hero for the rebel forces.
The thematic ideas and visual designs used were camera techniques and angles, including panning and tilting in a montage that creates hyperspace to get from one place to another at a super speed, similar to Star Trek. The high tech look has camera views that use the idea of World War II bombers to give the viewer a cinematic feel for the atmosphere, which conveys spaceship views unveiling the motion control camera. Stop motion is used along with puppets for the introduction of a creature named Jabba the Hutt.
The film's sounds effects are groundbreaking for the time with the environmental tone of each spaceship having its own high or low-pitch tone that creates a specific sound for the dramatic feel of being in the each aircraft cockpit for the scene. The cockpit voices of the pilots are recorded over an actual shortwave radio, which gives the illusion that the transmissions were natural broken radio talk.
Costume design was complicated and difficult to pull off due to the budget that was originally assigned. The C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) robot costumes were so loud that they had had to use voice-over to cover up the sound during editing.
The thematic ideas were depicted as a futuristic montage of images and sounds for the technological aspects of space battles. Lucas also studied motifs of Greek mythological creatures to design the aliens, sets and robotic character shots of many of the fictional characters. These ideas compare to Raiders of the Lost Ark in theme by saving the girl and saving the day for the natives, which is also a cliffhanger action film that he created.
Therefore, these styles of thematic elements were carried into many other space action creations that Lucas has directed in future films, including the Star Wars Trilogy.
References
Star Wars, Episode IV, A New Hope., Director and Writer George Lucas, DVD, Twentieth Century Fox and LucasFilm Ltd., 1977 and 1997 versions.
IMDb., Trivia – Star Wars (1977) retrieved Dec. 11, 2011 from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/