Just plain fun!

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2007)

Star Wars seems to lack the sense of importance that all of the sequels and prequels had. This one just seeks to entertain, and there's nothing wrong with that! Star Wars is one of those miracle movies (a term borrowed from Leonard Maltin) where everything went wrong but it all came together in the end, like Jaws and The Wizard of Oz. The movie was plagued by budget problems, and Lucas was so behind schedule he suffered a few panic attacks, which is probably why he did not direct the sequels.
Star Wars takes the audience on a series of adventures, from encountering sand people in the desert to rescuing a princess on a space station. The special effects and production design is amazing. It takes you into a whole new galaxy and makes you believe it's real. I liked how everything looked old and dirty; prior to Star Wars everything in Sci-fi movies looked brand new. John William's Star Wars score adds a whole new element of fun and is arguably the best work of his career. I can't imagine what Star Wars would be like without his music.
The main characters are all familiar archetypes. Luke is the restless, immature boy who wants to get off the farm and have an adventure. Han Solo is the rugged pirate who only cares for himself. Harrison Ford really steals every scene he's in with his wise guy attitude. Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Sorcerer/Mentor stereotype, like Merlin. Alec Guinness brings a certain classiness to the role, even though this is not even close to his best performance. His final lightsaber battle is slow and boring due to the limitations of the weak lightsabers (David Prowse kept breaking them!) and his old age, but he delivers his verbal quips quite nicely, as does James Earl Jones. The scene where he dies is still very powerful; I love how Vader steps on his empty robe, it's like he's thinking "hey, where are you hiding?" Carrie Fisher plays the kidnapped princess; her performance is tougher and feistier in this movie. She loses those qualities to a certain extent in the following movies.
Hammer Horror film veteran Peter Cushing played the sinister Imperial Officer, Grand Moff Tarkin. It's amazing how Cushing was able to slip into the role of the villain so easily (he certainly looks evil), considering the fact he was most famous for playing protagonists like Van Helsing and Dr. Frankenstein. I cannot give enough praise to James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader, one of the greatest villains of all time. Some of the dialog is embarrassing but the cast was able to bring the characters alive. That is the most important difference between the originals and the prequels. These characters were not complex in any way, but they had good chemistry with each other. The prequel's characters felt like cardboard.
I used to think this was the most boring Star Wars film, and I just don't understand why anymore. I've noticed this film gets criticized for bad pacing, and I could not disagree more. Star Wars has the best pacing of the original trilogy. Empire's plot stopped moving in the middle of the movie, and the first 35-40 minutes of Jedi were a total pit stop. Star Wars on the other hand smoothly builds up to the final climax at the Death Star, without any long story lags. The Battle of Yavin has been criticized for being too long (by Alec Guinness and Roger Ebert), but I don't mind. The Death Star's destruction is an exhilarating moment. Star Wars is also the funniest movie in the series. The bickering between the three heroes on the Death Star is hilarious.
In 2004 the Star Wars movies were revised yet again for the DVD release. I have to say I'm disappointed with how the original trilogy has been treated by Lucas. He seems to support film preservation in every case, except when it comes to his own movies. To me, replacing actors and revising special effects is just as bad as colorizing a black and white movie. It eliminates all of the historical significance. I hope one day the original trilogy will receive better treatment in the future. I would recommend buying the original trilogy on DVD now while you still can. It might not be released again, but with Lucas you can never tell.