One of the most important films of all time

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2020)

Whilst films released today may surpass elements of Star Wars, A New Hope, I would struggle to find a film that better defined the new era of both cinema and sci-fi, from the story to technical aspects.
The narrative structure of the film is fast-paced, compared to others of the era, with very well knitted story arcs throughout the film. The placement of action and dialogue/information heavy scenes is well spread through the film and really established a newer narrative structure to which many modern films, especially sci-fi ones use heavily today.
Technically, the film pioneered not only new visual effects techniques, but a bold new visual style that is such a departure from what you would associate with 70's and earlier eras of film-making. The lack of any mention of planet earth, or our 'current' generation of mankind pushes the film into its own self-made universe, with technology, culture, etc that supposedly evolve separately from ours. These new planets, spaceships, aliens and robots are all superbly made for the era. Other films laid the groundwork for the visual effects techniques the first trilogy would use, what really sets star wars apart, however, is not only the quality, but sheer breath and scale of their usage throughout almost every scene in the franchise. Visual effects were doubtlessly there to impress, but they also served a proper narrative purpose, not just awe and bragging rights.
Industrial Light and Magic, creators of visual effects for Star Wars, refined a lot of technologies in their first outing on this film. Computer controlled motion photography, film compositing techniques and modelling.
On top of this, the visuals play host to a fantastic soundtrack from the perspective of both music, sound effects and dialogue. The sound is some of the most impressive from the era and really lacks that '50's-80's era' sound that I ofte notice listening to older films.
Sure, there may be films before which first used the techniques Star Wars did, and many after which improved on these combination of elements. However, what Star Wars: A New Hope and later iterations of the first trilogy do so well, is combining them in a very competent way, which really defined a new era of cinema and put Star Wars at a cut above the rest.