Special effects centered film that shows its age

Rating: 4/10 (21 June 2002)

When I first saw this film, I was blown away. The space ships seemed so real because they weren't shiny and bright, but dirty and worn. I'd never seen a weapon as cool as the light sabers -- that, and the Jedi mind-trick made the film seem like science fiction mixed with a sword and sorcery world. The comedy from the androids, and Han Solo was also great, and to a young kid, the anti-hero behavior of Han Solo made it seem genuinely real.

I loved it.
Looking back, I think it was a great film for its time, well deserving of a place in movie history. But today, we can see it, very clearly, that what truly carried this film, was its special effects. It was the Matrix of its time, utilizing amazing techniques never seen before. Apart from that, the film really doesn't have much going for it. Compare Star Wars with Kubrick's 2001, which was made several years before it. It is clearly a superior Sci-Fi film.
The biggest tragedy about this film is that George Lucas did so little with his career, apart from this string of Star Wars flicks. In my opinion, American Graffiti was a far better film - I may not have considered it to be so when it was released, but in retrospect, it clearly is. It showed that Lucas really could do interesting things. Instead, he squandered his talents on remaking the same flick over and over. If Spielberg had done the same, we'd be left with no Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Color Purple, ET, or Jaws, but just an endless string of Indiana Jones, or Jurassic Park flicks.