A Timeless Space Opera, The Perfect Sci-Fi Epic

Rating: 10/10 (5 December 2012)

Top of the line for a majority of Star Wars geeks, and for good reason. It's the ideal melting pot of George Lucas's vast, quirky imagination, his influences' knack for dark, large-scale epics, and his key contributors' determined efforts to retain a central humanism amidst all the creatures, effects and operatic indulgences. A wildly ambitious picture, it's genuinely amazing just how much territory is covered over the course of two hours. Lucas and company manage to leap from the Hoth battle to Yoda on Dagobah, the asteroid field to Lando and Cloud City, before finally climaxing with the classic Luke / Vader showdown and revelation. That's an awful lot of set pieces, not to mention some seriously powerful plot points, but smooth talking and a few outstanding performances keep the film from feeling over-stuffed or under-explored. The cast, too, grows on an individual basis almost universally, with Luke wrapping himself in the wisdom of the Jedi, Han and Leia developing genuine chemistry and Darth Vader, in a surprise twist that should never have been so effective, actually showing some signs of humanity. Although it can be hammy from time to time, those moments are balanced expertly by a wonderful series of mountains and valleys, to the point that they stop being seen as negatives and instead contribute to the picture's eccentricity. A legendary effort that's just as monumental, entrancing and electric thirty years later, it's damn near perfect.