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Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) Review!

toshea217

Updated: Jul 6, 2020




Welcome to my first review of the Star Wars saga! I thought it be best to do them in the order that they were released; can you really do it any other way? Sure, you could do it chronologically…but something tells me that just ain’t right! This is the movie that defied expectations; launching perhaps the most successful film franchise of all time. A timeless film that will be watched for…well it’s timeless…so…Thank you George Lucas!


I also thought that I might change up the structure for my reviews! I thought that the first half or so would be mostly spoiler free for those who haven’t seen it, and then at a certain point I will give you a SPOILER WARNING! So…be alert. I won’t go into a full analysis as I occasionally do, but hopefully it might make it more interesting for those who’ve already seen it! It’s also where I’ll be unpacking some of the themes from the perspective of faith. “But Tim, why bother doing that with Star Wars? Just do a total spoiler filled review! Everyone’s seen it, haven’t they”. I was once naïve to think like this…assuming that everybody had seen Star Wars…at least the originals. But when Force Awakens came out back in 2015, I realised that there isn't a small portion of people who haven’t seen ANY of them. Many of my friends haven't seen a single one; even to this day! I was shocked to say the least. But there really are a lot of people out there who haven’t seen it. Not passing any judgements! It’s just that it’s been so widely talked about for my entire life.


Won’t lie, I probably didn’t appreciate this one as much as a kid. That was probably because I rarely watched it! Growing up in the 2000s, I was always watching Attack of the Clones (2001) on VHS. Young enough to be raised watching the prequels, but old enough to own video! But in saying that, I do distinctly remember being fond of the other films (I did see them quite a lot too…though not as much as AOTC). Even from that young age… I had a special liking for Empire Strikes Back (1980). It wasn’t until much later that I had an almost equal appreciation for A New Hope (originally released as "Star Wars"), even though I do prefer Empire slightly more.


What makes this a timeless classic? It gives us unforgettable characters, a well-balanced tone and is on a whole just perfectly structured. Each of the three films of the original trilogy can easily be broken up into 3 distinct acts, the majority of which are extremely well paced. They each have a clear beginning, middle and end. And of course, you need to give much of the credit to A New Hope, being the one that started it all. Granted, some may feel that it takes a while to get off on its feet, but I feel that that comes down to a matter of preference.

Do the special effects hold up? Mmm…yes and no. But tell you what, I’ll take dated special effects any day over those awful later CGI special additions…*shudders with disgust*. But don’t worry about that for now!


The basic premise (this isn’t spoilers yet…just the blurb) involves a charming farm boy named Westley, in love with the…wait…wrong farm boy…I might be thinking of a different movie! My apologies. The movie introduces us to a whiney farm boy named Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who dreams of reaching for the stars! Mind you, this whininess is not a gripe I have with the film; I mean you can kind of get where he’s coming from. Not to mention, he needs to start off somewhere; so that his character development by the end of the trilogy is well worth the investment. And indeed, it is!


Back to the premise; Luke finds himself caught up in an adventure to save Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) from the hands of the evil Galactic Empire! The chief law enforcer is Darth Vader (James Earl Jones, David Prowse), arguably the greatest villain put to the big screen. He is at the service of the evil Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing), bent on destroying the Rebels once and for all. Luke’s companions involve an elderly wizard mentor: Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness); a ‘selfish but cool’ space cowboy and his Wookie friend: Smuggler's Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca respectively (Peter Mayhew); and the two most iconic droids of all time: C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2D2 (Kenny Baker). What follows is a movie filled with plenty of drama, action, and well-placed humour. Characters develop through a ‘rubbing off on each other’, with great banter thrown into the mix. In the newer sequel films, the humour is actually something of a weakness; but I’ll get to that when I review those. But the original trilogy? They pull it off.


The virtues of courage and self-sacrifice are on full display; and good and evil clearly defined. There are a few gnostic influences, but I’ll discuss my thoughts on it in the spoiler’s section…which will begin now! For a final verdict and caveats, skip to the end of the review! But for now, AVERT YOUR EYES.


I’m not going to go into immense detail (as I said it’s not an analysis), but there are still a couple of things I’d like to talk about. And to start, I just want you to look at the image above. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know how powerful it is…this has got to be one of the best scenes in movie history. It wonderfully captures the internal longing for something greater; a longing common to all people. Luke steps out, gazing at that gorgeous binary sunset, and through John Williams’ expertly composed theme, we are told everything we need to know about Luke through visual storytelling. Like, far out, I get goose bumps just thinking about it…I’m getting it now as I type…in fact I’m gonna go watch it again real quick…I’ll be back…


Sorry to keep you waiting, I couldn’t help myself! Sill just as emotionally satisfying! So, what about the whole idea of the force? A mysterious energy field which is created by and permeates the life of every living thing? Where there seems to be much more regard for the spiritual, and somewhat disregard for the physical? True, it’s not exactly a Christian idea. It follows a more gnostic line of thinking, whereby the spirit is viewed as ‘good’ and the material world is viewed as ‘bad’. Whilst I can’t recall a character in a Star Wars movie calling the material world ‘evil’, the Jedi do seem to elevate the ‘spiritual’ at the expense of the ‘physical’. As Yoda says to Luke in the Empire Strikes Back: “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter” (as he pinches Luke’s shoulder). Then again, we remember that this is a fictional world created in a fictional universe. And being creative ourselves, we are free to ‘invent’ a universe that has its own rules, for instance the laws of physics may be different. Of course, there are always parameters to these, but I'll save that for another discussion. Star Wars to my mind doesn’t cross any lines. It’s far too removed from life as we know it. so let’s just enjoy the story that it’s trying to tell!


And if we look passed that, I think that the force can have some relevant (though imperfect) analogies for the grace of God. God’s grace, a gift that he gives us freely and that we can freely accept; something that enables us to do things that we couldn’t do without it. I’ve talked about this before in my Spider-Man 2 analysis, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much. First and foremost, it enables us to live in union with God. What grace also does is help us to perfect of virtue, and even amplify the good qualities and abilities that we possess. (Check out Fr Mike Schmitz for more on this; particularly his Captain America video!). And we see this occur in A New Hope. Luke learns about the Force from Obi Wan and begins training in various exercises so as to get in touch with the force; which will enable him to do things he couldn't before. For the Christian; they need to unite themselves with God and cooperate with His grace; through which they too can do things that they couldn't do before. Again, this isn't a perfect analogy, and I'll come back to it at the end.


We see this pay off in the massive climax at the end. Luke and a tiny squadron take on the Empire’s Death Star; a weapon capable of destroying planets (as we see earlier in the film). It’s next target? The Rebel base. Their only hope is finding a tiny exhaust port (which was revealed to them through the stolen plans) and sending down a torpedo. This will start a chain reaction that will cause the entire station to go boom. After several attempted trench runs, Luke sees many of his friends go down in flames. Some of these are at the hands of Vader, who is also leading a small squadron. One rebel actually makes it to the exhaust port, but unfortunately misses his target.


With most ships wiped out, save a few, It’s now up to Luke to make the trench run, whilst being pursued by Vader. But just before the latter can fire, Han Solo comes to the rescue! Vader’s ship is sent flying through space. I’ll just take a moment and say that that Han’s development in this movie is fantastic! He begins as a selfish (though entirely likeable) smuggler caring only about money (though to be fair he does have a bounty on his head). But whilst he rejects the opportunity to help the Rebel squadron take down the death star, he has a last-minute change of heart and comes back to save the day. His adventures with Luke and ‘saving the princess’ really had an effect on him! And I just gotta say, his banter with Leia in this film is just a joy to watch. It’s honestly hilarious…cause for a while they hate each other’s guts! They are total opposites…which sets up for a compelling love story in later films!


With Vader, out of the picture, Luke is free to take a shot at the exhaust port. But who's to say he won’t miss it like his friend did? He begins to the hear the voice of Obi Wan, who is now one with the force (after being killed by Vader). Obi-Wan insists that Luke “use the force”, causing him to put away his targeting system. For all intents and purposes, he is ‘blind’, relying solely on the force…and it actually works! The torpedoes go in, and after a quick escape, the Death Star is destroyed! There’s a great little ceremony (actually it’s massive) at the end, and our heroes receive medals…except for Chewie? What about Chewie!?!? Justice for Chewie! Similar to how Luke needed to cooperate with something greater than himself (the force), so too must the Christian cooperate with the grace of God. In saying this. the way that the force is often described is not particularly compatible with Catholic spirituality. Even though it amplifies Luke's abilities, the force seems to emphasise more of a turning inward to find this 'enlightenment', whereas God is completely distinct from the person. He lives in us when we are in right relationship with him: 'the state of grace'. But again, Star Wars is a far removed fictional world; nothing to do with life as we know it.


On a side note, there are friends of mine who try and ruin it for me by saying that the Rebels were actually the bad guys, and that the Empire did nothing wrong…it breaks my heart. I don’t care what they say…the Empire in the original trilogy must be stopped!


Verdict:

Certainly, one of the greatest adventure films of all time; has everything you want, from great characters, set pieces, an iconic score, and most importantly…imagination!


9.5/10


Caveat’s

· Sci fi violence

· Some gnostic influences

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