Star Wars: A New Hope

“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid”. Han Solo, I couldn’t have put it any better myself. Star Wars: A New Hope may not be the prettiest movie to watch in 2019, it may not have the greatest acting, or best effects, but this film has a certain aura that is still special to this day over 40 years since its release.

Let’s start by sharing a bit of background on my Star Wars experience. I’ve seen all the films already, but not since I was young (or for the more recent releases, since they were in theatres). I always enjoyed the movies, but would never consider myself a die-hard fan or consider myself extremely knowledgeable in the lore compared to many others. I think this is important to know going into this, because on one hand, I know what comes next and this might affect what I think of each movie on its own, but I wouldn’t consider myself nostalgic or blinded by fandom.

With this out of the way let’s talk plot. The movie takes us on the adventure of Luke Skywalker going from a kid who helps his uncle around the house to being the savior of the galaxy within the span of a couple days. Luke’s aunt and uncle are murdered by the evil empire for purchasing droids that they were looking for. Luke gets over it pretty quickly and joins old Ben Kenobi (AKA Obi-Wan) to bring blueprints of the Death Star to another planet. They go to the sketchiest part of town to find themselves a pilot who can bring them, and after a couple people are killed in the bar, Luke and Obi-Wan leave with Han Solo, and the first mate of his ship, Chewbacca. Once they get to where the planet is supposed to be, they find out that it’s been destroyed, and end up making their way to the Death Star instead. While on the Death Star, Obi-Wan gets into a disappointing fight with Darth Vader and takes the L, while Luke, Han and Chewbacca rescue the princess and escape by the skin of their teeth. They meet up with the rest of the rebellion and find out how to destroy this Death Star using the blueprints. Han tried to take his money and leave, but realizes that he should probably do the right thing since if this goes poorly, the whole galaxy is going to go up in flames. He comes in to save the day to get the bad guys off of Luke just in time for Skywalker to fire missiles into the tiny gap he needed to hit to blow this base up. Darth Vader spiraled away in his ship while everyone else was defeated, and the good guys come out on top. While some of this may seem very generic, I feel like at the time this was pretty innovative. I can’t say I’m well versed in movies older than this, so I could be wrong, but this gets the pass from me.

One point where the movie truly stands out to me is in the character. Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and more are still to this day so iconic. They all have flaws, are relatable but fantastical, and to put it plainly, are cool as hell. Han sitting at the cantina with Greedo blasting him away was as cool of a character introduction as it gets. Initially seeming to be a weak and lady-in-distress type character, Leia being rescued only to prove herself as a strong woman who had no problems defending herself from Stormtroopers, and coming back to help lead the rebellion is inspiring. Obi-Wan’s calm, cool, and collected nature and the wisdom that he portrays truly makes us believe in the force.

Another spot where this movie shines is the soundtrack. From the opening scroll, to the amazing music of the Cantina, even to the background music, I can’t stop playing the music over in my head since watching this movie. Talk about iconic, I don’t think there’s a soul on this world who doesn’t hear that opening scroll music without recognizing it. It is the epitome of epic, and the only downside to it is that I sometimes get distracted humming along, so it’s hard to do that and read the opening scroll at the same time.

The spot that I won’t really grade the movie on is visual effects. In 1977 this was state of the art technology, whereas today most of the effects, even having been digitally enhanced, just don’t hold up. Watching the movie on Blu-ray is kind of jarring at some points since some of the scenes look like they could have been filmed today, while other scenes (especially the ones with special effects) look like I made it as a grade school project. Since it never took me too far out of the experience, I’ll give the original trilogy a pass on visuals.

As the first of the series, this one is clearly going to slate in as #1 on my ranking for now. Based on how long it’s been since seeing many of these movies, I truly don’t know where this one will end up, but I can say that I left this movie thinking about how surprised I was with how much I still enjoyed it. This helped me put perspective into what truly matters in the making of a good movie, and I’m looking forward to going through and seeing the progression of this series all over again.