Movie Review – Star Wars (1977)
Producer: -Gary Kurtz
Director: -George Lucas
Actors / Actresses: Mark Hamill -Luke Skywalker-Academy Awards, (Nominations only):
-Academy Awards (Oscars won):
Star Wars is usually thought of as a great movie because of it’s amazing special effects. The special effects are incredibly good, but that’s not the only thing that makes Star Wars a good movie. Star Wars tells the tale of a journey, and there is something about it that everyone can relate to. That is what makes Star Wars the movie that it is. The special effects are amazing, though, and they basically redefined the field. The most impressive part of the effects in Star Wars was the representation of all the Alien races, although the big crashes and giant explosions were fun to watch also.
Star Wars begins by informing us that it takes place "a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." We also learn that rebel forces are fighting against an evil empire. The story starts out with a rebel ship led by princess Leia being pursued by an imperial destroyer. The rebel ship is under fire because Princess Lea had just intercepted the plans to the empire’s secret weapon, the Death Star. Thinking quickly she transfers those plans to a droid (R2D2), along with a distress call to Obi-Wan Kenobi. R2D2, along with his friend, C3P0, launch themselves into space in an escape pod. They eventually end up under the control of Luke Skywalker’s uncle. After Luke’s Aunt and uncle are killed by storm troopers while Luke was out retrieving one of the droids, he decides to join forces with Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi and journey to Alderon to find the princess. The pilot they get to take them there is Han Solo, whose first mate is Chewbacca, a big furry thing that kind of looks like bigfoot. When they reach Alderon they find it is destroyed and they are pulled into the death star. After a narrow escape where Ben Kenobi is apparently killed by Darth Vader Han, Luke, the droids, Chewbacca, and the princess all return to the rebel base. The movie ends when a team of x-wing pilots destroys the Death Star, but Darth Vader is in a Tie fighter and is jettisoned into space.
The most amazing things about Star Wars are the visual effects. At the time that Star Wars debuted, the effects were unprecedented, and they would be decent even on a movie that was made today. From the laser dogfights in space to the aliens in the cantina, everything was done magnificently. Of course, special effects aren’t everything in a movie, but in Star Wars they added a whole new level of realism. What I thought was especially well done were all the different aliens in the Cantina. Even though the aliens playing the musical instruments had fingers that probably would have covered three keys instead of one (therefore making it impossible to play) for the most part it was very well done. What really made the aliens special, though, was that no one had ever really attempted to do something like that before. Other movies had had flying spaceships and big explosions (although not as good as Star Wars) no one had ever really visualized aliens like Star Wars did.
The special effects in Star Wars were great, but they weren’t everything. What really made Star Wars great was it’s plot. Star Wars has all the great elements of a fantasy story, except that it’s set in space. I liked Star Wars for many of the same reasons that I liked J. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. In the telling of the story an entirely different world is slowly created. Piece by piece all the details of this new, fantastic world are presented, and by the time the story is finished you feel like you actually experienced it. You feel that the imaginary world that has been created actually exists and you want to go back. This kind of total absorption is not incredibly difficult to do with a novel, but to be able to make a movie in which you get so totally absorbed that you feel like you are actually there takes special talent.
As with all other exceptionally good movies Star Wars had great characters. At the top of my list of great characters are the droids, R2D2 and C3P0. They are works of genius. I think one of reasons I like them so much is that they have a lot of human qualities. While this detracts somewhat from the realism (which there is not much of in Star Wars in the first place) it adds infinitely to the story. They also add a lot of comedy to the story. Whether it’s R2D2’s running away while babbling about some secret mission or C3P0’s constant worrying, the droids are always good for a laugh. Not to mention the thousand times that C3P0 informs us of how many forms of communication he is fluent in. By having essentially human qualities, it is also easy for the viewer to relate the droids to people that they know.
There are very few things that could be done to improve Star Wars. There are some things that are slightly annoying, though. Every time something happens in space you can hear it. The pilots inside the x-wings can hear the ships whizzing over them, as well as the explosions when they blow up. This is slightly inaccurate because sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum. Also, why are the storm troopers able to hit everything BUT what they’re aiming at? This got a little ridiculous, especially right after Darth Vader killed Ben Kenobi. There were 5 or 6 storm troopers shooting at Luke, who was standing completely in the open, for a good 15 seconds and they didn’t hit him once.
All of that doesn’t really matter, though, because what makes Star Wars a great movie is the story. The fact that physical impossibilities are trivial just demonstrates the story-telling power of Star Wars. It is so totally involved that anything seems possible, and in fact practically everything happens.